open pandora

[Strawp]

Hah! Only just got my pre-order email

Hello everyone, Craig here,

Well, this is it, the Pandora preorder email, I'm sure you have seen a lot of the recent publicity

on the net about the Pandora, it has taken us quite by surprise just how many of you are behind

us on this project - Seeing Ubuntu running really seemed to get the pulse going for some of you!

Right, no messing around for those of you waiting to preorder, you can place your order from here:

http://openpandora.org/worldmap.html

There will only be 3000 Pandoras made in this batch. No more until 2009. First come first served.

Or if you want to go direct to your local area:

Germany: http://www.gp2x.de/shop/index.php/cPath/34

The rest of Europe: http://openpandora.org/retro.html

Turkey & The Middle East: http://www.pandoratr.com/

North and Sound America, Australia, Japan, Korea and elsewhere : http://gbax.com/pandorax.html

Please be patient if sites are slow - try not to keep pressing reload, it will only

make it worse!

You can call GBAX.com on +44 191 243 2253: 10am - 4pm GMT/BST Monday to Friday, we will try

to help you in any way we can.

We have an interesting promotion coming up for individual Pandora owners, more info in the next

newsletter - for now just tell everyone you know about the Pandora!

Webmasters: We are offering a good commission on every Pandora sold.

Sign up: http://gbax.com/afilsignup.html

Latest Pandora news and videos:

We have now sent off the final MK2 PCB for production and we will have some photos

and videos of the first ones around the 12th of October.

As some of you already know we have posted a video with real Pandora sound:

And here is a video of Ubuntu running on the Pandora - we plan to continue development

of the Pandora Ubuntu port:

Some classic videos we have posted in the past which you might want to watch:

Arcade Compilation:

SNES (running too fast!):

Jaguar:

Amiga:

Quake2:

Pandora prototype next to a DS Lite:

Right, that's it for now, we must get back to work, good luck with preordering and we will

be making regular updates for you all as mass production proceeds.

Thanks,

The entire Pandora Team.

PS you can email us on openpandorasales@gmail.com

[The Liberal Elite]

I am looking forward to receiving my handheld computer through the post in November.

[sentient]

All the sites and forums seem to be dead - first they got Dugg and now they've been slashdotted!

Estimates are that it'll be sold out by the end of the day though. Good for them!

[des]

Eek. Just bought one and suddenly thought "what the fuck have I done?".

So they're definitely real then?

[Thread Astaire]

The first thing I'm going to do is load up Sinclair OS.

Then I'm going to program:

10 PRINT "Strawp is skill "

20 GOTO 10

Then I'm going to find homebrew software written for speccies.

Then I'm going to load up chuckie egg and maybe lever off all the keys except Q A O P and Space.

Load ""

You need a RUN in there

[ngchol]

You need a RUN in there

Just having a portable Spectrum complete with keyboard is exciting enough - but a portable Amiga! A proper portable MAME machine!! It's all very exciting

[sentient]

Just having a portable Spectrum complete with keyboard is exciting enough - but a portable Amiga! A proper portable MAME machine!! It's all very exciting

I'm looking forward to fullspeed Snes for the first time on a handheld. Other computers too, like BBC and C64!

[Strawp]

You need a RUN in there

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

[ngchol]

I'm looking forward to fullspeed Snes for the first time on a handheld. Other computers too, like BBC and C64!

Wow, Elite on the BBC B was the definitive version for me.

[Strawp]

SNES Mario Kart!

[Strawp]

I got the preorder email again

[sentient]

I got the preorder email again

Yeah me too, a few people have I think!

Anyway... Yoshi's Island ^_^

(not the crap GBA version)

I might buy myself a Snes to usb converter to go along with my TV-Out.

Possible Scenario One Day

I'm at a friends house playing on the Pandora:

Friend: Wow! Is that Mario Kart!

Me: Yeah.

Friend: I loved that game, I used to play the battle mode for hours on end!. Shame we can't both play it.

Me: Yes we can (I pull out the tv-out cable from my bag)

Friend: Wow! Oh, but it's not the same without the real pads...

Me: Hang on...

(I pull out USB hub, Snes pads with USB adapters)

Friend: Will you have sex with me?

