Give The Dev A Pandora!

[Aninhumer]

Voting for dflemstr.

I get the feeling he'll do more than just "The Box" in the long term.
(Not to pressure you or anything )

 

[Iorgy77]

GnoStic could get one so he could perfect P-UAE.

 

[quartercast]

what? dflemstr doesn't have a pandora? He would definitely be up there on my list.

Or what about SiENcE, the dev who ported snes9x4dingoo? Skeezix has done a great job of snex9x4d4p but I'd like to see some more updates and SiENcE seemed interested in the pandora port as well.

 

[PokeParadox]

Some great suggestions here, I just wish more of the actual nominees would come in and say "Nah don't need it" or "Already have a Pandora" to helps us narrow it down to the right choice!

 

[SomeGuy99]

Some great suggestions here, I just wish more of the actual nominees would come in and say "Nah don't need it" or "Already have a Pandora" to helps us narrow it down to the right choice!

Round of PMs in order.

 

[darkblu]

huh, Laurent does not have a pandora yet? PokeParadox, you can correct this misunderstanding now.

 

[MarkoeZ]

too hard, can't decide :S n64 sounds good, i like the quemu/wine idea, but thebox and the rest of dflemsters stuff sound good too

 

[john4p]

smoku if it would encourage him to add AGA (&68020-emulation) to UAE4All.

On the other hand fullspeed Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask would be very nice to have, too...

 

[scottm]

I voted for Ari64 - if he can get another 5-10% out of his excellent n64 emulator then it will be well woth him having one!

Also think maybe we should have 2 or 3 pandas to give away though - to the top scorers in the poll. Laurent's project sound very interesting.

Also think the poll should have been expanded as there are probably loads of other developers working / going to be working on projects.

Has anyone actually spoken to Craig to see how many units we can give away?

 

[Bosbeetle]

Some great suggestions here, I just wish more of the actual nominees would come in and say "Nah don't need it" or "Already have a Pandora" to helps us narrow it down to the right choice!

Round of PMs in order.

Love your new avatar someguy Moon is a great movie!

 

[Trip]

Ok voted for Ari64.

Did this for the simple reason that I don't think Laurent's QEMU+Wine project is a really good idea for the Pandora.
First of all it probably won't play anything that can't be played on at least one other system (and will run faster on the other system too). Secondly; even if it does play some of the later games at acceptable speed it's only going to lead the way to a lot of threads about why it can't play even later games or all the other Windows software etc.
Creating new software should be encouraged for the Pandora not re-using the same old crap.

Don't get me wrong the project sounds seriously interesting; I just doubt its usefulness on the Pandora.

Ari64 on the other hand has already put in tons of work to get the N64 emulator working at a playable speed, and most of the games released for that system aren't available for any other systems. I believe he's currently using a Beagleboard for development and having the correct hardware is sure to make it easier for him to bug test and speed up development

I thought GnoStic had already stated that he didn't want to bother porting P-UAE for some reason?

 

[mosschops]

I dont know the status of GnoStic or if Smoku every replied to my badly veiled questions and Amiga emulation on Pandora Vs Nokia. But my vote goes to whoever would give the nod to getting the ability for a WB + WHDload going

 

[fusion_power]

PS: fusion_power: QEMU is a processor emulator. The idea is that it would, in a sense, give us a virtual x86 processor in the Pandora. With that, we could use Wine to run Windows games. It wouldn't be the fastest thing ever, but I think it's generally expected to be more efficient than DOSBox, allowing for slightly newer Windows (and closed-source Linux) games to be playable.

Ah, Thx for the explanation. Sounds a little bit like "running an Emulator into an Emulator" but if it is really faster than the current DOSBox (shouldn't be to hard ) then I already like this concept.

