The Pyra Puzzle


That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard.  I have worked a lot with data that was much more sensitive in nature than what a school would have, and even then the media used for storage is the only thing that is usually destroyed.  HDDs are even reused sometimes after appropriate measures have been taken to ensure recovery is not possible.  I can't imagine why anything else would need to be destroyed.  Many schools/colleges/universities/government organizations sell their computers in auctions, and the lot I mentioned earlier came from a school system somewhere.  One of the places I worked at a long time ago threw out a bunch of old computers and such.  I was not in an IT role with them, but when I came across the dumpster I grabbed what little I could since I knew it would all be gone the next morning.  It seemed such a waste to me, and I wish to this day that I had a car back then to save it all.

Edit:  I was recently talking to some people at a college and they said that the computers get gathered up and sent away to be auctioned off.  I am not sure where the money from that auction goes, but I would think that the schools would benefit from the little bit of extra money they could get from selling the old hardware.
This like at my charter school; they throw away the old computers (thy were from around 2007 but still very good) and we couldn't take them.  I would have loved to have a working desktop for once...

-Glyph Reader
 
Well, in the US, trash is public property. Just take them from the dumpster after they put them in!
 
Whelp, German law would consider that theft. However, it is common practice to put up bulk waste at the street several days before the ordered pickup service will arrive, so everyone who might be interested in something can just grab it. Sometimes you can find old PCs and the like among it...
 
^ I Feel it.
True. It always surprises me to remember that Warcraft III is 12 years old now.

While some would like candy coloured Pyras, or even a chocolate coloured option, I would prefer to stick with grey or black.  Maybe beige.  I don't think others would appreciate that as much as those of us who were around when that was a popular choice for computer cases.
Even those of us who lived through the beige era may not be very interested. I grew up almost exclusively on IBM ThinkPads, followed by a 233MHz HP Pavilion which was two different shades of dark grey.


Those ThinkPads with their black housings, elegant, functional design and TrackPoint III pointing sticks spoiled me on anything more razzle-dazzle than the black Rebirth-edition Pandora I own now.


The only beige PCs we ever owned were an IBM PC (can't remember whether it was an XT or AT) when I was a baby and a 386SX with 2MB of RAM which was when I was very young and mainly used while my father had his earliest laptop at work. (We got to keep his old laptops when they were replaced. I still have the ThinkPad 755C)
Yes, that is why I said "maybe".  I don't think I would want beige, but I would have to see it to decide.  ThinkPads are beautiful, and I don't know why.  Did they try to make them look nice, or do some of us just like how plain and simple they are?  I mean the older ones.  I haven't owned one in the last 10 years, so I don't know how much the design has changed.  Also, you don't have to like the look of a beige computer to appreciate how they led to where we are, and I was thinking a beige Pyra would be a nod to those.
They were designed that way. Richard Sapper was responsible and took inspiration from bento boxes and cigar boxes... plain and unadorned, but with a surprise (the red touchpoint mouse) inside.


Apparently he's still working with Lenovo as a design consultant for the ThinkPad brand.

As for a beige Pyra, I dunno. I appreciate what the beige represents, but I prefer to limit it to the "Nostalgia PC" I put together in the corner of my room (complete with authentic Yamaha OPL3-based SB16, Gravis PC Gamepad, gameport MIDI cable to a Yamaha PSR-E413 keyboard, small, boxy beige speakers, external Sportster 33.6K modem as a prop, an under-monitor power center, and plans to add a dot matrix printer once I make room).


The Pandora and Pyra are such symbols of how far we've come and what may still be on the horizon that I can't find any joy in trying to combine them with retro aesthetics. Even the silver housing on the 1GHz Pandoras feels like I'd be doing a disservice to the accomplishment it represents if I upgraded from my black Rebirth Edition.

(If I want retro in my pocket, I've already ordered supplies to refurb my old Glacier-cased GBA and I'll probably do the same for my old original-color Gameboy Color.)
 
But i have a question: why only 5000??
ED isn't sure how quickly the Pyra will sell. Maybe they sell out in a week, maybe it takes 6 months. If they sell out quickly he'll have enough money and interest to custom order more nubs. If they sell slowly he's got time to find a different supplier.
 
