Announcement: Pond

[sinoth]

I love decentralized design, but I think the Pandora is gonna need a central server. My main concern is that in order to have a strong serverless network, machines need to be on a decent amount of the time. The typical use for Pandora is gonna be turn it on, connect to network, play/chat, disconnect and power off. I'm not sure there is a really great way around that issue.

 

[Tor]

I'm not going to turn it off. Why should I have to? I don't, with a Nokia tablet.. and the battery of the Pandora is much bigger.

Typical Nokia tablet use: Turn it on, connect to network, use email, rss, browser, skype, or other networked application. Leave device connected, with screen off/locked. Receive incoming. Disconnect from wi-fi when leaving wi-fi range. Connect through BT/phone if feel like it. Go to bed. Wake up, connect to network. Charge the device now and then. And so on. Repeat. Except the turn it on part, because you do that only once, unless forced to shut it off by knifepoint or force majeure.

That's how I'm going to use the Pandora as well.

Edit: Oh, and I agree about the centralized server. The Nokia tablets/maemo project suffered from too many repositories, now they're all getting consolidated to a few.

 

[timofonic]

Is this project still alive? I think a project like this can be quite interesting, a standarized (online) multiplayer system for Pandora is needed.

 

[Rayek]

Another bump here...

I haven't been on the forums in quite some time, but I've been keeping up by RSS-ing the unofficial blog. I logged in to check to see if something was being worked out as to network gaming on the Pandora and nothing's been said on this thread for almost a year... Has anything new cropped up?

If not, here are my thoughts on this project...

Mostly what I was envisioning was a normal online chat server that wasn't program (emulator or homebrew) specific, where you could state which program you planned on connecting to another user to play, and once the connection was established with a peer, the application in question would launch (and, in the case of an emulator, load the intended rom/modules). Also, within this chat program would be a simple file transfer option, as well as whatever accoutrement is expected.

My reasoning for this specific means of connecting Pandora users is that only 1000 or so Pandoras will be shipped out to end users or developers once they are finished, and by eliminating the need to be on a specific emulator or program to connect to someone else, it will allow players to choose what they'd like to do based upon how many people want to connect. (For example, I could spend twenty minutes waiting for someone to log in to whichever SNES emulator chatroom to connect to another user, or I could log in to this other chat program and 'suggest' that someone join me with a game of Mario Kart.)

Again, if this has been sorted, please direct me to the appropriate thread.