Update regarding the cases (and some other things)


I don't really see the Pyra as a thing that's made to be a 'product' ie: something to put on the shelf just for profit. ED and co. are making it because they can, and it's fun to make stuff with lights and buttons on! m@t nobody is going to rush around just because you want it now, people are having fun getting it to work right, when it works and ships they won't have anything to play with anymore. There are plenty of products out there for instant gratification, make yourself happy and buy one of those.

I have more if you want...
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Cheers @PowerGod nom nom.
 
The 4GB RAM issue is a community inflicted wound/delay. 2GB was known working and adequate to the SoC and was stable on the dev board. There are still no realistic use cases that require 4GB. But, loud voices have demanded it because Windows sucks on 2GB RAM. Nobody wants left behind 'just in case', so purchases flow to the higher specification. Now with all of the 4GB orders, it has to be worked out regardless of the time required.
 
Askarus: You are a lot nearer, so you know the project a lot more.
From the outside it just does not look like everything possible is done to speed things up to me.
Very late tests of everything, long waiting periods before things get ordered, changing things after they where "ready for production" etc.
I know of some issues ED described here, and most of them are understandable but thay does not explain such a long delay to me.

There is no delay, as no release date was EVER guaranteed, only overly optimistic estimates were given. You are turning these into hard dates in your head, because you have a reading comprehension problem. You are accusing ED of malfeasance and/or incompetence, without a shred of evidence to support it, because you are mental. In the end, I don't think you even plan on purchasing a Pyra, so why you feel the need to complain is beyond me. I think you're just trying to goad ED into saying anything that you feel will support your conspiracy theories, because you are a small minded parasite that feeds off of your own vitriol.
 
Please don't fan the flames! The discussion seemed to calm down a bit just now. I can't see more insulting would lead us to anywhere.
 
Allowing people to discusses makes the board great. You can surely disagree with other views but we shouldn't sends critical people away. Maybe someones has a good suggestion or more people wonder and nows it gets an answer. (surely complaining for sake of complaining doesn't always help though :) )

And I agree, but when it is borderline harassment and continuous it really takes away from the community.

Sure I have posted some impatient stuff to the effect of "Do we really need to fix a slight wiggle in the stylus holder?" and "at some point it does need to be good enough"

But those are a far cry from the attacks m@t has been launching at ED.
 
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Please don't fan the flames! The discussion seemed to calm down a bit just now. I can't see more insulting would lead us to anywhere.
Sorry, couldn't help myself. ED has been bending over backwards to keep everyone up to date, and it irks me to no end to see baseless accusations made against him (even implied ones, m@t is too cowardly to make a direct accusation).
 
Hey people.
Please chill down & take a deep breath.

To escalate the whole thing doesn't help anyone.

.

I am one of the wackos which had ordered the 4GB version.
(Ram-Disk sounds pretty good when working with cheap, slow SD-Cards.)

ED say'd from the beginning, that the 4GB Version will only get sold, if they work without problem.
If they don't, only the 2GB Version gets sold.

Concluding: Please be patient and wait for the release and hope the best.
Screaming / crying don't make the pyra finished earlier.
 
The 4GB "issue" is not really an issue until an issue is actually found. zmatt has been extremely busy with real life things and hasn't really had time yet to test and figure out the timings of the memory on latest CPU board revision.
 
In a response to some impatience and offending posts I wanted to write a little about the time I've had with the Pandora/Pyra project.
It then went out of control and became a massive load of text.
So I decided to not post it inside this thread but a open up a new one.
So for those who are interested some dark times and all the disappointments I had with the project may read :
The first Askarus newspost

Normally I wouldn't talk about such themes in public but this might be a good time now.
 
@Askarus: thanks for your post

I guess most of the people here know, how hard everyone of you is working on that project. And that you're doing all that in your leisure time and for a little money, or without being payed for that.

Everyone here is thankfull for all the time ED, Nikolaus, Zmatt, notaz, you and all the other guys are spend to finally give us the pyra. (everyone, except one guy here ;))
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only reason we know there are problems is because of how open EvilDragon is about the project. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft absolutely go through similar issues, the only difference is that (1) they can throw more money at the problem until it goes away, and (2) you never hear about it since all development is behind closed doors. It takes 3 to 5 years for them to produce a new console, they just don't announce it until it's almost ready; there is absolutely nothing unusual about ED's timeframe here except that you heard about it when it was just starting development instead of near the end.
 
From the outside it just does not look like everything possible is done to speed things up to me.
Very late tests of everything, long waiting periods before things get ordered, changing things after they where "ready for production" etc
That's simply the nature of the development of complex physical goods.

You can also see this in how many companies have manufacturing done in Guangdong. It's not because of the low costs of production in China, because by now you could do it significantly cheaper elsewhere. It's because of the local production chain. Need some exotic connector? There's probably a company around Guangdong that sells them in several variations. 200000 IR diodes need to be replaced by next week? Mass modifications to other existing products? If the suppliers are closeby, it can make production (and development) A LOT more smooth. This is because problems that only really become visible as you approach a physical mass production prototype can be resolved/bypassed more quickly.

Similarly, if you can't make a lot of prototypes, and the prototypes that you DO get to make take a long time to produce (and/or come from places far away), it can become very difficult to detect/anticipate problems. Even experience can only help you so much.

@EvilDragon /How/ much more would the cost have been at that plastics company around the corner from where you live?

