Esoteric Pandora Uses

[DrCJBoduma]

Just thought I would start a topic to share ideas and information about things the good ol' pandora can do, but maybe not everybody knows about. It could be simply a piece of software you enjoy and use, a game you think has been missed out on(homebrew/ports), or just some general little tips/hacks you use to get the most out of it.

E.g. I've just started to use GetIplayer which is a great way to download BBC iplayer content and then watching the programs through Panplayer

Not the most imaginative use I know, but I thought it might start the ball rolling and lead the way for the more creative/knowledgeable folk on here.

 

[Esn]

Hmm. I guess not many people know that you can play multiplayer online DOS games on the Pandora. Like Netkeen, for example (video, tutorial).

You can also do animation with Pencil, painterly artwork with MyPaint, and high-quality multitrack audio recording with Audacity.

That's what I've used it for, anyway... (although Audacity is a touch buggy, or at least it only seems to work well with ext2/3 formatted SD cards)

 

[Popcorn Dave]

That's cool to know Getiplayer works on the Pandora, seems the dickheads at the BBC are always trying to kill that thing.

 

[DrCJBoduma]

thanks esn, yeah that's what I was after.

getiplayer works well, just watched psychoville and Stewart lee

also just to add been messing around with game editor which again works pretty well. let's you edit and then play your own creations.

 

[CPUnltd]

animation w/ pencil???

 

[skeezix]

Use it to charge your phone when it runs down?

 

[TitanUranus]

I use mine to inspire awe in nubile young women who fall at my feet yelling "take me you technological marvel of human evolution - we must breed and create more supreme beings like you". So far it hasn't worked, but I'm still hoping.

Also, I hope to one day use the pandora as an emulated 1541 disk for a real C64, this is of course less likely.

 

[Esn]

By the way, doesn't that BBC app only work if you're in the UK?

animation w/ pencil???

Sure... some examples I made:
2011-02-03 (abstract cell)
2011-02-20 (face)
2011-04-30 (face)

You can also probably do animation in MyPaint by painting each frame on a new layer, because you can easily go back & forth between layers using the X&Y buttons, if I remember correctly.

 

[CPUnltd]

interesting... will definitely have to play with that sometime...

 

[Esn]

interesting... will definitely have to play with that sometime...

Be sure to follow my instructions here; it's taller than the screen, so you have to use "L" to move the window around (or if you're left-handed, you should probably assign "shift" to "R" instead, in Xfce). Why, have you done any animation before?

 

[DrCJBoduma]

[sup][/sup]

as a very geeky internet radio alarm (vlc + mplayer + crontab)

This sounds good, is it easy to set up?


Esn, not sure about the iplayer only working in the uk (just checked the getiplayer website and it seems you are correct)

PS: As for other uses, I used the debian extend thing to get open office impress working to review some power point slides when my laptop ran out of juice.

 

[CPUnltd]

@ Esn: I have not done animation before, I just didn't realize that pencil was capable of such... I hadn't really played with it just yet. I DID download it a while back, but hadn't really gotten around to using it. It's essentially the same as GIMP doing animated GIFs (not in practice, but in principle), and that's pretty cool. I am intrigued by the aspect, but I am totally new to the game in that particular area. Will read your tutorial and see if I make something cool.

 

[Esn]

@ Esn: I have not done animation before, I just didn't realize that pencil was capable of such... I hadn't really played with it just yet. I DID download it a while back, but hadn't really gotten around to using it. It's essentially the same as GIMP doing animated GIFs (not in practice, but in principle), and that's pretty cool. I am intrigued by the aspect, but I am totally new to the game in that particular area. Will read your tutorial and see if I make something cool.

Well, no, unlike in a GIF animation you can have sounds and camera moves; I just didn't have any.

The main tutorial is over at the Pencil website. There are a few bugs that seem to be specific to the Pandora version (which I mentioned in the thread), and also pressure sensitivity doesn't work in the Pandora version.

 

[CPUnltd]

pressure sensitivity not working in the Pandora version makes sense... pretty sure that's a driver thing along with the hardware having the right circuitry to recognize that... though I could be wrong.

 

[Esn]

pressure sensitivity not working in the Pandora version makes sense... pretty sure that's a driver thing along with the hardware having the right circuitry to recognize that... though I could be wrong.

First got pressure sensitivity to work on his excellent port of MyPaint. He seems to be the only one so far, though.

EDIT: By the way, I made a wiki article here:
http://pandorawiki.org/Pencil

 

[CPUnltd]

then it's definitely a software thing... I knew I'd heard about someone getting pressure sensitivity working, but I forgot what program it was...

 

[CPUnltd]

now THAT is a nice bit of geekery! will have to test that on other Linux installs around my house!

 

[DrCJBoduma]

[sup][/sup]

as a very geeky internet radio alarm (vlc + mplayer + crontab)

This sounds good, is it easy to set up?

it should be easy

cron and crontab commands - check wiki
if it's not installed, run 'sudo opkg install cron' from terminal

that's how it works:

* * * * * * command to be executed
- - - - - -
| | | | | |
| | | | | +- Year (optional)
| | | | +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
| | | +---------- month (1 - 12)
| | +--------------- day of month (1 - 31)
| +-------------------- hour (0 - 23)
+------------------------- min (0 - 59)

if you want pandora to randomly play your mp3 folder at 7am from monday to friday:

0 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle /media/sdcard/mp3/*

you can also set it to halt at 7:30

30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/killall mplayer

those commands can go in a simple text file, to enable it: crontab -e /media/sdcard/textfile
if you need to run the command as root: sudo crontab -e /media/sdcard/textfile

Thanks Alerino,

I'm new to crontab, have had a read around but am still struggling. I have tried to start run crontab using the sudo command, but get the message "no crontab for root - using an empty one" then some not found stuff and it exits with status 127.

I can start crontab not as root, but cannot seem to save the cron file

Any help appreciated,

Thanks

CJ

 

[DrCJBoduma]

CJ, try 'crontab /media/sdcard/textfile' (no -e parameter, then test it with crontab -l)
i can't test it right now (at work, Windows 7 system)

Aha, thanks Alerino, that seems to have done the trick. Will find out at 7am tomorrow

Might try and use cron to set up the pvr function on the get_iplayer app.

Thanks again

CJ

 

[DrCJBoduma]

Not really esoteric, but here's Pandebian in action

Youtube link