Will Eschalon Book 1 Or 2 Run On Pandora?

[stevedev]

Greetings All,
First I apologize If I'm posting in the wrong section, and for my ignorance in compatibility. I am about to order a Pandora, and curious if RPG Eschalon Book 1 or 2 will run on it? Anyone tried? Demo dl: basiliskgames If you are able, instructs?

Thx much and looking forward to becoming a part of the community.

-Steve

 

[WizardStan]

Unfortunately, without the source code, it can't be made to run on the Pandora.
Fortunately, they seem to have written it with cross platform in mind, as it already runs on linux. This means that it may be possible for them to simply rebuild the code with an ARM compiler and make it available if asked. Pop into their forum and ask if it would be feasible to recompile the linux version with an ARM compiler. I can't find their recommended specs, so it may turn out to be too intense for the Pandora. Doesn't hurt to ask though, I guess.

 

[mindlord]

No. x86 and a64 Linux only.

It's been asked if Basilisk planned on making a port of the game to other platforms like the n900 and the response was not good. Because the game is designed to run in 1024x768 only. Basilisk is a very small team that does not have time to maintain and support very many ports. It would be great if they would consider it, but without source, nor interest from the developers... don't count on it. If an agreement could be made between Basilisk and OpenPandora LTD to make an official port with all the appropriate NDA and copyright protections in place to let a sanctioned developer do a port... al-la cavestory for the GP2X then maybe.

 

[clyborg]

Both Eschalon games were programmed with BlitzMax, and Blitzmax does not support the ARM cpus.

The owner of BlitzMax ( http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/blitzmax.php )is starting a new project to support mobile devices (iPhone, Android, etc.), so maybe we might see some BlitzMax games in the future.

One of the users of Blitz3d made his own iphone 3d module to port one of his Blitz3d/BlitzMax games to the iPhone. Here is the link to module: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=90019

Maybe Pandora Dev can port his 3d module?

His game is called Super Gerall (a monkey ball clone that he has been working on for 8 years) : http://www.supergerball.com/


Jason

 

[stevedev]

Ah well. I can dream.. maybe they'll allow it to occur eventually. Thx all for the feedback. Now I know I'm confusing kernels/architecture.. but help me out. I saw that clip of a dev running ubuntu on Pandora.. I have Eschalon on ubuntu at home.. can't connect the dots? lol, forgive me for assumptions but I do like to have delusions of grandeur. (Saw pieces of the extend x86/debian thread, etc.)

Also while we're on the subject, any recommended RPGs for Pandora?

-Steve

 

[mali]

Also while we're on the subject, any recommended RPGs for Pandora?

GemRB makes this possible to a certain degree.

 

[Orion4874]

Also while we're on the subject, any recommended RPGs for Pandora?

GemRB makes this possible to a certain degree.

Oh, how I wish Planescape was open source!!!

 

[WizardStan]

Ubuntu was recompiled for ARM, just as many other programs were. This means that Ubuntu itself is running on the Pandora, but anything else that you would run on top of it still needs to be compiled for ARM.
An operating system is still just a program: a complex program to be sure, the first (sometimes second, after the bootloader) program that your computer runs, but still just a program, and subject to all the same constraints and benefits. Notably, you can't just run it on any CPU architecture, however if you have the source code you can often rebuild it for a different CPU architecture. But then all the programs that you ran on the original CPU will also need to be recompiled.
So just because something runs in Ubuntu-x86 does not mean it will run in Ubuntu-ARM.

 

[stevedev]

Stan, thanks for the explanation. Appreciate it.