Pandora; open source handheld console II

Hello from Craig’s place.

We’ve been going through the boxes and making sure it’s all here and it looks good. Everything does look good to go so we can start setting up right away.
by MWeston May 19, 2010 at 7:56 am

http://pandorapress.net/2(...)age-1/#comment-14353

quote:

posting from a mp pandora!
by craigix May 19, 2010 at 12:48 pm

http://pandorapress.net/2(...)age-1/#comment-14434

http://twitpic.com/1pguvo

51 pandoras op een foto

quote:

@Entilzha35 at least 50 will ship tomorrow mid day.

[ Bericht 25% gewijzigd door Bosbeetle op 20-05-2010 23:02:55 (uote]) ]

speciaal voor notorious_roy

quote:

here are a few sundry snes9x ports around over the last 2 years, but I don't think anyone has a current one bar me.

I said it was a crappy port, but it works pretty darned well so I just did a bit more pollish and turned it into a pnd-file; I made a quick video (sorry about the quality, but what can you do in a hurry with a cranky baby around

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=QOxv7k0ydGo

Check the notes! ie: This is on my prototype pandora with a screwed up LCD cable (among other oddities), so expect everything to be blue; I fiddled around and got it as least-blue as I could (I'm living it with it being usualyl very blue, or very red, but its actualyl not doing too bad right now

The download is now up:

http://dl.openhandhe...i?0,0,0,0,71,63

So that means the 45 people filling my inbox can stop doing that now

--

Uploaded my latest Hatari build (may need to do some tweaks due to some recent firmware changes, but works well enough until I get a free moment); BattleJewels is up. Stella is up. I didn't make a pnd-file for Colem yet, but maybe ED did, so that'll show up soon. I put up Kronos too, though its still in a very early state, it does let you play Magnetic Scrolls games already. Hmm, what else.. dunno, but I've gbot a bunch of my pnd's up for download now, and a few more coming as I get free moments here or there

So you see, SNES is okay, and thats totally unoptimized (no asm blitter etc), and not running overclocked at all. Nothing to worry about folks

jeff

quote:

Guys, this is a port of SNES9x, using slow C-Cores.
The same version got about 3 fps on the GP2X back when it was compiled, and PocketSNES (a highly optimized emulator using ASM cores) runs a lot of games fullspeed on the GP2X.

The Pandora should EASILY be able to run all SNES games in fullspeed when someone takes the time to do a proper emulator.
We didn't have time yet, we were focussing on the OS

PocketSNES would certainly run way better, however, it has a really messy sourcecode and uses a lot of speedhacks that break compatibility to gain speed. That is not necessary on the Pandora. Porting would probably take about 1 - 2 weeks to remove all the hardcore GP2X-Related stuff.

This is a one-day-compile of SNES9x. It's not optimized to the LCD (stutters when running PAL games, use the NTSC ones to get good emulation), etc.

Someone will port SNES properly, I'm pretty sure about that.

But why won't you wait until some developers received their units?
SNES did take a while to run properly on the GP2X, on the WIZ, on the PSP and also on the Dingoo... so give the devs some time.

quote:

Op vrijdag 21 mei 2010 11:02 schreef The_Tankgirl het volgende:

Ik zal wel niet bij de eerste 50 zitten

als het in dit tempo blijft gaan dan ben ik binnen 14 dagen aan de beurt

quote:

socket
Posted Today, 03:53 PM
WOOT. Just got my shipping confirmation!!!!

Hello,

This Is To Confirm Your Pandora Has Been Shipped.

If You Are In The Uk You Can Look Forward To Recieving Your Order In The Next 24 Hours (weekends Not Always Included), If You Chose Ups Shipping You Should Recieve Your Order In The Next 48 Hours (weekends Not Included). Airmail Will Take 2-12 Days.

We Want To Thank You For Sticking With The Pandora Project For All This Time. We Hope You Will Enjoy The Final Product. You Can Head Over To Gp32x.com To Talk On The Forums And Soon Enjoy Your Pandora.

