New pic: Nub tester

Posted by: gruso

A curious new photo has appeared in MWeston’s Photobucket album, discovered thanks to the vigilant obsessives over at openXile. Entitled “Analog nub tester with solderless jig setup”, it appears to have all the features you’d expect from a nub testing jig: Dashing green and red rings of death LEDs, a voluptuous black disc just begging to be pushed around, and what we assume is a PANIC button. Try not to get finger smudges on your screen.

Official Blog: And we’re still alive!

Posted by: gruso

An aptly titled update from EvilDragon on the official blog.

Hi, it’s time again for the weekly report on what has happened.

Craig finally resolved the customs issue, so the parts (parts for 2000 Pandoras) finally are moving towards their destination.
The other 2000 parts did pass the customs without any problems a few days earlier, btw.
So, first test mass production is still due to be finished on July 20th (you know, the ones we ordered a while ago) and all the parts are also on their way – which means: COMPLETE mass production of the boards could be happening soon!

The final puzzle piece for the final unit is the case. What’s the status with that, you might ask?
Well, as said a while ago, Dave doesn’t have too much time at the moment, as he is very busy with his normal job. However, he continues to work on the case, day by day. And I’m really happy that the To-Do-List has really grown short.
So short, that he might even finish it within the next few days! There’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Finally, I can see it!

On to some other questions and stuff I’ve seen on the boards: A lot of guys are asking what happened to the video craig promised to you.
Well, as you all know, he planned shooting a long one. That does take time, though. And during that, the custom problems happened. Craig spent all days trying to resolve those issues… so he couldn’t spend any time on the video.
- And I guess you wouldn’t want more delay because of the video, right?
Also, there’s not too we could show you: You’ve seen the working prototype… and that is the last status before the FINAL unit is ready. I know you love videos… and the time between the protoype and the final unit seems endless – but there’s not much we can do except wait for it. Those things do take time and we also have to wait for the boards and cases to be finished.
Heh – you know what’s funny? I read somewhere on the boards that for some time moves so slowly while waiting for the Pandora… it’s the complete opposite for us. Time seems to fly by. Whoops, another week gone.

Let’s wait together, shall we? I know there are some OMAP3 devices coming – but none will be as open and supported for homebrew and Linux as the Pandora is.

Extra thing: A word on the forums. They’re currently undergoing an upgrade to IPBv3, and it just wouldn’t be GP32X if there weren’t a bunch of spanners in the works. Don’t forget you can hit the backup forums at http://forum.openhandhelds.org (check the Off Topic section where WarmFluffyUK is kindly keeping us updated).

DJWillis talks Wifi

Posted by: gruso

UPS might have the limelight this week, but last week’s hot topic (wifi, for the benefit of your goldfish) still deserves some love. Turns out that ain’t all bad either, as DJWillis tells us below. The first quote is taken from the comments in our previous wifi post. The second comes from the associated thread on GP32X.

… we actually have 2 open source options so I’ll give people a little background.

One is the TI WiLink 4 based ‘partial’ driver that was opened as part of the Google Android G1 release.

This driver is unfortunately a mess and really has no place in a modern system (ancient design architecture, lots of semi-bespoke shims, some really nasty bugs etc.).

We can use this driver if you don’t mind setting it up from one clunky user space app that crashes a lot and lacks solid support for things like WEP/WPA etc. – Really this driver is only of use for hardware validation not real use from users. Even after I hacked in Wireless Extensions support (yep, the driver is THAT old) it’s still not a driver I would want to use (sorry but I hate lots of nasty random mem leaks and errors).

The shipping saga: It’s not all bad.

Posted by: gruso

Some clarification from EvilDragon on why the UPS thing is a little baffling. Turns out they’re only jerks half the time.

The first shipment with the parts for 2000 boards went the same way to Dallas without any problems. It’s the second shipment (with the second 2000 parts) that is being held up.

Which really does show some weirdness…

Well, at least it means there shouldn’t really be any delay caused by that. The first 2000 Pandora boards can already be manufactured

Source

Official Blog: At least I’m not dead.

Posted by: gruso

This one’s a day or so old now (forgive us, we love the nightlife). In short, UPS are jerks and Craig would like to hear your thoughts. Hint: “Don’t use UPS” has been mentioned once or twice already.

Things are always a learning curve the first time you try them. Apart from maybe suicide.

Anyway, the point is the last couple of weeks have had delays caused by a most unexpected event – US Taxes and UPS.

See the thing is we ship the parts to the USA, Dallas to be exact, they put them on a PCB and then all that comes back to the UK. But here is the weird part – UPS keeps wanting us to pay taxes on these parts – even though they are to be re-exported soon after. We have tried the recommended routes ‘Temporary export’ and ‘Controlled goods’ but still, randomly, a huge tax bill arrives. It’s frustrating stuff which we are having to try to deal with yet UPS keep moving the goal posts.

