Dummy regulators, dummy regulators everywhere! You guys need help with your devicetree at all?
I have (some limited) experience writing drivers now for DSI screens too. You went with a 4 lane DSI panel? Do you know which one/have the datasheet for that too?
Also, you went with a 128MB SPI flash chip? Awesome, but overkill maybe. I see that it has some OTP sections which could be cool for burning in a signing certificate to create a chain of trust.
Hi Guyās,
is it my imagination or it the screen proud of the case?
keep up the good work!
Ben
Yes. Our latest newsletter update just went out and the same update was posted to our blog here:
@macromorgan We changed the SPI Flash from a NAND chip to a NOR chip at a lesser capacity. In our tests, the SoC can not boot from SPI NAND but can boot from an SPI NOR. Please send us an email at sales@source.parts to discuss potentially working together on some embedded development.
Which NOR did you end up going with? Just curious.
Glad you went with a NOR it could boot from instead of a NAND it couldnātā¦ that would have been pointless. 
Also Iām not confident in my skills enough yet to be of any formal assistance to you, but if you have hardware ready to ship before the software is done (Iām already in for a purchase of one as well as the original popcorn) I wouldnāt say no to helping you work some of the bugs out.
the updates seem to be as dead as the screenā¦
We will be sending out the next update within the next few days. Most recently, we have performed a battery of tests to measure the efficiency of the two antennas in Pocket P.C. The LoRa antenna is not performing to expectation. We selected a different type of antenna for the next production run. Since we have one PCB for both versions, we could not proceed with production until this issue was resolved. We will share more detail soon in our next update.
more delaysā¦.
This wonāt be the last delay for sure! We gave our money to a small group of people to basically build a fully functioning computerā¦ there are way more disciplines to that than Popcorn Computer has personnel. I can only guess that outsourcing it all would make the costs rise astronomical so a bit off trail and error needs to happen.
even Apple tells you you need to hold your phone in a certain way because they botched the antenna design.
the Pine phone was sent out with a faulty USB alt mode.
the Librem 5ā¦ yeah I backed that to and still hopeful they will sort the software to match the hardware.
the more they test and the more they catch the happier Iāll be, itās a marathon but with a bit more frequent updates the journey can be more pleasantā¦
Any updates on the original Popcorn?
If you have some pre-production versions of that Iād be more than happy to help you get it integrated with a PocketCHIP?
Original Popcorn updates will be posted in this dedicated thread here:
@macromorgan Feel free to send me an email at jose@source.parts and I will get a pre-production version Original Popcorn or two in your hands.
Our latest Pocket P.C. newsletter update was sent out this past Sunday.
You can read our latest update on our blog here: Making a Custom Pocket P.C. LoRa Antenna - Popcorn Computer
how are things proceeding?
any more insights or updates available ?
Well, if we donāt get regular updates letās play the guessing gameā¦
Parts are difficult to find and 2 items needed to be replaced,
The factory had a delay and the production was shifted back,
It would appear that it is more difficult than expected to get the display working,
Anyone else got a nice addition to the list of challenges for the maybe 1 1/2 month irregular update mailing?
What i can add is that a new batch of dev units was expected around the 14 of this month. I can assume work for the lcd driver has resumed, as long as there werenāt any unforseen issues arrising from that batch. and once that is complete a few will be distributed to some other devs to get a selection of o.s.'s ported before launch day. It seems things right now are waiting on the driver dev team. Iāve been watching the github repos closely, and havent seen any updates pushed in a few weeks, so it would seem thatās what the team is waiting on before publishing a new update on the blog.
Hello!
We will be sending an update by tomorrow or the day after the latest. This monthās update will be sent later than I had initially hoped. I personally had a death in the family as well as a birth this past month.
We are also planning the launch of our software tools early next month so Iāve been working hard on getting everything to a state where it will be not only easy to use but also useful for a wide range of hobbyists and engineers.
We also made progress on improving the custom LoRa antenna efficiency which I will go into further detail in the next update.
@Idle is also right in that we were expecting a new batch of dev units but we delayed the production of those until we heard back from our antenna vendor. Weāre lucky we did because they came back suggesting we change the position of the pogo-pin that connects the PCB to the antenna. We would of had to create another batch of units specifically for wireless certifications which would have added a significant delay.
I promise more updates as we get closer to mass production and I apologize for the delay in sending out the latest update.
Iāll be the first to admit release day has ended up later than most of us anticipated, but there are a lot of quality of life changes being made in each phase of design that warm my heart. It shows that this project is a work of passion. Not long ago the devs posted that due to the design the keyboard wouldnt be usable while serial debugging over usb. That would be in my mind a fairly mild inconvience but in the last update they informed us that an additional interface was added from the soc to specifically to prevent this. It seems that every step of the way they ask themselves how exactly they would want things to be on the finished product and then they donāt shy away from all the additional time, money, and effort it costs them to make it so. It has been great fun watching this project grow from a few sketches and renders to the point now where all the fine tuning is taking place. As a side note - since the antenna will be connected by pogo pins pressing against the inside of the enclosure, it should be trivial to modify your case with some contact pads in place of the built-in antenna in order to wire up any imaginable antenna connector to the outside that you wish, and iād be happy to make a tutorial for just that if there seems to be demand for it.