Thanks So Much,

Craig And The Pandora Team.

pandora nr. 1 is weggestuurd

[ Bericht 43% gewijzigd door Bosbeetle op 21-05-2010 16:06:56 ]

quote:

Op vrijdag 21 mei 2010 20:00 schreef Maanvis het volgende:

[..]

Dat klinkt als een 519 scam, in dergelijke mails tikken ze ook elk woord met een hoofdletter

dat heeft deze user uitgeleged hij had een programma op zijn computer staan die alles in zijn clipboard omzetten naar woorden met hoofdletters

er zijn inmiddels veel meer mailtjes verstuurd zonder de hoofdletters

al lijken de nummers niet echt te kloppen er zijn mensen met nummer 500-600 die een mail hebben en mensen met nummer 1 ( ) die nog geen mail hebben.

quote:

It isn't, we missed the posting deadline, they won't deliver until after the weekend.

However I know at least one person is collecting in person today.

craig kan weer op gp32 posten, ze hebben nu bevestigd dat ze in ieder geval 50+ units per dag kunnen maken. Na het weekend komen fatih en ED ook, die laatste gaat ook een webcam ophangen bij de assembly line

Ze zitten nog in de opstart fase, het zal naar snel richting de 100 gaan

quote:

Turned up at 12pm, left exhausted at 12am

In between, there was a lot of prep work to do before we could start mass assembly. But everything is falling nicely into place now and has definitley took shape.

I'll be back over there shortly and Fatih is arriving later on today to lend a hand.

Can't say too much more at the moment, but will have some interesting pics to show you this evening

dat was een bericht van x86000 een mod op het gp32x forum die mee heeft helpen bouwen.

ik lees net dat ze morgen de volgende 100 klaar willen hebben 150 done, 200 to go, voor mij dan

Ze gaan de OSen namen geven net als bij ubuntu, en de namen gaan retro game gerelateerd zijn ze zijn begonnen bij de z en de naam is Zaxxon

Het is dus wachten op Ys of Yogi etc.

http://twitpic.com/1qc9l6

toch mooi om te zien 90 Pandoras

http://picasaweb.google.com/mfk.pandora/FromProduction?feat=directlink&fgl=true&pli=1#

vloedgolven met pandori

quote:

Op maandag 24 mei 2010 00:44 schreef Nick-GizMo het volgende:
Bosbeetle, als je hem binnen hebt ga je hier dan ook een review schrijven? Bedoel er zijn hier maar weinig mensen die er echt in geloven, daar kan jij wat aan doen

Ik ga zeker mijn bevindingen delen, maar ik denk dat ik nogal bevooroordeeld ben

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40865126@N06/sets/72157624133009940/

okay er zijn meer en meer mensen met een pandora, één van de eersten op het pandora forum is een nederlander (hopelijk komt die van mij ook snel dan )

het stikt nu van de fotos op het forum

Het is begonnen

[ Bericht 18% gewijzigd door Bosbeetle op 26-05-2010 10:28:42 ]

quote:

Op woensdag 26 mei 2010 12:13 schreef The_Tankgirl het volgende:
Om welke tijd heb jij besteld als ik vragen mag? Dan kan ik ook een schatting maken!

Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 4:20 PM

en een stukje op tweakers

http://tweakers.net/nieuw(...)pandora-gestart.html

Negaf is een erg groot gamers forum, met strikte regels en daar heeft gruso een erg mooi topic gemaakt

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=396036

wachten is irritant vergeleken bij deze week waren die 1,5 jaar een fluitje van een cent.

Ahum als er mensen geintresseerd zijn in de 2de batch

quote:

CraigIX: Batch2 ordering will start soonish. We will decide next week if we will just be doing the next 3000 then another 4000 without stopping.

Er zijn wel wat kleine probleempjes geweest, mensen lezen het opstart boekje niet en laten tijdens de startup de batterij leeg lopen. Terwijl je als je hem krijgt eigenlijk eerst de batterij iets verder moet opladen. Dat is simpel op te lossen door de NAND te reflashen (kwestie van bestandje op je SD kaart zetten en te booten met de R knop ingedrukt)


Ook is er een bug/feature dat als je de pandora dicht doet voordat je hem hebt afgesloten hij de brightness opslaat en die staat in gesloten toestand op 0 en als je hem dan opstart staat hij dus ook op nul en krijg je een zwart scherm dit is op te lossen door een paar keer op ctrl-i te drukken.

