UK ordering available again for new units

[WizardStan]

There's only one version currently in production, the 512MB version. This is actually because you can no longer get the 256MB memories, though that aside it's a nice upgrade to have (256MB was always a concern for me because I'd like to use it desktop-style)

You must have been right panicking when the originals were designed with only 128MB.

 

[konqithedragon]

My Home PC has 32GB of RAM

 

[jpmorris]

You must have been right panicking when the originals were designed with only 128MB.

I had big doubts about its viability then, yes...

 

[craigix]

My Home PC has 32GB of RAM

What OS do you use with that? Does anything require such RAM?


I'll be disgusted if it does.

 

[gruso]

Video editing would. It's not necessary to have that much of course, but it's a normal amount for people doing serious work in that area. The software will use all the RAM you have on tap.

 

[BCable]

I have a 16GB laptop at work, and to accompany it, the main server I work with has 1TB of RAM.


So when do we get our 1TB RAM Pandora upgrades? I assume it's just plug and play?


On a more serious note, for desktop machines if you virtualize a lot of operating systems, tons of RAM is useful.

 

[DAP]

My Home PC has 32GB of RAM

What OS do you use with that? Does anything require such RAM?


I'll be disgusted if it does.

I have 6 GB on my system. I run a MythTV backend on it, and it allows the currently recording TV show to remain in disk cache so that comercials can be deleted while recording without thrashing the disk. Gets done much quicker this way with less abuse to the disk.

 

[WizardStan]

If you try to use the Pandora to do real time video editing, you're going to have a bad time.

 

[bengreeeen]

My tiny brain is a little confused with this convoluted order/delivery situation, I checked my order and it was placed way back in July 2010, I have a reference (DSB1135710) and i'm not sure what is going on to be honest. Where do I get information on the status of this seen as pandoras are currently being ordered and delivered it seems.


Thanks in advance,


Ben.

 

[Znirk]

My tiny brain is a little confused with this convoluted order/delivery situation, I checked my order and it was placed way back in July 2010, I have a reference (DSB1135710) and i'm not sure what is going on to be honest. Where do I get information on the status of this seen as pandoras are currently being ordered and delivered it seems.

Hi Ben, welcome. Here's the basic situation:


When you and I preordered our Pandorae, the Openpandora team was underestimating the amount of shit which could happen during the manufacturing phase, and the amount of time and money this would cost them.


Many delays and supplier fails later they've reorganised production, and actual, functional units are now coming off a production line near ED's home. The downside is that the price we paid in 2009/2010 turns out to not cover the actual cost of the product.


Given the amount of money available to operate the business, Openpandora1 had two options (apart from giving up, declaring bankruptcy and leaving us pandoraless): One, build just enough units to fulfill the existing preorders, then stop because there's no more cash to buy new parts. Two, sell enough units at a higher price to new customers to stay in business, and using "profits" from the new sales to fulfill the old preorders as fast as is sustainably possible.


Now you, too, have two options. Either you wait until OpenPandora can afford to deliver the pandora you've already paid for two years ago, or you can pay the difference between the old and new prices and get on the "fast track" waiting list (and, in the process, make another early preorderers' machine available a little sooner). Either way your turn will come. I don't really know how much longer it'll take, but as a reference point, I preordered through Craig's shop in April 2009, haven't paid for the "upgrade", and haven't received mine yet. My vague and undocumented impression is that ED expects to reach the end of the old-preorders list within a few more months.


Of course there's a "give up" option available on your side as well: You can decide to cancel your preorder and have your money refunded. Would be a pity IMO, but hey, people's interests can change over two years.


If you're not sure how to feel about this situation, I think a useful attitude goes something like "Well, it's a bit unfair that the loyal early adopters have to wait even longer now; but in the long run everyone's better off if there are more users writing software and a non-bankrupt company supplying support, maintenance and spare parts."


One potential pitfall: There have been some slight changes to the machine itself, the most noticeable one being that the new Pandoras have twice as much RAM as announced at preorder time (512, not 256 MiB). Don't get confused here -- you don't have to "upgrade" your order to the fast queue to get this larger RAM chip. All Pandoras that haven't been delivered yet will be from the new production line using the newer part.


1Simplification. There are separate companies involved, particularly Craig's Ltd. and Michael (Evildragon)'s GmbH; but that's not essential information in this context.

 

[bengreeeen]

Hi There,


Cheers for the low down, i've been following it over the years but wasn't entirely sure exactly where i stood. I'll stick with my original order position as my expendable income isn't fantastic right now.


I really appreciate your detailed response,


have a shit hot weekend!


Ben

 

[Arkay Firestar]

My tiny brain is a little confused with this convoluted order/delivery situation, I checked my order and it was placed way back in July 2010, I have a reference (DSB1135710) and i'm not sure what is going on to be honest. Where do I get information on the status of this seen as pandoras are currently being ordered and delivered it seems.

Hi Ben, welcome. Here's the basic situation:


When you and I preordered our Pandorae, the Openpandora team was underestimating the amount of shit which could happen during the manufacturing phase, and the amount of time and money this would cost them.


