PDA

View Full Version : Pandora: the UMPC/Games Console in one



Mazza558
August 12th, 2008, 11:16 AM
I wants it!

http://www.openpandora.org/

http://www.gp32x.de/pandorasneak.jpg

It's essentially a (angstrom)linux-powered, ARM handheld UMPC/Games Console which is slightly bigger than a DS. It has the power to play Quake 3 at above 60 FPS and is certainly more powerful than the PSP and DS combined. It has Wifi and Bluetooth for net access, and will probably have its own repository for applications. It may not looks gorgeous, but just imagine what you could do this thing! Portable Tux Racer! You could even plug in a mouse and use it as a (tiny) laptop!

The specs are on the page, but I'll post them here anyway:


* ARM® Cortex™-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
* 430-MHz TMS320C64x+™ DSP Core
* 256MB of RAM
* PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
* 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
* Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
* Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
* Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
* 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
* Around 10+ Hours battery life


It's rumored to be out in September at £199 ($330), and there'll be around 3000 units in the first batch.

Here's a big render of what it'll look like:

http://www.openpandora.org/bigone.jpg

(Disclaimer - I don't work for the people behind this, but it's possibly the best gadget ever :))

Mazza558
August 12th, 2008, 10:49 PM
I can't get over the potential this thing has... I might never need to take my laptop with me again.

Xzallion
August 12th, 2008, 11:55 PM
The low resolution of the screen kills its potential for me (as a laptop). Its only 800x 480, and that would annoy me trying to read my news sites.

I also doubt the 10 hour battery life, but it looks like a neat toy.

lumix700i
August 13th, 2008, 12:04 AM
As we all know, in the gaming world, it's not the hardware that make the success story, it's the game itself. We can see it in the console battle with nintendo Wii as the winner. Unless this machine can play psp or nds game, it wont last long as a gaming device (remember SEGA Dreamcast ???)

bsharp
August 13th, 2008, 12:09 AM
Personally, I don't like the design, but the idea of an UMPC is awsome to me. My only greviance with them is the small screen size/resolution. As soon as someone (Asus might already have me on the new 10" eeepc) makes a bigger screen size on one of those babies I'll get it.

Steveway
August 13th, 2008, 12:16 AM
The low resolution of the screen kills its potential for me (as a laptop). Its only 800x 480, and that would annoy me trying to read my news sites.

I also doubt the 10 hour battery life, but it looks like a neat toy.

On the tests they got about 8.5 hours without any powersaving features (CPU always ran at fullspeed) while playing games. So 10 hours are pretty likely.

Zeotronic
August 13th, 2008, 12:34 AM
Hoho! Somebody noticed the Pandora without me mentioning it! Last I knew, it wasn't debian powered, they we're just considering it. I (and my close friends) also cant get over the potential of the device. As far as I'm concerned it's a good many times more capable than a laptop just because of it's size and capabilities (relative to it's size, of course). The inclusion of the d-pad, button-pad, ect, are all very appealing to me. When their released, I have some rather... 'exotic' plans for increasing it's functionality further... though my plans probably wouldn't appeal to anyone besides myself. (their rather 'out there')

Unless this machine can play psp or nds game, it wont last long as a gaming device (remember SEGA Dreamcast ???)
Perhaps if it were competing (which it's not) though I've been keeping an eye on the device, I don't know much about it's developing 'organization' other than the fact that it spawned from the GP2X community, so I have no idea what the cost is to keep the project afloat... all they'll have to do is last longer than Game Park Holdings did and I'll be impressed (being that GPH wasn't a very user friendly company, it shouldn't be too hard). Besides that, it will support emulation inevitably, considering it's Open Source nature... so the question is perhaps, can the Nintendo DS/PSP compete with all the old systems prior to (and including a few after) the N64? It wouln't get much media attention, so the answer is yes... but if it could?..

init1
August 13th, 2008, 12:46 AM
Interesting concept. Looks like it kills two birds with one stone.