Verder is men niet allemaal even te spreken over de schouder knoppen.

nieuwe officiele blog

Tales from the Hall

Wow, what a lot of work! But so far no bigger problems, but lots of positive reports, really assuring us
I've been helping out here for the 2,5 days already, and we're managing it quite good.
Speed is improving, we don't make too many mistakes we need to fix and based on the feedback from the first users, we optimize the building process.

At least 60 units should have reached the customers so far and there were only a few problems.
A dead battery, a dead PSU (which can happen, unfortunately), one broken WiFi and a broken backlight.
For the very first units, that's a good quote - basically only one two broken ones.

As some guys were asking about quality checking - here's what we did for the first units:

1. The boards including all the hardware are being tested in Texas after population.
2. After we assemble them, we have a special bootloader where we can test all controls and the LCD.
3. Then we install the firmware - ready to ship.

Based on the feedback we got and the one broken WiFi one, we changed that a bit.
Before we install the firmware, we do a WiFi test (it connects and downloads a small file).
As another user had the problem that his unit shutdown during first boot (flat battery) and then he couldn't login, we're also doing that first boot (which configures the system and takes a while) right here.
And we do that completely from the battery - so most faulty batteries should also be recognized.

So right now, that's what we do:

1. The boards including all the hardware are being tested in Texas after population.
2. During assembly, we test the controls and the LCD.
3. After screwing them together, we do the WiFi test and a different person tests the controls as well.
4. We install the firmware and do the complete first boot from battery.
5. After that, the unit is ready to ship.

This helps to make sure that no faulty unit should reach you. And if one slips through our hands (well, we can't possible charge all batteries for 6 hours to see if they work well), then we will replace it, that's for sure.

Some other questions have occured regarding the firmware, so I'm going to give newcomers some tips here:

1. Right now, WiFi is always enabled on Bootup. This eats some battery power - especially, if it keeps looking for networks and can't find any. So unless you want the unit to be always-on, you should probably disable it. That can easily be done: Go to Settings / Startup and disable WiFi on bootup. After you did that, you need to Toggle WiFi (that's in the system menu) before you use it.

2. It seems the Network Manager has a problem: When it disconnects, it can't reconnect. It seems that's also the case on standard Linux desktops. We'll look into this, however, if you lose connection at the moment, you need to reboot. You should only lose connection though if the WiFi signal is flaky - we ran some units for 48 hours as a test without a single reconnection.

3. When you use the nubs, they need to some time to calibrate. Usually, it automatically happens while using them, however, to make sure they work fine, slowly move them into each direction (Up, Down, Left, Right) and stay there for 1 or 2 seconds. Let them go back to the center each time before you move it into the next direction.

4. Just switched on your unit and right while booting the screen switches off? No worries, your unit is NOT broken. It's a feature that also turned into a bug: When you shutdown the unit, it saves the brightness value and applies that on startup, which is a good thing. However, if you shutdown the unit and close the lid, then the brightness value goes to 0 - and that's what the unit saves. So on next startup, it will switch off during booting process. That's not a big problem - just wait until it booted and use the brightness control on the keyboard to make it bright again. Another fix for a firmware update

5. Not firmware-related: But be sure to first CHARGE the unit before using it

That's it. So far, we got a lot of positive reports, which is pretty cool.
Funny thing is that some users bashed the Pandora - without even having one (well, we know where we ship the units to).
I have no idea why they do this, but we're sure: The more Pandoras are out there, the more positive posts will appear.

So, it's back to work for me, so that more units can find their way home

quote:

Op donderdag 27 mei 2010 13:06 schreef The_Tankgirl het volgende:

[..]

De schouderknoppen: staat er toevallig een reactie bij van Craigix/ED of dit aan het ontwerp van de Pandora ligt, of dat het verkeerd in elkaar is gezet?

Nope geen reactie. Er werd een paar keer gezegd dat ze een beetje klemde en/of niet helemaal 'fijn' klikte. Eén iemand zei dat de down op de D-pad unresponsive was.