The news I'll post today are old news. Well, not for you guys - but I planned to post them over a week ago, just didn't find the time. And the upgrade of the forum software with some more fixes also took quite a while.

New Webboards! --------------

In case you visited the boards sometimes within the last week, you have most probably seen that we upgraded the forum software to the latest version. This brought some improvements and some regressions (as it's often the case when upgrading something).

The board software has been rewritten from scratch to be more compatible with modern internet stuff. It has a responsive theme (which is urgently needed unless you want to lose search results within google). You can still switch to a static theme if you like. In case you got login problems: The old boards had a display name and a username. The news boards have those merged - so if you had different names back then, try to use the other name in case you can't login. The editor still has some issues - but they will be mostly fixed in October, when a new update happens. Otherwise, check the OffTopic-Section in case you find bugs or have suggestions, as we're trying to fix everything that needs a fix.

Oh, and the Login now uses SSL encryption, which should make things more secure.

Okay, now onto the news you've been waiting for... the parallel productions!

The keymat ----------

The moulds of the keymats are already in production and we should receive some samples early to mid October. Yep, those will be REAL samples from the moulds, no 3D print or similar. The real thing! With transparent keymat, plastic caps... yes, the exact same keymat you will receive once you get your Pyra! (Well, unless we still do some more small tweaks to it).

The Case --------

The moulds for the case are ALSO currently being manufactured. I don't have a date for them yet, but they should also probably be finished sometime in October, maybe November. That means we don't need to use any more 3D printed cases but real plastic ones. It also means we need to think about the color soon...

The CPU Boards and mainboards -----------------------------

Even though we had crossed traces on the CPU Board, we could test most components (and triple-check the layout of the stuff we couldn't test). The new, fixed boards are already in production as well and should also be finished early October.

Everything seems to work: Modem, the LCD using the rotator (and our own custom LCD Cable), USB Ports, the LEDs, etc. The Mainboard will get a few small tweaks from Nikolaus and the new revisions will also be finished early to mid October.

This means we'll have a pre-production run in October. Pre-Production means that this will be a test for the mass-production - so everything will be done under the same conditions.

Batteries ---------

3000 batteries have arrived in Germany at Global Components already. So yes, those are finished as well, waiting to juice your Pyras!

So what does that all mean? ---------------------------

Well, it means that we'll have some pre-production models ready in October / November. And if they work without any issues. Some of them will be sold, some will go to developers.

We need to do some more tests with them, but in case these units are working fine, all that needs to be done on the hardware side is give the green light for the mass production! Then, a few months later, Pyras should head out to see the whole wide world!

And yes, this also means: Preorder time! Finally! Let the fun begin!

Talking about fun, notaz was visiting me for a week, and while he contributed some helpful details to some of the technical things (and fixed some software bugs), he also made a quick test with simultaneous outputs on the Pyra.

Here is the result: https://youtu.be/F1ccK1aX4OY

You can see a MegaDrive emulator running on the LCD (using the rotator) while X is running via HDMI out. Is that useful? Probably not - but it was fun :) Well, it's the same way DraStic works on the Pandora, so you can be sure DraStic also works with two monitors on the Pyra.

By the way, the emulator was using 4% CPU power (of one core). So that means, in theory the Pyra can run about 50 fullspeed MegaDrive emulators on the same time. You'd just need 50 displays...

Joking aside, what this really means is: When doing something like MegaDrive emulation, the battery should last long... really, really long.

That's it for today. Hope you enjoyed todays news - I certainly did :)

Want to leave feedback, comment or see the pictures? Visit: http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600007-parallel-production-and-new-boar...