A promising development from the US of A.
Michael had a looong conference call with the board production company today to discuss about how to proceed and speed up production.
Here is a short summary of the results of the discussion with them and the current plans of both us and the company:
Posted a number of days ago (and shot a number of weeks ago, evidently), Craig gives us a speed run through a day on the floor at assembly HQ. Yep, the entire British console industry in that little room – it’ll either warm your heart or give you a start. Tell us which below, it’ll be fun.
Playing a bit of catchup here! This is the first of two official blog posts that went out over the weekend.
Phew – just answered over 100 eMails to day and did now catch up with my Inbox.
notaz and me also did work some more on HotFix 3, while DJWillis is currently setting up the official Pandora repro (including sourcecodes).
I’m also trying to catch up with infos about what happened in assembly (news you’re all working for).
Craig Rothwell, Michael Weston, Michael Mrozek, M. Fatih KILIC
Back from the weekend, back from hell, same same.
Wow, that were some 1,5 weeks in Newcastle, building Pandoras – and meeting Craig and Fatih again after all these years. And Michael for the first time ever! Okay, and it wasn’t hell – but I liked the sound of it, so I used it as blog title
(BTW: We hid a group picture somewhere…) (not so well hidden now – gruso)We had a lot of work to do. It took as a couple of days to setup everything, check out everything is okay and start building the units.
We all knew it was coming, it was inevitable that someone on the Open Pandora team was going to crack and go insane. It looks like Evil Dragon is the first to openly admit, he lost his mind. Thankfully it didn’t happened until after mass production started.
Though, one could argue the entire team were lunatics right from the beginning, no sane person would willingly subject themselves to what this project has put on them.
EvilDragon on the official blog:
It finally happened!
… I’m slightly maaad!
Well, yes, that’s basically also true… but this time, another thing came true: The Pandora!
Yep, we started assembling and already shipped out some of our babies yesterday! What a relief!Craig, Michael and Fatih are already working together with other folks to build Pandoras, I’ll join them on Monday. I’ll also setup the webcam when I’m there.
Hopefully, it will work, as Craig told me internet connection in that hall is not too reliable, but we’ll see.While this certainly is a big step for us, there’s still a lot of work to be done. We have to try to finish the first batch as soon as possible and also have to manage parts and production for the second batch.
Please bear with us if this could take a while, we’re still humans (no cyborgs) and are working as fast as we can.Thanks to EVERYONE helping us – our devs, our wifes / girlfriends, and – of course – you. The community. Let the fun begin!
Craig has returned home from the airport with the most crucial shipment yet; Canadian superhero Michael Weston. They’re still locked out of the forums in that part of the world for some reason, but between Twitter and the blog comments they’re keeping the news feed ticking.
Right, down to work.
(classic craigix)
Hello from Craig’s place.
We’ve been going through the boxes and making sure it’s all here and it looks good. Everything does look good to go so we can start setting up right away.
(MWeston)
Update:
posting from a mp pandora!
(craigix)
So, Michael Weston is due to land in the UK in around 24hrs. Cause for excitement? Maybe – but that volcano continues to do its spewing thing over yonder, so the situation may still be a little fluid. Murphies and doom aside though, it’s probably a good time to double check that your delivery address is correct. If you have moved house since ordering, or you think getting your Pandora delivered to your workplace is a better idea, tireless GBAX frontwoman Jacquelyn will be happy to help you out. If you do need to change your address, include your order number, original address, and new address in your email.
One last hype injection as Craig hits the hay. He’s currently having problems accessing GP32X, so he’s been sending out tweets instead. Here they are.
I built a MP Pandora and all went well. This should be an interesting week to come
Michael arrives here on Wednesday morning, which means a 4:30am start for me! Arrghh!
Thanks everyone for the kind words, we have done it, now we just have to build them! Wow, this was a tough project.
I know you want photos but I want, well, sleep. I’m planning video tomorrow. Let’s drink to the good times, red wine, going to my head…
Follow the Twitterix *burp*
Following on from Monday’s post about cases in the air, here’s Wednesday’s post about cases on the ground – we think. At this point it appears that they’re currently in the UK, and in the customs processing queue. Here’s how it plays out in soundbite form.
I’m hoping they will be though customs and delivered by friday so I can do some photos and video of everything here.
(craigix, yesterday)
Yep, this is it, building will start next week, probably on Wednesday.
(craigix, yesterday)
EvilDragon tells us that the shipment from China has taken to the skies, and is due to arrive at its UK destination on Wednesday. This shipment should include 1,000 deliciously painted cases, including all buttons, styli and other moulded parts, along with at least 1,000 keymats. Enough other parts (boards, LCDs etc) are reportedly waiting in the UK to build 1,500 complete Pandoras, so when the cases arrive they should have the first 1,000 built before breakfast. Or not. Now we just need to convince MWeston to fly cargo class, so we can get a tracking number. Come on Mike, be a sport.
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