Hello everyone, Craig here,

Seems to be a little frustration that things are quiet and thus something must be going wrong somewhere.

There isn't anything wrong, we are working onwards, it's just the time of year means we have to wait on companies reopening and most don't until after the new year.

Alas we were unable to get the new FDM case made up in time (although the keypad did arrive in time after all!).

Anyway we should have the new case just after the new year and we are going to do some CNC ones too (the Wiz cases are CNC, which is why they look nicer, it's just a lot more expensive).

So together with the keypad we can assemble a Pandora with the new redesigned more round case, Michael may well post a complete unit using the older case before then just for fun.

The LCDs and batteries are due to arrive in January (finally!) so things can move a bit faster now, assuming everything DOES arrive, I'm a little reluctant to believe companies estimations now as every time we promise a date we are let down and we end up looking bad.

On the software side, as you know, it's going well, the OS is shaping up to be revolutionary for such a small device and it's getting a lot of attention from places outside this forum - we are enjoying reading your feedback on it.

Another thing which has been on my mind, and which I've not seen asked anywhere during this project, is 'why has something like the Pandora not been made before with the same layout?' this is sort of to answer people who can't believe it's taken us so long and wonder why we can't just whack it all together and release it already, I mean it does look simple.

But making something like this is far far more difficult than you might imagine and astonishingly expensive in some areas. When you open up a laptop or a mobile phone it looks so neat and easy in there, but consider it was probably dozens of people working for a couple of years to get to that result.

The design and the whole process has proved to be so complex and difficult to fit in that little box and had we known back when we started this project just what would be involved we might have been a little more reserved - but it's done now and things will be all the better for it, I hope we have raised the bar - especially in the controls area, please try to be understanding to the team when it looks like we have taken a month to solve a simple issue. Trial and error can be a right - lengthy- pain in the arse sometimes.

And on that note, the Nubs are due to arrive in January too - all 8000, I'm not even sure if I have previously mentioned that the first batch were faulty (no fault of ours, the PCB manufacturer drilled the holes incorrectly).

Some of you will start to get emails for reordering via credit/debit card this/next month, as I've said previously we will probably do it slowly and carefully to avoid a rush and trouble like last time - I'd still like to encourage as many of you as possible to consider a bank transfer to help the project right now. I'll post about how well xoom and xe.com test transfers went.

Urgh, bad memories... and I'm rambling on, but Pandora prevails.

We will probably have a nice post in January about the first MP production boards and cases.

-Craig

PS would you believe me and DaveC started a little idea for a new console (possibly at the time a reboxed gp2x) which went on to become the Pandora project almost 3 years ago - 3 years! I'm putting a little video together showing the evolution of the project - just need that video/photo of the final unit first.

OK OK, time for me to be quiet, thanks for the continuing support always, enjoy new year