Haters and doubters: my fight for the pandora.

[may88]

Tj tut tut tut. Trying to corrupt our little man. Shame on you. Alerino's plan stand a better chance of success.

 

[Tellurium]

TenorMan send TenorDad to Craig's place and we could sell the ring-side seats to help raise some cash for OPT.


@TenorDad - The Pandora is OpenPandora's first crack at a hand-held console. It comes with a few risks and issues but if you understand and accept these you will not be disappointed with the unit. It has a full Linux desktop and offers a excellent platform to learn Linux, various programming languages and tinker with many open source projects. Compare this with the closed hardware of an Apple product where you can run only what Apple allows you to download. You could jailbreak it but there goes your warranty.


The Pandora is unique. I'm buying one as a UMPC which happens to be good at gaming. I will use this thing for entertainment but the R&D options this thing opens up are endless, and it is here the educational value of the unit wins big time.

ill be sure to show him this post/forum. he just doesnt want me to waste my money but i dont think its a waste nor does any one else that owns one.

 

[sswam]

Make sure you show him wootson's vid that will convince him, LOL.


http://www.wootsontv.com/?p=20


The Pandora is a great little computer, and I highly recommend it.


Haven't touched my N900, e-book reader etc. since I got it,


and my laptop is also getting much less attention.


Not to mention my family, I've been neglecting them too! j/k


Diet Pandora - so good, you'll forget to eat.

 

[-Tj-]

Tj tut tut tut. Trying to corrupt our little man. Shame on you. Alerino's plan stand a better chance of success.

For the greater good... for the greater good... for the greater good...

 

[gadgetoid]

Wow, all the misdirected iPad hate. Fair enough, it doesn't compete with the Pandora, end of story.


You bitter, vocal Apple haters are just poor. Hahaha. One might summon the phrase ( probably a misquote ): "thou doeth protest too much."


Seriously, anyone who spents so much time slating a piece of technology for such moronic reasons as a tightly controlled and sane user experience is either employed by their competition, or so far back in the jealousy closet that they're riding Aslan.


Punch your dad in the face. You're 16, you can probably take him. Or, better still, let him buy you an iPad, sell it over t'internet using paypal and use the proceeds for a Pandora. Muhaha.

 

[ibisum]

Get the iPad2, send it to me. I'll send you a Pandora. Seriously!

 

[gadgetoid]

Get the iPad2, send it to me. I'll send you a Pandora. Seriously!

Hahaha. My wife would probably intercept an iPad 2 and send my Pandora in its place... if I actually *had* my Pandora. I certainly wouldn't!


I negotiated web contracts when I was a wee teen, and used that money to buy miscellaneous crapola. I remember getting a Compaq Aero 1520 all those years ago.


I bothered to read up, and noticed someone else suggested getting hold of cash for an iPad 2 and using that to buy a Pandora. I'm pretty positive you can't return an item paid for by card and receive cash in exchange for it. At least not anywhere I've ever returned anything or, in fact, anywhere I've ever heard of. You could just swipe some poor suckers iPad as he walks out of the store and take it back immediately for cash. DON'T STEAL MY PLAN!!!

 

[Blue Protoman]

Does an iPad have gaming controls? No, it does not.


Are touch screen controls a good substitute? No, they are not.


Do iPads let you do what YOU want to do? No, they do not.


Do iPads pack a full computer under the hood? No, they do not.


Do iPads support SD cards? Two, at once? No, they do not.


Can you put your iPad in your pocket? No, you cannot.

 

[Norl]

Can you put your iPad in your pocket? No, you cannot.

Yeah but the graphics power of a sony ngp? 10" screen, 9mm thick, 10hr battery? You gotta admit that's sweet. (Too bad there's no gamepad + buttons.)

 

[Bigun]

Is he paying for it? If so, not much you can do but try and convince him, but you could try this:


Compile a list of all the things you want to do with your mobile device (iPad vs. Pandora, maybe others). Make sure it's a comprehensive list of only things YOU want to do with it. Then specify on that list which device can do what without any additional hardware. If both can do one of the listed items, explain which can do it better and why. Be brief with these descriptions, and don't be biased.


Then show him the list and let him look it over.


If that doesn't work and your dad is rich, have him buy you an iPad, then complain endlessly about how it doesn't do what you want it to. Emphasis on 'endlessly'. Keep muttering under your breath about how a Pandora would have done what you wanted. Just make sure you're trying to make do, not just complaining to get your way.


If he isn't paying for it, I don't see what the problem is.

---^


This guy has it right, make a comprehensive list (Wifi, Controller, physical keyboard, approximately same footprint, etc), and go from there.

