Pyra-news August 2016

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GamesCom Video and Remaining Tasks
by Michael Mrozek 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Finally, I found the time to edit the video material I filmed at GamesCom. No Pyra News for you in there, just showing what you missed at our booth and in the whole retro area in case you didn't visit there. https://youtu.be/q-mRLm2iQH0 I also want to thank the whole team that was helping out at our booth! You guys rock! :D I should have some Pyra videos for you soon! Why? Read on - here's our latest news post! 1. TILER is now working on the real unit! ----------------------------------------- zmatt got TILER working, aTc included it in the official OS image and therefore, I have now a Pyra which runs with the official Pyra OS, rotated just using TILER and not the SSD Chip anymore! That is some awesome news - and it now also means I can help tweaking the OS and test out all the stuff that some community members have packaged up on the real unit. It's still a very basic hack and some other things need to be done. For example, the Touchscreen is not yet rotated (which makes using it very... interesting), but that's just a simple change in one file and a recompile. Once units have been shipped to the developers, these small things will be a lot easier to fix. I have 6 working PCBs here which I will need to put into the latest revision of the case and decide where to send them to. That will all happen during the next two weeks. I also hope to find the time to make some new videos for you :) 2. 1,5GHz Fix ------------- Remember that we had the issue that units crashed running at 1,5GHz? Well, it seems notaz has found the reason - it's a small trace in the hardware that shouldn't be connected. Nikolaus missed a small "DNI" (which means: "Do not install") that was written down in the datasheet and therefore connected that trace. Luckily, I was able to pause the CPU Board production until Nikolaus comes back from holiday next week to supply the little fix. So the next CPU boards will have that fix included and should run without any issues at 1,5GHz as well! It's always good to have more than just two eyes checking the schematics. 3. What else is left to do? --------------------------- During GamesCom, I was able to test the Pyras and find out what's left to be done (hardware-wise - the software will always improve :)) Luckily, it isn't that much: * The keymat works fine but is a bit stiff. Already working on that. * The new touchscreen needs to be tested (I'll receive it in 1 - 2 weeks) * The friction of the hinge needs to be improved (already being worked on) * The shoulder buttons need to be improved (already being worked on) * The peg inside the battery cover to keep the battery positioned needs to be a bit thicker (already being worked on) * The sealing of the speaker needs to be created (already in production) * Box design and manual needs to be created * Prototypes need to be stress tested (will work on that next week) Well, and that's basically it. Most of that is just the final case tweaking. The hardware seems to be working fine now. And most of the above is already being worked on in parallel! So yes, we're getting closer to the finish line! You can discuss about that here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/gamescom-video-and-remaining-tasks…

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Gamescom, sensor upgrade and other nice news
by Michael Mrozek 13 Aug '16

13 Aug '16

Gamescom will start Wednesday, and we have a booth with some nice stuff there. We will also have six Pyra prototypes with us, two without the rotator chip, as it looks like we can show them working using the TILER function instead of the rotator chip as well! So, here is what happened lately... 1. New keymat and updated backlight ----------------------------------- The new keymat samples have arrived a while ago - and boy, they're great! The keys feel fantastic, the rounded edges really make a difference, typing is very comfortable now. The DPad and ABXY Buttons aren't as good as before though, but that's a simple fix: No color on the DPad and the walls of the buttons, as the paint makes them slightly stiff. Also, moving the carbon pads of the DPad ans buttons up 0.1mm again should make things perfect. You can see a picture of the new keys on the boards. So yay, we're pretty much finished here. We also rearranged the keyboard backlight-LEDs on the mainboard, now having a perfectly even light. A picture of that can also be seen on the boards. 2. Sensor upgrade ----------------- The Pyra just received a sensor upgrade! Instead of the planned BMG160 (3 axis rotation) and BMC150 (6 axis accellerator and magnetic field) sensors, we will now use the BNO055, which has all of these and a bit more (https://www.bosch-sensortec.com/bst/products/all_products/bno055). This one has been discussed and requested at a thread on the boards, so I hope you'll all be happy about that. 3. TILER rotation almost ready! ------------------------------- zmatt has continued to baffle me and now got TILER rotation working as framebuffer - with rotation set up as default in the kernel. So we should have some Pyras using TILER working next week (yes, we'll have them with us at GamesCom). It still needs to be cleaned up a bit and thoroughly tested, but yay! :D This actually is a huge step forward. Right now, as the SSD driver is not working correctly, I only ran Nikolaus' testing OS on the Pyra. With a working TILER, I can now also run the normal PyraOS - and games! So once I get back from GamesCom, expect a couple of videos! 4. Gamescom ----------- As mentioned, we're having a booth at the Gamescom. In hall 10.2, Retro area, right beneath the Arcade machines (same spot as last year, in case you've visited us). You're all very welcome to visit us, play around with the Pyra or GPD Win prototype or try out other stuff from the shop (new Retro games, McWills GameGear LCD Mod, the MIST, etc.) And, of course, have a chat with me or grab a free coffee! Hope to meet some of you there! 5. After the Gamescom... ------------------------ Those six prototypes will go to devs to finalize the software and test the hardware. Another (7th) one has the 4GB RAM on which needs to be enabled in the bootloader, so it will go to another dev. Middle of September, there'll be another prototype run with all the changes we did, hopefully leading to final or almost final units. Those will go to the Prototype Preorders. And after some test period is over and all remaining bugs have been squashed, it's time to mass produce. As we already ordered the parts, there won't be any more leadtime for those. The cases still need a few tweaks, but those will also be done in September (I hope). See you soon! You can discuss about that and see pictures here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/gamescom-sensor-upgrade-and-other-…

