Our New Machine, Pandora

[God Ginrai]

Ocarina of Time is one of my favorite Zelda games, but the C-stick ruined it for me on the Gamecube.

-God Ginrai

 

[mavsman4457]

I just want to see this design and I wanted to know what close to revealing it means. Haha way to leave us hanging like that Craigix.

 

[Kayday]

I think we'll have info before the F200 comes out. Then we can make our decision to either wait or get the F200 now.

I'd love to see this thing release before the end of the year but it doesn't look that way??? I have a long flight to Shanghai in December and would love to have this accompany me. I can't sleep on airplanes.

So I'm kind of on the fence with purchasing the F200 when it comes out or waiting. I just want to be able to play fighting games with good controls. I still have my original MK1 with now a broken joystick. I'm definitely getting this, it's whether I'll get the F200 to keep me busy until it's released.

 

[pupnik]

That would indeed be nice, but unfortunately you can't just buy a dev board. To be honest, I don't even know if TI do dev boards (considering there main customers are people like Nokia). We'll just have to leave it upto Craig and hope something will happen in the next month or so.

One thing that can be done right now is looking into operating systems. I'm assuming a linux kernel will be used. Licensing drivers for the powerVR 3D will add to cost afaik. Not sure how you will deal with other drivers.

Given the feature-set mentioned here, this device could become much more than just a handheld gaming device. With wifi and 800x480, it can compete with PDAs - essentially becoming a pocketable linux computer. You should consider what open-source platforms are available to bring-in the most existing applications.

I suggest looking into Maemo http://maemo.org/intro or OpenMoko http://www.openmoko.com/

I find porting apps to the Internet Tablets to be pretty breezy - the Hildon UI is derived from gtk and many standard linux libraries are available. See http://pupnik.de/software.html for my ports.

 

[A_SN]

That would indeed be nice, but unfortunately you can't just buy a dev board. To be honest, I don't even know if TI do dev boards (considering there main customers are people like Nokia). We'll just have to leave it upto Craig and hope something will happen in the next month or so.

One thing that can be done right now is looking into operating systems. I'm assuming a linux kernel will be used. Licensing drivers for the powerVR 3D will add to cost afaik. Not sure how you will deal with other drivers.

Given the feature-set mentioned here, this device could become much more than just a handheld gaming device. With wifi and 800x480, it can compete with PDAs - essentially becoming a pocketable linux computer. You should consider what open-source platforms are available to bring-in the most existing applications.

I suggest looking into Maemo http://maemo.org/intro or OpenMoko http://www.openmoko.com/

I find porting apps to the Internet Tablets to be pretty breezy - the Hildon UI is derived from gtk and many standard linux libraries are available. See http://pupnik.de/software.html for my ports.


One word : Debian ARM!

 

[Julius]

Ubuntu mobile edition:
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-for-mobi...nternet-devices

would give it additional brand name recognition and all the polish that Ubuntu has.

In addition all you would have to do to get a really nice download system is add a additional repository to the apt-get system of Ubuntu which in turn provides a nice GUI to that system too (ok that is possible with Debian too).

Edit: Well it is geared more towards the new Intel mobile platform though, but there might be arm support too.

 

[Tobriand]

As Squidge said a while back, why port something like these? The work is already there for a chip-specific linux. At least for the mmsp2+ it was, and again for the i.MX31.

Although to be fair, that may not have included the OMAP3430 chip...

 

[icurafu]

Ubuntu mobile edition:
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-for-mobi...nternet-devices

would give it additional brand name recognition and all the polish that Ubuntu has.

In addition all you would have to do to get a really nice download system is add a additional repository to the apt-get system of Ubuntu which in turn provides a nice GUI to that system too (ok that is possible with Debian too).

Edit: Well it is geared more towards the new Intel mobile platform though, but there might be arm support too.



It's made for Intel's UMPC chipsets; McCaslin and Menlow. There's no ARM in there.

 

[A_SN]

Yup, the words "Debian ARM" were all that needed to be said. This is what's exciting about this new console, it's pretty much going to be the best and most powerful handheld console ever, and also an extra small fully featured (well pretty much) personal computer.

 

[craigix]

Yup, the words "Debian ARM" were all that needed to be said. This is what's exciting about this new console, it's pretty much going to be the best and most powerful handheld console ever, and also an extra small fully featured (well pretty much) personal computer.