[Strawp]

Yeah me too, a few people have I think!

Anyway... Yoshi's Island

(not the crap GBA version)

I might buy myself a Snes to usb converter to go along with my TV-Out.

Possible Scenario One Day

I'm at a friends house playing on the Pandora:

Friend: Wow! Is that Mario Kart!

Me: Yeah.

Friend: I loved that game, I used to play the battle mode for hours on end!. Shame we can't both play it.

Me: Yes we can (I pull out the tv-out cable from my bag)

Friend: Wow! Oh, but it's not the same without the real pads...

Me: Hang on...

(I pull out USB hub, Snes pads with USB adapters)

Friend: Will you have sex with me?

OMG, you can do that?!

[sentient]

As far as I can tell, the only disadvantage so far with the Pandora is no HD output. I think it only supports composite and S-Video, and VGA over USB will work but at very slow frame rates for games.

The amount of geeky stuff possible is incredible. For example bluetooth controllers like Wii and PS3 (drivers already exist) and remote controls. How about internet browsing in Firefox 3 using a usb 3G module? (linux drivers exist!)

So technically possible: Playing multiplayer Snes sitting on your toilet over the internet. Woo!

[The Liberal Elite]

The one thing about this linux - don't any drivers or whatevr have to be specific to the chip being used? Presumably, ARM isn't the same as all those versions of linux using intel, so it's not relaly a case of having loads of things to play with until they've ported it over to armlinux? or is it the kernal that's the bit that needs porting?

[bm]

I've paid 200-odd quid for this now, so I don't want to hear bad things about it. I can't wait. Although having to use Linux scares me.

[sentient]

I've paid 200-odd quid for this now, so I don't want to hear bad things about it. I can't wait. Although having to use Linux scares me.

Well the drivers can be ported, that's basically half the point of open source software.

Edit: Apparently i've just found out lots drivers are either part of the kernel or modules, and come with the ARM port.

Apparently it gets complicated though for some stuff which may need to be ported from intel assembler.

Some drivers are closed source, for example for some graphics cards. The Pandora GPU driver is closed sourced, but that doesn't really affect anybody using it (and open source drivers can be developed anyway, which is what's happened with Linux for years as manufacturers often don't supply them anyway).

Don't worry if you can't do Linux! The full blown desktop experience is optional, the default environment being developed is no more complicated than using a PSP. Installation of games and apps is much simpler too, being zip based, but they're working on a standard to ensure that the system is updated auotmatically (think of Add/Remove applications in Windows).

ARM Linux already has loads of software already ported but it will need to be tweaked and adjusted slightly for a Pandora release but that is appparently a trivial task in most cases. There are other ARM linux devices out there already, which means less work has to be done with getting software sorted out - eg. The Nokia web tablets (the newest one uses an almost identical chipset save for the PowerVR 3d accelerator) and the Beagleboard which is another similar open source project based on the same chipset (but with a cheaper 3d accelrator I think).

The Beagleboard was the first device on this chipset to demonstrate Linux apps and a full Distro (eg. Ubuntu). It has the advantage of HDMI output which it chooses over an LCD display interface.

[Strawp]

The one thing about this linux - don't any drivers or whatevr have to be specific to the chip being used? Presumably, ARM isn't the same as all those versions of linux using intel, so it's not relaly a case of having loads of things to play with until they've ported it over to armlinux? or is it the kernal that's the bit that needs porting?

It's not really a worry. As sentient said, this isn't the first ARM Linux project (I think you'd be hard pushed to find hardware that hasn't had a port of Linux made for it) and I think your main concern is that software needs to be re-written specifically for this hardware which, again I don't think is an issue as you're not writing for a specific bit of hardware, you're writing for part of the hardware/software stack you're interested in.

e.g. Quake doesn't care about the graphics chip, it's just going to talk to OpenGL just like it would if it was on a PC. It's the lovely barrier-free world that happens when you publish your source code.

Open Source for the mother-fucking win, basically.

[Strawp]

I wonder what Linux distro I'll attempt to boot this into or if it'll even be necessary. Ubuntu Netbook Remix probably.

I might get a kick out of just booting straight into the shell and doing everything via the command line. GNU Screen, ssh and links is all I need

[sentient]

I wonder what Linux distro I'll attempt to boot this into or if it'll even be necessary. Ubuntu Netbook Remix probably.

