fusion_power
Advanced Member
I always wondered, why the self-developed nubs still only have 2mm of travel? AFAIK, the Comunity wanted a little bit more travel. ^^craigix said:
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The Nubs...
- Thread starter intense_mc
- Start date
Chip
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intense_mc said:Yeesh...thanks for the lovely storyWizardStan said:
It was actually a little weirder than that.
The original nub was an off-the-shelf part - or at least it appeared to be. The manufacturer listed it as an available part and even provided production samples. This was the nub with center-click and a shiny chrome ring around it shown in the renders and in a demo video (which seems to have been removed). It would have been perfect, but the manufacturer had never made them in quantity, and for some reason decided that they didn't want to. OP offered to buy a huge number of them, but the company just plain refused to actually make a product listed in their catalog.
After an exhaustive search for a replacement, the only product available that was even close was a PSP style nub (pretty much a clone) with very short travel. That wasn't acceptable, so OP contracted another company to design and make a new nub from scratch. As Craig pointed out, this was a tricky endeavor, as the nubs are small, complicated, and require precision manufacturing. The contracted company was paid, and the nubs were manufactured and shipped. When they arrived, a problem was discovered. There was a bug in the Nubs' firmware (yes, they have their own firmware). It wasn't major, but it did need to be fixed. All the nubs were shipped back to the factory to be reprogrammed.
Unfortunately, in the time between the initial manufacturing and the return for reprogramming, the design company had gone belly-up. Though OP paid the designers, the designers never paid the factory. The factory had the entire batch of nubs, and wasn't going to return them until they got paid. OP had no choice but to pay again. That's how the nubs ended up being so damn expensive.
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Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
And to think, Pandora wasn't even going to have nubs (least of all not two of them) until people pretty overwhelmingly insisted on them. You all should be very thankful. Me, I could take them or leave them. I think it does speak to OP's dedication to quality that they stuck through all of this, but given that they took preorders before this point I would say they were rather obligated to.
I think what happened to the company that designed them is pretty messed up. Where did the money go exactly? I assume they filed for bankruptcy, and I don't know how the laws with that work at all (especially in whatever country these were done in). But it doesn't seem right that the money that was freshly set aside for this purpose not long ago was paid out for other debts that could have been much more long standing and indirect. Or maybe they blew through the money in some other way.
I never really liked bankruptcy anyway. I think if a government is going to be granted the authority to nullify an individual or company's debt then that government should then become responsible for the debt. It's not fair for unrelated parties who did nothing wrong to be the ones to have to suffer unconditionally. It's also bothersome how little personal obligation people often have in corporate bankruptcy, especially when CEOs get to keep their several million dollar mansions after irresponsibly driving companies into the ground.
I think what happened to the company that designed them is pretty messed up. Where did the money go exactly? I assume they filed for bankruptcy, and I don't know how the laws with that work at all (especially in whatever country these were done in). But it doesn't seem right that the money that was freshly set aside for this purpose not long ago was paid out for other debts that could have been much more long standing and indirect. Or maybe they blew through the money in some other way.
I never really liked bankruptcy anyway. I think if a government is going to be granted the authority to nullify an individual or company's debt then that government should then become responsible for the debt. It's not fair for unrelated parties who did nothing wrong to be the ones to have to suffer unconditionally. It's also bothersome how little personal obligation people often have in corporate bankruptcy, especially when CEOs get to keep their several million dollar mansions after irresponsibly driving companies into the ground.
Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
Xenu said:
Like I said, when you take preorders for a product vastly in advance you'd damn well better deliver that product to basic specifications using whatever means necessary. I would say sticking true to this is less a matter of "dedication" and more one of "not being horrible and possibly risking class action lawsuit."
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hobbyman II
Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2008
- Messages
- 487
iirc, bankruptcy goes like this
receivers sell all company assets that haven't been already sold or hidden in a mates garage by the companies owner :rolleyes:
pay receivers
pay bank
pay lawyers
pay suppliers
pay staff
let customers know they need to get product elsewhere (there's normally no money left before you get to the "pay staff" stage)
old company owner then opens new firm under wife's name, starts up with a clean slate, plus free stuff filched from old firm
profit!!!!
receivers sell all company assets that haven't been already sold or hidden in a mates garage by the companies owner :rolleyes:
pay receivers
pay bank
pay lawyers
pay suppliers
pay staff
let customers know they need to get product elsewhere (there's normally no money left before you get to the "pay staff" stage)
old company owner then opens new firm under wife's name, starts up with a clean slate, plus free stuff filched from old firm
profit!!!!
Trip
Sorry, but I suck at explaining stuff :P
That's why I can still stand behind the dev's, even though I'm really disappointed that the Pandora still hasn't been released.Gruso said:
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Awakening
Active Member
At least next time they don't have to reinvent the wheel, unless they want to make the nubs clicky as well. Looking forward to trying them out.
Interested on joystick specification. Is it available somewhere? We have been waiting for sample pandoras now quite a long time as all the others and as we will be still waiting for some more weeks/months it would be valuable to get pre-information on analog joystick capabilites. Is it really that you have ordered your own version/design for electronic component as well?
bzar
A Commando
kiilki said:
Yes, the nubs are a custom design built specifically for the pandora.
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fettouhi
Active Member
Just a practical question about the nubs. Can they act as buttons also? Can you press down on them?
fischju2000
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2008
- Messages
- 763
fettouhi said:
Nope, they can not be depressed.
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bzar
A Commando
fischju2000 said:
The nubs are always happy.
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BackAssward
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2008
- Messages
- 985
fischju2000 said:
Correct, not clickable, but I thought MWeston said they can sense when they are being touched... so some minor functionality might come from that.
Edit @ Bramrash: Lol, I was going to add something like "but then, don't they all". Anyway, I can try to drag up a link to him saying that, but I suspect a few others will remember it being said as well.
Edit2: Perhaps it wasn't MWeston but another dev, or perhaps I am insane. Can anyone from OP comment?
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God Ginrai
Godmaster
BackAssward said:
I was not aware of this, can anyone provide a quote? o_ô
-God Ginrai
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sixtyfifthbit
Member
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2007
- Messages
- 168
Xenu said:
Ouch. No wonder Tom Cruise hates you.
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B-ZaR said:
What about the specification? Is it available somewhere? I understood from some earlier posts that Pandora team will not release the design in order to avoid copies from Chinese manufacturers (I do not believe that beeing actually a thread here but as such I understand that). I would be happy to know very basic thinks like what is the joystick x-y matrix size and is the matrix inside of the nub rotating area (like sixaxis) or vice versa (wii classic). But maybe we need to wait the actual devices...
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