MaxIBoy
August 13th, 2008, 01:49 AM
As we all know, in the gaming world, it's not the hardware that make the success story, it's the game itself. We can see it in the console battle with nintendo Wii as the winner. Unless this machine can play psp or nds game, it wont last long as a gaming device (remember SEGA Dreamcast ???)

There are plenty of Linux games out there, and plenty more that run well under WINE. Obviously, it won't run Win32 games as fast as Linux games, but they'll be almost as fast. AND it'll be usable for web browsing, sorta.

init1
August 13th, 2008, 01:53 AM
There are plenty of Linux games out there, and plenty more that run well under WINE. Obviously, it won't run Win32 games as fast as Linux games, but they'll be almost as fast. AND it'll be usable for web browsing, sorta.
It will also be good for emulating other consoles such as the N64.

starcannon
August 13th, 2008, 02:11 AM
I want one.

grossaffe
August 13th, 2008, 02:38 AM
wake me up when it actually comes out.

Mazza558
August 13th, 2008, 09:54 AM
wake me up when it actually comes out.

Next month then?

As for it staying afloat, there's a 14,000-strong community of people who want one. This should be enough to make a profit (as a profit is made on each sold).

zmjjmz
August 13th, 2008, 10:04 AM
The advantages:
Mobile Grid Wars 2, Mobile Open Arena, Mobile mupen64+, Mobile FlightGear, Mobile GL-117, Mobile ManiaDrive, etc.
It will have games to compete with the NDS and the PSP, not to mention emulation of N64, NGB*, and NDS games.

Methuselah
August 13th, 2008, 11:48 AM
I've been watching this for the past few weeks.
The sheer coolness of the hardware sold me.
I'll figure out what to do with it after I get one. :)

Mazza558
August 13th, 2008, 12:47 PM
I'll figure out what to do with it after I get one. :)

Exactly the same for me. I just like the potential things I could do.

bigyoy
August 13th, 2008, 01:12 PM
Next month then?

As for it staying afloat, there's a 14,000-strong community of people who want one. This should be enough to make a profit (as a profit is made on each sold).

Wow I wouldn't have thought 14,000 people would go for this!

Will it ever go mainstream enough? Probably not which will be sad but I can't wait to see what this produces.

GeneralZod
August 13th, 2008, 01:27 PM
Bought the GP2X; loved it.

This looks to be even better, and fulfils practically all of the wishes I had for the GP2X: touchscreen, keyboard, wireless, decent-sized screen, etc. A tiny handheld computer that is also optimised (control and internal hardware-wise) for gaming and media playback? Sign me up! :)

hessiess
August 13th, 2008, 01:43 PM
There are plenty of Linux games out there, and plenty more that run well under WINE. Obviously, it won't run Win32 games as fast as Linux games, but they'll be almost as fast. AND it'll be usable for web browsing, sorta.

Pandora WILL NOT run wine, as its dependent on X86, Pandora is arm

The Pandora, like the GP2X is primely targeted at a emulation and home brew, NOT commercial games.


The advantages:
Mobile Grid Wars 2, Mobile Open Arena, Mobile mupen64+, Mobile FlightGear, Mobile GL-117, Mobile ManiaDrive, etc.
It will have games to compete with the NDS and the PSP, not to mention emulation of N64, NGB*, and NDS games.

mupen64 plus dynamically recompiles into X86, wont work on ARM. the interpreted cpu,s would be too slow. I believe the n64 emu is being ported from a PSP n64 emu. DS emulation MAY happen sometime later in the consoles life, currently there are no good open source DS emus for the PC. so one would have to be started from scratch.

note that i am in no way involved with the development of the console, this post is besed entialy on posts on the Pandora forum.

Mazza558
August 13th, 2008, 03:20 PM
Wow I wouldn't have thought 14,000 people would go for this!

