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Pandora Thread: Actually real, really shipping.

ah so it finally arrived? :lol

too bad its very very late. the original release date (nov 2008) would have been good but now the new ti hardware is just around the corner..
 
It’s still the only machine on the market that can do what I want to the full extent (namely writing, media playing and games with full gaming controls rather than USB solutions or crap touchscreen substitutes – all in my pocket); the perfect accompaniment to my netbook, but also a very handy substitute when space or time are an issue.

Different from what I use my PSP or smartphone for, more convenient than my Samsung netbook, more adaptable than my DS and will still be relevant to my needs after new machines come out simply through its open nature, community support and dedicated, uncompromised gaming controls.

I’m still awaiting my shipping email, but E3 is keeping me more than busy anyway…
 
Been optimistic about this one, however don't think id buy one straight away. Impressive stuff!.
The Heroes of Might and Magic 2 videos makes it tempting :P.
 
Mine came today and even though software development is obviously just getting started I have been very impressed with it, it's everything I was hoping it would be.

It deserves to be a massive success, it really is the gaming handheld / netbook I have been waiting for. Admittedly I have been waiting for a couple of years!
 
Is DOSBox playable on this thing? On the off chance anyone has tried, what was the most recent thing they got to work on it?


edit: OH GOD. Dark Forces is playable which means a lot of what I want to play would be.
Also Starcon2.
 
The sliders on my one are fine so far but there have been some reports of problems in the initial batch. They are looser than on PSP but seem to be very comfortable to use. The whole thing is fine ergonomically, if anything the ABXY buttons could be slightly bigger but the d-pad is great.

As for Dosbox, it's not really my thing but I know there have been some successes. There are a couple of threads on the GP32X forums about it so I assume all the info is there.
 
Great to see a GAF Pandora delivery. :) Production is happening slowly, still waiting for mine!

In other news, Pandora hooked up to an MC-505.

XrIjx.png


http://pandorapress.net/2010/06/23/pandora-befriends-roland-mc-505/

The fun is only just beginning. :D
 
Just a bump to let people know that second batch preorders are now open: http://www.openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid=34&lang=en

(First batch Pandoras are still being shipped, this is expected to take until October when they will roll straight into batch two.)

The dev scene is going really well, lots of cool stuff in the works. :D The latest official blog post from EvilDragon sums up the state of software:

Software: What's happening

Wow, what amazing six weeks! The Pandora has just been delivered to the first 600 users - and software comes flooding in.

Besides the official hotfixes (where a few contributions have come from the community, too) which fixed most of the bigger problems, quite a few ports, games, emulators, etc. have been released.
So all of you still waiting for your Pandoras: You will have a LOT of cool stuff available ready to play! I know it's hard to wait - but just think about what you can do with it once you receive it...

The Games

At the moment, there are 63 files in the freeware games section already - which basically means: At least one free game a day!
Not only casual games like Spout, Ceferino or Alienblaster, but also games which can keep you busy for a looong time like Battle for Wesnoth, FreeCiv, Gianas Return, Numpty Physics or Clonk Planet.

And if those games aren't enough for you, why not replay some classics like the Secret of Monkey Island series or one of the other countless adventure games ScummVM does support?
Or do you rather want to play Baldurs Gate? Well, we have GemRB in beta testing... Hexen? Rise of the Triad? Yep, all out there, waiting for you to be played.

There are also some multiplayer games out there - wanna play BomberClone against 11 other gamers...? Or try OpenLieroX.... there's a lot of fun coming.

Of course, a lot of other classics can be played using one of the Emulators...
There are already 27 files in the Emulators section - covering the real retro ones (Atari 2600, 7800) as well classics (C64, Amiga, MSX, Speccy, Atari ST, SNES, Genesis, etc.) and even weird ones like the SIMH where you could emulate a PDP-1...
Those are all fullspeed with sound - even in the unoptimized state some of them are in (a few of them are just quick ports).
PSX and Nintendo64 are getting there. PSX runs pretty much fullspeed with sound with a lot of games if you overclock, Nintendo64 is still a bit slow. But both are under heavy development right now - and will become better.

DOSBox is also running well for an unoptimized version: It plays games like Pirates! Gold or MadTV... so choose your classic and PLAY!

The Apps

There's a lot more than just gaming on the Pandora. You can listen to music, browse the web, do office work, etc.
Therefore, quite a few nice apps have been released here, too.

