Our New Machine, Pandora

[Billy Lee]

I'm so excited about this new machine that I had a dream last night that I bought it! When are we going to get some official information about it?

About a couple of weeks.


Is that true or speculation?

 

[Samba Pa Ti]

just thinking about n64/ps1/dreamcast on a handheld, would it not be possible integrate a similar chip to a snoac or noac or Goac (snes/nes/genesis on a chip) for each console into a hand held device, that way no emulation of these chips would need to be done as it would have the chips onboard...

im sure theres no such thing as a ps1/n64/dreamcast on a chip but wouldnt this be a possible way to get these consoles working on a handheld with minimal fuss ? (not counting how much it would cost to produce these chips)

These chips are not perfect. Why bother strapping foac and such on a board that is capable of emulating these system to a greater accuracy than these cheap chips can offer.

If you want a system like that there is a bunch of sites that sell these devices. I own a few of the consoles.


i know that the snes/genesis/nes ones are not perfect. i was suggesting it for the harder to emulate systems, i think i made that pretty obvious.

 

[icurafu]

just thinking about n64/ps1/dreamcast on a handheld, would it not be possible integrate a similar chip to a snoac or noac or Goac (snes/nes/genesis on a chip) for each console into a hand held device, that way no emulation of these chips would need to be done as it would have the chips onboard...

im sure theres no such thing as a ps1/n64/dreamcast on a chip but wouldnt this be a possible way to get these consoles working on a handheld with minimal fuss ? (not counting how much it would cost to produce these chips)

These chips are not perfect. Why bother strapping foac and such on a board that is capable of emulating these system to a greater accuracy than these cheap chips can offer.

If you want a system like that there is a bunch of sites that sell these devices. I own a few of the consoles.


i know that the snes/genesis/nes ones are not perfect. i was suggesting it for the harder to emulate systems, i think i made that pretty obvious.


If all attempts to correctly emulate a nes by chinese cloners have failed, how rediculous do you think it is to ask if the we can reverse engineer a PSX, let alone a dreamcast on a chip? portable computing with enough power to emulate is a lot more likely in the near term.

 

[Samba Pa Ti]

but attempts havent failed... snes/nes/megadrive work fine sure theres a few compatibility issues but software emulation has these as well, just because somone hasnt tried it yet does not mean it is impossible.

 

[Squidge]

However, it's a lot easier to fix emulation bugs when you have familiar source code in front of you, rather than a chip burried on a board somewhere.

 

[sam fisher]

This thread makes for a really interesting read .

Some well considered comments but one hell of a lot of dross to read through to get them .

Are you porting linux?

 

[Rivroner]

My name is GP3X. He who talks loud, saying nothing.

 

[atomicthumbs]

I'm so excited about this new machine that I had a dream last night that I bought it! When are we going to get some official information about it?

About a couple of weeks.


Is that true or speculation?


You'll find that out in a couple of weeks.

Also, please hurry. Now I can't stop thinking about it. And my laptop just broke.

 

[A_SN]

I'm so excited about this new machine that I had a dream last night that I bought it! When are we going to get some official information about it?

About a couple of weeks.


Is that true or speculation?


Craigix said they'd be back with updates in a month, that was on the 16th of last month.

 

[budweiser]

I hope it has a couple extra slots to store some extra sd cards , would come in very handy

 

[Eolair]

I'm so excited about this new machine that I had a dream last night that I bought it! When are we going to get some official information about it?

About a couple of weeks.


Is that true or speculation?


Craigix said they'd be back with updates in a month, that was on the 16th of last month.

Keep in mind that that was before we started juggling Socs suggestions. Might take longer now...

 

[J201605]

I'm so excited about this new machine that I had a dream last night that I bought it! When are we going to get some official information about it?

About a couple of weeks.


Is that true or speculation?


Craigix said they'd be back with updates in a month, that was on the 16th of last month.


Actually i think it was the 11th

Vimacs, don't even try to argue with him I think we all know what he is starting to do (already). I'm signing off this thread, we will be back in a months time

 

[Squidge]

I'd say we might have a SoC decision in a couple of weeks, don't know about anything else.

