Our New Machine, Pandora

[javaJake]

wow that thing looks ugly guess I won't be buying a pandora after all.

Read my signature.

 

[StealthBagel]

There is no plan to make this header accessible from the outside but if someone wants to dig around inside and solder wires for their own hacking efforts, you can do so at your own risk (warranty violation). The pads are large and easy to manipulate with the most basic of soldering tools. It's only there now so that I can access these signals for trying out different things in the future and obviously you can't get under the processor later! If someone feels they need to mess around with it, I can provide the pinout description with the usual disclaimer for the risk you face on your own.

I'd like to see adjustments (variable resistors, tweakable with a tool within a reasonable range) to alter the voltage to the OMAP3 chip... this would give a tremendous possible benefit for overclocking. Of course near these adjustments there should be a test point solder pad so your work can be checked with a voltmeter.

 

[Squidge]

I think stuff like that should be left upto the end user - put resistors on it and if people want to modify the voltage, they can change it to a variable one. I'd imagine variable ones would make manufacture more difficult, and perhaps knocks could slightly change the value, possibly frying the SoC (I know it would be unlikely, but it would still be possible).

 

[gmiller1018]

I am impressed with the technical specs and like the packaging as well. When you are ready for testing I would buy a unit and test anything you want as well as try to do some developement for it as well. Since all designes have trade offs I understand the give and take here. I like that USB networking is there and since the other USB stuff should be there as well I like the ability to connect a USB NIC adapter for cases where the wireless is not going to work well in secure environments.

Good Luck and look forward to the release.

 

[mavsman4457]

This thing looks really nice. I'm not sure if I'm gonna get it because it costs so much and I'll have a laptop soon for emulation but it is gonna be a tough decision. It looks a bit like a DS and I actually like that. It would helps Pandora's case for me to buy it if it is somewhat comfortable to type on and if it can run a bunch of programs in Linux without having to have most of them be specially ported to it. Also, from the picture, it looks like the keys on the keyboard are rubber rather than plastic like on a laptop keyboard. Does anyone know what I mean or agree? Anyways, this thing is sweet and I hope I can purchase it. Also, I hope the controls are comfortable considering the keyboard takes up the bottom half of the control side of the console. I'm sure it will be great though. I also hope that it isn't too big, even though that would make it more difficult to type.

 

[atomicthumbs]

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

Anything in there will run on the Pandora.

The keys are plastic.

 

[StealthBagel]

I think stuff like that should be left upto the end user - put resistors on it and if people want to modify the voltage, they can change it to a variable one. I'd imagine variable ones would make manufacture more difficult, and perhaps knocks could slightly change the value, possibly frying the SoC (I know it would be unlikely, but it would still be possible).

That's why I said the resistor should only be adjustable to within the operational voltage range of the OMAP3. If adding one resistor would make manufacturing difficult, this device would never get built at all.... Either way a software control would be far more ideal. This is pretty commonplace in PDAs so it's probably not out of the question to implement it here.

 

[DaveC]

Shouldn't this topic be moved to the Pandora section now that there is one? That would make sense to me.

 

[quote]

Shouldn't this topic be moved to the Pandora section now that there is one? That would make sense to me.

I reckon so to... or deleted... there is more going on at the pandora threads

 

[Nova]

Shouldn't this topic be moved to the Pandora section now that there is one? That would make sense to me.

I reckon so to... or deleted... there is more going on at the pandora threads

Locked and stickied.

 

[whiskthecat]

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

Anything in there will run on the Pandora.

The keys are plastic.


Will vlc run on this thing, or mplayer? I'd just like to have a player that can play anything, that way i dont have to worry about conversions.

 

[Yuglooc]

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

Anything in there will run on the Pandora.

The keys are plastic.


Will vlc run on this thing, or mplayer? I'd just like to have a player that can play anything, that way i dont have to worry about conversions.

Yep, they should work, both are in the arm repos.

 

[whiskthecat]

Yep, they should work, both are in the arm repos.

Why didn't we ever get them on the 2x then? :blink:

 

[Yuglooc]

Yep, they should work, both are in the arm repos.

Why didn't we ever get them on the 2x then? :blink:

1.gp2x movie player is a stripped down version of mplayer
2.Dependancy hell is pure hell if the machine aint entirely open
3.the machine did not support Deb arm repos. So a recompile would be needed, and then again, the gp2x didn't support almost any of the needed libs, so those would have t be fixed as well.

Pretty much job for something that only needed a 10-20 min reencoding to work.

 

[whiskthecat]

2.Dependancy hell is pure hell if the machine aint entirely open
3.the machine did not support Deb arm repos. So a recompile would be needed, and then again, the gp2x didn't support almost any of the needed libs, so those would have t be fixed as well.

Luckily these aren't issues with the Pandora correct?

 

[Yuglooc]

2.Dependancy hell is pure hell if the machine aint entirely open
3.the machine did not support Deb arm repos. So a recompile would be needed, and then again, the gp2x didn't support almost any of the needed libs, so those would have t be fixed as well.

Luckily these aren't issues with the Pandora correct?

Correct. The Deb (installation) file will also install any other program or library needed for your program to work.

 

[MWeston]

That's why I said the resistor should only be adjustable to within the operational voltage range of the OMAP3. If adding one resistor would make manufacturing difficult, this device would never get built at all.... Either way a software control would be far more ideal. This is pretty commonplace in PDAs so it's probably not out of the question to implement it here.

Okay, I wanted to make sure this was public information on TI's site before commenting:

http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtbu/wtbu...+PR+smartreflex

QUOTE
SmartReflex technologies are a broad range of intelligent and adaptive hardware and software techniques that dynamically control voltage, frequency and power based on device activity, modes of operation and temperature


The voltage can be changed in software so you never have to bring out your soldering iron and favorite carbon pencil

 

[zacaj]

YOu should advertize:
More RAM than the PS3

 

[Goity]

YOu should advertize:
More RAM than the PS3

...except that would be false advertising. The PS3 has two sticks of 256MB each, totalling 512MB of RAM. The Pandi has 1Gb of ram, or 128MB. 128MB is LOWER than 512MB.

 

[whiskthecat]

Correct. The Deb (installation) file will also install any other program or library needed for your program to work.

Wow, impressive. Could this work over wifi? Also what about controls, its not like I can just grab the ARM firefox package and expect it to fit the Pandora's controls and screen resolution or can that be fixed with a library?