Panasonic Jungle


Hm, seems it's always hard to NOT be misunderstood if posting in a foreign language.


Trying to make my wording more appropriate, but might not be that easy.


Well, delay is a mix of both. Yes, they happened out of our control (i.e. companies promising us perfect quality is way less time they needed... and then delivering crap quality after a loong delay).


But we can't continue delivering nubs where 10% fail after a few weeks.. way too expensive to fix them and not a good reputation future batches. So THAT delay is caused because of quality issues.


I'm nobody calling speed nerd. To be honest, I doubt most speed nerds (if there were any) cancelled months ago.


But I know a few of those guys... only buying the latest and greatest to possess it. Not to use it, but to show off. And in my opinion, the Pandora is not the right device for them. It's a device for people who love the OpenSource idea, who try to help a few guys release a handheld, help a few guys to produce a nice product within a market reigned by global players.


We cannot offer you the quality Sony or Nintendo has, we're a few Million USD too short of that. We cannot clearly say when it will be released, as we're depending on the companies that produce the project.


But we can offer you to be personally there, support you, tell you what's happening and talk to you. We're not hiding, we're not exaggerating anything, we just say things as they currently are.


I'm personally dedicated to support this little handheld and support the community with all the power I have. I will try everything I can to make this small produce exist. I don't want millions of USD, personally, I'm happy if it doesn't fail and I get at least the money back I invested.


If it fails for some reason (don't hope so, but you never knwo) then I will not vanish and tell you to get lost. I'll take my responsibility - even if it means that I'm personally blank for the next 10 years and lose everything I worked for in the last 15 years.


That's what I can offer. It might not be much, as I'm only one guy out of billions of people on this planet and if anything fails nobody will probably care about me anymore, but I'm afraid I don't have anymore to offer to you.


I hope you now understand what I meant. I'm not trying to harm anyone - and I'm aware all those delays are bad and I really don't like them.


But this is nothing like a big players thing where there's a lot of money backing up in case any problems occur or where some money loss is bad but not killing someone personally... this is a dedicated project that only lives from you, the community, and from us, trying everything we can to keep it alive and make it better.

ED, you just became my favorite benevolent dictator, ever! (ED the BD!) But seriously, as a Free Software supporter (and author, though not for the OP, yet), it's this sort of community, commitment, and push for quality that keeps me interested in and supporting OP.


I'm actually not too worried about the delays or the competition. I'll be using it at work (maybe not "for work"): combine the Pandora with a foldable keyboard, and you've got the perfect work laptop that you can play games on during meetings. Is it bad that I couldn't buy an EEE PC because I consider it too big and clunky? Maybe I'm less worried about the delays because I'm a second-batcher and bought in having already seen some of the delays that they've been dealing with.
 
Anyway, it seems like it is serving a different segment than the Pandora. I don't see it having a very strong homebrew scene. I think that is one of the major draws of the Pandora. The people who would buy this wouldn't buy the pandora anyway. They're looking for something with mainstream support.
I don't know if it is hacked (and why wouldn't it be, every other "closed" device has) I can see it having a homebrew scene. Even if the jungle is a total failure they will certainly sell more than the Pandora.


Besides right now the Pandora itself doesn't have much of a homebrew scene. All projects seem abandoned and it doesn't have a good PSX emu, no playable PC-engine emu, MAME sound pops and clicks on many classic games and seems dead, others are drive-by ports that come out then don't get improved etc. If the jungle sells 10,000 units (should easily do at least that) there will probably be a bigger scene. I think it comes down to when it will come out, how much it will be and how good the battery life is.
 
Besides right now the Pandora itself doesn't have much of a homebrew scene. All projects seem abandoned and it doesn't have a good PSX emu, no playable PC-engine emu, MAME sound pops and clicks on many classic games and seems dead, others are drive-by ports that come out then don't get improved etc.

Hehe I missed the "old" DaveC :)


Pandora has a great scene for <1,000 in the wild. No daily updates doesn't mean anything's been abandoned.
 
I also think the releases for the Pandora are impressive so far.


Devs usually stop working when they don't get too much feedback, and with the current user base, it's normal it slows down for the moment.


Another thing is: How many REAL devs have a Pandora so far? Porting stuff like GnuBoy can also be done by guys like me, though I have no idea about coding. A lot of the devs probably did some quick port with some optimizations, but they either don't have the time or simply the knowledge to dive into the programs to improve them any further.


However, with a lot more boards already finished (last quote from the company I got two days ago was "several thousand", but I'm sceptical there ;) )), the cases finally in UK and the nubs being improved, I'm pretty optimistic here.


More Pandoras means more good devs and more feedback, both will relive the scene.


I also know of some projects people are working on that they don't want yet to be revealed.


And while the PSX emulator can be improved for sure, it's good enough to play some games like Suikoden or Parasite Eve.


And I don't know any other system yet that does better PSX emulation... except for the PSP, but that was a completely different case: Sony actually provided the emulator, it was not written by the community.