Will it ever go mainstream enough? Probably not which will be sad but I can't wait to see what this produces.

Word-of-mouth will get these selling like hotcakes. As soon as people see what you're doing /using on it, they'll naturally become curious. If you're browsing the web whilst on a plane/train for instance, people will be impressed. Tell them the UK price (£199) and this seals the deal. £199 is an absolute bargain for what this thing can do - if it was a US company, the UK price would be inflated to be 1.5-2x the US equivalent.

Zeotronic
August 13th, 2008, 06:18 PM
Ok, time to point out (to my knowledge) flawed conversation.

Wow I wouldn't have thought 14,000 people would go for this!
Well its assumable that the entire GP2X community... who could scrounge together the money, would buy one. And if you look at the most downloaded program for the GP2X, and factor in re-downloads, you can get an idea of how many people that is. I don't think it's 14,000, but I have little doubt that the initial release of... what was it(?)... 3,000 Pandoras? I have little doubt they'll sell.

Next month then?
Are they coming out next month? Last I knew the developers' release was set for this month (at what? 100 systems?)... last I had checked I couldn't find a set release for the system itself.

The Pandora, like the GP2X is primely targeted at a emulation and home brew, NOT commercial games.
To my knowledge, Game Park Holdings had been hopeful that companies would catch on and make their products for the system... few actually did of course (and very little that was probably worth buying). I haven't heard anything about the Pandora people's view of commercial 3rd party developers.

£199 is an absolute bargain for what this thing can do - if it was a US company, the UK price would be inflated to be 1.5-2x the US equivalent.
Are they UK? I had thought they were US... as to whether or not their a company, or their self-identification, I haven't been able to figure that out yet. The best I can do when referring to them is to call them the 'Pandora people'... unless I want to actually refer to the individual developers themselves...

finding_my_zen
August 23rd, 2008, 06:42 PM
The pre-order date is September 1st and they'll ship November 13th. You can see the little beauty in -this- (http://www.chip.de/c1_videos/Games-Convent...o_32573723.html) video. (It's in germen just skip to three minutes in). There are no official photos or videos yet, but if you browse around the forum (here (http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=43555)) you can see some amateur shots. There's also another video (Though it's not in the case) -here- (http://www.gp2x.de/video/720p.avi)

The projects coming along pretty nicely :)

Mazza558
August 24th, 2008, 04:32 PM
The pre-order date is September 1st and they'll ship November 13th. You can see the little beauty in -this- (http://www.chip.de/c1_videos/Games-Convent...o_32573723.html) video. (It's in germen just skip to three minutes in). There are no official photos or videos yet, but if you browse around the forum (here (http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=43555)) you can see some amateur shots. There's also another video (Though it's not in the case) -here- (http://www.gp2x.de/video/720p.avi)

The projects coming along pretty nicely :)

Yup, saw these earlier today. This thing is going to be incredible with the right software/support.

Mazza558
September 11th, 2008, 07:48 PM
Turns out the preorder's not until the end of the month. However, there's a very interesting new interview around:

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Various/Pandora/news.asp?c=8667


So how powerful will the Pandora be?

It is, without doubt, the most powerful portable games system ever and at the time of writing the most powerful mini computer, too. It has openGL 2.0 3D hardware, a 600-900Mhz CPU, media coprocessors, an 800x480 LCD and 128MB of RAM. The killer app with the hardware is that it is using an ARM Cortex A8 CPU, meaning astonishing battery life – over ten hours – which blows away similar mini PCs based on the old x86 chipsets. You will be able to play games like Quake III with ease and at the cutting edge even Doom III (if the engine goes open source soon, of course).

That's incredible.


People on the forums are already talking about using bluetooth headphones for listening to music on the go. That's a very, very cool idea.

Dragonbite
September 11th, 2008, 08:02 PM
Looks pretty cool, can't wait to hear the review of one!

