Our New Machine, Pandora

[sam fisher]

I'd really like a GP2X shrunk down to JXD-301 size! I really love my GBA Micro (similar size but smaller display) because it's really nice to use but doesn't take up much pocket space, so it's not a big decision to take it with you.

I can't see Gamepark being together enough to produce one, though...

Gamepark existed before the beginning of the universe and. sadly, will outlive us all. Releasing shoddy, poorly manufactured and flawed hand-held PMP's even after the end of time.

 

[OMars]

I think it doesn't allow for enough icons to be displayed and has alot of wasted space. Why do people insist on having most of the screen taken up by a huge screenshot of a game? That is redundant and dumb. It is best to be able to get to apps as quickly as possible without having to waste time with scrolling one by one in some small sequential strip. Some sort of icon matrix like any windows or Gmenu would be much quicker to navigate.

Now...

...are you happy?

All you would have to do is click on the explorer menu at the beginning screen, and depending on how you have your files set up in your SD card, you then click on the "NES ROMS" folder.


No that would be very cumbersome. If you have a few hundred NES ROMs and you have to scroll 6 at a time it would take forever to find what you want. I don't see why the icons need to be so huge. Only 3 shortcuts? It would be better if it was completely customisable and simple. The interface should allow you to get to what you want to load as quick and easy as possible without alot of clicking, dragging, and browsing through directories. Like in Gmenu where you just select the app you want and go, no browsing through 5 levels of folders or scrolling through some single file shortcut strip.

You can click on the "Shortcuts" tab, and it would give you a folder full of shortcuts that you've made. The three that you use the most are automatically there on the main screen, but you can get to other programs if you wish. And, of course, you can put the roms into a "list" view, like you would on a computer. You can also click on the games icon (right of the screen) to get to your games quickly. And I'm pretty sure that it would not be very difficult to get a program of your choice to run on the startup of your console, using an option in the settings menu.

BTW, keep in mind that these "huge icons" are going to be on a 4 inch screen. Maybe you have a monitor with a crappy resolution or something, but that image is the resolution of the console. ;)

Any more complaints?

 

[CoMiKe]

Not much to add here, really.

This is going to be my first opinion in this topic, and it will be short.

About the default desktop environment:

Multitasking = Yes.
Multiwindow = No.

I think an X-server would be very useful due to the great amount of already existing software.

But (I think) it would take some of the CPU power by itself.

So, IMHO, a launcher application (like GMenu2x) should be the default, and every program should have the entire screen available, but there should be some global button combination to change between the current running applications.

That's the best way for a PDA like environment, I think...

But an X-server port would be also very useful for other uses.

 

[imec]

I think it doesn't allow for enough icons to be displayed and has alot of wasted space. Why do people insist on having most of the screen taken up by a huge screenshot of a game? That is redundant and dumb. It is best to be able to get to apps as quickly as possible without having to waste time with scrolling one by one in some small sequential strip. Some sort of icon matrix like any windows or Gmenu would be much quicker to navigate.

Now...

...are you happy?

All you would have to do is click on the explorer menu at the beginning screen, and depending on how you have your files set up in your SD card, you then click on the "NES ROMS" folder.


Kind of what I imagined except there is a window up at the top-right corner for displaying game screenshots (or videos ) when you scroll over them. Having the screenshot as the game's icon is cool for an arcade machine, but for a handheld, most people want it small and simple.

 

[OMars]

I think it doesn't allow for enough icons to be displayed and has alot of wasted space. Why do people insist on having most of the screen taken up by a huge screenshot of a game? That is redundant and dumb. It is best to be able to get to apps as quickly as possible without having to waste time with scrolling one by one in some small sequential strip. Some sort of icon matrix like any windows or Gmenu would be much quicker to navigate.

Now...

...are you happy?

All you would have to do is click on the explorer menu at the beginning screen, and depending on how you have your files set up in your SD card, you then click on the "NES ROMS" folder.


Kind of what I imagined except there is a window up at the top-right corner for displaying game screenshots (or videos ;) ) when you scroll over them. Having the screenshot as the game's icon is cool for an arcade machine, but for a handheld, most people want it small and simple.

Like the save states in SNESTYL for the psp?

[quote="CoMiKe"]

<snip>[/quote]I guess multiple windows wouldn't be all that necessary. It is a small screen, after all... I'll come up with something slightly different for you and DaveC.

 

[javaJake]

Extra talking may be possible with a little cup of wine!

 

[Yonkaku]

wine

Let's go over this again: Wine stands for WINE IS NOT (AN) EMULATOR.

 

[icurafu]

It's a common enough mistake. Wine is for x86 PCs. It will not emulate x86 software on ARM.

But the good news is that there is dozens on opensource linux software for VOIP that will allow you to get cheaper calls without a USB gimmick.

 

[Exophase]

wine

Let's go over this again: Wine stands for WINE IS NOT (AN) EMULATOR.


I once went into #wine and got them to admit that it really is an emulator.

Definitely x86 only forever though.

 

[javaJake]

I'm liking the EEE PC mainly because we can nick its software and if we want to its interface

Did you receive my email at your hotmail account? When I sent it to you by KMail I got back an email saying that hotmail rejected my mail because it was considered spam :blink: Then I sent you the same email but using the webmail interface and got it sent two times by error and haven't got any email returned by hotmail, but don't know if you have received it or not :huh:


Yea, same thing here. I'm trying to send in my mailing address (Craig, am I even eligible since I donated a day late?) but it bounces.

BTW, I have a Yahoo address, Plus too. Those surely aren't blocked, are they?

