Hi all, I did send a request to the first lucky receivers to check/update the shipment address if necessary, but so far I only got feedback of 3 out of 8 persons.
Two of them said they do not need it immediately and if others more urgently need the GTA04A5 they would even step back. On the other hand I got e-mails from some of you who urgently wait. Therefore, I think we should do shipment not strictly by "first ordered first shipped" but more "demand" based. So please go to the goldelico shop and check your order, and even if everything is ok, please add a short note so that I know that the e-mail address is ok. Or write down any updates. And if you can rate, please say how urgently you need your GTA04A5 / Letux 2804 device. Then I at least know that the e-mail is still ok. Otherwise I have to send out letters to the postal address (which may also be no longer valid for some of you). BR and thanks, Nikolaus > Am 25.03.2017 um 19:49 schrieb H. Nikolaus Schaller <h...@goldelico.com>: > > Hi, > this time I have some tiny pieces of good news... > > 1. The first 8 GTA04A5 boards are finished (foto) and finally ready > to be shipped. It did take much longer to fix add all the little > bits and pieces until everything is in place. > > One thing was to have the NAND image finished and tested. > It should at least reliably boot with and without µSD installed, > it should load the correct device tree blob and finally the > kernel should be able to mount the NAND as rootfs. > > And the rootfs in NAND should at least be some demo when booted. > Please do not expect too much from the NAND rootfs. It is not deeply > tested and configured. Don't expect a fully polished phone GUI... > > But we as a community can contribute to improve this GUI if the > basics of the device are working. E.g. by a new Replicant 4.2 > image or making Replicant 6 bootable. > > Another thing was to make the stickers which indicate serial > number, IMEI, WLAN-MAC address etc. This meant booting and reading > out this information from each board and store it in a database. > And then really print the stickers and put them inside and on the > boxes. > > So the next step I will do is to contact the first lucky 8 who have > preordered. To check if their address, contact data etc. is still ok. > > Then I can really ship... > > 3 more GTA04A5 are on the testbench and 3 older GTA04A4 - but the latter > have minor issues. One has USB charging but no USB data. One does > boot but the kernel hangs. And the third one is almost fine except > that the WiFi/Bluetooth chip seems to be broken. > > 2. Regarding the remaining boards which need some repair, everything > is still stuck in the chewy negotiations about the production > failures. It is not yet completely agreed how much we have to > pay for not produced devices or how much we get back. Therefore, > I do not get the excess components for repair and also no help by > their machines (some repair steps are easier to do on their rework > place than my own). > > So repairs are still blocked. > > 3. I have developed a new idea giving some small piece of hope to reduce > the total loss of money and still get enough devices. The idea is that > if we assume the claim that the production problem is because of > the components we have provided, we just throw those away. And ask > production to buy new replacements which exactly match. Especially > for the OpenPandora type of memory chip. This should solve the > production problem and it should run at the same yield as the > OpenPandora production. > > This would have one visible effect on the GTA04A5: we would no longer > have 1GB RAM and 512MB NAND but 512MB RAM and 1GB NAND. This is > not really nice since 1GB is a major feature, but we must do it > the same way as the OpenPandora to get to the high production yield. > > On the u-boot/kernel side this raises no problems, since we already > have multiple variants and some things like memory size are determined > automatically. So it is only visible in user-space RAM+NAND capacity. > > I do not yet have any feedback on this proposal, so it might > be declined. But if it works out, the total financial loss can be > reduced very significantly. And all preorders could be easily > fulfilled, leaving even some more devices for newly interested > community members. > > One snag must also be mentioned: I have no idea about the timing > of this approach. It might need several months to get the > components... Which was the reason to buy them ourselves in > advance. > > > So there is good news about shipping the first boards. And let's say, > some atoms of hope that we can rescue the full project. > > BR, > Nikolaus > > <DSC00690.jpeg> > > <DSC00691.jpeg> > > _______________________________________________ > Gta04-owner mailing list > gta04-ow...@goldelico.com > http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/gta04-owner _______________________________________________ Community mailing list Community@tinkerphones.org http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/community http://www.tinkerphones.org