Wonder how long before people start putting Ubuntu/Fedora/distro-flavor-of-choice on it?!

zmjjmz
September 11th, 2008, 08:25 PM
Want Want Want Want.

cb951303
September 11th, 2008, 08:33 PM
on the battery issue: I think it uses a lithium polymer battery which is superior to lithium ions (end more expensive too) so I believe 10 hours is likely

Mazza558
September 11th, 2008, 10:29 PM
Looks pretty cool, can't wait to hear the review of one!

Wonder how long before people start putting Ubuntu/Fedora/distro-flavor-of-choice on it?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9cWOK1spw

There's Ubuntu running on the same processor. :)

Dragonbite
September 12th, 2008, 02:10 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9cWOK1spw

There's Ubuntu running on the same processor. :)

Wow. That was fast.

Oh, same processor, then that means it will house Ubuntu pretty quickly.

Mazza558
September 12th, 2008, 08:09 AM
Wow. That was fast.

Oh, same processor, then that means it will house Ubuntu pretty quickly.

Well, it only has 128mb of RAM so it's going to be quite tight. Maybe the netbook version...

matthekc
September 12th, 2008, 01:35 PM
I might wait for a hardware revision but I've been keeping an eye on this. Last I heard it may or may not do N64 but if it did I Love Mario kart and might be sold. I wish I could find my Mario Kart cartridge so I could emu legally.

Dragonbite
September 12th, 2008, 01:58 PM
What about the Ubuntu MID Edition? I'm not sure what it is but I think it is for low-powered embedded systems.

It would probably be a very customized and trimmed down Ubuntu for 128 mb of ram. I mean, it can run on that but run at the speeds that people are used to these days?

This year I finally dumped my PIII 500Mhz Sony Viao deskop with 256MB of RAM but when I first installed Edubuntu (desktop, not server) on it the system has 128MB of Ram .

Also this year I fooled around with a laptop somebody gave me which was a Pentium I w/MMX technology running at 233MHz and maxed out at 128MB of Ram. I got Fluxbuntu running on that pretty well, though slow. TinyMe (from the people who make PCLinuxOS) worked the best. I actually got SuSE 9.1 installed on that system before I got my current (more modern) laptop.

So I can see a pared-down Ubuntu installed and running great on a system like this.

Mazza558
September 19th, 2008, 11:10 PM
Some kind forum member has posted a perfect net of the pandora if anyone wanted to see how big it is in reality.

If you're super-skilled, it'll look something like this:

http://www.cosam.org/pandora/mockup.jpg

http://www.cosam.org/pandora/mockup.pdf

After creating the mockup, I realised how well the gaming controls work. I have quite large hands and it still feels comfortable based on button placement. The keyboard feels quite large too.

the_darkside_986
September 30th, 2008, 02:21 AM
This device sounds amazing. It's great that they decided to use ARM instead of the power-wasting, ugly x86 cpu's, so the 10 hour battery life is believable. (And maybe even more so if the CPU is underclocked to run less demanding emulators.) I personally would not wish to sacrifice battery life just to run Win32 applications, I'd just get a notebook for that, but battery life (or lack of it) is why I don't really like notebooks.

I have tried to get into PSP homebrew development but I can't stick with it because of the awkward API, the difficulty of dealing with PSPGU, inability to get the free D programming language compiler (gdc) to work 100% correctly, the flood of Lua noobs (as opposed to skilled Lua developers I mean), lack of keyboard and touchscreen, not enough RAM, etc. I have a NDS but I don't have many interesting games for it and I haven't even considered homebrew development for it.

This is the type of UMPC I have been wishing and waiting for, one that has both keyboard and joypad, OpenGL, runs Linux (as opposed to non-free platforms such as Windows XP), avoids X86, etc. I hope that it will be able to run DOS emulators and even DOS games such as Elder Scrolls I and II.

