Wanted To Introduce Myself

[Satummoo]

I just found out about the pandora and I'm pretty intrigued about the whole idea. I've wanted something to come about the console community (in terms of full homebrew) for a long time but was hoping for more of a console rather than a hand held since the DS and PSP have a lot of things going for them in terms of emulation.

However, the addition of the keyboard and high power makes this an Awsome deal to use as a UMPC. This is what would make me consider this over a DS or PSP. I think when it gets closer, I may buy one. A few questions though...

Will there be anything better for the TV-out besides composite and s-video?
Can you hook up external controllers to it to use it as a "console"?
Is the pre-production going to look any different than the actual release? In the comparison video with the DS, it looks kinda ugly and boxy...I know the target audience wouldn't care as much, but it wouldn't hurt to take that into consideration.

Thanks

 

[atomicthumbs]

probably not, yes, yes

 

[gaterooze]

Apparently the Mk1 will be more rounded, and the top half of the prototype in that video is much thicker than the real model will be.

 

[bigtruck]

AFAIK, there won't be any other connection for the TV. As for external controllers, any USB controller with linux drivers will probably work, or bluetooth ones for that matter. As for the look, one difference that has recently been confirmed is that the analog nubs will be moved down slightly and there won't be the metal ring around them.

 

[Fishbong]

Why is it that some people want the Pandora to be a console rather than a Handheld?

I mean, if it were a console, it would just be a PC with an ARM processor instead of x86/x64.
So you would basically have a PC, but without compatibility for any existing programs.

 

[TaG]

I just found out about the pandora and I'm pretty intrigued about the whole idea....
However, the addition of the keyboard and high power makes this an Awsome deal to use as a UMPC.

Welcome. Yes it's looking good.

Why is it that some people want the Pandora to be a console rather than a Handheld?

I mean, if it were a console, it would just be a PC with an ARM processor instead of x86/x64.
So you would basically have a PC, but without compatibility for any existing programs.

Makes you wonder how successful such a console would have been - kinda like an open xbox or standardised pc so that it had decent but identical hardware.

 

[Fishbong]

True, standardization is a big plus, but only if the standard is widespread. It may be a pain to develop for numerous graphics cards, but any mainstream card is still far more widespread than the Pandora or a console version of it would ever be. So you could just develop your game only for the geforce 7000 series and still have a much wider userbase.

Or just develop for the Mac mini, it´s standardzed too.

 

[christo930]

I just found out about the pandora and I'm pretty intrigued about the whole idea....
However, the addition of the keyboard and high power makes this an Awsome deal to use as a UMPC.

Welcome. Yes it's looking good.

Why is it that some people want the Pandora to be a console rather than a Handheld?

I mean, if it were a console, it would just be a PC with an ARM processor instead of x86/x64.
So you would basically have a PC, but without compatibility for any existing programs.

Makes you wonder how successful such a console would have been - kinda like an open xbox or standardised pc so that it had decent but identical hardware.


Direct x, to some degree, standardizes the pc platform. Back in the day before direct x a patch would have to be released to take advantage of any specialized hardware that a video card had. Those days are long gone. Standardization leads to stagnation, we saw it in every computer system that offered upgraded models back in the day. Software was written to the lowest common denominator. Just look at the Amiga, how many AGA only games are there? Commodore 128, Atari ST, MSX... So if Intel decided to standardize the video card, then upgraded it next year how many new games would be written that wouldn't run on the old version? We saw that with the FPU. It took years before a FPU was considered standard and lots of software came out that would only run on a cpu with an fpu.

For better or worse the wintel monopoly did a lot to standardize the industry. Just trying to read each others disks, let alone file formats was a nightmare and there were dozens of proprietary formats. IF I'm not mistaken, till this day you can't read a mac formatted DD disk, and a HD only with special software. You can't even store a mac binary on a file share unless it's the server is running services for Macintosh and that's with only 2 standards (Macintosh and Wintel). I'd have to test, but I'm pretty sure the mac still uses 2 fork files even with the newest file system and OS X. I'm not trying to pick on Apple, I'm just pointing out that even after 20+ years there exist compatibility problems.

Chris

 

[sindbad]

Nowadays it's perfectly reasonable to make nicely crossplatform software, because of sdl, opengl, openal and a few other cool things, with very little extra effort.

 

[CyruzDraxs]

Why is it that some people want the Pandora to be a console rather than a Handheld?

I mean, if it were a console, it would just be a PC with an ARM processor instead of x86/x64.
So you would basically have a PC, but without compatibility for any existing programs.

I was one of the few people that suggested a Pandora console. I think it would be an interesting idea and could work well, HOWEVER; it would have to be intended as an extension of the handheld, and function as such. Many developers seem to prefer handhelds, while many of the people playing their games seem to prefer playing them on a desktop computer--potentially a console Pandora could occupy this space, as the main reason for playing it on a desktop is the bigger screen.

This can already be accomplished by using the TV-out. but it's not the most elegant way of doing this--no one likes plugging things in and unplugging them all the time. Also, the video quality isn't all that great compared to the HD resolutions this thing is perfectly capable of outputting with the addition of a few extra parts that the Beagleboard uses.

I had originally suggested this to be a more user-friendly way of using the Pandora as a console, but it sounds as though the rest of the project won't be quite as user-friendly as I had initially hoped. I guess that's just the trade-off you get from taking on such a wide variety of functionality.