 

[ibisum]

I'm really serious, I will swap a pristine condition Pandora for an iPad2, if it will help.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Can you put your iPad in your pocket? No, you cannot.

Yeah but the graphics power of a sony ngp? 10" screen, 9mm thick, 10hr battery? You gotta admit that's sweet. (Too bad there's no gamepad + buttons.)

The ten inch screen means less portability, as you can't put it in your pocket.


9mm thick? You got me; but know that SD cards would inflate that.


10 hour battery? Is that real usage like with the Pandora, or just idle?


And the graphical beef? Wasn't around when the Pandora was designed, and changing it would be impossible at this point.

 

[DFP]

Tell him the Pandora comes with all the tools necessary to write software for it, onboard, whereas the iPad will require a huge multi-thousand $$$ investment just to get hello world written.

I've developed Apps for the iPhone/iPad and I'm also getting great performance out of my Pandora. Polished stuff.


If you already have a Mac, developing for the iPhone will cost maybe $400/year more than the Pandora for a newbie to get a game done at the quality I've seen so far on the Pandora (and it will likely take you less time as well with a smaller learning curve), but the marketplace prospects are much higher.


The Pandora is, at this moment, more of a hobbyist device for a very niche group. I'm not even sure of the original poster knows what kind of a device he'd be getting of he hasn't been using Linux already. His father's wisdom should not be discounted here if all he's going to use it for is games/internet/amateur dev.

 

[CFWhitman]

What really makes the iPad unappealing to me is that there are no flash card (sd card) slots, there is no USB host capability, and there is no MSC transfer mode. That means that the only ways to communicate with the device are through the network connection (not so terrible, but still somewhat limiting) or with iTunes (no thanks). As a Linux user, this make the device nearly useless for me.


I'm not a big fan of touch screens on devices large enough to accommodate additional input options either. If a device is small enough to pocket, then you have an excuse to use a touch screen only (saving space), otherwise, I prefer more. (Actually, I like the availability of slide out or flip open keyboards even on small devices, but I understand the reason for touch screen only designs).


Finally, I'm not a fan of walled gardens either. I want to be able to install, or even write, additional software not necessarily approved by Apple. I know that not everyone feels this way, though. I also know that jailbreaking may be an option, but really, there is nothing appealing enough about the iPad to make me care that much.


The iPad's sole appeal to me is the battery life. Being based on an ARM processor has a lot to do with that. The ARM based smartbooks just now being released are more appealing to me, with a full fledged Linux operating system, and sometimes with comparable battery life. Of course, there is also the Pandora, which has similar appealing characteristics.

 

[doublebeta]

I had the same issue with my parents. What I did was worked _hard_ for the money, despite being told 'no'. So what happened when I asked again? "...sure...0_o". So I have my Pandora preordered. This was late September/early October last year - I'm in Batch 2. If you order now, you get one within a week (as you may know, most people in batch 1 and nobody in batch 2 has a Pandora yet).


Of course that one won't really work for you...


But I can recommend the assembly suggestion - learning assembly language was one of the best decisions I ever made. The other was moving to a UNIX-like operating system (Linux). You can do both of these of the Pandora.


In case you have never used a programming language before, learn C first (other languages..and I might regret saying this since you will be tempted to jump for the easier option...might be easier - I disagree, IMHO C is the ultimate language. If you learn C you get most of the concepts of assembly. Learn python/etc, you get near complete abstraction, and thus are still lost when you try low level stuff).


My sole reason(to my parents) for getting the Pandora was genuine: Programming(mostly C though. I don't plan to do much ASM - but I will have to do some if I do write an operating system, as I plan to).


The other reason was to play games, but hey. I honestly code more than I game, and nobody try and bash C with that comment!


Honestly, a full qwerty keyboard on a tiny, OPEN device. You _can't_ beat it. (Well, open as far as you'll ever need to know, unless you want to write an OS - wifi and the graphics chipset are not open...).


I despise Apple. Greatly. My financial status has _absolutely nothing_ to do with it. I'll leave it at that.


But, unrelated to my hatred for Apple, suggesting the iPad as a substitute for a Pandora is, in complete honesty, f*cking ridiculous! Reasons have been listed. Jailbreaking is no substitute for a device that comes with dev tools. Plus as has been said, that voids your warranty(jailbreaking).


*Does* the Pandora come with development tools(gcc, as, ld, even NASM?)?


edit: Can't have NASM, it only assembles to x86. But I can probably port it to ARM (the assembler itself, not the output) - and probably will at some point in time. Hey, if you're a demoscener maybe you want it for DOSBOX? .

 

[Exophase]

I'm surprised people are comparing a handheld with a tablet. Next thing you know people will be bringing in TVs for comparison.


