What's Your Level Of P&|a Commitment

[Tom`]

What? DNF actually came out?
/me checks

False alarm, guys....

 

[WizardStan]

Specifically, the company that designed the nubs went belly up, we are told, without paying the company that actually manufactures the nubs. The result being, seemingly, that OpenPandora don't have the source code to make any changes should further corrections be necessary, and might well be up ship creek without a paddle if the manufacturer puts its little legs in the air.
Yes they do. After the company went belly up, they had to make some tweaks to the firmware of the nub, and it was done. As far as I know, everything was passed off to the OP team, designs and source code included. Of course, what I don't know far outweighs what I do, so someone might be able to correct me on that.

 

[VRAndy]

By the way, how many people actually held onto the promise of Duke Nukem Forever for 11 freakin' years? Sure, it came out, but man, who wouldnt have lost faith?

Can you pick up a copy of that and slide-ship it to us? It hasn't come out in our universe.

 

[jlepley]

I'm going for Oct '09.

So what? You can hold a PS3 in your hand, that doesn't make it a handheld.

It has been long understood that when "handheld" is used on the site, it means "handheld gaming device". It is shorter to just say handheld. The iPhone is no gaming device, it is a phone that can play games, but is not dedicated to gaming.

If it were just a small computer that you can hold in your hand, the Pandora would have already lost the title to the OQO.

Also, specs != power. The iPhone has woefully inefficient software, so the Pandora will still be able to run applications at greater speeds.

Even in terms of specs, we don't know how high the iPhone can be overclocked.

 

[lulzfish]

You know what else I can hold in my hand?
:rolleyes:
A Nintendo DS.
edit: Yeah, I wussed out on the crude version...

Anyway, I want a UMPC.

The Pandora is a UMPC with a game controller built in.
The iPhone is a "My First UMPC" with "apps" for people who like one-syllable catchphrases / marketing slogans, and it even shows you some Internet, just like a real computer!

But it's too locked up for my taste, and too lacking in convenient input devices.

No, seriously, the "app" model reminds me of the 200-in-1 joysticks with old NES games, or the toy laptops with black-and-white edutainment "games" built-in.

 

[Monk]

and had to be sent back. They've been fixed, but they won't send them back until we pay for them again. It's a shitty situation, but you can hardly blame the factory for not shipping parts that they haven't been paid for, even if we already did pay someone else already.

QUOTE ("MWeston on May 19 2009")
The nubs are still under NDA so I can't give you information about them yet. It is a bit ambitious to say we could sell them because you could only use them on the Pandora PCB right now (as replacements if something breaks"]. Everything is in limbo with the original company going tits up and the plastics manufacturer taking over the design. I need to see where we stand on the intellectual properties.[/quote]QUOTE ("MWeston on May 22 2009")
The chips themselves are capable of self-writing but the company that codes the nub algorithm isn't willing to put the engineering time into adding that code and testing it thoroughly for us (and I don't have access to their source code).


So I thought that MWeston didn't have the source code, because over a month after the code was fixed he was saying he didn't have the source code. AFAICS. It'd be great to find they DO own AND HAVE all the soruces to Pandora after all

This would all be SO much easier if there was a single, central repository for all progress updates on the Pandora (and I am thankful to the unifficial blog for it's aid in finding these quotes).

Ta

 

[_VWV_]

My biggest concern is Openpandora Ltd won't tolerate the amount of "I've had enough, give me my money back". We don't know anything about the first batchers by the exception of a small fraction of those who post here. What if people start to cancel their orders? We won't know because the team remains cryptic about the financial side of the project.

I remember back when the refunds/reorders were happening that it was mentioned that OP Ltd had sufficient funds for the production despite the payment status of the pre-orders. They've lost a bunch of money from the HSBC debacle and the analog nub company going under, but they're still powering along full speed. I don't think you have to worry about your particular scenario.

Well, I assume that this means the situation is unstable now. You know, there's basically a ticking time bombtm so anything may happen.

...there's basically a ticking time bomb of which you don't know when it will explode...

It used to be fine:

I'd like to just confirm we are the people funding and making this.

The dev costs are covered, just buy one when they are ready smile.gif

I assume there are problems because.. well, to my mind, the tone has changed a bit. I hope, I'm wrong though.

