Planet Computers : Gemini - Psion Returns

[vcoleiro1]

I've since been informed that the firmware is woefully inadequate for the Vega+ - and that's speaking as one of the authors of one of the most popular Spectrum emulators in the world, so I do know what I'm talking about. Most of the bugs that have been reported in the firmware are one-day fixes, with others no more than a week of 9 to 5 coding. This report was from April of this year, and I'm told that none of the bugs have been addressed as yet.

It's not looking good for RCL at all, and I'd not trust any campaign in which any RCL staff are involved at this point - they're not saying much, and what they are saying is being roundly debunked around the web.

So I think that caution is advised. The Gemini was a serious competitor in my eyes to both the GPD devices and the Pyra, and it's these issues with the vega+ and the continuing delays to the Pyra that pushed me towards the GPD Pocket.

Oh Cool, I didn't know that - probably because I'm not really part of the Spectrum scene.. Which Spectrum emulator is that?.

 

[ZXDunny]

There's two - ZXSpin and BASin. ZXSpin is a full-blown emulator which boasts... well, it was the most accurate for a while, but SpecEMU (written by one of the Spin team) is now ruling the roost in that regard.

BASin is a PC-based IDE for Sinclair BASIC which has been attached via opcode hooks to an emulation of the ROMs of the various Spectrum models. It has quite a following on facebook, I'm told. I wouldn't really know, I abandoned both projects many years ago. That they're still being used is something of a point of pride.

 

[vcoleiro1]

There's two - ZXSpin and BASin. ZXSpin is a full-blown emulator which boasts... well, it was the most accurate for a while, but SpecEMU (written by one of the Spin team) is now ruling the roost in that regard.

BASin is a PC-based IDE for Sinclair BASIC which has been attached via opcode hooks to an emulation of the ROMs of the various Spectrum models. It has quite a following on facebook, I'm told. I wouldn't really know, I abandoned both projects many years ago. That they're still being used is something of a point of pride.

In Fogarty's statement, he talks about how he helped recover RCL's website when it went down, apparently due to sabotage according to him. I think you mentioned you helped in the recovery. One thing Lee said was that the files gotten from Andrews were missing the DB files. I know Andrews claims that isn't true, he said they were inluded and were there as zipped DB's. What do you remember of that?

 

[ZXDunny]

In Fogarty's statement, he talks about how he helped recover RCL's website when it went down, apparently due to sabotage according to him. I think you mentioned you helped in the recovery. One thing Lee said was that the files gotten from Andrews were missing the DB files. I know Andrews claims that isn't true, he said they were inluded and were there as zipped DB's. What do you remember of that?

The files as provided to us to rebuild the site with were inadequate, with assets missing or stripped out.

Edit: To clarify, yes - I was one of the three people tasked with recovering the site. The backups provided were so bad we had to go to archive.org to get stuff back.

 

[Ian J]

We just wanted to remind our backers that under Indiegogo's Terms, all contributions are donations

I remember posting that back in April on this thread, it was at that point I decided against backing it.

 

[vcoleiro1]

@ZXDunny Sounds like RCL should have got you to develop the firmware for the Vega+. Did they ever ask you?

 

[ZXDunny]

No, they didn't. They did ask me to write a different emulator for them, which I completed. They asked me to write another which I got about halfway through before I decided that discretion was the better part and left them to deal with their problems, which were mounting rapidly. They actually still owe me a substantial fee for my work, but I considered that they probably needed the money more than I did, so will chase that up if and when they recover.

 

[jontheramer2]

Linux demo on this thing tempted to get a whole batch of these things now.

 

[Grench]

I hope they get Linux drivers working for sound and 3D.

In the video they struggle with the touchscreen. No stylus and no mouse controller means big fat fingers on the screen - which is going to make using the desktop OS interesting. Workable maybe, but interesting.

I wonder if the touchscreen could be re-purposed under Linux into a trackpad instead of an absolute cursor location touchscreen. I.e. control cursor movement by screen swipes anywhere on the screen (not cursor tracking) then use keyboard buttons for right & left clicks.

 

[torpor]

Looks good, but they're gonna have to really work hard to beat the ease of use and compatibility that I'm experiencing with the GPD Pocket - which, for my money, is the best pocketable computer available these days. (Kinda fun to be off ARM, to be honest..)

 

[benoitb]

I hope they get Linux drivers working for sound and 3D.

In the video they struggle with the touchscreen. No stylus and no mouse controller means big fat fingers on the screen - which is going to make using the desktop OS interesting. Workable maybe, but interesting.

I wonder if the touchscreen could be re-purposed under Linux into a trackpad instead of an absolute cursor location touchscreen. I.e. control cursor movement by screen swipes anywhere on the screen (not cursor tracking) then use keyboard buttons for right & left clicks.

I agree that the mouse in Linux looks rather unusable. If I had that Gemini I think I'd rather use it with Android and maybe fire up Linux only occasionaly if I need specific software.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Shame they'd not included a nub, or at least shoulder buttons. I wouldn't mind navigating GUI elements with either/both of those.

If the Pyra wasn't on the cards at all, I'd definitely be wanting one of these though, I think.

 

[levi]

I agree that the mouse in Linux looks rather unusable. If I had that Gemini I think I'd rather use it with Android and maybe fire up Linux only occasionaly if I need specific software.

I think you might benefit from installing i3 and giving it a spin. Using firefox without a pointing device can be rather frustrating mind you. Even tab navigating my way round a github page has me plugging in a mouse before long.

 

[Grench]

I got an update that they released additional keyboard layouts for French & German.

From what I can tell, they now have specific keyboard layouts/printing/design for each of these:
UK English (Vertical Enter key)
Japanese Kana
US QWERTY (With horizontal Enter key)
German QWERTZ
Frency AZERTY
Arabic
Greek
Spanish
Russian

And hints of plans for these:
US International (no idea how that differs from US QWERTY)
Finnish
Korean
Chinese
Sweedish

That is a lot of variety to keep track of.

 

[levi]

I think US international might be the 105-key ISO layout with a vetical enter, but shift+2 and shift ' are swapped compared to the UK layout to put @ above 2 and " above ' like on a US 104 key layout.

Hmm, but googling again, it suggests that international-US is just the ANSI standard 104-key layout (horizontal enter) but with extra symbols and letters printed on the keycaps and accessible via altGr.

 

[ible]

Russian

And hints of plans for these:

sounds expensive.

 

[Grench]

Amusing - in the comments section of the Indiegogo page there are strings of people complaining and requesting changes to the German layout. Keyboard discussions appear ubiquitous.

 

[elwing]

No swiss-french layout? I'm out!

 

[rygD]

Amusing - in the comments section of the Indiegogo page there are strings of people complaining and requesting changes to the German layout. Keyboard discussions appear ubiquitous.

Well, a good keyboard is important. Layout can kill something like this.

 

[Grench]

They have pushed their timeline from November delivery to January delivery. Fascinating how the 2Months thing impacts handheld computing devices.