It's interesting that no one is mentioning the long and ultimately unknown wait time behind a Pandora order as a deterrent. If I were his father that would be my number one concern. torpor's deal relieves all that, if you're willing to trust someone on a forum.

Jailbreaking is no substitute for a device that comes with dev tools. Plus as has been said, that voids your warranty(jailbreaking).

*Does* the Pandora come with development tools(gcc, as, ld, even NASM?)?

You can develop for iOS, even on iOS:


http://blog.syshalt.net/index.php/2010/09/12/compile-c-applications-with-gcc-on-ios-4-iphone/


There are some toolchains floating around that don't require Mac:


http://xsellize.com/topic/111034-toolchain-for-ios-42/


But the tricky part is getting the SDK files.. which I guess you have to buy from Apple (or pirate). You would expect someone to have eventually come up with a free alternative that lets you do enough to be useful.


Personally I never got why people cared that much about compiling on the machine. Yeah it's nice in a pinch to fix something, but wouldn't you normally just be SSHing in anyway? In which case it's just the convenience of not having to SCP your file after it's built, but with the inconvenience of compiling it on a weaker machine. When my desktop takes 1+ minutes to compile something I know I'd rather take the couple seconds to SCP the file than the several minutes to compile on the Pandora.. in fact I think the alternative will rarely save you time.

 

[DFP]

I'm surprised people are comparing a handheld with a tablet. Next thing you know people will be bringing in TVs for comparison.

Well it was brought up by his father so I think it depends entirely on the original poster's intention with the device. For me personally, it's a handheld device with a lot of controls and I want to make games for it (but not on it). I'll do everything else on my laptop or iPhone, like make games for the Pandora. The only honest reason for me getting one is that it was a unique and cool device. I followed my inner gadget whore. Sometimes coming up with other reasons is just making stuff up.


Many computer users are used to quantifying a product by its features rather than it's ability to cater to general needs. All I know is, switching between Linux/Windows/OSX/Android/iOS and a myriad of other items usually requires an ability to change habits and perspectives. When people have computer knowledge, they don't really know anything other than how it was designed to work (that includes being able to enhance its features or change how it works). People need a USB port because they've developed the habit and acquired the items and behaviors requiring them to perpetuate that habit. Myself, I just like to update my game PNDs on the Pandora via SSH. The whole putting your Pandora into SD-Mass Storage mode is a bit tedious.


I think depending on the individual you have: Games/Internet/Development and that's possible across pretty much every device. Some people like more features, more potential, sometimes at the cost of more work/effort/polish. I spent 8 months without a computer and it changed a lot about the way I see and do things. Some people just like getting the job done, the rest is irrelevant (or becomes so with a change of habits). Some people don't adjust well to change. They need keyboards, they need things to work the way they're used to using it, and that's fine because there are just some things that need to be done. I still think things are more complicated than they need to be though.

 

[gadgetoid]

I'm not sure how anyone can harbour hatred for Apple, it's a corporation with a small Market share outside of markets they've created or defined themselves, you need not encounter them in any way, shape or form if you so choose. At worst you could simply ignore Apple, but harbouring hatred? Really? Did they kill your dog?


Indeed, the father must be tragically misinformed to suggest an iPad as an alternative to the Pandora. I think we can probably stop referencing that fact, now, as it's irrelevant to the point at hand.


The options stand:


1) word hard for casheroo and buy a Pandora


2) overthrow your evil tyrannical parents and claim what should be yours


3) buy an iPad and trade it for casherooni or a pandora


4) wait until you're 18


5) attempt to sway your father with videos/reviews


I would not deny my daughter such simple technological pleasures.

 

[Jourdy288]

Well, for one thing, there's tens of thousands more programs that run on the Pandora than the iDevices. Know why? Emulators. C64, various Apple computers, Oric, Tandy, Spectrum, Windows 3.1, so many more. So yeah, you can run Microsoft's word processor.


And I haven't even mentioned all the game systems you can emulate.

 

[Exophase]

Well, for one thing, there's tens of thousands more programs that run on the Pandora than the iDevices. Know why? Emulators. C64, various Apple computers, Oric, Tandy, Spectrum, Windows 3.1, so many more. So yeah, you can run Microsoft's word processor.


And I haven't even mentioned all the game systems you can emulate.

You can emulate all sorts of things on a jailbroken iOS device.. I don't see why people consider this off the table. Yeah, maybe it breaks the warranty, but so does running your Pandora in OPP5. And I'm sure no one wants to hear this, but with Pandora you're more likely to exercise that warranty.


I for one would not want to run a word processor that worked in Windows 3.1, especially not while suffering DOSBox's emulation overhead.