Tadao AKA USB board to be released

Originally Posted by Tadao Technologies

I run into some interesting decisions at times when an out-of-production product suddenly encounters a surge in popularity. Such is the case with the old AKA boards. I think the last time I had a run produced was in 2005. Since that time my own featherlite Viking has sat around begging for attention, so with added pressure from the AKA community, I have gone ahead and redesigned the original board to encompass the USB features of the latest Yazuka series. Due to the marker arrangement no OLED screen will be present, but secure updates and settings changes will still be possible over the USB connection. A side view RGB LED and the mini-B USB socket will be accessible through the data port, as shown below:

I’m still in the early prototype phase, but expect the new boards to be available in early Summer, with a price that falls somewhere between existing Musashi and Yakuza USB boards.

I have been working on a great many projects lately, but finally found a little time to do some minor revisions to all the Yakuza USB board software. As of today, a new revision is available for all the available USB boards. It improves battery consumption while turned on, adds some small performance enhancements, and improves the power down routines, which should make the boards even more reliable than before. Consider it a High Priority Update. All of the new encrypted firmware files are available on the Tengu page and are dated for today (4-12-2009).

There are a few larger firmware updates coming down the line, based mostly on user feedback and requests, including a select fire set-up, which will be user configurable, and multiple shot counter alarms, which allow you to set up custom notifications on the OLED screen based on the shot counter (e.g. an alarm every 500 shots, every 2,000 shots, etc).