Pandora (Open Hardware) now available to pre-order

[john4p]

Originally Posted by Dunny

[1] No, don't be daft.

I actually think the Pandoras will be produced for real this time.

The worst thing that can happen now is that a lot of them will be defective after a couple of weeks use (due to some design flaw).


update:

Originally Posted by craigix

At least 50 will ship tomorrow mid day.

51 cases without screen

[Dunny]

Looks like the first shipping confirmation emails have gone out - about 5 or 6 people are reporting that they've got theirs in their inbox...

D.

[TCD]

/me senses a huge wave of threads at the shores of EAB
Good luck you all (aka fingers crossed)

[tomcat666]

So how much dated is this thing now that its actually shipping? What else can you get for this sum of money ?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

So how much dated is this thing now that its actually shipping? What else can you get for this sum of money ?

To be honest, I paid 200 quid for it. You can't get anything with a 600mhz Cortex A8 inside for that kind of cash. Of course, batch 2 is now a tad more expensive at $330... But even so, you're paying not only for the CPU horsepower, but the gaming controls too. What other handheld out there has twin analogue numbs, keyboard and DPad/Face buttons?

Amiga emulation on this thing is gonna be wonderful.

D.

[john4p]

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...flew-the-nest/

[tonyyeb]

Lots of positive reports of first Pandora owners on www.gp32x.com

[chiark]

indeed, I think I'll be in for batch 2.

[MethodGit]

I've read though that future batches are likely to see an increase in price. =[

So whether a price drop is really possible in the future, I don't know.

[tonyyeb]

I read that too but only by forum members speculating. I agree that the price maybe higher in the future but I still think it is a great piece of kit.

[phipscube]

I ordered one of these back in October 2009 thinking it be getting it "soon"... i'm around 3900+ in the list. But its great to see those guys finally finish and start rolling them out.

[chiark]

If there's one thing history has taught us, I would say that it's technology does not go up in price over time....

[john4p]

Received my Pandora:



Although it doesn't look that small on this pic it actually feels tiny. The dpad is smaller than I expected and the whole device is quite heavy.
But everything also feels quite well built and the buttons are good. Although small the dpad feels much better than the PSP's. The device also looks great.

[cv643d]

What are you waiting for? Run some Amiga games on it?

Or havent you get tired of waiting?

[john4p]

Just did that. Well, just one game yet: Turrican II, of course.

Works fullspeed with frameskip 0 and perfect 44kHz stereo sound at the Pandora's default speed.

Only one sound effect - collecting diamonds - sounds weird. Other than that the sound is spot on.

The keyboard already works in the emulator. I've opened the music menu prior to playing the game and navigated with the numbers and Escape. In game "P" also paused the game.

There are 3 control setups for different genres. The 2nd is perfect for Turrican: jump with the lower firebutton, single shoot with the left button and fire a powerline with the right button. The upper button activates auto autofire. Because the single fire still interrupts the autofire (as long as you push it) you can just let Turrican autoshoot all day and still activate the laserbeam with single fire when needed.

This version of the emulator just doubles all the pixels resulting in Turrican II not using the screen's full height. The game has only 216 pixels height which is doubled 432 (< than the Pandora's 480 pixels height).
"Fullscreen" 320x256-games won't be fully displayed with this version of the emulator.
It really needs an Autozoom feature as PSPUAE has.

Maybe I'll try to build the N900-port of UAE4All which has more features - incl. savestates. Btw., the N900 has the same CPU and resolution as the Pandora (800x480) and the one who ported UAE4ll to it (smoku) already put a lot of effort into it.

Scrolling isn't 50Hz-perfect as the Pandora's LCD has a different refresh rate (which was to be expected). Hopefully there'll be an application that lets us change the display's refresh rate. But it's not a big deal on such a small screen.

[tonyyeb]

Cheers for that John4p. Would be great to have some vids of it in action from an EAB member!

[john4p]

Yeah, I'll do that in a few days (currently have no cam available).

[FOL]

Shame you just cant order one. You have to wait years to get one, .

[john4p]

^ There's one on eBay...


Tried quite a few games today.

"Fullspeed" (no frameskip (50fps) and clear 44kHz stereo sound):
ATR (screen is cutoff a bit at the bottom), Assassin, Assassin Special Edition,
B.C. Kid, Batman - The Movie, Battle Squadron PAL (a bit cutoff), Bubba 'n Stix,
Dogs of War, Elite Advanced, Exile (screen cutoff), Fire Force, Gods, Heimdall,
HeroQuest, Hudson Hawk, Hunter, Hybris, It Came from the Desert, James Pond 2,
Lost Vikings, Metal Mutant, Moonstone, Myth - History in the Making, Navy Seals,
Neverending Story II, Out Run Europa, Ruff 'n Tumble,
Shadow of the Beast I+II, Speedball 2, Stunt Car Racer (standard and TNT),
Switchblade II, SWIV (but screen too much cutoff at the bottom),
Targhan, Traps 'n Treasures, Turrican, Turrican II, Turrican 3, Wings,
Wings of Fury, Wrath of the Demon, Yo! Joe!

These games work great with frameskip 1 (25fps):
Apidya (screen cutoff), First Samurai, Leander (feels fullspeed although fs1),
Lotus I&II (also feels like fullspeed), Mr Nutz, Paradroid 90, Risky Woods,
Shadow of the Beast III, SuperCars I+II

These games don't work with this version of the emu:
Arctic Fox, Lionheart


P.S. That's at 500MHz. At 600-700 MHz the "frameskip 1"-games become "frameskip 0"-games, too.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by john4p

These games don't work with this version of the emu:
Assassin SE, Lionheart, Lotus II, SuperCars I+II

^ There's one on eBay...

Sounds like you need gnostics, uae gp2x.

The one on ebay, you must be snorting something if you think I would pay more than £200 from something like that.
I love the way people keep praising it up, yet you cant order it. Try going to their site, you cant order it like it clearly states on their main page.
People will just be screwing people over on ebay, what a waste of time.