Now, here is the community involvement part – does anyone out there know the real way to deal with this? The real rules? As UPS just keep changing the story every time.

So is there anyone out there who can shed some light on how we should be doing this to avoid those taxes? An expert on US customs and taxes maybe? You can answer over on the forum.

Aside from this we are very pleased and happy to have chosen to manufacture in the USA rather than China – I hear, alas, that’s a pretty rare thing these days.

That link again

Official Blog: It has begun, sort of.

Posted by: gruso

An update from EvilDragon on the official blog.

We placed our order for the production run of the first 105 boards today!

Yes, it’s really happening. Production of the boards does take about 4 weeks from now on, around July 24th (they need to be shipped to us), the first REAL boards will arrive. One of it could be yours, as those boards will be used in final units!

On the case side, things are still being worked on, but the to-do list is getting shorter and shorter.

It’s really hard to say how long DaveC still needs to work on this, as he has very little time, but he is barely doing anything else except going to work and working on the case… thanks for that, Dave!

That’s our short snippet for today, I’ll keep you updated when more stuff happens.

Source

Pandora: The clamshell cell from hell?

Posted by: gruso

Here’s an interesting project. Every month or three, the idea of a “Pandora phone” raises its head in the forums. Each time around, the idea attracts responses from “sure, in theory” to “good god man, why?!”  This time around, though, someone’s asking the right question: Why not? That someone is jb0yx, and the project is Pandaphone. He aims to bring full cellphone functionality to Pandora with the help of an external cell modem, offering the following features:

- GPRS/EDGE/3G data connectivity
- Voice based cellular calls
- SMS messaging
- Access to phonebooks stored on SIM card
- BlueTooth connectivity for calls and voice command

It’s all looking more viable than you might think, with a range of off-the-shelf hardware and open source software just waiting to be prodded into compliance. And no, you won’t be expected to hold Pandora against your face like our friend pictured above. Read more and follow progress in the Pandaphone thread.

Where you at?

Posted by: gruso

Got a burning need to know where your fellow Pandorians hang their hats? Of course you do. B-ZaR has answered the call by whipping up a Google map for all and sundry to leave their mark. You don’t have to advertise your home address or anything; a suburb, state, princedom or local jazz hall is more than enough to pinpoint which piece of Pangea you’re floating on. The instructions go like this:

1. Click the map link below
2. Click the Edit button on the left
3. Right-click on your location
4. Add location
5. Add your name/nickname/alias, and a snappy text description if desired

The Pandora People Map | Forum discussion

Oh, forgot to say: A Google account is required if you want to add yourself to the map. If you’re not into the Google thing, hit up the forum link and ask a friendly GP32Xer to help you out.

Official blog: Transmitting more news

EvilDragon has posted some more information about the WiFi situation on the official blog:

Hiya, it’s EvilDragon again.

I got some more fresh news, and those are not about delaying or anything like that.

As you have all read, the only driver problem is WiFi. To put things short (and as they are pretty complicated), here is what was our problem:

There’s a closed-source driver available for the WiFi chip, but we didn’t at all want to use it (hey, we’re OPENPandora, not ClosedPandora). Then we found an OpenSource project for that WiFi chip – we used it and it worked well at the beginning (you might remember some WiFi testing videos).
But that driver was poorly coded – and it did have more and more problems. We can’t even get to work it anymore with the latest Angström image, only with our testing rootfs (which is good, as we do know that the hardware is fine.

Well, DJWillis wanted to take on the WiFi task – and it’s already looking really good. He found another driver which should work way better – and it already compiled with our latest kernel.

So basically, that WiFi issue MIGHT be solved faster than we thought. There’s still a lot of work needed, but this has been a HUGE progress.

I’ll keep you informed.

Source

Space RTS has momentum, still needs more you

Posted by: gruso

These game developer types, I tell you. While we’re patiently waiting for updates on the as-yet-unnamed Space RTS, Keaft and his merry band of resource miners are sitting around playing board games. Which might sound a lot like procrastination, were it not a board game they’d created themselves to help flesh out their Pandora-bound RTS. Between these lounge room sessions and the 3D renders being produced by Kaze0110 (pics above, video after break), the project certainly seems to have kicked it up a notch or two. Now with a sharper focus on project requirements, Keaft is once again putting the call out to y’all:

Now that we are coming to the close of new ideas, we need your help. We have a lot of solid stuff here, but we are going to need people that can program under the administration of dflemstr. We are going to need some artists under the direction of Kaze0110 should he want help. We are going to need an Audio Technician/Composer (used to have one, but his computer died). Any help that the community can contribute will be greatly appreciated and bring us one step closer to an awesome game.

New Space RTS forums have been set up, and you’re invited to sign up and get involved. (That’s probably one place you’ll want to be come beta time, wink wink). Discussion will remain active on GP32X of course, along with the project wiki.