RedPandaFox
September 30th, 2008, 04:12 AM
As we all know, in the gaming world, it's not the hardware that make the success story, it's the game itself. We can see it in the console battle with nintendo Wii as the winner. Unless this machine can play psp or nds game, it wont last long as a gaming device (remember SEGA Dreamcast ???)

Ok, hold up there, They still make new games for dream cast. DONT EVER DISRESPECT THE DREAMCAST!

I like the idea of the Pandora, but I dont know if it has the kind of games I want

matthekc
September 30th, 2008, 04:24 AM
I was just thinking of this... I was looking to see when the second run was coming and I started thinking I wonder if a cellphone company could eventually base a phone off it. It would kick openmoko to the curb.

Abras
September 30th, 2008, 06:01 AM
Someone managed to get Ubuntu running (http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/29/ubuntu-up-and-running-on-pandora/) on a development model. No surprises there, but I have my doubts about the usefulness of such an endeavor. Actually, I question the whole Pandora project in general. I love the idea but the price is considerably more than I am willing to pay for something like this. Still, I'll keep an eye on it and I hope it does well. And who knows? Maybe I'll eventually end up buying one.

Mazza558
September 30th, 2008, 02:27 PM
Preorders are starting very, very soon (within an hour). For those of us in the UK, this device is fantastic value. It's quite rare that we get a device that isn't overpriced in the UK compared to the US.

EDIT: Apparently over 22,000 emails will be sent out to people - you're going to have to be quick!

the_darkside_986
September 30th, 2008, 06:25 PM
http://openpandora.org/worldmap.html

The link is on the front page now. I didn't get an email though.

Zeotronic
September 30th, 2008, 08:47 PM
Yea... I didn't get an email either... weird.

Mazza558
October 5th, 2008, 04:19 PM
Today's the last chance of ordering one before 2009!

http://www.openpandora.org/

They're allowing as many as people want to be ordered until midday GMT (UK time) tomorrow.

markp1989
October 5th, 2008, 04:33 PM
every time i see this i want it more, but i cant justify the expense

Mazza558
October 30th, 2008, 11:16 AM
One of the developers have hinted that they might be adding


tech which has just become available in the last 6 weeks

Now, what on earth has only just become available in that time?

eternalnewbee
October 30th, 2008, 12:46 PM
Now, what on earth has only just become available in that time?
Something "Intrepid" maybe?...\\:D/

Mazza558
October 30th, 2008, 12:53 PM
Nope, it turns out it's 256MB of RAM!

So the Pandora now has twice the RAM to play with!

Daveski
October 31st, 2008, 11:01 AM
So the Pandora now has twice the RAM to play with!

Marvellous news isn't it? Here is a couple of quotes from craigix - one of the God-like 'founders':



But then after the Ubuntu 'buzz' and many long late night chats about it we decided it was worth it, the price came down just enough (after some long negotiations) for us to do it in time.
...
Oh and yes - that RAM is very expensive but we have decided if we want a real UMPC style device which is pretty future proof for a few years we need it. Ubuntu is 20% faster already - not to mention you will be able to run several large apps now without worrying.

Mazza558
November 19th, 2008, 09:47 PM
Chip (one of the Pandora devs) has just now hinted that they're looking for some kind of Partnership with Canonical to be the first Ubuntu-powered ARM netbook on the market! Here's a quote:


I wanted to wait until I had everything lined up before I made any sort of announcement about my official involvement with the project. As usual, I got outed before I could get everything in order. Hopefully I will be giving you all some more details about my work with Openpandora and some (potential) interesting developments soon.

For now, I think it's safe to say that we're reaching out to Canonical now to offer our assistance with their Ubuntu on ARM project. Pandora is (as far as we know) going to be the first fully-functional, consumer-ready computer available with the Cortex A8 processor. We're hoping that Canonical will be able to benefit from using Pandoras as test machines. It should go without saying that Pandora users would benefit from having a full desktop disto designed specifically for their hardware. It's a win-win situation - not just for us, but for the entire open source ultraportable community.