 

[Billy Lee]

What is SoC?

 

[Samba Pa Ti]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip

 

[Lazy8s]

A PowerVR MBX Lite graphics core is integrated into the i.MX31 SoC, along with the ARM11 CPU and floating-point support. Note, though, that the i.MX31L variant does not have the graphics core enabled.

PowerVR processors render using their patented tile based, deferred shading algorithm, which has delivered whole multiples as much performance as competitors. For a relative comparison of graphics performance, JBenchmark has a ranking of phones which includes product powered by nVidia's GoForce (SonyEricsson W900i), PowerVR's MBX family (Nokia N95, E90, N93i, N93, etc.), and Toshiba's T4G (Sharp 903).

http://jbenchmark.com/result.jsp?benchmark=hd

The Intel Menlow platform for early next year will likely be using an integrated PowerVR SGX535 core, which has DirectX 10+, Shader Model 4 capability. The Silverthorne CPU is claimed to perform as well as the second, Dothan generation of Pentium Ms.

MBX and other PowerVR cores accelerate a lot of good SoCs out there, actually. The Wikipedia entry for PowerVR lists many of them, including OMAP2420, i.MX31, SH-Mobile3, S3C2460, and NXP4008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powervr

The support staff at PowerVR have been very welcoming of inquiries and happy to provide all kinds of assistance. Maybe getting in touch with them would be useful.

 

[Eolair]

Thanks for the SoC info

I like this one http://centralitycomm.com/centralitynav/Ho...ucts/Titan.html

 

[virusx]

Those dual core Titan chips are really incredible.
I wonder how much is it to have one of those.

 

[cappuchok]

Thanks for the SoC info

I like this one http://centralitycomm.com/centralitynav/Ho...ucts/Titan.html


Color me impressed. That is totally awesome, I wonder what the per unit cost would be for a SoC that powerful. It's still MBX Lite rather than the "full" MBX core, but on the other hand it's dual core and has built-in GPS to it's advantage, but it seems to lack built-in WiFi and Bluetooth (it has the interfaces, though) so that would have to be added outside the SoC. More up-to-date and more detailed information is available here, as Centrality is now a part of SiRF so the chip has been renamed SiRF Titan.
On a side note, it doesn't have integrated TV-out but that's a good thing as all of the other SoC:s we've mentioned here have rather strict TV-out implementations that won't allow for RGB or VGA. Implementing the TV-out outside the SoC would perhaps allow for better TV-out (including VGA) than the integrated alternatives.

The OMAP2420 looks rather impressive as well but I guess that's out of the question because of TI's terms of sale, and the Renesas chipsets all use SH-4 cores instead of ARM11 (although they do look rather tasty in theory). And I guess the Samsung S5L8900 is also out of the question as Apple will probably have some agreement with Samsung about not providing it for use in "unknown devices". B)

And I guess any SoC using SGX535 or -540 is totally out of the question because of the cost, but that's the real cutting edge right now, supporting OpenGL 2.0 and DX10 and whatnot, it looks truly over-the-top impressive. Oh well, we can dream...

 

[fatblueduck]

I've been lurking these forums and this is my first post.

Hopeful about this new machine, I just wanted to respectfully voice an idea that I had on the keyboard issue.

There is a tablet pc that has a cd-rom drive that is modular--its a fujitsu. The drive may be placed inside the laptop or it may be removed and a cover plate may be used in its place, removing un-needed weight and bulk. That is, imho, elegant design.

It would be great if a keyboard could snap on/off, slide on/off, or otherwise interface with the rest of the machine in a clean and manual way. Full interface could result in a satisfying *snap* or *click* sound.

Instead of having to integrate the design of the keyboard and the rest of the machine, both parts may be designed somewhat separately. The simple design of a machine without a keyboard could be relied upon to be beautiful, lightweight, and functional. The simple design of a keyboard as a separate device could be made to the same standard.

This would satisfy people who want a keyboard and people who don't, as long as the design were implemented correctly. The keyboard could be sold separately.

The keyboard decision would be left to the user and it would just make for a better design.