QEMU is an x86 emulator. Not like DosBox which emulates the DOS system, but a complete x86 barebones emulator with the ability to translate applications on the fly. You can use it as a virtual machine and install a completely different operating system onto it, or use it in user mode where it can load an application and translate it's code on the fly. It'd be especially useful for running x86 Linux games and applications on the Pandora.
In that way, in theory, QEMU can "run" WINE and translate the Windows system calls into Linux system calls. Together, they make it possible to run Windows games on the Pandora. A proof of concept was already created, and it was slooooooow, but it worked kind of.
WINE+QEMU is often brought up in the "Pandora cannot run Windows" threads as a suggestion of how the Pandora *could* run Windows games, but the consensus is that it will never be fast enough to play the games the people asking if it can run Windows (or WINE) want to play (ie, World of Warcraft, or any other game made since WinXP) so it's usually downplayed in those threads.
With WINE+QEMU, we might expect some Win95 era games to play, maybe, eventually. I wouldn't expect much more beyond that but I've got nothing but gut instinct to really back that up.

edit: wrote too much h34r:

Ok, i've got it.
But I still can't decide. We have a DEV-FUND so maybe more than one Dev could get an Pandora if he promises to work hard for our Machine?

 

[HS3006]

Plan and simple: I won't vote for any candidate without knowing "from the horse's mouth" if he or she has a bona fide interest in the Pandora. I would also need to know the candidate's specific priorities. Thirdly, I would need to know that the candidate does not have a reasonable financial means to purchase one.

I'd hate to see a Pandora collect dust on someone's office shelf when it could go into the hands of a truly financially-limited, brilliant programmer with the existing knowledge, ability, fiery passion and motivation to do great things that will fundamentally alter the historical timeline of handheld gaming.

 

[JayFoxRox]

Seriously?

Some devs on this list have access to multiple OMAP3 based devices already and there is no benefit of them owning a pandora, especially since they most likely either have one already OR will get one soon.
Also, there are far more important bits to care about than the apps - the OS is quite bad in it's current state and documentation is a lot more important than the actual software imo.
And rather than donating a pandora, donating a cheaper devboard like the IGEP would make more sense, aTc had the Pandora OS running on that and the input devices can be emulated too - so why pay twice the price for a Pandora? It's unlikely that the devs work on the go anyway.. (at least with complex apps like mentioned above).

Maybe it would be wise to pay someone who writes a user manager for the Pandora so that the devs can access it remotely after registering timeslots online - That way a lot of people could benefit from the Pandora.
- That would require a video (and audio) stream, remote access, a clean environment on the shared pandora, a user management system and some sort of input emulation - shouldn't be too hard.

Another option would be to improve the GLES2 emu and other libraries to improve cross-compatibility between PC and Pandora so one doesn't need the actual device. Money could be spend on that and the Pandora just sold to compensate that cost.

Oh and just ftr, while I think that laurent is a great guy, the qemu approach is probably going nowhere - at least it won't work as good as people expect it to be. Imho, static recompilation / decompilation with rewritten, optimized parts, is the way to go. Not to mention that he works for ARM, hence he probably has no problem getting some test environment.

 

[gruso]

And rather than donating a pandora, donating a cheaper devboard like the IGEP would make more sense, aTc had the Pandora OS running on that and the input devices can be emulated too - so why pay twice the price for a Pandora? It's unlikely that the devs work on the go anyway.. (at least with complex apps like mentioned above).

I think you might have missed the backstory? PokeParadox had his Pandora stolen. Someone kindly donated a new one, but his old one was recovered, so he's passing on the donation.

 

[MonkeyChops]

it's a pandora being donated because it was a pandora that got donated to PokeParadox when someone stole his. He recovered his and the donor told him to keep the extra one! So he's trying to give it to someone that will use it to make great things happen for the community.

btw, did you ever get your Pandora, JayFoxRox? Maybe you could start up your PSP emu again if you got a free one?

[edit] h34r:

Back story links:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/55427-win-a-pandora/
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/55354-solvedmy-pandora-dream-has-come-to-an-end/

 

[Bosbeetle]

poke keep it yourself as a backup if yours gets stolen

 

[Bosbeetle]

So next to me there is nobody curious what the good doctor is up to?

 

[JayFoxRox]

Gruso: I'm aware of the backstory, hence I mentioned selling the Pandora or using it in a shared setup. I think for the money you make of selling one Pandora, you can get 2 other devboards. Sorry for not making it clear
MonkeyChops: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/47270-pandora-psp/page__view__findpost__p__901859