Observations of a new Pandora owner

[oarias]

Howdy,


So my Pandora came in on Friday, and have been playing with it for a few days.


After initially having problems wrapping my mind around the .pnd file concept, I was able to get a bunch of stuff working.


I think I've done pretty well, for not being a Linux user. (Been working in IT for 20 years, and believe it or not, never had to use Linux before this..)


At any rate, here are some observations of the Unit and the Pandora "experience" as I see it.


1) This is DEFINATELY NOT something that a non-techie person is going to be able to pick up and start playing. A basic understanding of filesystems is necessary, not a problem for me, but I work in IT.... of course come to think about it, a non-techie person would probably have never gone in search of a device like this either....


2) My chief complaint (if you could call it that), is that every emulator has different UI controls, one wants to use D-pad and buttons, one wants to use the shoulder buttons, one wants to use the nubs. Even emulators that use the same controls have different button mappings. I appreciate the work that has gone into these from the community, but it is frustrating to users...


3) Atari 2600, Colecovision, Genesis, and many early arcade games work 100%, however several Mame4all games seem to be missing some sound (Donkey Kong) or all sounds (Zaxxon, Super Zaxxon), I will look at the other Mame emulator to see if it is just a Mame4all issue.


4) As far as hardware, the build quality of the unit seems high, the platinum paint doesn't look like it is going to scratch off anytime soon, the onboard speakers are louder and better quality than I expected.


5) The battery life has been excellent so far.


Far and away better than the GP2X Wiz that I had...


In a nutshell, glad I bought it, but would love to see the emulator developers get together on UI implementation.


That is all for now!


Oscar

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Hi there.


2- Yup, sadly it was an early mistake.

 

[mrdremel]

Howdy,


So my Pandora came in on Friday, and have been playing with it for a few days.


After initially having problems wrapping my mind around the .pnd file concept, I was able to get a bunch of stuff working.


I think I've done pretty well, for not being a Linux user. (Been working in IT for 20 years, and believe it or not, never had to use Linux before this..)


At any rate, here are some observations of the Unit and the Pandora "experience" as I see it.


1) This is DEFINATELY NOT something that a non-techie person is going to be able to pick up and start playing. A basic understanding of filesystems is necessary, not a problem for me, but I work in IT.... of course come to think about it, a non-techie person would probably have never gone in search of a device like this either....


2) My chief complaint (if you could call it that), is that every emulator has different UI controls, one wants to use D-pad and buttons, one wants to use the shoulder buttons, one wants to use the nubs. Even emulators that use the same controls have different button mappings. I appreciate the work that has gone into these from the community, but it is frustrating to users...


3) Atari 2600, Colecovision, Genesis, and many early arcade games work 100%, however several Mame4all games seem to be missing some sound (Donkey Kong) or all sounds (Zaxxon, Super Zaxxon), I will look at the other Mame emulator to see if it is just a Mame4all issue.


4) As far as hardware, the build quality of the unit seems high, the platinum paint doesn't look like it is going to scratch off anytime soon, the onboard speakers are louder and better quality than I expected.


5) The battery life has been excellent so far.


Far and away better than the GP2X Wiz that I had...


In a nutshell, glad I bought it, but would love to see the emulator developers get together on UI implementation.


That is all for now!


Oscar

+1 on the UI controls. It hasn't annoyed me as such, but it seems a bit disappointing that there is no real standard. Picodrive and PCSXrearmed are quite close to each other with the look and feel, but I would like to see the emu's have a standard set of controls and a sort of standard UI

 

[Mr_Loon]

Hi & welcome oarias,


Give it a week or two and you'll surprise yourself how quickly you can get used to the non standardised nature for the using / exiting of Pandora software. In the mean time Yoshis most excellent fact sheets might help.

 

[_wb_]

It is hard to standardize button mappings for emulators, because each emulator is emulating a different device. E.g. C64, Amiga, DOSBOX have to emulate a keyboard, so they cannot use keys like SPACE for menu. For game console emulators though, it makes sense to try to standardize things like menu button, quicksave/load shortcuts, etc.

 

[mcobit]

You can download the missing samplesound and put it into the samples folder in appdata in PanMAME.


Don't know if this trick will work for mame4all though.