 

[EvilDragon]

No, it hasn't changed. The money for production is still sufficient. The parts have already been paid LONG ago (otherwise, the companies wouldn't have shipped them out).

I just emphasized on that timebomb thing (it was basically a timebomb from the very beginning) since sometimes people tend to think we're a big company which is doing crap instead of just a few people from this company, risking basically everything to create this handheld.

And what weight there is on our shoulders which doesn't make things very easy for us.

 

[EvilDragon]

So I thought that MWeston didn't have the source code, because over a month after the code was fixed he was saying he didn't have the source code. AFAICS. It'd be great to find they DO own AND HAVE all the soruces to Pandora after all

Well, the kernel, libs and drivers sourcecode can be found at our git since a long time ago (http://git.openpandora.org)
The sourcecode for the nubs is not needed - the code is BUILT IN within a chip in the nub, it doesn't have anything to do with the Pandora at all

It's like harddisks for your PCs: They have a firmware built-in, too, but you won't need the sourcecode to use it
Basically... no PC is OpenSource, not even a Linux PC

 

[_VWV_]

.

I just emphasized on that timebomb thing (it was basically a timebomb from the very beginning) since sometimes people tend to think we're a big company which is doing crap instead of just a few people from this company, risking basically everything to create this handheld.

And what weight there is on our shoulders which doesn't make things very easy for us.


Really good news there!

 

[sebt3]

no PC is OpenSource, not even a Linux PC

R. Stallman bougth a XO to have the most "free" (as in freedom) computer in the market and was realy disapointed by its bios.

No there is still no Free Hardware on the market, and It won't until ????

 

[WizardStan]

The sourcecode for the nubs is not needed - the code is BUILT IN within a chip in the nub, it doesn't have anything to do with the Pandora at all
This is true right now, but I think what Monk is concerned about (rightly so) is that something goes wrong with the nub firmware and it needs a bug fix. It's already happened once, fortunately caught before going into mass assembly, but what happens if (heaven forbid) there's a next time?

 

[EvilDragon]

there's a next time?

Well, we already got 8000 nubs with the same firmware and our test samples (we didn't test all 8000 :lol have been working without any single problem (for hours and hours"].[/quote]So... what should happen?

 

[dingens]

there's a next time?

Initiate a hacker contest. The Pandora owner who successfully disassembles the nub firmware gets a free Pandora II and will be invited to join the Pandora II dev team :lol:

 

[WizardStan]

So... what should happen?
AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!
The WORDS!!! The single most evil words in the history of the English language! Asking what could go wrong guarantees that something is going to go wrong! Death and destruction lie in that direction!
*hides under a rock until the Apocalypse passes*

 

[Monk]

So... what should happen? :"]
AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!
The WORDS!!! The single most evil words in the history of the English language! Asking what could go wrong guarantees that something is going to go wrong! Death and destruction lie in that direction!
*hides under a rock until the Apocalypse passes*

Yeah - until he said that I thought Planet Earth might survive the year. Now? No chance! Doomed doomed, we're all doomed![/quote]It is more serious than that, but not THAT much on the scale of things. I beleive in pointing out issues - which this is one of - but also in keeping perspective. I doubt, given the current evaluation of the nubs by OpenPandora, that it's going to be a "the-sky-is-falling" type problem.

 

[urjaman]

Basically... no PC is OpenSource, not even a Linux PC

If you use coreboot and dont have any harddisks, cdrom drives or other devices with firmware (VGA cards, IIRC there are ones that can be booted by the Xorg drivers without the video bios), then you have a software-wise OpenSource PC.
(just to say that there are opensource PC's)

I can live with this, but it's getting more and more depressing to think that we're getting an "open source" handheld... exept:
* The SGX blob
* The WiFi/BT firmware (IIRC?)
* The nub firmware
* oh and the TI BootRom (not sure?)

Btw, are the nub AVR's readable (eg. that the firmware binary can be read from their flash), or will they be shipped locked?

The most depressing thing i think is that the AVR's can self-program but duh, because some firm isnt interested in making the software use it, they aren't self-programmable -- this issue could be solved if you had the source code (i've written some AVR bootloaders btw).

 

[Pleng]

To be honest I really don't care if every driver is closed source. I don't particularly care if the software is open-source so long as it does the job!