Comprehensive Status update!


Finally made an account just so I could post! I've been following since the pandora but never had the money to get one. I finally was in a place where I could buy a toy and was scanning ebay for a pandora but the pre orders for the pyra started around the same time, so I put my money here instead. Every update is a little present in the advent calendar leading up to the release!

I'm so excited for the pyra to finally be near completion, and look forward to becoming a member of the community!
 
What do I need to do to make sure my preorder will happen as soon as possible? I purchased w/ a guest acct. I have received the code voucher for 330 euro, is there a way to pay in full right now so I don't have to worry about it?

As stated on the order page, you can buy gift cards if you want to pay in advance. However, we don't yet know the exact cost of shipping, so we don't know exactly what the total price will be.

The first batch of 1000 is completely funded, and nearly sold out. ED bought parts for 1000 pyras. Of that, 30 are reserved for prototypes, and 50 are reserved as replacements for failed units. That leaves 920, and as of today, there are 914 preorders. So if you already ordered, then you get one from the first production run.
 
Thank you comradekingu. You link just made me have a great laugh. I've been welcomed with an ad from Microsoft, telling how they created a division to fight cybercrime and information theft. What they didn't tell was how much they were responsible for that xD

Anyway, I agree with you, and may add that your links were quite interesting.

What I love about Microsoft and their game controllers was how they can't get it right. They've been manufacturing game peripherals for years (I had a Sidewinder gamepad), they've been reliable, and the 360 controller is to me the closest to perfection.
I do agree that the XONE improved on the triggers, but I like circular D-Pads (not talking about precision, just about confort) and more importantly - WHY MAKE IT SMALLER ?
Come on guys, I don't have big hands, I'm actually far from it, but I already wished the X360 pad was a little bigger !
I think they got scared from the first XBOX, when everybody pointed the size of the joypad. I had a try at both gamepads, the original and the S one were indeed larger than most pads, but they handled just fine.

So why is the X360 controller that good ? Because they didn't make it themselves. Carbon Design made it. But don't bother looking their site up, they merged into Oculus VR.

End of the controller rant.

Back on topic : welcome Hardcoreufo, glad to see lurkers make the move and join us ! We all have our Pyra Advent Calendar ^^
 
Nobody can take away the experience and knowledge you gained from this and you have the makings of becoming one of the big players some day if you choose to.

Ah, I believe ED might not be greedy and brutal enough to become a huge player, and also he's too honest.
But as it is, he might from time to time, with a bunch of enthusiasts prodding in the background, build a little device exciting him and us.
And live a long and happy life like that.
[doublepost=1476958553,1476956384][/doublepost]
Does this also count for Airports built in Berlin? xD

Well, provided a fine political network, you can of course work outside of all three circles. :)
 
The first batch of 1000 is completely funded, and nearly sold out. ED bought parts for 1000 pyras. Of that, 30 are reserved for prototypes, and 50 are reserved as replacements for failed units. That leaves 920, and as of today, there are 914 preorders. So if you already ordered, then you get one from the first production run.
Not sure that it's been officially confirmed that there will be an upper limit of 1000 for the first batch, rather than say 1500, for instance there are apparently still 50 pre pre orders that have not yet converted to full orders. Guess only ED can answer that one though.
 
Nice to see the different povs on the "having lots a money". Here is my take:
Sure you need some minimum money, without it nothing happens. But after this minimum is secured or well planned to be, then you get into the hardest part, which is people.
Like Comradekingu said, money doesn´t create. I have seen people here waste huge amounts of money on wrong people and their projects go to trash because of that.
If you have the right people, they are even capable of using less money them projected, some can wear multiple hats too.
That is pretty much what I learned from working with film with larger teams, the most important resource is people, money comes second.
Even if you don´t have any money at all, you will have to ask people for it, you can´t ask money to give you money. :D
Anyways, the strong point for me on the Pyra project is the people behind it. They are just marvelous.
 
Not sure that it's been officially confirmed that there will be an upper limit of 1000 for the first batch, rather than say 1500, for instance there are apparently still 50 pre pre orders that have not yet converted to full orders. Guess only ED can answer that one though.

Unless ED ordered more parts recently, there were only 1000 LCDs.

Once the first 1000 Pyras have been shipped, there will most probably be a little delay (unless we get at least a total of abour 1300 preorders,), as I need to buy 1000 more LCDs.
 
Not apple, although we did see them have to send a free case to anyone who asked after the launch of the iPhone 4, and we have just seen Samsung fail to release a new revision of the Galaxy note. And there have been plenty of motherboards released with buggy ports that only ever half worked.

I guess Fusion_Power is talking about component delivery lead times and such things though. More money can speed those things up I guess, but there are limits. And to a certain extent, more beta testers mean more people moaning that something doesn't work exactly the way they like, which can make more work to try to sift through.

Yupp, when I look at what Samsung messed up with the Note7 and imagining how many Money they may have put into development, I guess everything cann be go wrong even with unlimited money. :)
 
Yupp, when I look at what Samsung messed up with the Note7 and imagining how many Money they may have put into development, I guess everything cann be go wrong even with unlimited money. :)

Unlike the Note7, the Pyra battery isn't glued down. If the battery is bad, you can replace it with a new one (hopefully before it explodes).
 
Hmmm. If we get exploding batteries (assuming we can intentionally cause it and time everything right) we can use them as grenades, then use the Pyra to beat people with. I am reminded of some silly stuff from a tv show somewhat like this.
 