However, before anybody gets too worked up about this, please remember that all we're doing is offering assistance. Canonical may not be interested. They may only want us to do some alpha / beta testing for them. Our involvement might not be that big a deal.

Even if our involvement is trivial, the Ubuntu on ARM project is not. Even if they are not interested in the Pandora, we are still interested in Ubuntu. One way or another, Canonical's efforts to professionally port their distro to ARM is going to benefit the Pandora community. So we've got that going for us

zmjjmz
November 19th, 2008, 11:17 PM
I keep wanting it more and more. Perhaps I should of gotten this instead of the Dell Mini...

Changturkey
November 20th, 2008, 02:43 AM
I keep wanting it more and more. Perhaps I should of gotten this instead of the Dell Mini...

The keyboard doesn't cut it.

olejorgen
November 20th, 2008, 01:00 PM
*drooling* To bad the first batch is sold out :(

Mazza558
December 1st, 2008, 08:43 PM
New Blog post and video...

http://openpandora.org/blog.php


Hiya folks, I'm here for the weekly report!

We have a lot of good news here, a lot of major stuff has been solved, few issues remain, but you can be sure we'll solve them soon.

1. Craig's bank problem: ALL orders have been refunded now and cen be reordered. After that has happened, the bank stuff should be finished. Thank god!

2. Most devboards have been sent out to some nice devs. The secret discussion area is bustling with activity since a few days, as we're all working together to create a very nice firmware for you. One important dev is still waiting for his board (which is on the way already): The maintainer of the Pandora Angström distribution. Once he got it, it shouldn't be too long until the first NAND Images for the Pandora appear and we can show videos of the ongoing progess of developing the firmware.
skeezix made some nice unpacking pictures of his devboard on his site here.

zodttd got an MK2 board and did a quick recompile of PSX4ALL (including sound!). No hardware acceleration used yet (no 3D and not even 2D), so expect major speed increases once we finished coding the libraries.

3. The mass production facility is still working on optimizing the production process so that there will be minimal faults on the boards. This does take a while, but as we're still waiting for some parts anyways, it's not much of a problem, and we're also waiting for the prototype cases to be finished. We'll use that waiting time on enhancing the OS.

Well, that's all for now. Expect more videos from me as soon as the first Angström Pandora images are baken.

zmjjmz
December 1st, 2008, 09:57 PM
When were the first full units supposed to be shipped again? I remember it being 11/30, but I guess the bank issues have kind of delayed that...

Mazza558
December 1st, 2008, 10:36 PM
When were the first full units supposed to be shipped again? I remember it being 11/30, but I guess the bank issues have kind of delayed that...

Late December and following on through into the new year if necessary.

Mazza558
December 2nd, 2008, 04:34 PM
New Case design:

http://gbax.com/pandoralid2.png

and the same in black (which'll be the final thing - it was only rendered in white so you could see the details.)

http://bladebattles.com/temp/pandora_black.png

mips
December 2nd, 2008, 06:17 PM
I wonder when the next batch will be available for purchase as I'm seriously considering getting one of these babies.

Mazza558
December 2nd, 2008, 07:32 PM
I wonder when the next batch will be available for purchase as I'm seriously considering getting one of these babies.

As soon as production speeds up, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to order from the second batch in Februrary/March.

wrtpeeps
December 3rd, 2008, 04:08 AM
How heavy is it?

Grant A.
December 3rd, 2008, 04:09 AM
I am tempted to submit this to Wired's vaporware award contest.

Mazza558
December 3rd, 2008, 11:25 AM
I am tempted to submit this to Wired's vaporware award contest.

http://openpandora.org/mk2-15boards.jpg

Nope. If it was vaporware, you'd only see the renders, and the devs would be saying "oh, everything's going nicely now (etc ).

olejorgen
December 3rd, 2008, 11:39 AM
As soon as production speeds up, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to order from the second batch in Februrary/March.

