Since the last (and only) Neogaf thread about this little machine went over soo well, I figured it's time for a second try (this time with a less misleading title):
Official Page: http://www.openpandora.org/index.php
Specs: http://pandorawiki.org/Pandora
FAQ: http://pandorawiki.org/FAQ
The Open Pandora is a community project by members of the GP32X forums. After years of planning, developing and testing they have now opened preorders for the finished product, a very powerful open source handheld device with keyboard and gaming controls that fits in your pocket.
Here's only the most important facts (full specs with lots of dirty details can be found at http://pandorawiki.org/Pandora)
-Currently the most powerful handheld system of this size (in terms of graphics & processing power)
-Open system: Everyone can write software for this device without any hacking
-Gaming controls (two analog nubs, dpad, 4 face buttons, 2 shoulder buttons)
-Long Battery life (8+ hours under full load, 10+ idle, ~100 when just playing mp3s)
-Small Size (slightly bigger than a Nintendo DS lite)
-800x480 touchscreen LCD
Capabilities:
-Capable of running Ubuntu Linux (so this thing could be used as an UMPC with browser, mail client and office applications)
UPDATE: Firefox 3 running smoothly (jump to 2:22): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47F87FeLV8
-Wifi & Bluetooth
-Multimedia Playback (early version of mplayer shown here, this version does not even use the graphics accelerator chip yet!)
-PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES for 3D graphics (impressive demo videos here, here and here)
UPDATE: Impressive 3D demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJ0Vr8LjYk
-Direct ports like Quake II and Quake III
-Pixelperfect Emulation (full speed) already running: MAME, SNES, Playstation, AMIGA (and most anything older of course, detailed discussion/speculation about emulators here)
Reality check (i.e. what won't work and what you shouldn't expect):
-Pandora has an ARM Processor, so DOS & Windows applications will have to be emulated, resulting in ~386 performance through DOSBOS, so don't expect System Shock 2 or Blood to run on this (but XCom or Shadow of the Comet and the like might! Perhaps even things like the 7th guest and Alone in the Dark).
-Dreamcast, Saturn & N64 Emulation are considered to be possible, but will probably not be fullspeed/playable & take some time to get to work. Only time will tell, but don't get your hopes up (again, see this thread).
-There will probably be few to no commercial games be made for this system. This system is really very specifically targeted at homebrew and emulation enthusiasts.
From their page:
Well, I got mine preordered. If any of you are interested, you should keep in mind that this is the first batch of a new technical device, so there may be hardware bugs that have slipped through testing and that will only be fixed in the second batch. Also note that no final system (aside from devboards) is currently assembled yet, the money from the preorders is the required funding to get the first 3000 systems made.
Finally, the order pages and forums seem to be completely hammered with requests, probably thanks to this engadget article, so be gentle, Neogaf.
Official Page: http://www.openpandora.org/index.php
Specs: http://pandorawiki.org/Pandora
FAQ: http://pandorawiki.org/FAQ
The Open Pandora is a community project by members of the GP32X forums. After years of planning, developing and testing they have now opened preorders for the finished product, a very powerful open source handheld device with keyboard and gaming controls that fits in your pocket.
Here's only the most important facts (full specs with lots of dirty details can be found at http://pandorawiki.org/Pandora)
-Currently the most powerful handheld system of this size (in terms of graphics & processing power)
-Open system: Everyone can write software for this device without any hacking
-Gaming controls (two analog nubs, dpad, 4 face buttons, 2 shoulder buttons)
-Long Battery life (8+ hours under full load, 10+ idle, ~100 when just playing mp3s)
-Small Size (slightly bigger than a Nintendo DS lite)
-800x480 touchscreen LCD
Capabilities:
-Capable of running Ubuntu Linux (so this thing could be used as an UMPC with browser, mail client and office applications)
UPDATE: Firefox 3 running smoothly (jump to 2:22): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47F87FeLV8
-Wifi & Bluetooth
-Multimedia Playback (early version of mplayer shown here, this version does not even use the graphics accelerator chip yet!)
-PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES for 3D graphics (impressive demo videos here, here and here)
UPDATE: Impressive 3D demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJ0Vr8LjYk
-Direct ports like Quake II and Quake III
-Pixelperfect Emulation (full speed) already running: MAME, SNES, Playstation, AMIGA (and most anything older of course, detailed discussion/speculation about emulators here)
Reality check (i.e. what won't work and what you shouldn't expect):
-Pandora has an ARM Processor, so DOS & Windows applications will have to be emulated, resulting in ~386 performance through DOSBOS, so don't expect System Shock 2 or Blood to run on this (but XCom or Shadow of the Comet and the like might! Perhaps even things like the 7th guest and Alone in the Dark).
-Dreamcast, Saturn & N64 Emulation are considered to be possible, but will probably not be fullspeed/playable & take some time to get to work. Only time will tell, but don't get your hopes up (again, see this thread).
-There will probably be few to no commercial games be made for this system. This system is really very specifically targeted at homebrew and emulation enthusiasts.
From their page:
Well, I got mine preordered. If any of you are interested, you should keep in mind that this is the first batch of a new technical device, so there may be hardware bugs that have slipped through testing and that will only be fixed in the second batch. Also note that no final system (aside from devboards) is currently assembled yet, the money from the preorders is the required funding to get the first 3000 systems made.
Finally, the order pages and forums seem to be completely hammered with requests, probably thanks to this engadget article, so be gentle, Neogaf.