You don't like the built-in browsers? Well, Fennec, Chromium, FireFox... they're all available.
Want to follow RSS feeds? Liferea will help you.

Have a VNC server somewhere and you want to connect to it using the Pandora? Remmina will do it for you.

Want to listen to music? Choose your player! Besides MPlayer, you can download Audacious, GMU, OMMPC, Exaile or Deadbeef. Some even support classic game formats like SPC or NSF - so if you're up for some classic chiptune sound, you won't need much space.

And if you rather want to compose music - Milky Tracker and Schism Tracker are already available.

The OS

Quite a few things are happening around the OS right now. As mentioned, a lot of stuff has been fixed using Hotfixes during the last weeks.
At the moment, we are working on official Pandora feeds (meaning: You don't need to download and install hotfixes anymore - you can use an online updater on your Pandora to update your machine).
It's already being tested. There will be stable and unstable feeds available - so if you want to help us test and bugfix the latest stuff, you can do so (risking a reflash in case something goes really wrong).
Of course, there will also be regular Hotfixes released in case you don't want to do it online.

BTW: Did you know SDXC is already supported? Apparently, it just works :)

The community has also started to work on improving the OS. paeryn is currently working on SDL - that would speed up games and eliminate tearing.

If YOU want to help out with the OS, check out the current open tasks or take a look at the bugtracker. Maybe there's a task you want to work on and help improve it?

Other Projects

Beside programs or OS works, there are also other Linux flavours available - and some teams are working on them.
A mobile version of ArchLinux is already booting into X and can do updates via pacman, while a Pandora version of Gentoo called Neuvoo is also reported to boot and emerge already in IRC.

Also, did you know you actually run Debian within the Pandora OS?
So without rebooting or using any speed, you can actually use all the programs from the Debian repository...

Isn't that nice?

Tutorials coming up

Well, using the Pandora is cool - but especially new users might have some problem figuring out how such things work. I will create some video tutorials soon which show how to set it up, connect to the internet, use PNDs, etc.

It will take a while, but it's something I really want to do :)

http://openpandora.org/index.php?op...oftware-whats-happening&catid=2:blog&Itemid=2
Click to expand...
 
I've been using my Pandora for years now and the quality of the emulators (especially PSX and SNES), dpad and OS are just awesome for portable retro-gaming. I'm glad the project is still going strong (which was quite doubtful for some time) and pretty much all the kinks have been eliminated by now. The future looks really good for Pandora and related projects.
 
Lafazar said:
I've been using my Pandora for years now and the quality of the emulators (especially PSX and SNES), dpad and OS are just awesome for portable retro-gaming. I'm glad the project is still going strong (which was quite doubtful for some time) and pretty much all the kinks have been eliminated by now. The future looks really good for Pandora and related projects.
Click to expand...

Really? I sold mine years ago because the emulators were not that great, development had really slowed down to a halt, n64 emulation was terrible too. In fact I was still checking on the community every so often until a few months ago and it seemed pretty dead and negative. The hardware is outdated at this point, the waiting time has been insane I bet all the pre orders are still not fulfilled (I had to get mine off ebay). Overall it seemed like a disaster.
 
solarus said:
Really? I sold mine years ago because the emulators were not that great, development had really slowed down to a halt, n64 emulation was terrible too. In fact I was still checking on the community every so often until a few months ago and it seemed pretty dead and negative. The hardware is outdated at this point, the waiting time has been insane I bet all the pre orders are still not fulfilled (I had to get mine off ebay). Overall it seemed like a disaster.
Click to expand...

Well it is a pretty small community, there are only a few thousand of these in the wild. This is not like a Sony or Nintendo Handheld which number in the millions. For that the community is pretty active and there is new software constantly:
http://repo.openpandora.org/

N64 emulation is almost perfect for specific games, but not well for others, but that's due to the complexity of N64 emulation. Everything else (PSX, NES, GEN, GBA, AMIGA, ATARI ST, C64, etc.) runs really well. There has been a lot of progress in those years since you have sold yours, they just keep going.

A recent update to the OS has increased the already impressive running time and standby time. The SOC is indeed outdated by this point, but not that much, since power requirements slow the development of processing power on mobile devices down. The OS is also much leaner than most mobile phones which gives it a considerable advantage. For me it simply does all I want to do and there is no device with these input possibilities and battery life out there.

And yes, the production has been an actual disaster, because the team has been royally screwed over by the american board manufacturer. This has almost killed the project, but since they moved the production to Germany everything has been going smoothly. If you order one now, you get it immediately.
 
