So Many Questions...

[Raz]

I just found out about the Pandora and have read the FAQs, the Emulator Plausability list and been watching YouTube vids of it and I all I can say is Grapes to you all.

But I seem to have ended up with a lot of questions...

#1 Emulators
The N64 and Sega 32X are a definite possible right?

What about the DreamCast? Will it run smoothly? Is it even possible?

Is the PSP emulatable. If it is, will it run 100% (I know it seems unlikely) or....

What about the PS2 and XBox?

#2 What hardware add-ons are available for the Pandora and we can expect for the Pandora?

#3 Is it compatible with 2 TB SDXC cards? What about smaller SDXC cards. (4 TB is a dream come true)

#4 Say I have a USB Drive. It contains some PSX ISOs. Can I connect my Pandora to my USB drive and run the ISOs off of it?

#5 If my Pandora gets jacked up, can I restore it somehow? Like the iPhone and PSP

#6 Have you come up with a packaging system?

#7 Do I access my Pandora via USB or FTP? Or do I only need the SD cards

I know I'm asking a lot, but I've narrowed it down a lot. I know the Pandora runs Angstrom and of course has already a FireFox and GIMP port as well as an e-mail client. Not only that, but SNES, PSX, Amiga and Jaguar have already been ported. So don't say I haven't looked around.

 

[gaterooze]

#1 Emulators
The N64 and Sega 32X are a definite possible right?

edit: SegaCD is working, not 32X as I wrongly thought - but it is being worked on. N64 is certainly possible, but whether anyone actually creates a working emulator is unknown. I'm sure some brave devs will give it a shot though.

QUOTE
What about the DreamCast? Will it run smoothly? Is it even possible?


Not likely, beyond a few fps. But you never know.

QUOTE
Is the PSP emulatable. If it is, will it run 100% (I know it seems unlikely) or....


Probably ain't gonna happen.

QUOTE
What about the PS2 and XBox?


Now you're getting silly.

QUOTE
#2 What hardware add-ons are available for the Pandora and we can expect for the Pandora?


Wait until it's out before calling for add-ons. But basically, any kind of bluetooth or USB device, as long as it has suitable drivers, will work, so there's plenty of scope for expansion.

QUOTE
#3 Is it compatible with 2 TB SDXC cards? What about smaller SDXC cards. (4 TB is a dream come true)


Not as far as I know, but Squidge or somebody will tell ya.

QUOTE
#4 Say I have a USB Drive. It contains some PSX ISOs. Can I connect my Pandora to my USB drive and run the ISOs off of it?


Sure.

QUOTE
#5 If my Pandora gets jacked up, can I restore it somehow? Like the iPhone and PSP


Yep. It's unbrickable.

QUOTE
#6 Have you come up with a packaging system?


People are working on it, I think.

QUOTE
#7 Do I access my Pandora via USB or FTP? Or do I only need the SD cards


Any way you like. It's good like that.

 

[Esn]

Ok, I'll answer what I know. EDIT: Argh, too late...

#1 Emulators
The N64 and Sega 32X are a definite possible right?

What about the DreamCast? Will it run smoothly? Is it even possible?

Is the PSP emulatable. If it is, will it run 100% (I know it seems unlikely) or....

What about the PS2 and XBox?

Sega32X, definitely. N64, likely (but don't expect it soon after release). DreamCast, quite unlikely, but remotely possible. PSP, less likely than DreamCast, very remotely possible. PS2 & XBox will never happen.

QUOTE

#2 What hardware add-ons are available for the Pandora and we can expect for the Pandora?

I can just think of the TV cable. Otherwise, mostly anything that plugs into a USB drive. Think of it as a Linux-running laptop.

QUOTE
#4 Say I have a USB Drive. It contains some PSX ISOs. Can I connect my Pandora to my USB drive and run the ISOs off of it?

Huh? What does your USB drive connect to? You'll be able to fit PSX ISOs onto SD cards, why would you need USBs?

QUOTE
#5 If my Pandora gets jacked up, can I restore it somehow? Like the iPhone and PSP

It's supposed to be unbrickable.

QUOTE
#6 Have you come up with a packaging system?

The first batch packaging will be very simple, most likely just a simple box. (maybe I didn't understand the question correctly)

 

[Tom`]

I just found out about the Pandora and have read the FAQs, the Emulator Plausability list and been watching YouTube vids of it and I all I can say is Grapes to you all.

