De Pandora Handheld #3

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I have no idea whether any of you is interested in what I write right now – but well, if you are not, don’t read up

This may not be the Pandora news you’re all waiting for. But for me, it’s an important event, so I thought it will fit in the devblog here as well.

I’m currently on a short vacation. Only for four days… but it’s the first vacation I have since we started the whole project… and boy, this has been a loooong time.

And I guess I really needed it. I didn’t think it was that bad, but it looks like I was totally exhausted.
There were so many things I wanted to do during the last few weeks: Finish up Hotfix 4, update the website with more information for developers, write blog posts about what’s happening, do Tutorial videos, etc.
Every night I wanted to do it… but I couldn’t. Either I just browsed the web because I really wasn’t in the mood or I just fell asleep in front of my PC. I was totally out of strength and I was down – and I’m usually one of the guys who’s almost always happy

I just spent a whole day in Mallorca at the beach – and I’m already feeling my strength coming back to me. I worked on more things for the Hotfix – directly on my Pandora, and I’m finally having fun again doing that!

I can feel how life is flowing back into me. A few more days, and I’m ready again! Ready to solder thousands of LCD cables. Ready to face all problems we may encounter!

I also learnt something else: There’s more in life than a Pandora. A lot more. Yes, the nubs caused a bit of a delay and we don’t know when production will finally speed up… so what?
The Pandora won’t be a worse device because of that.
The board manufacturer as well as the nub company are working together to solve that issue. I’m sure they will find a fix – and once that’s done… everything will should speed up!
I’d rather wait one or two weeks longer and have a proper solution, than shipping out as fast as we can and getting back tons of Pandoras because the nubs break.

Everyone who’s desperately waiting for the Pandora now and starts to shout and cry because it takes a few weeks more: Get a break! It really helped me. And it helped Gruso (a long-term and nice member of gp32x.com), too.
It’s really relaxing – and suddenly you realize: The Pandora really is a unique and cool device. And it will still be unique and cool when you get it. You can still play emulators and native games. You can still surf the web with FireFox or Chromium. It will still be open.

Well, so much for day one here directly from my hotel room.
Maybe I’ll write some more tomorrow.

And when I’m back next Wednesday, I’m most probably back with full strength – doing all the things I wanted to do weeks ago. And give you more real updates about where the rest of the Pandoras are.

Last but not least, I took a little picture at the beach. Nothing special, but fans of classic games might smile a bit

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It seems EvilDragon is back from vacation, rested and giving good news. 100 new units will be in the wild this week. Plus another coding option. I know there are many already, but hey, why not more?

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Production update. It’s getting there.
August 10, 2010
Posted by: gruso

A little update on production progress, which has been tiptoeing along since 100 more boards arrived last week. Quality checks on the nubs are still a significant slowdown, although it looks like things could be possibly thinking about looking up soon.

The last 25 of the 100 will ship today and tomorrow. It does look like this nub issue is solved for 99% of the units so we can get back on track. Over 700 Pandoras have now been shipped.

(craigix, yesterday)

I know things are going slow but 170 more boards are arriving soon and things will start to really speed up and those units should be very good quality due to this lengthy test process.

(craigix)

And on the cases:

we decided to order 7000 last month. 1500 are coming by UPS the rest by boat (4-5 weeks).

The 1500 are due here next week sometime (well, due in to customs!).

(craigix)

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h1
Official Blog: Moving forward!
August 11, 2010
Posted by: BackAssward

Sometimes EvilDragon says a bit, and other times he says a lot. This is one of those times where he must have spent his night up, making a post.

Let’s see… The current nubs are working great, the latest hotfix is looking pretty good. The team is very happy with the last hundred boards, and there and many more on the way. What more is there to say?

As usual I’ll let EvilDragon do the talking:

Moving forward!

Hardware Production

We were really pleased with the last 100 boards! Only a few failed for different reasons, but the nubs were working fine! So it seems the mechanical testing is a fine solution until the next batch of nubs will be produced with added accuracy.
170 more boards are already on the way to UK, so expect more units to be delivered soon.


