Geeks with Wives Podcast and Open Pandora coverage


The reviewer has asked for more time with the Pandora.


He also asked how many active developers there are in the community. Has anyone counted that lately, I've said >30, which seems accurate.
 
I nominate Notaz for developer of the year though. With all his great Firmware work, steady improvements of emulators, Android and general awesomeness.
 
Yeah, notaz sure is the dev of the year, and probably of most years before this year too. He didn't release a lot of PNDs (but the ones he did make are absolute top quality stuff), but the amount of behind-the-scenes development and helping of other devs (e.g. on IRC) is amazing. He is the guy who makes sure that we get all the good kernel configuration stuff, tuned very specifically to our device (many of you may think that "linux" is just "linux", but there's actually a huge number of ways to tweak a kernel). He is the guy who puts hand-written NEON code in the SDL blitter function so everything that uses SDL (and that's a LOT) benefits from the speedups. And so on.


Don't assume SZ is just a regular GNU/Linux distribution like any other. Most GNU/Linux distributions include very generic binaries that run on as many systems as possible, so many system-specific optimizations are not done. Their kernels are compiled with every possible system in mind (of course the architecture is fixed, but in the case of x86, there's usually only the distinction between 32 bit and 64 bit), so their performance will suffer. Their libraries are compiled with every possible use case in mind, so they sometimes contain quite a lot of unnecessary functionality. Thanks to the "notaz magic" sprinkled all over SZ, we really get the maximum performance out of our hardware, much more than what you would get with a generic GNU/Linux distro.
 
FYI I'll be interviewed on the December 11th show.


Just got the review unit back today.
 
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Did you get any indication that they appreciated it, or should we set ourselves up for another reviewer that expected a pure game machine with a Sony or Nintendo budget?
 
They seemed very impressed when they briefly got their hands on it at the expo. Loved the fact it was a full pc in the pocket and geared greatly for retro gaming, had made it to fruition from concept by such a small team.


Hopefully they didn't find it difficult to use, as the 11th show should prove to be a pretty decent review. Will tune in for sure :)
 
Just got word from the folks over at GWW. Feel free to answer these questions anyone as I'll try formulate an answer out of all input received, or wing it if nobody contributes.


1. What is the intended goal of the OP?


2. How much time was spent in development?


3. What has been the feedback from potential buyers?


4. Discuss the development community and their involvement in future expansions.


5. When will it hit retail?


This is from their Twitter feed:


I spent 2 weeks with the love-child of 4 really smart geeks @OpenPandora. Review coming next week! @GeeksWithWives


They've got a half hour set aside for the OP.
 
Finally someone on the internetz who cares to inform himself about a device he is going to review

1. What is the intended goal of the OP?
Back at the time the idea of the Pandora was born: make the best handheld/minicomputer available, a worthy succesor of the gp32x, best available amiga emulator on the go (craig).


All in all: a fun and open device

2. How much time was spent in development?
two years and Two Months

3. What has been the feedback from potential buyers?
That ranges from "finally a device where the manufacturers really care about their customers and have an open year for them", "best handeld ever", over "cool, but couldn't they make it cheaper" to "whats the point ? My smartphone/tablet is more powerfull"

4. Discuss the development community and their involvement in future expansions.
They community devs, and a lot of dedicated users around the boards are one of the main reasons the Pandora is still around, and surely a lot of them are the customer base for a possible P2

5. When will it hit retail?
It has already


You probably thought of this yourself, but just to be certain:


Contact Ed, he sure will be happy to give some of his thoughts about it too (and he is one of the few who could answer questions 1-3 best, I guess)
 
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