Release Date - On Track ?

[fusion_power]

There should be a thread/list where we can suggest who will get the first 100 Units.
Some of my suggestions are notaz, .Alex, Exophase, the guys from Yuan Works of course, DaveC...and many others. ^^

 

[Svartalf]

Does anybody know what the pricing will be for the "Mark 0.1" dev boards? Will they be cheaper, because you'll have to assemble it (after buying/getting the casing) yourselve or will the whole package (dev board+ acquired casing) cost as much as the end product (Pandora)?

Typically, things of this nature will be at the same price or more expensive. If you're not wanting to test/develop, you probably ought to wait for the 3000 production run.

 

[Holokauston]

Does anybody know what the pricing will be for the "Mark 0.1" dev boards? Will they be cheaper, because you'll have to assemble it (after buying/getting the casing) yourselve or will the whole package (dev board+ acquired casing) cost as much as the end product (Pandora)?

Typically, things of this nature will be at the same price or more expensive. If you're not wanting to test/develop, you probably ought to wait for the 3000 production run.


IMO someone that asks that question doesn't really strike me as someone that should have a "Mark 0.1" ;P

 

[craigix]

saying that the difference between the Pandora and the Zaurus/PSP is as big as the difference between the Amiga and the C64/Spectrum is total cobblers Craig. Somebody on OESF had worked out all the pins to add a 2700G 3D accelerator to the Z, it was just too expensive to buy 'em to be worthwhile, and a few people had succesfully upgraded the RAM in their Z's to 128MB but again this was no mean feat. Point is that with these additions and overclocking the Z to 624Mhz it really isn't that far behind the Pandora's spec and, for people like me who want a pocket Linux box and aren't really bothered about the portable console side, the better keyboard means it still beats the Pandora for some (terminal/shell addicts I'm looking at you). The difference between the Zaurus C3x00 and the Pandora is more like A500 vs A1200, not Amiga vs C64!

I'm sure someone could hack a 3D chip in to the C64 or Spectrum in theory too, but thats all it is, theory, and it's such an odd argument. It's like saying if you put a V8 in a mini it's not that far off a ferarri. But Minis don't have V8s and they are not like ferraris. There would be so much more to it.

Seriously even overclocked to 624Mhz the Z still isn't even anywhere close to the power of the Pandora, this is totally next gen stuff.

Consider the last gen Omap2 could run Quake3 at 640*480 full speed. That was the last generation.

Although if you want to drag race your 624Mhz Z against a Pandora I'd show up

 

[atomicthumbs]

There should be a thread/list where we can suggest who will get the first 100 Units.
Some of my suggestions are notaz, .Alex, Exophase, the guys from Yuan Works of course, DaveC...and many others. ^^

The people who will get one of the units will be the people who order them.

Before the 100 go out, a few will go out to the best-known devs.

 

[DDd]

I'm ready to pre-order now.

Just make available a pre-order page on openpandora.org and will paypal, credit card, or bank transfer the money today.

 

[J201605]

There should be a thread/list where we can suggest who will get the first 100 Units.
Some of my suggestions are notaz, .Alex, Exophase, the guys from Yuan Works of course, DaveC...and many others. ^^

The people who will get one of the units will be the people who order them.

Before the 100 go out, a few will go out to the best-known devs.


really? I thought the point of the first 100 was to create a decent library of software before the release so the people who ordered from the first 3000 would actually have something to use it for.

 

[Tobriand]

I must say that., whilst I personally would love one of the first 100, I reckon that it should not be a case of who orders gets. Consider: there are typically ~200 members active in any 15 minute period on this forum (this is to say, I've never seen the number below 180 and rarely above 230 as listed on the bottom of the main forum page). Maybe 30 of those are serial posters like myself or Squidge or Atomicthumbs, and a fair few others. Everyone else (probably) logs on, checks the threads they're interested in, and goes away, as per most pages.

So, knowing that, shall we assume (and I stress that I'm plucking figures out of the air here), that maybe 50% of those are interested in the Pandora (probably more, but it's best to be conservative).

Shall we also assume that perhaps 5% of those 50% of users would really like to be part of the first 100. This may be too small, but it'll do. Regardless of the figure, it would certainly be safe to take it that this group will order a pandora the *instant* the ordering opens and they discover it.

Which would mean that, if ordering were announced openly, the first 100 would be gone, at a rate of (200*0.5*0.05=5*4=20) 20 per hour, in about five hours. Which is, note, not even the time most people will spend sleeping in a day.

This seems incredibly unfair to those who are *actually* devs and who would really help in developing the core Pandora software base.

So, the system I propose: the first 100 are released on a "justify it" basis. To get one within a period of say, the first three days of availability, one would have to show either bloody good debugging knowledge, or some evidence that they know how to develop in a meaningful manner. That would not commit them to bring whatever it is they're pointing at over, all it'd do is guarantee that those who did get the first shot at the first batch were people who might help. I do not fall into that category. Nor, I believe, does Atomicthumbs (sorry Atomicthumbs).

After three days of justified orders, the forms are opened for any remaining units, if there are any, and it's a case of first come first serve.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Remember that not all the people on the forum would want to assemble their own Pandora.

 

[Chip]

Craig should probably hold on to at least one or two 0.1 units for independent review purposes. There is no reason to send anything out for review right now, but after the casings are made, after there is at least some preliminary software written up, and before the retail units are ready you should try to get some "Sneak preview" reviews. I'm thinking Linuxdevices and Engadget would give honest, hands-on previews. They would also likely reach a lot of potential users.