Sure I have posted some impatient stuff to the effect of "Do we really need to fix a slight wiggle in the stylus holder?" and "at some point it does need to be good enough"
I do think that such a thing would need to be fixed. The proposition of the Pyra is that while it's "expensive" (still costs less than many smartphones, but ah well), it's you-get-what-you-pay-for style.

I've said this before, but what Ed is doing with the Pyra is very much a typical Mittelstand approach. The Mittelstand is the backbone of of the German economy, and... it's very resilient! Please have a look at the typical characteristics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand

"Good enough" is not a reasonable slogan if you build something that you couldn't do well with a killer retail price. It may "just" be a wiggling stylus, but the Pyra is a piece of hardware that fills its very own niche and doesn't really become "obsolete". It wouldn't make sense to leave in what some may describe as "unimportant" problems such as a wiggling stylus, if you can fix them.

I think that many here who have a Pandora that works fine may agree that if the quality of all the details was better, it would be quite a different device. If you held a Pyra in your hands and the build quality was just /better/ than that of a Pandora, everything being sturdy, nothing being loose, and lots of details being just /right/, then I bet that you'd agree that it's not just about whether the device works (let's talk again when you got your Pyra!). And as a company with a niche focus, this kind of thinking is a more than feasible approach in a competing world market...
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only reason we know there are problems is because of how open EvilDragon is about the project. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft absolutely go through similar issues, the only difference is that (1) they can throw more money at the problem until it goes away, and (2) you never hear about it since all development is behind closed doors. It takes 3 to 5 years for them to produce a new console, they just don't announce it until it's almost ready; there is absolutely nothing unusual about ED's timeframe here except that you heard about it when it was just starting development instead of near the end.

...and like ED already said, these companies got teams of employed workers/specialists being payed to work everyday to solve these problems
 
if the cases are a bust this week, why not send the bare boards to prototypers who can help with the 4GB issue, and then send them a case when they arrive? the pyra can run on mains power...
 
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Just my thoughts:
I am one of the silent waiting people here. It takes more time than I would wish. But I am quite sure on what I've gotten myself into. This is no great business firm making a new machine. It's just a bunch of people making a great machine. Thanks to them. So be patient :D
 
"Good enough" is not a reasonable slogan if you build something that you couldn't do well with a killer retail price. It may "just" be a wiggling stylus, but the Pyra is a piece of hardware that fills its very own niche and doesn't really become "obsolete". It wouldn't make sense to leave in what some may describe as "unimportant" problems such as a wiggling stylus, if you can fix them.

I think that many here who have a Pandora that works fine may agree that if the quality of all the details was better, it would be quite a different device. If you held a Pyra in your hands and the build quality was just /better/ than that of a Pandora, everything being sturdy, nothing being loose, and lots of details being just /right/, then I bet that you'd agree that it's not just about whether the device works (let's talk again when you got your Pyra!). And as a company with a niche focus, this kind of thinking is a more than feasible approach in a competing world market...

So IMO this is ED's product, I'm just the buyer. So I may make one or two comments like I said.... But then I drop it, because I'm not dropping out and further comments don't help.

Some amongst us just keep haranguing, as if that will help but we all know it won't. I don't understand why they are trying to piss off (and on) the guy that is working to make what we all want.
 
Thanks for the news ED. Keep up the awesome work!
Thinking shipping will probably start this coming nov/dec if I had to guess
 
@EvilDragon @Askarus

I wish to volunteer my help to help resolve the matter with the cases.
As a bi-lingual speaker of both English and Greek, is there anything I can do to help with FormAction, such as helping to translate any emails etc ? I live in the UK, but I am on holidays in Berlin for the next 2 days, if that helps.
 
My two cents as a Pyra pre-orderer, silent forum lurker and former small community moderator.
I find it frustrating that people and especially ED have to spend time dealing with the toxic behavior of @m@t. This person consumes the precious time and motivation of Team Pyra in ways that contribute next to nothing to the project and the threads he participates in, and even trigger toxic behavior from other members that would otherwise behave peacefully. Although simply ignoring him may be an option, I think it’s really not feasible if ED himself repeatedly spends time making long thorough answers to him. I understand that it is a response to abusive people to try to show them and everyone else that their arguments are invalid, but as @m@t showed us several times already, it is simply pointless as the same questions and accusations will always come back eventually.

I understand that the Pyra is a “hobby” project that consumes a (relative) lot of money and that every pre-order is important. But is it so important that the forum has to tolerate people whose behavior threaten the promised awesomeness of the community? I think mods should deal with toxic behavior before it spreads and makes the community an unpleasant place that would repel old and new members, and incidentally new sales. I agree that it would make it seem that the moderation team tries to silence dissenting voices as some failing KickStarter projects do. But in this particular case, I think @m@t has talked enough to prove that he’s not making a constructive nor enjoyable contribution, and ED talks enough to prove that he’s open and honest in general as well as when he’s faced with valid criticism.

PS: If it means anything to anyone, I did pre-order the Pyra and even added a voucher and a donation. And I don’t care when the Pyra lands into my hands. I care about how awesome and special it is when it does, and the fact that I funded a project consistent with my values. I guess I’m an idealist. Also, I’m sorry I rarely comment and it ends up being about this kind of subjects, I’ll try to refrain now that I’ve stated my opinion.
 
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