Hopefully, now that the nub problem seems to be sold, the production will speed soon! As usual, we’re working on getting there!
The next 4000 cases should also be ready soon – all of them have been produced and most of them are already painted. They should just arrive in time when we are passing the first 1000 units mark!

Software updates

Softwarewise, some nice things have happened: With Ginge (which should be ready for release soon), you can play GP2X games (even commercial games like Payback and Wind & Water) on the Pandora! While it still is work in progress, it already has pretty good compatibility. Thanks to notaz for that incredible piece of software work.

Also, Hotfix 4 Beta 1 is out. Thanks to the guys that tried it, I already fixed a few errors and will release a Beta 2 within the next days.
The biggest improvement is probably that HF4 is using IPKs for the update: This is the first major step to properly upgrade the system, via a package manager.
Another test I did worked fine: I installed the very first OS version on my Pandora, changed the config files to use our feeds and upgraded the system using opkg update and opkg upgrade – and 10 minutes later, I had a working up-to-date OS on my system!

Soon you will be able to update your unit by either downloading the latest HotFix and running it or by directly update the Pandora while connected to the internet.
The brave ones among you will also be able to use unstable feeds to get the latest changes to the system a few minutes after they have been committed! Of course, bug reports are welcome.

Help us improve the unit!

So, all in all, while things are not going perfect, we’re still moving forward and getting there.
Basically, I could be happy with that – but there is one thing that makes me sad: And that is the current mood on the boards. There are some people who seem to try to bash the unit for whatever reason.
This is really demotivating and won’t help anyone get anywhere – since it’s no constructive criticism.

Yes, we know there have been some problems with the first produced units like shoulder buttons, nubs, LCD cables. And we are working hard to get them all fixed (and most seem already be fixed).
Yes, we know there have been slowdowns in the production – mainly because we had problems with the nubs (we couldn’t magically fix them, this takes some time).

Please don’t forget: We are not a big company, we are just some guys trying to achieve something. Something major – and I think we didn’t do too bad so far.
We are NOT trying to cover or deny any faults, but are trying to fix and prevent them in the future.
According to most people we talked to who already received the unit: They love it and think it’s the best device they ever owned.

So far, we only had about 50 RMAs out of 700 – while the boards currently make it sound as if almost EVERY unit is unusable.
Some people do claim that there are more broken units but the users do not want to ship it back to us since they are waiting for production to speed up.

I can imagine this might be true for some people, but not for all.

Please: Even if you do not want to return your unit right now, let us know if you have any serious issues like a dead nub or a failed LCD cable or anything else.
Why? Well, we’re trying to fix all problems and prevent them from happening. But if we DON’T KNOW about these issues, we can’t fix them. Telling us what fails will help us to improve the quality and increase the production speed.

Also, of course, if you have a Pandora and like it – spread the word! Show it to friends, colleagues, post on boards. Tell them the story behind it, that it’s a device made by a small company, not by Sony, etc.

One thing you can be sure about:
If you encounter any real problems with your unit, we’ll fix it for you! AND use the information to improve further produced units!

Let’s all work together to improve the mood at the boards again. We all do share something: The love for niche products. Be it for gaming, for hacking, for coding – we all gathered to make the Pandora happen. For some, the Pandora is already reality – and for the rest, this reality is coming closer and closer!

Thanks to all guys that do support us – it’s never been easy, but you keep us going!

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200 Pandora shipping next week + news on ICP.

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Op woensdag 29 december 2010 18:01 schreef __Saviour__ het volgende:
Wat is de wachttijd voor zo'n ding tegenwoordig?
Als ik nu zou bestellen, hebben we het dan bijvoorbeeld over pas ver in volgend jaar dat ik er een kan verwachten?

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Op woensdag 29 december 2010 20:32 schreef Punnik het volgende:
na een tijdje deden bijna alle programma's die op mn sd-kaart stonden niks meer. toen nieuwe hotfix erop gezet. deed alles het weer, maar na een tijdje werkt opeens alles niet meer.... dus ligt dat ding hier maar een beetje....

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Op donderdag 30 december 2010 11:24 schreef OVchipkaart het volgende:

[..]

klinkt als een niet zo goed SD kaartje, welke hotfix heb je erop staan HF4 geeft voor mij geen enkel probleem