But I seem to have ended up with a lot of questions...

#1 Emulators
The N64 and Sega 32X are a definite possible right?

What about the DreamCast? Will it run smoothly? Is it even possible?

Is the PSP emulatable. If it is, will it run 100% (I know it seems unlikely) or....

What about the PS2 and XBox?

#2 What hardware add-ons are available for the Pandora and we can expect for the Pandora?

#3 Is it compatible with 2 TB SDXC cards? What about smaller SDXC cards. (4 TB is a dream come true)

#4 Say I have a USB Drive. It contains some PSX ISOs. Can I connect my Pandora to my USB drive and run the ISOs off of it?

#5 If my Pandora gets jacked up, can I restore it somehow? Like the iPhone and PSP

#6 Have you come up with a packaging system?

#7 Do I access my Pandora via USB or FTP? Or do I only need the SD cards

I know I'm asking a lot, but I've narrowed it down a lot. I know the Pandora runs Ubuntu and of course has already a FireFox and GIMP port as well as an e-mail client. Not only that, but SNES, PSX, Amiga and Jaguar have already been ported. So don't say I haven't looked around.

1. N64 is possible, Sega 32X is probably being worked on - Notaz indicated that he wants to port Picodrive.
Dreamcast - won't run smoothly, probably not possible at all, but the attempt will be made...
PSP - again, this would be very, very difficult and won't run 100%, but some games may be playable with HLE, maybe.
PS2 and Xbox, definitely not. See this list for other emulators.

2. Any USB devices that have Linux drivers will probably work.
3. We don't know, but ... this is very far in the future anyway.
4. Yes. Well, if it's a USB hard drive or CD drive, you'll probably need a power cable. A regular flash drive should be fine, though.
5. It's designed to be unbrickable, so yes.
6. It uses standard Ångström packages.
7. Any of those methods should work, or at least, USB or SD, I doubt the Pandora will ship with a FTPd enabled, but I could be wrong...

 

[God Ginrai]

I just found out about the Pandora and have read the FAQs, the Emulator Plausability list and been watching YouTube vids of it and I all I can say is Grapes to you all.

But I seem to have ended up with a lot of questions...

#1 Emulators
The N64 and Sega 32X are a definite possible right?

Yes. In fact, Notaz plans to add 32X support to Picodrive down the road. You'll probably have to wait for him to iron out most of the bugs with Sega CD support before he starts on it tho'. But with his level ability, that won't take too long. As for N64, you'll have to wait a little longer. A user here named Happy said he would be willing to take up the endeavour, but he plans to code it from scratch, so you'll have to wait a decent amount of time.

#1 Emulators
The N64 and Sega 32X are a definite possible right?

32X is already working, isn't it? I thought there were vids showing some games.


No, that was Sega CD.

EDIT:

#3 Is it compatible with 2 TB SDXC cards? What about smaller SDXC cards. (4 TB is a dream come true)

I still don't get why that is coming out. It has the same theoretical maximum as SDHC, so what is the damn point? Why not just raise the standard for SDHC?[/rant] I don't know about SDXC, but I'm sure the Pandora will support 2 TB SDHC cards.

-God Ginrai

 

[Chip]

A few corrections / clarifications:

SDXC is only a spec right now, and it's not even public yet. 2TB is the theoretical limit, and that won't be attained for many years, if ever. Until the spec is made public, it is impossible to determine if the Pandora will be able to access SDXC cards with a driver update, though it is probably more likely than not.

The Pandora will work with any USB mass storage device, which includes USB hard drives. You will be hard pressed to find a USB hard drive which will work within the Pandora's 500mA power limitation, though.

Barring physical damage, the Pandora can always boot from a SD card to re-flash the internal NAND storage. So yes, you can always recover it no matter what you do software-wise.

A package system is under development. I don't know if it will be completely finished (or available at all) when the first units ship, but package support should be along shortly thereafter.

 

[Raz]

Thnx for all the replies. It seems like this is a very friendly community considering it's so large .

btw, there are 2 TB SDHC cards?

 

[Consequence_9]

It's worth mentioning that Ubuntu is NOT the default OS, Angstrom fills that roll. Not only are firefox/gimp/etc. already ported, but hundreds of other programs are available for the ARM architecture thanks to the Angstrom repositories.