Pandora doesn't really need "marketing", as I really think it will sell itself based on abilities. What it does need is a little more legitimacy. Many of the comments for existing articles are along the lines of "I've never heard of these guys, it's just a photoshopped DS, it's vaporware." The specs and expected capabilities really do seem almost too good to be true. A couple hands-on reviews from trusted neutral sources would do a lot to build confidence in the Pandora platform.

 

[teggun]

The first 100 should go to proven dev's.

They would be completely wasted on anyone else.

 

[predatorramboxxx]

The first 100 should go to proven dev's.

They would be completely wasted on anyone else.

wow there is now a new video of the pandora! on openpandora.org

 

[J201605]

Remember that not all the people on the forum would want to assemble their own Pandora.

unless your going to create software that people will want to use when the real 3000 run is launched you are just leeching from the limited supply that could go to one of the many worthy proven developers.

 

[Dingo_aus]

Speaking of early reviews. It might be a good marketing exercise to promote the Pandora over at Amiga.org when it is released.

I know a lot of the people there would be interested in a capable portable Amiga Emulator with a rudimentary keyboard.

 

[JakeK]

I agree with Tobriand. Just because you can purchase one the 100 doesn't mean you would help towards its development. Keep reserved Pandora's for the devs that would really get into the development of software for the Pandora. make sure that the person who is buying one can actually help out.

IMO a person who is going to port a homebrew game or two over to the Pandora should wait for the 3000.

 

[Pleng]

Craig should probably hold on to at least one or two 0.1 units for independent review purposes. There is no reason to send anything out for review right now, but after the casings are made, after there is at least some preliminary software written up, and before the retail units are ready you should try to get some "Sneak preview" reviews. I'm thinking Linuxdevices and Engadget would give honest, hands-on previews. They would also likely reach a lot of potential users.

Pandora doesn't really need "marketing", as I really think it will sell itself based on abilities. What it does need is a little more legitimacy. Many of the comments for existing articles are along the lines of "I've never heard of these guys, it's just a photoshopped DS, it's vaporware." The specs and expected capabilities really do seem almost too good to be true. A couple hands-on reviews from trusted neutral sources would do a lot to build confidence in the Pandora platform.

Personally I'd wait until there's a decent amount of software ready for the platform before sending out review units.

You only get one chance to make a first imression, and first imprssions really count. If you send out a dev unit with virtually no software, incomplete and possibly buggy firmware then the review isn't going to be good. Bad news travells faster than good news and you'd need ten decent review later on down the line to even begin to make up for one bad review.

I think its given that there will be a fair amount of interest in the first batch of 3000, so there's no need to instantly market the unit. See how sales progress with the first 3000. I'd suggest only sending review units out when sales start to slow down. And even then, only if there are a fair few left. If sales start slowing but there are only 100 or so units left then wait until the second batch is ready before sending out review units. As you don't want 500 people reading reviews and thinking "Yeah I want one of those" only to find it's not available at that time. Some people will wait and order when they're available, but you'll loose a lot of impulse buyers

 

[danboid]

The battery is definitely sorted out. We will get a standard headphone jack as well as an ext port, though exactly what will come out of that ext port is not clear.



Great to hear it'll have headphone jack AND AV - this is a killer feature and is going to be much appreciated.

OK, so we know the power rating of the battery but is it going to be a new battery design custom to Pandora or is it an existing one thats already used by certain phones/PDAs?

Whats been decided about the interface yet? Anything? I remember talk of Craig thinking of half-inching the eeePC GUI- is that still the plan?

If Pandora is to come with X11 of any flavour then certainly my top must-have app inclusion tip is wicd

http://wicd.sourceforge.net/

The new LTS ubuntu release came last week, big event in the Linux world but as far as I'm concerned they fluffed it and mainly because they didn't get wicd into the repos. and as a part of the default Ubuntu desktop. GNOME network manager is a joke for people who want easy wifi connections, it just gets in the way. With GNOME/ubuntu's current network manager you have to enter your WPA/WEP password every time you connect and then it wants another password on top of that- a password password- what a joke! I don't need to tell you guys that the most common use for PCs, laptops and PDAs these days is internet access and if getting on the net (esp. via wifi) is a ballache on the Pand it will be a major blow to its acceptance and popularity so lets get it right from the outset. wicd doesn't depend on GNOME so it would also be a valid option if pand has a rox/XFCE/icewm or whatever desktop.

eeePC comes with a KDE/Qt network manager (knetworkmanager?) and although I did get it to connect to an unprotected wifi network it didn't work when I enabled wpa2 and entered the password. wicd - no such probs.

 

[teggun]

The new LTS ubuntu release came last week, big event in the Linux world but as far as I'm concerned they fluffed it

Completely off topic but that release has been shocking. It's pretty much broken my install and it's full of bugs.
My wifi doesn't even work now. I've gone back to Windows XP for the time being.

 

[Holokauston]

The new LTS ubuntu release came last week, big event in the Linux world but as far as I'm concerned they fluffed it

Completely off topic but that release has been shocking. It's pretty much broken my install and it's full of bugs.
My wifi doesn't even work now. I've gone back to Windows XP for the time being.


Upgrade broke my root (big problem) but a clean install now everything works great, WiFi OOtB and everything runs smooth and fast, people keep forgetting that there are often a few kinks just after release and takes a little time to get it just right etc.


As to the release of Pandora, I would say it's rather useless for a homebrew game dev to take a "Mark 0.1", don't know how many active devs there will be the on the first 100 I would rather see them go to people that actually do something useful since a homebrew game might not work either way until the system is up and running as it should.

fully functional OpenGL|ES, WiFi, USB drivers etc > a few homebrew game demos

 

[sindbad]

I'm not even sure I'll get a pandora, since I'm not interested in the gaming aspect. But if I do get one, I will wait for hardware that is guaranteed to be bug-free, whatever mark that is. Software can be non-existant for all I care.