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Unlike the Note7, the Pyra battery isn't glued down. If the battery is bad, you can replace it with a new one (hopefully before it explodes).
i needed that explode joke.
 
I don't know anything about electronics but I've heard that memory is one of the most difficult components because it uses wide, very fast buses, and any slight discrepancy in track length or width may cause problems (maybe to one
chip and not another). Also, at least for PCs I've heard getting RAM timings right is also very tricky (but it may be
2x or 3x the Hz than the Pyra). And you can't really be sure they work until you get the timing right in u-boot (or the kernel?).
DDR3 allows the timing to be adjusted per byte lane in steps of a small fraction of a nanosecond, and the omap5 can perform this adjustment automatically (this is known as "hardware leveling"). Also the speed at which it runs (DDR3-1066, i.e. 533 MHz) is not very high compared to PCs.

The other risk is if the 4GB chips draw more power than 2GB chips, and that somehow requires some change, but I'm not even sure, since it's 2 chips for 4GB and 4 chips for 2GB. They might even draw less power ? No, I guess it's still double the bits to refresh periodically but what do I know?
As EvilDragon pointed out it's four chips either way, otherwise you'd slash your memory bandwidth in half. You're correct that standby current would be expected to double, because the dual-rank chip is basically two single-rank chips in one package. When actively in use however I'd expect data transfer to be the main factor in ram power consumption, which should be similar for 2GB and 4GB.

Which generation of memory chips is being used is also a factor, as power consumption still keeps going down.

Unfortunately current DDR3 memory chips don't bother giving power consumption values when operated at slower speeds than DDR3-1333 anymore, so I don't have any concrete values, and they only specify worst-case values anyway. We'll have to see.

With the 4GB chips, it's a bit more complicated as we need an LPAE kernel. But that's not impossible.

Yeah that shouldn't put up too much of a fight, hopefully. I suppose I could give it a swing on my uevm when I find a moment.
 
DDR3 allows the timing to be adjusted per byte lane in steps of a small fraction of a nanosecond, and the omap5 can perform this adjustment automatically (this is known as "hardware leveling"). Also the speed at which it runs (DDR3-1066, i.e. 533 MHz) is not very high compared to PCs.

Thank you. I didn't know.

As EvilDragon pointed out it's four chips either way, otherwise you'd slash your memory bandwidth in half.

Good. At the time I thought it was going to be 2 chips according to an earlier @EvilDragon post, but now it's clear it's 4 chips for both options.
Memory bandwidth is therefore 32 bits x 2 channels ~= 64 bits in both 2GB and 4GB RAM options, right ?

You're correct that standby current would be expected to double, because the dual-rank chip is basically two single-rank chips in one package. When actively in use however I'd expect data transfer to be the main factor in ram power consumption, which should be similar for 2GB and 4GB.

Makes sense, but I don't have much clue in how to estimate how long it is in active use, how long stands by and how long RAM is switched off (system hibernated or something).
If the state that doubles is a small value compared to the states that stays fixed (between 2GB and 4GB) but it happens during a lot more time, it might still have some impact. Or the critical value might just be
the instantaneus maximum power not the total in some period (so that as long as the state that doubles stays smaller than the fixed bigger state it's OK). Who knows?
How long the memory is in each state might be the same with 2GB and 4GB systems under the same workload or it might be different, depending on the workload
(accessing disk or cached in RAM, etc.). So, yes, we know one of the variables in an equation doubles but we don' know others. I'm blank, but you people
with experience just know you never heard of a problem in these situations or something like that, and have more intuition for ballpark ranges for the unkonwn values.

Which generation of memory chips is being used is also a factor, as power consumption still keeps going down.

Certainly, but I'm not sure which chips or generations we're talking about. Maybe nobody is completely sure until it is ordered, because the market can still change.
I'm not sure the wiki is up to date.

Btw. I see there're 16 2GB preorders and 901 4GB preorders. I'm not sure if prototypes are included there (I'm guessing no). The original post said the plan is building about 15 units with 2GB,
and there's another one which will get the battery contacts fixed, so that's maybe already all the 2GB units preordered. I guess I'm missing some units as prototypes or whatever,
but when the wiki says 2GB preorders might be too few to keep the option, I see it the other way around. Those 2GB are almost already produced. If all work fine ED could even
honor the existing preorders and close the 2GB option for future preorders, if MOQs or whatever require that.

Unfortunately current DDR3 memory chips don't bother giving power consumption values when operated at slower speeds than DDR3-1333 anymore, so I don't have any concrete values, and they only specify worst-case values anyway. We'll have to see.

Welll, yes, I guess there's only so much you can foresee on paper. That's why I'd sugested to test things well before commiting to big expenses. But that is also an expense (time is money, iterations are money).
I don't know the likeliness of problems and those doing it know it, so it's OK. Knowledge and experience is what strikes the balance, so I can't help there.

Btw, I want to join ED in his thanks, and that includes you, zmatt. For what ED said and for helping explain things to those of us who know less:
A huge thanks to Nikolaus, Fatih, my contacts in Greece and Austria, Global Components, everyone involved with the software development for the Pyra (OS, Kernel, anything), all investors, the prototype-preorders and of course: You.
 
Some might've seen that on Twitter:
We just received samples of a new MicroUSB OTG port we sourced... the old one was only surface-mounted so it was possible it broke off with some force.

We found one that's through-hole - so no, you will NOT be able to break that one off the board :)
Apart from the two thick metal feet it's 100% identical, the next prototype mainboards will already use that one.

microusb.jpg
 
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