It took years to sell 5000 Pandoras (ok, mostly to let them arrive ^^" ) so 5000 Units is actualy a nice start for the first Pyra batch. Not to much, not to few.
 
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Well, Pandora had lots of issues getting production going. Who knows how fast they'd have sold 5000 if the first factory hadn't turned out such a mess.

So now on one side we're dragging a bit of bad reputation.

On the other side we have thousands of people with a Pandora in their hands who spread the word and vouch for the german production.
 
This like at my charter school; they throw away the old computers (thy were from around 2007 but still very good) and we couldn't take them.  I would have loved to have a working desktop for once...
:angry: I hear you.

Somewhat related, the college I mentioned can't use their old computers for the labs where they have classes on working with computer hardware, and build and repair computers.  Instead they buy new hardware.

 I might know of someone who went into their old school and took one or more computers instead of letting them be trashed or otherwise wasted.  

I was stopped by security months after beginning to carry my buckling spring keyboard to class.  The guard (who was waiting for me) said he had seen me carrying out keyboards for a while.  If I was stealing them wouldn't it have been better to stop me early on?  If they didn't think I was why bother wasting both of our time?  Afterward another student told me he had started taking his mechanical keyboard to another class after seeing me do it for all that time, however he shoved his in his bag, probably to avoid a situation like mine.  I was nice to the guy, but by that point I had been asked why I brought my own keyboard many times, and had gotten "the look", and worse, from the woman that taught the classes I used it in because I sometimes typed while she was lecturing, and I sat front and center, right next to her.  

Well, in the US, trash is public property. Just take them from the dumpster after they put them in!
Even if the dumpster is on private property?  I refuse to divulge where the dumpster I mentioned was located.

It took years to sell 5000 Pandoras (ok, mostly to let them arrive ^^" ) so 5000 Units is actualy a nice start for the first Pyra batch. Not to much, not to few.
Well, Pandora had lots of issues getting production going. Who knows how fast they'd have sold 5000 if the first factory hadn't turned out such a mess.
I will be really happy if the first 5000 Pyras sell quickly.  A little less happy if I don't have one before those are gone, since I might not be able to preorder.  I still think it might take a little while before ED has to source nubs again, but if that isn't the case maybe we can get a more powerful SoC before too long.
 
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Well, in the US, trash is public property. Just take them from the dumpster after they put them in!
Even if the dumpster is on private property?  I refuse to divulge where the dumpster I mentioned was located.
Hmm... I don't know then. I took computer stuff out of the dumpster at my high school because I was told that once it is thrown away, it is considered abandoned.
 
Inside of that picture are at least 3 major and 8 small rule infringements. If we keep it like that, the PCB could not be produced reliably, would get shortcircuits or similar issues.
Moving traces around could lead to other rule infringements - so this is quite a puzzle (high-level Sokoban, eh?)

Each issue needs about 5 - 30 minutes to solve, so it's possible, just takes a loooot of time.

And the more you solve, the more complicated it gets for the remaining ones... fun.
But how can he be sure that there is an existing solution?
sometimes there is not a solution without a complete redesign of the board layout. some packages can auto route for you but on complicated boards may still only do 95% if you are lucky. the remaining 5% is where the art come in.. lol

traces on multi layer boards can be fed through a 3 dimensional maze up and down layers as well as across layers. but those sorts of traces can give other problems with noise and crosstalk of signals. i do not envy someone doing multi layer boards. i had enough trouble with a 2 layer board back in 1988.... never done it since.. lol
Exactly. And it is even more than 5% which must be done by hand because auto-routers generally aren't good for complex and space limited cases. In practice it is almost 100%...