Many delays and supplier fails later they've reorganised production, and actual, functional units are now coming off a production line near ED's home. The downside is that the price we paid in 2009/2010 turns out to not cover the actual cost of the product.


Given the amount of money available to operate the business, Openpandora1 had two options (apart from giving up, declaring bankruptcy and leaving us pandoraless): One, build just enough units to fulfill the existing preorders, then stop because there's no more cash to buy new parts. Two, sell enough units at a higher price to new customers to stay in business, and using "profits" from the new sales to fulfill the old preorders as fast as is sustainably possible.


Now you, too, have two options. Either you wait until OpenPandora can afford to deliver the pandora you've already paid for two years ago, or you can pay the difference between the old and new prices and get on the "fast track" waiting list (and, in the process, make another early preorderers' machine available a little sooner). Either way your turn will come. I don't really know how much longer it'll take, but as a reference point, I preordered through Craig's shop in April 2009, haven't paid for the "upgrade", and haven't received mine yet. My vague and undocumented impression is that ED expects to reach the end of the old-preorders list within a few more months.


Of course there's a "give up" option available on your side as well: You can decide to cancel your preorder and have your money refunded. Would be a pity IMO, but hey, people's interests can change over two years.


If you're not sure how to feel about this situation, I think a useful attitude goes something like "Well, it's a bit unfair that the loyal early adopters have to wait even longer now; but in the long run everyone's better off if there are more users writing software and a non-bankrupt company supplying support, maintenance and spare parts."


One potential pitfall: There have been some slight changes to the machine itself, the most noticeable one being that the new Pandoras have twice as much RAM as announced at preorder time (512, not 256 MiB). Don't get confused here -- you don't have to "upgrade" your order to the fast queue to get this larger RAM chip. All Pandoras that haven't been delivered yet will be from the new production line using the newer part.


1Simplification. There are separate companies involved, particularly Craig's Ltd. and Michael (Evildragon)'s GmbH; but that's not essential information in this context.

*Your turn may or may not come if you opt not to pay OP more money to cover for their "underestimating the amount of shit which could happen"

 

[bengreeeen]

Well i'm happy for the further wait but if they demand more money I just wont be able to afford it really and thus would have to opt out. Lets see what happens I guess, cheers for the heads up.

 

[EvilDragon]

My Home PC has 32GB of RAM

What OS do you use with that? Does anything require such RAM?


I'll be disgusted if it does.

Our server here has 24GB RAM, and yes, they are well needed


My Video Editing / Compositing system also has 24GB RAM, and it's not even enough for me... working on Full HD or even higher material needs a lot of RAM.


1 Frame uncompressed Full HD video is 6MB, so with 25 images per second, that's 150MB for one second of uncompressed video.


When working with multiple layers, you quickly fill the RAM up with a few seconds

 

[juliano]

I use HFSS (electromagnetic simulation software) and my desktop has 128Gb of RAM and this is not enough for me


But I can make some cool images with it (I was inspired by song in a video that ED made during the visit of the new PCB company, so you can easily guess the from which game this music is from) :

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MpXUHdEtvAo?feature=oembed

 

[jasay]

I use HFSS (electromagnetic simulation software)

Does ANSYS still have a UI straight out of 1985?

 

[Tensuke]

I use HFSS (electromagnetic simulation software) and my desktop has 128Gb of RAM and this is not enough for me


But I can make some cool images with it (I was inspired by song in a video that ED made during the visit of the new PCB company, so you can easily guess the from which game this music is from) :

Whoa that is seriously amazing! Interesting how such a machine could use 128GB of RAM, simulations like that I would imagine are quite CPU-intensive. What are you running, a CRAY?

 

[juliano]

I use HFSS (electromagnetic simulation software)

Does ANSYS still have a UI straight out of 1985?

Well, today ANsys UI have improved a lot, So that old black UI is gone by now Thanks God!

 

[juliano]

I use HFSS (electromagnetic simulation software) and my desktop has 128Gb of RAM and this is not enough for me


But I can make some cool images with it (I was inspired by song in a video that ED made during the visit of the new PCB company, so you can easily guess the from which game this music is from) :

Whoa that is seriously amazing! Interesting how such a machine could use 128GB of RAM, simulations like that I would imagine are quite CPU-intensive. What are you running, a CRAY?

Well, we have a cluster with 512 cores and each core has 16Gb of RAM. The 128GB of ram is HP Z800, but I usually use our cluster since it is possible to distribute the problem into multiple cores. They are very CPU intensive but RAM is crucial for those kind of problems.

 

[Green7]

My VIC-20 had an 8k expansion pack. 3.5 times the original 1.5k free RAM. It cost about £100 in 1984.


I'd have laughed at thought of megabytes if I had even considered such a ludicrous idea. Why would you need a million bytes? The screen was less than 1k. A thousand screens? Seriously? Why?


I thought memory prices hit a low at 1GB per pound.


Craig is just having a laugh..


*edit* spelling