So each new system needs to be hacked first - and then someone needs to code a PSX emulator for that system.


Depending on when the Jungle comes out, it might still be 1 - 2 years until you have proper PSX emulation.


Additionally, I've yet to hear the clicking issue in MAME4ALL - every game I tried has crystal clear sound.
 
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We cannot offer you the quality Sony or Nintendo has, we're a few Million USD too short of that. We cannot clearly say when it will be released, as we're depending on the companies that produce the project.


But we can offer you to be personally there, support you, tell you what's happening and talk to you. We're not hiding, we're not exaggerating anything, we just say things as they currently are.


I'm personally dedicated to support this little handheld and support the community with all the power I have. I will try everything I can to make this small produce exist. I don't want millions of USD, personally, I'm happy if it doesn't fail and I get at least the money back I invested.


If it fails for some reason (don't hope so, but you never knwo) then I will not vanish and tell you to get lost. I'll take my responsibility - even if it means that I'm personally blank for the next 10 years and lose everything I worked for in the last 15 years.


That's what I can offer. It might not be much, as I'm only one guy out of billions of people on this planet and if anything fails nobody will probably care about me anymore, but I'm afraid I don't have anymore to offer to you.


But this is nothing like a big players thing where there's a lot of money backing up in case any problems occur or where some money loss is bad but not killing someone personally... this is a dedicated project that only lives from you, the community, and from us, trying everything we can to keep it alive and make it better.
*claps slowly*
 
So, if this is indeed using Tegra 1, how would that compare to the Pandora?
 
My personal take is the jungle is going to sell more be hacked faster and cause panasonic more problems in the long run because of this, I mean we would get the system and not even use it for what it's intended for which seems to be mmos which with no doubt is going to require server fees and monthly subscriptions on the bigger titles that will be released as well as the cost of the game. It would be great if panasonic was going in this with an open mind to the consumer (major props to the pandora team for this) instead of having a plan an keeping it to themselves I think this will break panasonic in alot of ways I've already seen my dad lose a job from a panasonic factory getting shut down in Ohio they aren't a powerful force but with the backing they do have a formatable foe because we all know deep down that this machine will be opened eventually thanks to the great devs we have that pretty much well love doing what they do. I just wish I could learn how to do this stuff
 
Performance wise ? better


Hackability ? still none (yes you still want it...)

The CPU in Tegra 1 (Tegra APX2500 or APX2600) is only 600MHz ARM11. 600MHz Cortex-A8 is better. L2 cache and RAM capabilities are similar. Not that much is known about the performance of the GPU.


But I really doubt they're using Tegra 1.
 
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I don't know if it is hacked (and why wouldn't it be, every other "closed" device has) I can see it having a homebrew scene. Even if the jungle is a total failure they will certainly sell more than the Pandora.


Besides right now the Pandora itself doesn't have much of a homebrew scene. All projects seem abandoned and it doesn't have a good PSX emu, no playable PC-engine emu, MAME sound pops and clicks on many classic games and seems dead, others are drive-by ports that come out then don't get improved etc. If the jungle sells 10,000 units (should easily do at least that) there will probably be a bigger scene. I think it comes down to when it will come out, how much it will be and how good the battery life is.

As far as I'm aware Gizmondo sold more than 10,000, more on the order of 25,000, and its scene was never very good.


Pretty much every time you complain about PC-Engine emulation on Pandora I stop working on it for another week. Just letting you know ;p
 
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As far as I'm aware Gizmondo sold more than 10,000, more on the order of 25,000, and its scene was never very good.


Pretty much every time you complain about PC-Engine emulation on Pandora I stop working on it for another week. Just letting you know ;p
That is probably because the Giz hardware was crap, was made worse by using WinCE, and it didn't get cracked until after it was already discontinued.
 
Additionally, I've yet to hear the clicking issue in MAME4ALL - every game I tried has crystal clear sound.
Try Donkey Kong jr for one example. If you don't hear that popping then you either have a magic Pandora, or your hearing is not too good.
 
The pandora's homebrew scene will be far better to the Jungle's if that sells 15,000, and the pandora only sells 8,000. With the pandora less time has to be spent "hacking" into the firmware and finding exploits to run unsigned code. Whereas with the pandora the devs flock to it from the beginning because it is OSS and they will not have to waste time getting into the device as it will already be open for them.
 
That is probably because the Giz hardware was crap, was made worse by using WinCE, and it didn't get cracked until after it was already discontinued.

And reasons such as those and more are exactly what something isn't guaranteed to be more successful at homebrew than Pandora just because it sells 10,000 units.
 
Well I hope for omap4.x, tho I hope we can reap software from it for use on the Pandora.


I wish for fully functional JVM and a Firefox plugin! Then ill dance with joy!


Also I hope for a good resolution on the display. Some JVM apps I run requires a minimum of 800x600 and the Pandora do not have that :(


Tho this will never replace the Pandora for me but I will love to play with it and hope we can use some of it's software on the Pandora!
 
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