Earlier mames didn't emulate these samples correctly and need the samples.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

well i was a non techie person when i got my pandora.It took me a good while to use the emus/software etc.I learned alot about computers via the pandora though.Once used to it its quite easy to use though not without its eccentricity s.

 

[Prometheus]

however several Mame4all games seem to be missing some sound (Donkey Kong) or all sounds (Zaxxon, Super Zaxxon), I will look at the other Mame emulator to see if it is just a Mame4all issue.

It's not a MAME4All issue, as such. You need the sound-samples that these games used, as the older MAME versions did not emulate the sound effects from some games directly, and instead played back recordings thereof when necessary.


MAME fan-sites tend to carry these, in zip-files with the same name as the ROM-set they're matched to. You need to get the ones you're missing, and then drop them in the "samples" directory for MAME4All - this should be located in /pandora/appdata on the SD Card that you're running the PND from, although I don't have my Pandora to hand right now, and can't remember the exact name of the MAME4All directory in appdata off of the top of my head. Sorry about that!


I hope that this is at least clear enough to get you started.

 

[oarias]

You can download the missing samplesound and put it into the samples folder in appdata in PanMAME.


Don't know if this trick will work for mame4all though.


Earlier mames didn't emulate these samples correctly and need the samples.

Yeah, I seem to remember something about sample files back when I played around with the windows version years ago....


I guess I'll have to hunt down the sample files... errr... I mean get the samples from the stack of original arcade boards that of course I have... B)


Oscar

 

[WizardStan]

What a sad state of affairs when "basic filesystem" is considered a techie thing.

 

[FaeMinx]

What a sad state of affairs when "basic filesystem" is considered a techie thing.

Amen to that. I certainly don't regard myself as a techy, but the average person in South Africa wouldn't hesitate to go so far as calling me a wizard! It couldn't be further from the truth... All I have is some basic common sense (or not so common as is evidenced unfortunately).


I was actually shocked to find there was no way to manage my files when I got my Android phone... A seperate program had to be installed for that. I had always assumed that file management was an integral and vital part of any os.


Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

 

[hairface]

It would actually be pretty funny to see a "non techie's" first impression of the pandora and all its fun little querks

 

[TrashyMG]

What a sad state of affairs when "basic filesystem" is considered a techie thing.

Has schools stopped using computers for class work?, what is being taught now a days.. I know my schooling was lack luster in the computer department since my high school's computer lab still had TRS-80 model III's in the mid 90's.. but I figured real schools were doing better.

 

[NearTao]

I was actually shocked to find there was no way to manage my files when I got my Android phone... A seperate program had to be installed for that. I had always assumed that file management was an integral and vital part of any os.

The iPhone doesn't even give you this option :/.


I agree, file management should be part of the system, but I guess even Sony's Vita doesn't really let you do much on their platform either.

 

[craigix]

It would actually be pretty funny to see a "non techie's" first impression of the pandora and all its fun little querks

They just send them back and we have to pay for it all.


This was why I wanted a simple to use system. This is why Android is so successful.

 

[WizardStan]

This was why I wanted a simple to use system. This is why Android is so successful.

Android now or Android as it was back in 2008 when you first thought the Pandora would ship?

 

[craigix]

The simple to use system I detailed back in 2008.

 

[quartercast]

How is the pndstore these days? I'd like to see a gorgeous OP AppStore featured immediately once logged in. I was thinking of something along the lines of cydia, which doesn't dumb down app/package installation but is very user friendly and information-rich.


I dont know if this currently the case but those emu info cards should be accessible within the appstore like cydia screenshots/info section.

 

[ekianjo]

This was why I wanted a simple to use system. This is why Android is so successful.

Android is not successful because it's simple. It's simply because you don't have much choice.


If you carrier does not carry an iphone, you get Android almost by default. It's like really like there's a "vote" there.


As far as I know tablets is in a much more "free market" type of situation, and I dont see the android tablets flying off the shelves. Far from it. They actually aren't selling much at all. This may change with lower-priced devices, but then it's simply attractive because it's so cheap, not because it's just simple to use.

 

[notaz]

This was why I wanted a simple to use system. This is why Android is so successful.

Android now or Android as it was back in 2008 when you first thought the Pandora would ship?

The simple to use system I detailed back in 2008.

You talk as if somebody locked you in the basement to prevent you from making it.