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Many little steps
by Michael Mrozek 06 Aug '16

06 Aug '16

Whew, another few steps of the Pyra finalizing have been taken. I feel a bit exhausted, but there's no time to rest right now. The final few percent are always the hardest to achieve. But let's see what has happened! 1. New display board -------------------- The new and probably final display board has arrived and is working fine! Thanks to all the cutouts, it's now 10g lighter than before. You can see a picture of it at the thread on the boards. The LEDs have now been positioned properly to light the logo and we also switched them with LEDs that glow sideways. A first test of the effect by Nikolaus is amazing, you can do very smooth color gradients (with ANY color, as both are RGB). This can us used to show the battery status, any other notification... or simply to annoy users with a boring glowing fruit ;)) You could also use it as ambient lighting when playing games in the dark. Of course, you can simply switch it off if you like as well. Right now, we still have the rotator chip on there which we'll keep until we have a setup which works using the OMAP5 for rotation. zmatt is still working on that and I hope I have something to test next weekend, as I'd love to present a Pyra at the GamesCom running the normal Pyra OS using TILER as rotation already. Well, I already have a display board without rotator, so I'm ready for the test :) If we won't use the rotator chip, the PCB design can be changed within a couple of minutes, and as the PCB is very simply, it can also be produced within a short time. So we can wait until the very end with that. Here is a litte video Nikolaus made: https://youtu.be/qcvPUOtpae4 Of course, once I get my hands on one of these, I'll make more pictures and videos of it in better quality :) 2. The Touchscreen ------------------ I received four different touchscreens to test: Two from a partner of BOE (one clear, one matte) and one from the company that made the Pandora touchscreen (also matte). Can you believe it's so hard these days to get a proper resistive touchscreen? I couldn't. But now I know it is. But I also know that we will get the one we need in the end. Well, ALL of these touchscreens had the same colored grain effect we already know. Interestingly enough, the one that was supposed to be clear was the worst of them all... However, the one I just received for the Pandora two months ago would work PERFECTLY! There's absolutely NO visible color grain effect when I put that one on top of Pyras' display - so yes, I KNOW a touchscreen we need exists and is still in production. Okay, you can see on the camera that there's a very slight degradation of the image quality - but that's not visible with your bare eye. You can see a comparison of that at the thread on the boards as well. Well, I gave BOE a sample of it back with them and received the information today that they now found another touchscreen material which is as clear as the one from the Pandora. My BOE contact MIGHT receive it just-in-time for the GamesCom and as he might visit there, I could test and replace it at the GamesCom. I also asked the company that made Pandoras touchscreen whether they can use the exact same material for the Pyra touchscreen. No answer yet, but as soon as I get one, I'll let you know. So, let's hope for the next version! 3. The keymat ------------- It's a bit similar with the keymat. With each change, you can improve things and also make others worse. That's not a big deal though, as you can combine them in the end to create the wanted result. Okay, so the new keymats just arrived today. I tested them but didn't have time to take pictures yet, but I'll do that, promised! What has been changed? * Slightly curved keys feel A LOT nicer. * Height of the keys is pretty good now * Keymat isn't as stiff as before, so another improvement here * DPad and ABXY-Buttons are worse than before (we tried moving the carbon pad 0,2mm closer to the PCB, but that didn't work as expected). All in all, it's a huge improvement! Don't worry about the buttons and DPad: That's something I wanted to try out but as it didn't work as planned, we'll reverse that change. Then it will be as good as on the Pandora. The most important thing is that the height of the keys and buttons is okay now. Changing the stiffness can simply be achieved using a different material, no mould changes needed for that. Right now, we're using Shore 30, which should already be pretty soft - but I my guess is that the black color actually makes the keymat more stiff than it should be. It should be possible to not color the DPad and the areas of the buttons that are needed to push it down. This should improve the keymat even further. I'll make pictures on Monday. 4. Speaker Quality ------------------ The speaker quality has already been vastly improved again, as I fixed a bit of the sealing. Now that I got a transparent case, I can even see where the sealing is properly done and where not :) Well, to make them perfect, I need the sealing to be properly plotted. Manually cutting it is just not possible without having some leak somewhere. I'm already in contact with some companies, so hopefully, I can finish the sound setup within this month. BTW: We also tested passive speakers with the headset port: It works perfectly, no further amplifier needed :) Once I find the time, I'll do quality comparisons with Pandoras headset out. 5. Repaired PCBs ---------------- Nikolaus picked up some reworked PCBs from Global Components today and hopefully with these we can finally build more prototypes. They haven't been tested yet, but that's what Nikolaus is doing within the next few days. We'll also receive some more repaired PCBs and we'll try to build as many prototypes as possible for the GamesCom. That's it for today. See you soon! You can discuss about that and see pictures here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/many-little-steps.77802/

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Pyra-news August 2016