Post your random pandora questions here!!

[Bas]

//Can someone sticky this topic?


Hi!


I am new to this community and have a few questions before I purchase a pandora (I still want to wait till I have some money buffer at my bank and a steady cashflow).


//How much RAM does the pando have? I read about 256 MB, but I recall that I also read about 512 some time ago.


//NDS and PSP emulation doesn't work yet? NDS emulation also not with no$gba?


//When is the next chance to grab on a pandora with and without premium order? I mean, what is the estimated date for the consoles to be delivered.


//How much will they cost if bought from Germany? Might be a bit cheaper, luckily, for me, as shipping will be cost a bit less then.


//Any particular reason why there isn't an open office/libre office and e mail client (evolution, thunderbird) port made yet?


//Any reason ZSNES wasn't ported yet? It seems the emu is open source: http://zsnes.com/index.php?page=files


No offense intended in each of my questions.

 

[Prometheus]

//Can someone sticky this topic?

I'm afraid not - having a general-purpose thread for random questions would get unmanageable very quickly indeed, unfortunately. (Amongst other things, questions like these are the purpose of this section of the forum, anyway.)

Hi!


I am new to this community and have a few questions before I purchase a pandora (I still want to wait till I have some money buffer at my bank and a steady cashflow).

Welcome aboard!

//How much RAM does the pando have? I read about 256 MB, but I recall that I also read about 512 some time ago.

256MB.

//NDS and PSP emulation doesn't work yet? NDS emulation also not with no$gba?

There is a very slow port of DeSMuMe (I think I got the intercapping right, here :lol: ), which was done to prove how slow it is. As for no$gba, is that open source?


I have no idea about PSP emulation.

//Any particular reason why there isn't an open office/libre office and e mail client (evolution, thunderbird) port made yet?

I can't say I know the answer to this one - I'll have to leave it to someone else. It may just be that it's a large amount of work, though.

//Any reason ZSNES wasn't ported yet? It seems the emu is open source: http://zsnes.com/index.php?page=files

My understanding is that ZSNES (which is a poor emulator anyway, though its legend from years gone by seems to still persist ) is pretty much x86-only. The Pandora uses an ARM processor.

//When is the next chance to grab on a pandora with and without premium order? I mean, what is the estimated date for the consoles to be delivered.

I don't believe there will ever be the option not to go "Premium", henceforth - the early units were sold below cost, after all. As for when, I'm not sure that that can be firmly answered yet, although EvilDragon (one of the Pandora team) might know something more, since this is his department.

//How much will they cost if bought from Germany? Might be a bit cheaper, luckily, for me, as shipping will be cost a bit less then.

I'll have to leave this one for ED.


My apologies for re-ordering some of your questions - it was just the order that the answers came to my mind in!


I hope this sheds some light.

 

[Caine]

Welcome to the boards Bas. Hmm Dutch name, are you Dutch as well?


What made ZSNES so good back in the days was its speed. ZSNES used to be written entirely in x86 assembly language. Over the years they have been replacing parts of that by C, but it is quite likely that some stuff remains. X86 assembly is not particularly easy to port over to the Pandora (which uses an ARM processor). Furthermore, the speed gain it provides is no longer truly relevant as most SNES emulators perform well enough (unless you want to achieve 100% accuracy, but that is an entirely different sport altogether and requires a state of the art desktop).


I can't find any premium orders on ED's site right now. You would indeed have to ask him (he frequents these boards).

 

[TrashyMG]

The 512MB you see people talk about is the internal storage space (NAND flash memory), which holds the OS.

 

[Darkknight512]

I believe you can run Libre Office with some work, I think in a Debian expand, someone said it was pretty slow though.

 

[Jourdy288]

PSP was abandoned last time I checked.

 

[Stradian]

PSP was abandoned last time I checked.

I can confirm this. Some one needs to continue on it.

 

[EvilDragon]

I believe you can run Libre Office with some work, I think in a Debian expand, someone said it was pretty slow though.

It works with the Debian Extend, and it's actually pretty usable, not too slow

 

[Emnasut]

Is Libre Office (or Open Office) better usable on the Pandora than Gnumeric (and Abiword)? Gnumeric doesn't like some of my Excel files (propably too complicated and/or some special characters) and is kinda slow...

 

[Bas]

ED, is it possible to higher the system specs of the pandora, actually? I know there is some discussion about the processor, but what about the RAM? 512 MB would be quite nice


Not to be meant as any offense, but the pandora was planned some time ago, so the hw prices might have a major drop meanwhile, even those mini-hardware parts?


As for ZSNES, it is the only SNES emu I ever used TBH. I got it from a friend of my bro when I was younger, it worked perfectly out of the box, so I stayed with it even after I got internet.

 

[EvilDragon]

ED, is it possible to higher the system specs of the pandora, actually? I know there is some discussion about the processor, but what about the RAM? 512 MB would be quite nice

Yes, both RAM and CPU could be upgraded in the future.

Not to be meant as any offense, but the pandora was planned some time ago, so the hw prices might have a major drop meanwhile, even those mini-hardware parts?

Unfortunately not. The prices even went a bit higher than lower.

 

[Jourdy288]

So will the Pandora still cost around, oh, $500 when it's orderable again?

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Hmm. A more powerful pandora would be nice.Hope this happens in the future. Will the cases all be from china in the future? Or will you take the moulds to germany or somewhere else. So that the occasional cracks in the case will be a thing of the past. My pandora is fine except for a small crack on the lid which does'ent really bother me.

 

[Grench]

ED, is it possible to higher the system specs of the pandora, actually? I know there is some discussion about the processor, but what about the RAM? 512 MB would be quite nice

Yes, both RAM and CPU could be upgraded in the future.

Keeping entirely theoretical here - so nobody gets confused and goes on a flame fest.


If the rest of the hardware were kept the same as the existing Pandora - no other changes to motherboard or design:


What is the highest end CPU currently available and most amount of RAM currently available that could, in theory, work seamlessly with the rest of the existing hardware?


Curious about the theoretical limits.


Thank you.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Is Libre Office (or Open Office) better usable on the Pandora than Gnumeric (and Abiword)? Gnumeric doesn't like some of my Excel files (propably too complicated and/or some special characters) and is kinda slow...

Libre Office (forget Open Office, it's dead now) kicks ass.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Why is Open Office dead?

 

[Caine]

Oracle bought Sun. Community didn't trust Oracle to continue development of Open Office like Sun did. Open Office was forked into Libre Office. Majority of the developers sided with Libre Office. Oracle donated Open Office source to Apache. Nobody cared.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Ah, OK.

 

[Aurekana]

Keeping entirely theoretical here - so nobody gets confused and goes on a flame fest.


If the rest of the hardware were kept the same as the existing Pandora - no other changes to motherboard or design:


What is the highest end CPU currently available and most amount of RAM currently available that could, in theory, work seamlessly with the rest of the existing hardware?


Curious about the theoretical limits.


Thank you.

The DM3730 is supposedly pin-compatible with the OMAP3530 that is currently in the Pandora; as seen on the Beagleboard-xM it can be clocked up to around 1GHz, but is still a Cortex-A8 so I'm not sure how much real performance benefit you'd get over an overclocked 3530. The RAM is built into the CPU/RAM/NAND chip stack, and so could be upgraded as far as compatible chips support, which last I heard was 512MB for that particular stack.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Oracle bought Sun. Community didn't trust Oracle to continue development of Open Office like Sun did. Open Office was forked into Libre Office. Majority of the developers sided with Libre Office. Oracle donated Open Office source to Apache. Nobody cared.

Yup, and main Linux distributions now kicked out OO for LO.