Hope you're right, I want one more and more

mips
December 3rd, 2008, 12:28 PM
Hope you're right, I want one more and more

Apparently they are going to open up the orders again soon for the current batch, read it on the forums.

PhoenixMaster00
December 3rd, 2008, 04:44 PM
This looks very promising due to it being very consumer orientated wih endless possibilities so if recieved well it could have a very long life span. plus with sdhc support more than enough space to fit those songs and videos on. Hmmm save up for this or get a Cowon d2... decisions decisions.

Mazza558
December 3rd, 2008, 05:55 PM
This looks very promising due to it being very consumer orientated wih endless possibilities so if recieved well it could have a very long life span. plus with sdhc support more than enough space to fit those songs and videos on. Hmmm save up for this or get a Cowon d2... decisions decisions.

The reason I haven't bought any other gadgets (like a netbook) recently is because I knew the Pandora would do it all. :p

The interesting thing is, apparently the original machine was going to be alright, but nothing special in terms of specs. The change to the next-gen Cortex-A8 ARM processor, bluetooth and wifi has given it something to show off, and has vastly increased its popularity and appeal from a simple games emulation device to a behemoth of a gadget. Ubuntu's support of ARM will make things even easier.

Mazza558
December 15th, 2008, 10:52 PM
Yet another blog update, but this one's a big one. One of the developers has got Enlightenment (E17) working on the Pandora alongside the touch screen and some other apps.

Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYf-I1UuWhk&eurl=&feature=player_embedded

hessiess
December 16th, 2008, 12:47 AM
I must say that my interest in the Pandora has bean decreasing rather rapidly recently. First there wasent going to be any package manager and statically link everything, this would be a colossal leap backwards for a Linux system. Although from my understanding there may be a package manager now.

It also appears that the Pandora is going to ship with a floating window manager, which on such a small screen will be compleatlry pointless, as everything will have to be maximised anyway.

init1
December 16th, 2008, 02:23 AM
The Pandora looks very appealing since I'm looking for an alternative to the PSP/iPod Touch (I have both, but the Pandora seems to be better).

Mazza558
December 16th, 2008, 11:03 AM
I must say that my interest in the Pandora has bean decreasing rather rapidly recently. First there wasent going to be any package manager and statically link everything, this would be a colossal leap backwards for a Linux system. Although from my understanding there may be a package manager now.

It also appears that the Pandora is going to ship with a floating window manager, which on such a small screen will be compleatlry pointless, as everything will have to be maximised anyway.

Things are still very early in terms of software. A package manager will probably added in the future.

In addition, the Pandora will ship with Gmenu by default, which has fullscreen windows only. The video is showing the full-desktop mode which'll also be available.

Daveski
December 17th, 2008, 01:18 AM
Of course, the point is that the Pandora should be fully customisable.

PhoenixMaster00
December 17th, 2008, 02:13 AM
I am tempted to submit this to Wired's vaporware award contest.

I fail to see how it is even remotely vapourware? The Phantom console, now that was vapourware.

Any way i am definitely getting one of these the potentil is huge. Could be taking notes in my lectures with it or if its boring just play a game/music/video. Plus all those cool old games to play and the fact it has two sdhc slots is awesome!

Mazza558
December 17th, 2008, 05:26 PM
We're still working out the firmware and workflow and stuff, but it's coming together pretty nicely. (frontend guis and how to install and unisntall apps and all that.)

It is likely there wil be the angstrom packages for doing firmware updates and such.. ncie and easy and more 'black box' to most people. Existing ansgtrom packages should work out of the box in theory (we're working on it now) but a 'pandora port' is much more ideal. (ie: standard unix packages will want to put data in places which we'd prefer not to put it, since we want user data on SD and not all in home directories, etc.)

We're working on another package system for public packages (homebrew and whatnot) that makes absolutely easy install/uninstall. Drag and drop onto SD and done, but we're working on it right now.