 

[Eniko]

Is the PSP emulatable. If it is, will it run 100% (I know it seems unlikely) or....
I've seen PSP emulation mentioned a few times now. Seems incredibly optimistic to even entertain the notion of this happening when PSP emulation on PC isn't even working yet. It is still not working properly on PC, right? I see PSP emulation mentioned on here often enough that it's making me wonder if I missed something.

 

[Chip]

btw, there are 2 TB SDHC cards?
No. 32GB is the current limit, with 64GB likely in the near future. You won't see SDXC cards in higher denominations than that when they launch either. As I said, SDXC is just a spec. It's not a magical new technology that squeezes more NAND gates onto a chip.

 

[Raz]

Ok, so one thing I forgot to mention was the NDS (I'm looking at that as impossible with the dual screen and all), but I'm sure theres a simple solution to that. I'd just like to know if the Pandora can handle it. According to the semi-speculative emulator plausability list its impossible but might go into the "might work" section

Well, I didn't really need 2 TB. I'm just one of those people who have useless junk on their computer. Yup, two weeks after getting an external hard drive of 1 TB, filled up 960 GB

btw, thnx for the link to the Index.

 

[cb88]

you realise you can plug in a USB HD or even mount a network filesystem on it on your home wifi network (and someone is bound to make a GUI to help out) and have access to many TB without having to copy it to the device

the USB HD is a no brainer and like i said someone is bound to make a tutorial telling how they setup their network filesystem (like samba or cifs i guess)

 

[Raz]

Unfortunately, I don't have wi-fi I live off my neighborhoods and schools. Been trying to persuade my parents, but not much choice when you're 13

 

[mcobit]

Well, I didn't really need 2 TB. I'm just one of those people who have useless junk on their computer. Yup, two weeks after getting an external hard drive of 1 TB, filled up 96 GB

You mean 960 GB????

 

[spaceballs3000]

...You will be hard pressed to find a USB hard drive which will work within the Pandora's 500mA power limitation, though...

Just look at the smaller external USB drive(s) at bestbuy, most of them will work at about 500mA.
Devices should not try to draw more then 500ma per port (in USB spec), but often it's ignored.

 

[Esn]

I've seen PSP emulation mentioned a few times now. Seems incredibly optimistic to even entertain the notion of this happening when PSP emulation on PC isn't even working yet. It is still not working properly on PC, right? I see PSP emulation mentioned on here often enough that it's making me wonder if I missed something.

Well, it was mentioned somewhere in the middle of that huge "emulator plausibility" thread. So if you really want to find it, search through every page of that thread while looking for "PSP". Basically, someone on some other forum said that he might attempt it, but it was decided to not draw attention to that fact because it's really a long-shot and because we don't want to scare any large corporations.

 

[Eniko]

Right, so I'm still up-to-date then. Thanks.

 

[White Flame]

Regarding SDXC, it's not just higher capacity, but also a faster clocked spec. So even if SDXC cards are in the same addressing range of SDHC, we'd have to see if the cards themselves are backwards compatible to SDHC clock rates.

 

[God Ginrai]

Is the PSP emulatable. If it is, will it run 100% (I know it seems unlikely) or....
I've seen PSP emulation mentioned a few times now. Seems incredibly optimistic to even entertain the notion of this happening when PSP emulation on PC isn't even working yet. It is still not working properly on PC, right? I see PSP emulation mentioned on here often enough that it's making me wonder if I missed something.

You did miss something. hlide said that it should be possible through what sounds to me like a form of HLE. He said that unlike other consoles, where the code hits the hardware, the PSP's games make syscalls. He said that with a lot of work, he could try to remap the syscalls to the appropriate functions on the Pandora, or something along those lines.

btw, there are 2 TB SDHC cards?
No. 32GB is the current limit standard set by the SD Association.

-God Ginrai

 

[Exophase]

You did miss something. hlide said that it should be possible through what sounds to me like a form of HLE. He said that unlike other consoles, where the code hits the hardware, the PSP's games make syscalls. He said that with a lot of work, he could try to remap the syscalls to the appropriate functions on the Pandora, or something along those lines.

But Eniko's point still stands - HLE approaches to emulation of PSP on PC, although underway, have yet to really produce a very useful emulator. It should be doable in theory but it's obviously not easy.