It is like a game where objects can be moved on the screen. And the computer (EDA too) tells (by highlighting) if two objects come too close. If they are too close, it would make problems in production which is a chemical process of etching copper. See this video:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16655-main-pcb-v3-is-finished/

Some of you did wonder why it is so complex to get from v3 to v4, as v3 was done in August and is almost working. Well, the "almost" means that there are missing connections and components. These must be squeezed between the existing ones. Most of the time was spent to design and review the schematics for those missing parts to make it robust. It is the step from a demonstrator prototype to something that potentially can go to mass production - unless further issues reveal themselves. Since you already have seen the demonstrator with 90% of the functions the missing 10% aren't obvious and some are hidden completely but protect you from potential malfunctions.

As you can see in the Video there isn't much room for additional wires. But they have to be routed through the existing maze.

Unfortunately we did run into a problem that no computer can help: there was a mistake in the definition of our EDA tool for the minimum clearance between two wires. So the EDA tool did *not* yell for some conflicts. And everything looked fine, until we got the feedback from the PCB manufacturer that some 100 traces are too close to be produced. Otherwise we would have started to produce the first complete main boards today.

Fortunately it is only more tedious work to fix it by brushing away existing wires and VIAs (plate through) or ripping up parts of the puzzle and closing the new gaps.

Someone asked, how I can be sure that the puzzle can be solved? Well, I am never sure until it is done. I am only confident (and by using the right tool there is an indicator of progress, i.e. how many conflicts have been solved and how many remain - until this value is 0.000000).

Someone else asked why the CPU board is thought to be simpler. There are several factors (which all drive cost up but make CAD work easier):

* we go for 8 instead of 4 layers, i.e. much more 3D space for copper wiring - but this doubles the PCB cost

* we will have smaller traces (100 um or even 75 um instead of 150 um) allowing to meander wires much easier between component connection pads - this increases the PCB cost by some more 20%

* we will have buried and blind VIAs (i.e. not all drills are going from top side to bottom side) so that one signal going from layer 1 to 3 does not block layers 4-8 - this increases the PCB cost again because it needs a different production technology

* we will have Via-In-Pad technology which saves a lot of space connecting a BGA - it would be impossible to connect the OMAP5 without this PCB technology

So by adding a lot of cost per square cm (but on a much smaller total area than the full Pyra main board), there are many more degrees of freedom on the CPU board to get the wiring puzzle solved.

But again, we only know if the puzzle can be solved as soon as it is solved. I.e. as soon as the CPU board layout has 0.00000 conflicts remaining (provided we have defined the clearance rules correctly).

Well, even if we fail, we can start over with 10 layers. Or 12. Or 16. By adding more and more cost, there is a point where it is solvable. But we are not yet at that point of the puzzle to use this escape mode.
 
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Well, in the US, trash is public property. Just take them from the dumpster after they put them in!
Even if the dumpster is on private property?  I refuse to divulge where the dumpster I mentioned was located.
Hmm... I don't know then. I took computer stuff out of the dumpster at my high school because I was told that once it is thrown away, it is considered abandoned.
Well, I am not a lawyer, but I believe that this is not the case if the dumpster is on private property. That is, thrown away items are considered abandoned and public domain if they are placed for a public works trash service to pick up (like your city trash disposal service). However, if they are placed on private property to be disposed of by a private disposal service, then they are not public domain. What happens to them then depends on the contract between the parties, but typically they become the property of the service that picks them up. I would expect that most public schools use public works disposal, and the items would be public domain. Universities may easily use private services.
 
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Sometimes within the limits of board layers it becomes necessary to add a 'phantom layer' via one or more physical wires from one position on the board to another.  It isn't pretty, but can occasionally get the designer out of a jam where there are a few traces that cause chaos to the rest of the design.

Hopefully that type of solution won't be necessary.

Good luck on getting it all to fit!
 
Curious if the board is as cheap to produce as was expected, it will lower the overall cost compared to the openpandora design. Hopefully the first batch works without to many issues.

Also a tip: when designing the connector of the cpu board, keep in mind how both connectors will connect as the pins will probably have to be mirrored in the design.
 
The CPU Board should be a bit easer because it have lot more layer space..


Ditnt say it will be easy, just easer..


Do whe know, how good the CPU Board (Dummy) sticks on the Main Board??


Wouldnd be that great if it would lose whyle it runs..


Looking forward on the first Full Prototypes..
 
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