I can only back up what Lafazar is saying.

I'm not a dev so my involvement with the scene is passive but my experience with the Pandora and the community has been a very positive one. It's such a pity that there were so many stumbling blocks for them getting to the point where these things are actually available to buy easily.

I have to add that Evildragon, the guy in the android video above, is an absolute hero for the way he has dealt with the setbacks and pushed the project on.

If you think that either a retro gaming handheld or an ultra portable notebook is something you might be interested in then the Pandora still does the job better than anything else I've seen.
 
Making a next generation version of the Pandora will be much simpler and far more timely with a cutting edge SoC like an ST-E A9600 or later rev OMAP5 now that the core of the software ecosystem is in place and especially the hardware production pipeline is established.
 
I ordered min back in 2009. Last time I was in contact with them, which a few months ago, they couldn't even bother to give me a queue number. :/
 
Hello,

If you have received your Pandora you can ignore this email.

OpenPandora Ltd (UK) has ran out of funds and we have requested the company to be struck off.

As you may know the original company producing the PCBs failed to deliver around 1000 units
due to manufacturing defects, this, along with the intermittent failure of the LCD cables
drastically damaged our finances.

Earlier in the year we tried everything possible to continue business but 3 months ago, after
legal advice, it was shown to be very unlikely to succeed. The company has no assets of any
significant value.

There is no money to pay for liquidation (it would require around £4000) and since no one
has applied to liquidate us it is with regret that we have had to take this action.

You can find a copy of the strike off form here:

****

OpenPandora Germany continues to trade and may be able to help you in regards to outstanding
orders, you should email them if they don't already have your details. (openpandora.org).

OpenPandora Ltd.
Click to expand...

And with this, the $400 bucks I payed for this back in 2009 are forever lost.
 
Hello ICP2 Backers,

First of all, we would like to apologize for the length and disarray of this Kickstarter Project over the past 12 months. It has come time to cancel the project. We are working with the team in Germany to see what parts can be returned to the vendors for refunds, and this money we will in turn refund to you all. Our goal is to do this as fairly as possible for all parties involved.

We have notified Kickstarter of the intentions on this and we want to be as transparent as possible moving forward. After lengthy discussions with the firmware developer & PCB designer in Canada, & the UK team, there is just not a way to move forward on this device without sinking more money into it. We didn't want it to be a money pit, but unfortunately, as time has progressed, the original quotes for certain parts have expired and gone up in price. Additional parts that needed to be ordered to incorporate the backlighting were also underestimated in regard to cost, ie the keymat that would allow the backlighting to show.

Some other issues that we've come across is the nubs have changed design, and while the ICP1 firmware would just work with the ICP2, the newer nubs would no longer work on the firmware. This was primarily due to the ADCs chosen to be used in the ICP2 vs the ICP1.

Luckily we didn't populate all of the PCBs in Germany, and we have money left on that account, as well as the refunds for unused/unopened parts sitting waiting since January. Please allow us time to get things together so that we can regather as much money as possible to distribute back amongst the backers.

Once we figure out what can be returned, we will have more information on the refund process. Backers, we are truly sorry for all of this. We won't be through with the project until we hit the "Send Payment" button on the last backer who supported us.

We will be setting up a new email address to deal with this process and that will be made public here once we start the refund process. Again, our apologies on this ordeal. We intend to do what we can to make it right for all backers who've supported this device.

ICP2 Team
Click to expand...
Source.
 
When you think about it in regards to the short history of hastily thought-out crowdfunding projects, they were really the company that opened Pandora's box.
 
Just to separate the two issues here, the iControlpad 2 was a Kickstarter project that failed. The Pandora wasn't. However the UK arm of Pandora operations is being wound up. This is all on Craig Rothwell.

The good news for Pandora pre-orderers who STILL don't have their unit, is that the German arm of the operation is still going strong thanks to the infinitely better human Michael (aka EvilDragon). He is committed to getting everyone their unit eventually, but this means he is wearing the cost of all the orders that Craig fucked. It's a slow and difficult operation for him.

Get your information from the official forum: http://boards.openpandora.org/

It's run by EvilDragon and is still a very strong community. Craig doesn't post there and pretty much isn't welcome there any more. The fact that his emails are still the only source of information for a lot of people is unfortunate.

[edit] @lonely1 - disregard advice, I see you are already a poster there. Me, not so much these days... couldn't deal with the constant Craig related fallout.
 
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