Pandora Pandora BIOS - Logo

[Prophet]

Esn is right about length.

The logo animation should either be very short timewise, and/or able to be cancelled by a button press, and/or able to be toggled off in the BIOS. Even the prettiest startup animation will get old pretty fast.

 

[javaJake]

Maybe while the system is still loading, you could do a "progress" animation:

My favorite so far.

 

[Sandman]

Quick question, will we be able to change it if we don't like the animation thats chosen?
Not really. You'd have to modify the bios and flash the pandora with the new bios.

In that case I'd say a plain and generic logo is best and a (changeable) startup sequence in the OS, but I think this was suggested before.
Also there was mention of sound earlier and I was wondering if the sound is mutable, even at BIOS boot or OS boot time; I ask this because some laptops lack (hardware mute that is) this and the jingle of the OS is hurled into the air without warning (of course the jingle in an OS can most probably be turned off, but changing it in the BIOS, without there being such a setting, might seem overly cumbrous). The Pandora does seem to have a hardware volume rollbutton thingy, but it would be inconvenient to mute it with that every time, so I return to the first suggestion: a simple (audioless/mutable) logo.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

How about something like this:

(I'll pad these out a bit because two animations close together makes it hard to watch...)

Maybe while the system is still loading, you could do a "progress" animation:

I like the 2nd one for loading

 

[craigix]

I'm not a fan of boot sounds, they are very annoying when on a train or somewhere quiet, I'd rather it didn't have one.

Maybe if you access the bios you can run a test sound if for some reason you need to do that pre-os.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I'm not a fan of boot sounds, they are very annoying when on a train or somewhere quiet, I'd rather it didn't have one.

Maybe if you access the bios you can run a test sound if for some reason you need to do that pre-os.

Maybe you could add an option to mute boot audio such as holding a button while turning on, or something in BIOS to disable it kinda thing?, I actually love bootup audio and I kinda guess others do too by the forum thread about GP2X bootup sounds.

When you turn on a system it's like it's announcing itself to you. It's meant to give you a feel of: turn on, and wow It's ALIVE! To me audio is part of that. Kinda why most other consoles do it I guess.

But whatever you decide will be fab .

 

[sindbad]

Having sound in those few seconds would add to the complexity of the bios and most people would turn it off anyway.

If you were so inclined, audio could be added to the linux boot. That's a few (less than 5) seconds after turning it on. But again, it should default to no sound.

 

[nexferret]

After receiving some feedback on my previous attempt at a bootscreen, I've simplified it:

Pandora Logo

 

[Snu]

i agree with craig on the bios sound, i find startup sounds very annoying.
even if its on by default, there NEEDS to be an option in the bios to disable it permanently.

 

[Esn]

I'm not a fan of boot sounds, they are very annoying when on a train or somewhere quiet, I'd rather it didn't have one.

Maybe if you access the bios you can run a test sound if for some reason you need to do that pre-os.

As long as there is a volume wheel on the device, I don't mind having a startup sound because you can turn it off if you'd rather not make a noise.

Not having one would probably be best, though. The more complex something is, the more chances there are of screwing it up.

Ferret: I actually prefer the more symmetrical, simpler square with the rounded corners.

 

[God Ginrai]

Maybe while the system is still loading, you could do a "progress" animation:

I LOVE that animation. That gets my vote.

Anyways, on the topic of bootsounds. I think that there shouldn't be one in the BIOS, but it should have the ability to have one during the OS Boot. I personally like bootsounds, but I can see why others wouldn't want it. And I think 2 chances for a bootsound is just unprofessional. (BIOS and then OS)

-God Ginrai

 

[gaterooze]

Agreed with Ginrai. On my GP2X I flashed it with a silent track for boot sound, however some people will want an OS bootsound. Best of both worlds.

 

[yosh64]

hey

I think these could possibly be done in code to make smaller, I might give it a go later if I have time.

cyas

 

[yosh64]

hey

Just me again... quickly made an animated pandora logo of my own .

Anyhows think I might try make an animated logo in code now that's suitable for the bios.

cyas

 

[Esn]

josh64: Too seizure-inducing for me.

 

[yosh64]

hey

Finally got the pandora logo done in code , there was alot of stuffing around. Basicially all ya need to store is a gif or png of the original logo, which should be around 1kb.

Anyhows the size of my prog is far bigger than it needs to be, as I'm using SDL and SDL_mixer (needed by my SDL framework class), and a heap of my other code can be removed also. If yas are interested in using it for the real pandora then let me know and I'll send ya all the source code ya need.

Also, I tried to limit the framerate to 60fps, but it seems to stay around 100fps, hehe.

Umm, download here.

Hmm, I actually wonder what the size of it would be if it was just a gif, hehe.

Anyhows I hope yas like .

edit
BTW, you can press the r key to restart the animation, and you can also press q to quit, or ya could just close the window to quit, hehe.

another edit
Another thing, I converted the logo graphic to my own format without any comrpession, and so is quite large, hehe. But yea, with everything optimised and a gif/png used then it would be tiny .

and another
I might update it to add the little bright ball alike in Kagato's animation, and maybe try enhance some other things. Hmm, not sure I have time to work on it for a while now though.

cyas

 

[canguy247]

Shouldn't the logo have something to do with a box and Pandora coming out of it?

 

[Chip]

Shouldn't the logo have something to do with a box and Pandora coming out of it?

Absolutely not. That's cheesy and unnecessary.

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

nice one, kagato and yosh64!

 

[yosh64]

hey

Well I updated it a bit, but I won't bother posting. Just generated a sphere and had it light the thing when drawing the cube.

Hmm, well firstly I found winxp is full of trojans and a rootkit and what not and I have no clue how I got em. I don't use a virus scanner, but I'm pretty careful about what I do, so dunno. Well I noticed this after I seen adobe.exe in startup, and then I done an online virus scan and it picked up some things, and then after looking for more myself within linux I found more! so gonna have to reinstall I think, or just only use linux.

So I could only compile a 64bit elf binary atm, unless I figure some way to cross compile for win32 on linux.

edit
BTW, it would be nice if someone virus scans my prog, I think it would be okay though. Hmm, unless mediafire.com added a virus to it, cause I downloaded and tested after uploading, so if it did then this would be where I got it :. Nah, I just compared md5sums and it's the same as my original, plus mediafire seems to scan for viruses anyhows.

cyas