I might get a kick out of just booting straight into the shell and doing everything via the command line. GNU Screen, ssh and links is all I need

You need to teach me your Linux command-line skills. I tried learning it years ago, but got slightly lost!

I remember this: LS = DIR (in Dos)

[Strawp]

I wouldn't know about how to teach someone CLI stuff.

I still constantly use the command line because I grew up on DOS (and Sinclair OS) and even when Windows came out (or even the dos directory tree pseudo-GUI) my dad wouldn't let me boot into it until I proved I could manage at the prompt I just wanted to get games to run. Terrible monochrome PC games.

I only really discovered *nix when I went to Uni 10 years ago.

I don't think I've even run an OS without a command window open with the other stuff. It's pretty much for this reason Mac OS is now suddenly ace when before I wouldn't touch it with a stinky pole.

It always confuses me when people say if you don't know CLI you're screwed under linux because you have to drop back to it when you can't get want you want from the GUI. I'm the other way. I tend to do stuff on the command line and then use a GUI if I get stuck. I don't think you need to know the command line these days. You're just totally hax if you can

[sentient]

Yeah well I was actually a pretty poor kid and used a (donated) 286 up until 1999 when I could get a good job and buy something better.

It had windows 3.1 but I mostly used Dos, so i'm pretty handy with CLI. The only problem I have with the Linux CLI is all the advanced operations it can do (that I don't understand).

[Paulando]

Aye, shame the TV out is only S-Video- a mini-DVI output would have been nice, but would have also bumped up the cost quite considerably I imagine

I heard something about PS1 emulation too, and that it was pretty much full speed already. I know we can do it on the PSP, but let's face it, the PSP's screen is absolutely shite, and SDHC cards arefar cheaper than their Pro Duo equivalents.

[sentient]

Aye, shame the TV out is only S-Video- a mini-DVI output would have been nice, but would have also bumped up the cost quite considerably I imagine

I heard something about PS1 emulation too, and that it was pretty much full speed already. I know we can do it on the PSP, but let's face it, the PSP's screen is absolutely shite, and SDHC cards arefar cheaper than their Pro Duo equivalents.

These are really early video's. It was more than fullspeed running completely on software render and with no optimisation!

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query...mp;search_type=

Apparently the snes emulator runs at fullspeed (x6)

Yes, six times fullspeed!

[Paulando]

Wow, that's impressive. What next though- Dreamcast emulation...?

[feel the madness]

SNES emulator running at 6x? SERIOUSLY?

I bought a GP2X mainly to play snes games, only to find it couldnt handle most of them.

If this thing lets me play starfox, mario kart and stunt race fx perfectly, it would certainly be £200 well spent.

PS. from the official site - 2000 preorder is six hours despite all us eager ones almost destroying their servers.

plus they're looking to make an extra 1000 due to demand!

[Strawp]

That's great news! I really hope this takes off like the EEE.

Sentient, bear in mind that DOS was based largely on UNIX, which is what Linux (and pretty much everything else except Windows) is based on now. A lot of the commands will be the same, like "cd", "mkdir" etc but yes, a shell like bash is way more powerful than DOS and its descendants. It's actually friendlier as well. If you suspect there's a command to do something but don't know what it is e.g.:

Do I have an IRC client I don't know about on here

"man -k irc"

returns a list of any apps that have "irc" in their name or description.

If you don't know how to use a command you just do:

man <command>

which gives you a big load of documentation (which was never in DOS) or for short help you can usually get it through <command> --help

and remember that absolutely everything in linux is a file.

[Jbone]

Wow, that's impressive. What next though- Dreamcast emulation...?

nullDC's really impressive on the PC, so... who knows?

I really want to get involved with one of these, but funds are limited right now. Still, at least you early adopters will have worked out all the kinks by the time they get a general release.

Every cloud, etc.

[gingerling]

Wow, that's impressive. What next though- Dreamcast emulation...?

If they emulate the Dreamcast I'll buy one!

[stefcha]

I might buy myself a Snes to usb converter to go along with my TV-Out.

From where? It's something I struggled to find in stock when I was looking round the other month, same now after a brief check.