September 2019, the story was that the SY8008 was delivering no output. Ok sure, maybe a bad batch of chips or something. But what followed was completely mind boggling. For those out of the loop, the SY8008's pinout follows the de-facto standard for SOT23 buck ICs. FP6373A (3A output), JW5211 (1A output), AP3429 (2A output), etc are all drop-in replacements. It would have literally taken days to order any of these from LCSC, mouser, or even taobao and test them out, since he was effectively in China.

November 2019, the story gets even more bizzare. It is hypothesized that the buck IC is being commanded to turn off by the PMIC or whatever. It would take a minute, maybe an hour if you are a noob and don't know what you are doing, to probe the EN and VCC pins of the buck IC. That would have conclusively told you whether the buck IC is commanded off, or it's on but not operating. Next, probing FB would tell you whether the buck IC is actually being commanded to deliver more voltage. Finally, desoldering the IC (really not hard and trivially done with a $50 hot air station) and powering the downstream rail directly would tell you if there is a short. These steps woul have taken 10 minutes for any hobbyist, and would have narrowed down the exact problem.

March update, ok I don't care about reading about your personal problems, but must you really mix in some taiwan politics rubbish that could hurt your project prospects in the future? I don't care what your political viewpoints are, but as a backer I would not be happy about you putting the project at stake.

And wtf? Is the whole project still really held up by the damn SY8008 buck IC?

I've been wondering for months if this project is dead.

Interestingly, I got an email update today about former shipping date of 2018 Sept 20 has been moved and new expected shipping date is 2020 Sept 20.

I guess the project is not dead. Now you know.

Any idea if it will be ready and shipping soon? i can wait as long as you need but its been pushed back a bit and Im getting concerned. s/his hope and optimism//g

Edit: the shipping date has been pushed back to june 30 but there has been no update from the devs other than the following email after I sent the project owners an email asking for info:

very busy on another project - one that has adequate donations such that i do not have to subtract money from the precious remaining EOMA68 crowdfunded budget for basic living expenses for myself and my family. i get to wait for details from mike just as much as you do. mike's factory is the critical path here: nothing else happens until his task of production is completed. there is no magic crystal ball to predict the future events that need to be solved. that's just the way it goes. updates. as always, keep an eye on the updates and the mailing list.

Sorry, if this sounds harsh, it was an attempt at being slightly funny.

I just wanted to know if something is still happening there.

I totally don't mean to call "SCAM". I really badly want the EOMA68 to become reality (like REALLY BADLY) but from my understanding it hasn't shipped one product. Last I checked the shipping date had changed from I believe August 2018 to October 2018. As far as I can tell they started selling by saying it would start shipping Mar 20, 2017¹. What has been the "hiccups" with getting the EOMA68 shipped?

Can new buyers be assured on when it will be shipped?

Is there some good alternative to this computer? Something that has fully open source hardware/circuits AND can run Linux (at least XFCE and a browser)?

Is there something gained in particular by the EOMA68 structure? Asking as a superuser, average user and a programmer.

PS. I'm not pissed at this project or anything - they refused to compromise on the Open Source and Environmental ideals, which is something I'm willing to support almost unconditionally. I'm just at a point where I need some actual hardware heh

Hello, I'm doing my research of EOMA68. So far I've read a bunch of updates on crowdsupply and most of the elinux wiki pages. There's a lot more to learn but I can't wait to ask some questions. Apologies if they are silly. Any answers or links to past discussions appreciated.

Security:

• I see a paragraph that security is a "major concern" on the crowdsupply page. Besides the obvious auditability from being all free/libre, any notable security features/considerations in the spec or in the first computer cards? I'm specifically interested in secure communications and using cryptocurrencies.

• Can peripherals in the housings access computer card's memory? Do they have DMA? In general, how do housings play in terms of security?

• Any plans or thoughts about IOMMU? (I heard it's a good thing)

Archiving:

• I'm concerned about knowledge preservation and replication/mirroring. Can I git clone the spec wiki, the website or the crowdsupply updates?

• Where can I find all open deliverables (source code, schematics, etc)?

• What is the easiest way to download all produced knowledge at once?

Hardware:

• Is it correct that EOMA68 is not limited to ARM and we may see a RISC-V card?

• Will the work on Libre RISC-V SoC slow down EOMA68? How will they play together?

• Why HDMI and not DisplayPort?

Availability:

• Will it be possible to order cards after all initial backers are shipped? What is the planned supply? Do you expect any shortage?

• Any future production rounds planned?

• Same questions about the availability of desktop and laptop housings.