So should be easy as pie for people, and very flexible for power users who want to get in and do nasty tricks.

The stuff included in the distro is being sorted out still, of course.


What one of the devs says about the default firmware and package system.

Mazza558
December 27th, 2008, 04:34 PM
http://www.smart-bs.com/images/keymat/keymat01.jpg

https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/29948/pandprotokeys.JPG

The team are making progress. Slow progress but nontheless, progress.

This is half of the prototype case and keyboard. The case will be made properly - this was just a quickly-made case. The keyboard is really only the keymat with no letters on it. It'll be black with white lettering when it's finished.

s3kt0r
January 7th, 2009, 01:13 PM
I've known this for quite some time, but just found this thread.
I would definately want one, if I can have my order to be delivered in Portugal, the specs are good (and it runs Linux!), so it's just a matter of getting the money.
Maybe I'll wait till May, June, just to be sure everything is working 100%.
Everytime I check the updates and current status of the product, I get amazed, and the urge of buying one gets stronger and stronger.
This addiction to technology is going to kill me (or my budget) sometime. lol.

zmjjmz
January 7th, 2009, 01:48 PM
Wait, so the orders haven't arrived yet?

Mazza558
January 7th, 2009, 05:42 PM
Wait, so the orders haven't arrived yet?

In February.

rick08
January 7th, 2009, 06:01 PM
Great idea, but the 256mb of RAM concerns me.

Mazza558
January 7th, 2009, 07:11 PM
Great idea, but the 256mb of RAM concerns me.

The iphone does fine on half of that.

Zeotronic
January 7th, 2009, 07:44 PM
Great idea, but the 256mb of RAM concerns me.
Its all I really need (as a user and developer)... I don't see where the concern is.

init1
January 7th, 2009, 10:22 PM
The Pandora looks great, but I'm tired of waiting for it to come out. I think I'll get an Archos 5 instead.

Mazza558
January 8th, 2009, 12:11 AM
New render...


http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp42/nikkopt/pandora_new.jpg

zmjjmz
January 8th, 2009, 12:39 AM
Looks like a DSlite, but more awesomefuller.

crazyfuturamanoob
January 10th, 2009, 02:50 PM
I want one! Any online stores selling them yet? :D

Mazza558
January 10th, 2009, 06:27 PM
I want one! Any online stores selling them yet? :D

The first batch sold out back in september - though there may be a chance to get one in the next month or so.

Mason Whitaker
January 10th, 2009, 06:32 PM
Holy Schnikes, I want one now <_<
*runs to check bank account*

Mazza558
January 23rd, 2009, 07:48 PM
Added this to the OP, but hey:

http://www.gp32x.de/pandorasneak.jpg

This render takes into account changes in the design. As soon as one of the core developers gets the antennae and finishes the Wifi drivers, finally, mass production can start. Thank Goodness.

This project really has been beset by delays, and some of the fans are getting restless from all the problems - it's certainly not easy to design such a device, and certainly not during a global recession - the main problem was that the banks got suspicious of credit card orders, locking the developers out of the same money used to actually manufacture the things.

The only method for a few months now is bank transfer, and many people (including me) have got the option of waiting for something more substantial before finally putting money down. The estimate for release is now April-ish.

Then again, over the past month or so, the project has leaned ever so slightly towards vaporware in terms of the slow physical (e.g manufacturing) progress. We'll see.

Mazza558
January 31st, 2009, 01:07 AM
It's alive and running Angstrom!

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6051/angstromonfdmns0.th.jpg (http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=angstromonfdmns0.jpg)

olejorgen
February 2nd, 2009, 12:44 AM
Sweet, there's a video on their blog: http://openpandora.org/blog.php

Mazza558
March 24th, 2009, 01:12 AM
This is the first ever video of a Pandora working completely on its own, no wires or anything, just pure Quake, with controls!

http://openpandora.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/mweston-demos-the-final-pandora-bar-paintjob/