Yep, that's the idea. We don't need any x86!

 

[efegea]

Will it run X11 as default or direct access to framebuffer like the GP2X?

 

[A_SN]

Will it run X11 as default or direct access to framebuffer like the GP2X?

My educated guess : It'll run X11, but most likely not as default (a dedicated menu would rather come by default), but no matter what you'll be able to access the framebuffer(s) directly, and most likely few apps developed for that console (emulators and games) will run in a window in X11

 

[efegea]

And what about integrating tilt and/or acceleration sensors? That shouldn't be too expensive and it would be new in portable consoles. And very cool

Well, not that new, the gba did have games with tilt sensors integrated, like wario ware twisted and that yoshi tilt game.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Will it run X11 as default or direct access to framebuffer like the GP2X?

My educated guess : It'll run X11, but most likely not as default (a dedicated menu would rather come by default), but no matter what you'll be able to access the framebuffer(s) directly, and most likely few apps developed for that console (emulators and games) will run in a window in X11


Let's have two options. My ideas:

Gmenu2x (Cmenu2x) for the menu option,

and for the X11 option:

KDE/kwin (that would be awesome considering how powerful this is. KDE is my favorite desktop environment)

The ion3 window manager (google it, it's a "tiling" manager without overlapping windows that works well without a mouse. One of my favorites for minimal use)

XFCE (Maybe as good as KDE, and perhaps better due to memory limitations. I do know that KDE worked fine without translucency on my 64MB SDRAM laptop)

Fluxbox/blackbox (Simple and efficient)

IceWM (Neat little window manager)

Enlightenment (neat)

Except for Enlightenment, XFCE, and KDE, I've tested all of these on Debian ARM before (although that was much less powerful, 206MHZ SA1101). I know that pretty much all Debian/Ubuntu packages also have ARM versions (and Z90 versions if for some reason you'd like to run KDE on your supercomputer).

 

[synkro]

Hahaha, I love this place! You guys are so awesome. Once again I will lay out some cash and again ED will get my money. Homebrew for the win!

 

[mavsman4457]

Yup, the words "Debian ARM" were all that needed to be said. This is what's exciting about this new console, it's pretty much going to be the best and most powerful handheld console ever, and also an extra small fully featured (well pretty much) personal computer.

Yep, that's the idea. We don't need any x86!


So this will be running Debian ARM? Hmm, I guess I'd better look that up and get slightly acquainted with it. The only linux I've ever used is Ubuntu. Oh and speaking of this being a personal computer, does that mean that the keyboard will be more of a PC keyboard than a blackberry or mobile phone keyboard?

 

[Squidge]

I think he was agreeming more with the statement of:

QUOTE
it's pretty much going to be the best and most powerful handheld console ever, and also an extra small fully featured (well pretty much) personal computer


than the debian linux comment.

 

[mavsman4457]

I think he was agreeming more with the statement of:

QUOTE
it's pretty much going to be the best and most powerful handheld console ever, and also an extra small fully featured (well pretty much) personal computer


than the debian linux comment.

Ya I wasn't exactly sure that he was agreeing with the Debian Linux comment but my comment was stupid anyways because I'm pretty sure Ubuntu is Debian.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Yup, the words "Debian ARM" were all that needed to be said. This is what's exciting about this new console, it's pretty much going to be the best and most powerful handheld console ever, and also an extra small fully featured (well pretty much) personal computer.

Yep, that's the idea. We don't need any x86!


So this will be running Debian ARM? Hmm, I guess I'd better look that up and get slightly acquainted with it. The only linux I've ever used is Ubuntu. Oh and speaking of this being a personal computer, does that mean that the keyboard will be more of a PC keyboard than a blackberry or mobile phone keyboard?


Ubuntu is a Debian-based distro. The only difference is the pre-installed software, themes, and some files (which make some ubuntu packages incompatible with Debian and vice versa).

It doesn't need to be running pure Debian ARM. All we need to do is port dpkg (and maybe apt-get or aptitude), make sure that it looks for Debian files in the proper places, and away we go!

Perhaps that could be the one-click install system that was confirmed? It's already (almost) all done for us! We still need our own extension for the packages. I suggest either .PBB, .CRG, .CIX, .CPK, or something similar.

Any comment on my post about window managers and stuff?

 

[God Ginrai]

I vote for: .CGX

-God Ginrai