About the hardware

[Exophase]

Man, I wish 3DS's specs were forced down our throat. Nintendo doesn't want to say anything about it, probably because they know the CPUs are a joke..


Anyway, no one's losing huge chunks of money due to people jerks on forums. The demand for Pandora grossly outstrips supply and I doubt this'll change for years. Let's try to be nice because it's the nice thing to do, not out of more misguided zeal for the project...

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Man, I wish 3DS's specs were forced down our throat. Nintendo doesn't want to say anything about it, probably because they know the CPUs are a joke..

I guess I was more saying that everyone knows what it is for and what it can do... not necessarily the hardware specs but the practical usage of the device is clear from the get-go.

Anyway, no one's losing huge chunks of money due to people jerks on forums. The demand for Pandora grossly outstrips supply and I doubt this'll change for years.

I truly, honestly believe the exact opposite; I suppose it's just conjecture either way. The way I see it is, after the initial burst, the Pandora will need continued popularity to remain in production.

Let's try to be nice because it's the nice thing to do, not out of more misguided zeal for the project...

Misguided? ... My zeal for the project is misguided? It's a wonderful project with a wonderful community with wonderful people. What's not to love?


That said you are right. People should just be nice to one another as a matter of principle.

 

[Exophase]

Let's be realistic...


Pandora has been taking years to sell its FIRST batch and has preorders filled out for a second batch. With people like Ashens endorsing it I'm sure the demand will keep pouring in. Most people aren't going to make hardware purchasing decisions based on how people (especially people largely unrelated to the project) treat them on a forum, or based on how their friends say they were treated on a forum.


When their outstanding orders are satisfied and when the backlog of people anxious to take up now spots runs dry the biggest thing they're going to have to worry about is the hardware being super outdated, The second biggest thing they're going to have to worry about is how mature the software is. I don't think how nice people on the forum are is going to even make the list. The Pandora owning community is a niche, but the number of people who frequent this forum (much less are in this for the community experience) are a niche within a niche.


Don't get me wrong, it's not that Pandora is a worldwide hit that'll never run out of appeal, it's still targeting a very specific group of people. It's just that the production capabilities have always unmet even that appeal.


Now when I say your zeal for the project is misguided... what I really mean to say is not that you shouldn't love Pandora and the community, but that you should carefully pick the battles you fight in its honor (ironically, this is exactly what we can be telling the people who are being jerks in these threads). I have bad memories of people who threatened lawsuits if anyone's negativity "caused" Pandora to fail.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

^ I won't argue; though I believe word-of-mouth is always the best advertisement medium you do present a couple of good points (hardware, software) and it's stupid to argue when we agree anyway that


we should all be nice.





That said I am going to bed--- my new Pandora arrives tomorrow!!!!

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Now when I say your zeal for the project is misguided... what I really mean to say is not that you shouldn't love Pandora and the community, but that you should carefully pick the battles you fight in its honor (ironically, this is exactly what we can be telling the people who are being jerks in these threads). I have bad memories of people who threatened lawsuits if anyone's negativity "caused" Pandora to fail.

I understand, but sometimes I just feel like something is fundamentally wrong in the proceedings and I just have to put in my two cents. I think it's part of being a college student-- you're at that age where you have the answers to everything and people just won't listen, damn them... Perhaps this is the source of any less-than-healthy reputation I may have with certain people...


I think this comic sums up my occasional late-night outbursts pretty well (offscreen is my girlfriend on the phone).

That said, I'm actually going to bed this time.

 

[Nintendo]

Goodnight, AA :wub:

 

[bismuthdrummer]

Niche does not mean unpopular. Linux is niche, yet Linux is popular. Pandora is niche and unpopular, but it could also still become popular. Subjective, but you should see what I mean. If 99.9% of people are still not even aware of the Pandora, then our niche has plenty of room to grow. And still no direct competition.


Last weekend I realized just how much potential the Pandora still has in its uniqueness, when my brother (an EE) saw my Pandy and was not intimidated by the price. I made cautioning statements like "iPad2 is also $500" and "the software isn't 100%", but his response was that "Yeah but the iPad2 doesn't have a full keyboard and isn't that small. And there are probably forums where I could find help, right?"

 

[Nintendo]

So, is your brother considering getting a Pandora now?

 

[bismuthdrummer]

Not sure, he seemed perked (which often means secretly seduced ), but he is also very slow to buy. He talked about a big screen TV for years (while doing very well as a single engineer) before he finally 'broke down' and bought one. Plus, he's not truly into handhelds very much, his reasoning goes like "Well, I have a big screen to play games or a little screen..." Thus his DS doesn't see much action.


If he does, it will probably be for its utility while traveling (web, movies, etc.).

 

[Nintendo]

I hope he buys one to support the OPT.

 

[bismuthdrummer]

I will have mine the next time I see him. Gentle suggestion seems to work well on him.

 

[Nintendo]

Show it off to him even more so than the first time you showed it to him.

 

[Neelix]

I did get something running - hence knowing the mouse worked. I think it was one of the kings quest games, but its been a while. I must admit I certainly didn't give it a thorough work-out, having successfully installed and booted and run a program on it, my curiosity was sated, and I had no motivation for any further experimentation

Errm - wait a sec.


You ran MS-DOS off an SD Card on your Intel Atom Netbook. That might be possible with harddisk emulation, all right.


However - the mouse worked?


There is an Atom Netbook with a serial port out there?


Because the USB mouse will definitely NOT work... or did you mean the internal touchpad worked? That might be possible, if it's connected as PS/2.

You know, come to think of it I'm not 100% sure it was on the Atom, it may have been on the EEE 701, Which is no less remarkable. Either way that's the bit that shocked me most... it was a stock standard USB mouse connected via a USB port and it worked just fine. So did a USB keyboard, both of which I plugged in after the system was booted, and USB keys were also visible if present at boot. (come to that the internal SD card on the EEE was also linked through USB too) It seems the USB was being completely handled by the BIOS, which is quite impressive really.


That being said I just confirmed that I could do the same with a win98 boot disk on the Atom, (I couldn't find the card with DOS6.2) and there would have been no USB drivers loaded there either.


- Neelix

 

[Thorium]

Dont know about Atom, but a USB mouse can work on DOS. Depends on how the application accesses the mouse. If it's accesses it over the BIOS interrupts it should work just fine.