Someone should make some sort of Bluetooth device that you can leave plugged into the TV for video out, so you don't need to go around your TV fiddling with the jacks all the time.

 

[Satummoo]

Why is it that some people want the Pandora to be a console rather than a Handheld?

I mean, if it were a console, it would just be a PC with an ARM processor instead of x86/x64.
So you would basically have a PC, but without compatibility for any existing programs.

I was one of the few people that suggested a Pandora console. I think it would be an interesting idea and could work well, HOWEVER; it would have to be intended as an extension of the handheld, and function as such. Many developers seem to prefer handhelds, while many of the people playing their games seem to prefer playing them on a desktop computer--potentially a console Pandora could occupy this space, as the main reason for playing it on a desktop is the bigger screen.

This can already be accomplished by using the TV-out. but it's not the most elegant way of doing this--no one likes plugging things in and unplugging them all the time. Also, the video quality isn't all that great compared to the HD resolutions this thing is perfectly capable of outputting with the addition of a few extra parts that the Beagleboard uses.

I had originally suggested this to be a more user-friendly way of using the Pandora as a console, but it sounds as though the rest of the project won't be quite as user-friendly as I had initially hoped. I guess that's just the trade-off you get from taking on such a wide variety of functionality.

Someone should make some sort of Bluetooth device that you can leave plugged into the TV for video out, so you don't need to go around your TV fiddling with the jacks all the time.


I was looking to maybe start a hombrew console project (no experiance at all) because it would be nice to hook up something to your TV that was more Plug-n-play than a computer and more user friendly. Also the hardware standardizing would make it easier to develop emulators so there's not as much headache with hardware problems because everyone is using different drivers and configurations.

Good thing this is different from the PSP because otherwise I would have no incentive of buying one. Are there any more photos of "real world" pictures? I've searched a bit and couldn't really find any.

 

[cb88]

pandora console == expansion base

basically optional HDD
USB ports like 8?
DVD or Bluray drive
ethernet port
other card readers

 

[Chip]

I was looking to maybe start a hombrew console project (no experiance at all) because it would be nice to hook up something to your TV that was more Plug-n-play than a computer and more user friendly. Also the hardware standardizing would make it easier to develop emulators so there's not as much headache with hardware problems because everyone is using different drivers and configurations.

I think if you had any idea what that entailed you'd not even consider it.

A manufacturing project like that is not something to enter into casually. It takes an immense ammount of time, money, and technical expertise. Don't believe me? Just ask Craigix or MWeston.

If you want a plug-and-play pseudo console then your best bet is to go the standard computer route and just set it up well enough that it works without difficulty. I did exactly that a couple years ago and the result was quite good.
I built a P4 system into one of those small cube cases with a handle on top. I got a wireless mini keyboard with built in mouse nub, two Logitech wireless game pads, and built the receivers for all three into the case. Then I loaded up the PC with a stripped down copy of XP and all the emulators and games I wanted. I set up a program called joy2key that mapped all the game pad buttons to keypresses and mapped all those keys into each of the emulators.

When I was done I had a very portable box that was totally plug-and-play. The only wires were the AV cable and power, and when the system booted you just had a window full of shortcuts to all the emulators and games. I brought it to several parties and it was always a hit.

Considering all the pre-existing software available for X86 desktop computers, this is a much smarter way to go than starting from scratch and trying to build your own console up from nothing.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

I was looking to maybe start a hombrew console project (no experiance at all) because it would be nice to hook up something to your TV that was more Plug-n-play than a computer and more user friendly. Also the hardware standardizing would make it easier to develop emulators so there's not as much headache with hardware problems because everyone is using different drivers and configurations.

I think if you had any idea what that entailed you'd not even consider it.

A manufacturing project like that is not something to enter into casually. It takes an immense ammount of time, money, and technical expertise. Don't believe me? Just ask Craigix or MWeston.

If you want a plug-and-play pseudo console then your best bet is to go the standard computer route and just set it up well enough that it works without difficulty. I did exactly that a couple years ago and the result was quite good.
I built a P4 system into one of those small cube cases with a handle on top. I got a wireless mini keyboard with built in mouse nub, two Logitech wireless game pads, and built the receivers for all three into the case. Then I loaded up the PC with a stripped down copy of XP and all the emulators and games I wanted. I set up a program called joy2key that mapped all the game pad buttons to keypresses and mapped all those keys into each of the emulators.

When I was done I had a very portable box that was totally plug-and-play. The only wires were the AV cable and power, and when the system booted you just had a window full of shortcuts to all the emulators and games. I brought it to several parties and it was always a hit.

Considering all the pre-existing software available for X86 desktop computers, this is a much smarter way to go than starting from scratch and trying to build your own console up from nothing.


That sounds like what my uncle did with an old ninja turtle arcade machine. He took out all the crap inside of it, covered the machine with copper for looks, and put in a computer running xp with mame and over 2000 games on it. He had 4 joysticks with buttons which connected to an I-PAC interface board, which mapped those buttons/joysticks to keys.

Once he had it completed he got bored of it and gave it to my family, where it now sits in our basement getting plenty of use.

 

[sindbad]

With a sizeable collection of multiplayer pandora games and some external controllers, it could work out pretty well. Just not at release.