29 replies to this topic

[connorbu]

Will there be any changes after the first 3000 units?

[Mr B]

If needed, of course. Compatibility will be retained, also obvious.
Are you asking if there are any planed changes that will affect devs, or users?
B!

[PoisonedV]

I'm sure there will be. Probably changes in firmware, of course, and maybe any small technical issues in the hardware, faulty designs, who knows?

[mrsnature]

will there be any faults with the first 3000? will there be ways of improving the firmware?

etc

[Nonis]

will there be any faults with the first 3000? will there be ways of improving the firmware?

etc

Theres no way of telling whether or not there will be faults in something before its made, but the firmware will most likely be upgradeable.

[GunPei2X]

The firmware will be easily updatable, no problems there.

There is a slim chance of hardware faults in the first batch, same as any electronics, however the first 100 going out to devs is intended to catch any such faults before mass production starts.

I can't speak for the creators, however I imagine it would be very unlikely that any substantial changes will be made between hardware batches (as in, new features -- but possibly slightly different internal parts based on availability, etc, nothing that you would notice).

[craigix]

We won't go to mass production until these beta units are tested in all ways possible, and even if there was a fault we would replace any effected units.

[MWeston]

The hardware itself is shaping up to be very stable so far. A new board revision is planned for the near future and has a couple bug fixes, numerous clean ups to remove the extra parts I placed for testing, addition of the final wifi module and changes to final connectors and headers (smaller JTAG, different expansion connector, AV connector). Product launch is likely to be delayed for the reason explained below and this gives us even more time to make sure absolutely everything is perfectly functional.

Anyone who has been following the Beagleboard progress will know that the USB phy chip has issues and is likely going to need a new rev in silicon. Any TI customer using the OMAP chip for its built in host capabilities is waiting for a solution because the OMAP uses a non-standard clocking scheme to drive the phy that only one or two companies is trying to support at this time. As usual these parts are covered by NDA for a while so I can't say too much more than is public with the Beagle.

The bad news is more of a delay, the good news is that early adopters (first 3000 and even the next batch of 3000) should feel very confident that their Pandoras work just as well as systems made a year from now since we have more time to test them. Craig has also just pointed out that if it is defective from manufacture, it will be fixed under warranty.

[mrsnature]

will there be any faults with the first 3000? will there be ways of improving the firmware?

etc

Theres no way of telling whether or not there will be faults in something before its made, but the firmware will most likely be upgradeable.

Sorry, i was being sarcastic to highlight the pointlessness of the original post, but i guess I failed!

Oh, and i meant "will we find aspects of the firmware that would benifit from being updated?", not "will there be a method of updating the firmware"

[liquidphantom]

and even if there was a fault we would replace any effected units.

Thats good too know but it does have a British is Best sticker slapped on the bottom right?

[fusion_power]

Anyone who has been following the Beagleboard progress will know that the USB phy chip has issues and is likely going to need a new rev in silicon. Any TI customer using the OMAP chip for its built in host capabilities is waiting for a solution because the OMAP uses a non-standard clocking scheme to drive the phy that only one or two companies is trying to support at this time. As usual these parts are covered by NDA for a while so I can't say too much more than is public with the Beagle.

Sounds like a bigger problem. USB Host is a important feature and I can imagine it needs time to fix it. Maybe a new chip has to be designed to solve this Problem? Can take months to test, produce and ship it, I really hope it is not such a big delay for the Pandora launch. ^^"
Oh, and is there any part of the deeper Pandora Hardware that is not under NDA?

Edited by fusion_power, 27 May 2008 - 02:59 PM.

[craigix]

We hope it won't be too much of a delay too, it's out of our hands.

We will make a blog post about the situation soon.

[Firefox]

Will this delay the dev units going out?

[craigix]

^ yours should be ready any day now.

[Squidge]

Will this delay the dev units going out?

It would be silly to delay dev units just because of this, so no.