 

[javaJake]

wine

Let's go over this again: Wine stands for WINE IS NOT (AN) EMULATOR.


Well, it can run in an x86 emulator, and THEN it might work.

Seriously, though, there's no reason to bash me. icurafu was much better. He still got the same point across, and I understood it just as well.

wine

Let's go over this again: Wine stands for WINE IS NOT (AN) EMULATOR.


I once went into #wine and got them to admit that it really is an emulator.

Definitely x86 only forever though.


Echckgurgle.
Why don't we just move to an x86 SoC then?

 

[Tobriand]

wine

Let's go over this again: Wine stands for WINE IS NOT (AN) EMULATOR.


I once went into #wine and got them to admit that it really is an emulator.

Definitely x86 only forever though.



Purely on a random brainwave, so I doubt it would work, but, well, I suppose it's worth mentioning as an accademic question.

The question is: is Wine x86 only because Windows is x86 only?
Why? Because I remember being told that it was only with 2000 that the NT tree stopped supporting ARM and other archetectures. So therefore, it would seem plausible (if unlikely) that Wine might be able to be used to get software that would have run on Windows NT 4.x ARM to run IF it were possible to get hold of the respective arm-compiled .dlls for that version of Windows.

Not that that would help at all, since almost all the programs we'd want to run would still be compiled for x86 (let alone the likelihood of actually finding a stack of legitimate copies of Windows NT4 for Arm processors being minute), but just as a hypothetical, if there were such a set of arm-compiled windows datafiles, would Wine, in principle at least, work for those programs that would have run on that particular branch of Windows?

 

[atomicthumbs]

Multitasking = Yes.
Multiwindow = No.

I think an X-server would be very useful due to the great amount of already existing software.

But (I think) it would take some of the CPU power by itself.

See Kdrive and ion3.

 

[Vorporeal]

wine

Let's go over this again: Wine stands for WINE IS NOT (AN) EMULATOR.


I always thought it stood for "WINdows Emulator"...

 

[StealthBagel]

Agreed with daveC in that in the mockups the icons occupy too much screen real estate.... I always prefer a simple list view for maximum usefulness, form needs to follow function not the other way around. Honestly just the way I think, I'd prefer an X11 environment with a simple window manager and a simple desktop environment to launch apps... you can make your own shortcuts to programs and the desktop would show an icon for the filesystem, for the SD card mount point, etc... to play some music run XMMS or what have you, minimize, launch other apps in the foreground...

Of course it is important we keep in mind the distinction between a PC and a handheld, most apps will be unsuitable for a small screen, big fonts will have to be used on highly visible backgrounds, etc...

As a secondary solution a port of GMenu2x would work fine too, with touchscreen support I think it would do a terrific job. X11 would add a great deal more versatility and capability with the plethora of X11 apps already available, so you can pick the media player, web browser, utility and other apps you would prefer to use, and not be stuck with potentially faulty ones (I'm looking at you GPH) or that otherwise do not suit your needs or wants...

An oversight I'm seeing a lot in these mockups is that they have ROMs in their own sections; like a NES, SNES, MD, TGFX, etc. tab..... emulators have their own file browsers and users can install them if they want, but this is a general purpose handheld, and not everyone will install emulators. Furthermore shipping the unit with emulators on it, or a GUI that indicates it's MADE for emulation, would likely attract very unwanted legal attention by basically announcing the handheld is built to run pirated software from major players in the video game industry. It's just a bad idea in general....

 

[OMars]

This one is for DaveC, Stealth Bagel, and CoMiKe:

And this is the same GUI, but with one of the icons on the left of the screen (firefox) having been click on. It opens a window connected to the icon, but it can also be put into fullscreen, should the user press a button meant for that function:

It's a link this time. (I didn't want to slow the page's load speed down)

Now, from what I have read, this meets DaveC and Stealth Bagel's ideas for a good GUI. It doesn't really crowd the screen all that much, IMO. It also has all your shortcuts in front of you on the startup. You can scroll down the matrix to find the shortcut that you're looking for. The only real drawback would be the reduced-sized background picture. I think it's good enough. If you have questions about it, I would happily answer them. I would also add things to the GUI, if a lot of people wanted. But, keep in mind this is a concept, and I won't be making it. Somebody might pick this up as a project, though.

 

[kfuse]

Hmmm

I believe this is cassini's source code from their old and discontinued emu.

anyone think they pull this off?

oh and SSF runs full-speed on pc now

http://www.zophar.net/saturn.html

And the whole GUI...damn you really want that on a 3.5 inch screen??
I dunno I'm shuttin up about that gui...

 

[Exophase]

Hmmm

I believe this is cassini's source code from their old and discontinued emu.

anyone think they pull this off?

oh and SSF runs full-speed on pc now

http://www.zophar.net/saturn.html

And the whole GUI...damn you really want that on a 3.5 inch screen??
I dunno I'm shuttin up about that gui...



That "source code" is just disassembly of GiriGiri. It's useless.

 

[three]

I'm liking the EEE PC mainly because we can nick its software and if we want to its interface

Given that the EEE PC can run Windows XP does that mean your upcoming handheld can run Windows XP as well?

`

 

[icurafu]

I'm liking the EEE PC mainly because we can nick its software and if we want to its interface

Given that the EEE PC can run Windows XP does that mean your upcoming handheld can run Windows XP as well?

`


The EEE uses has a x86 CPU and compatible hardware. Therefore it can run Windows XP natively.

The will only be able to run operating systems natively if they have support for ARM.