over at gp32x forums MWeston posed this

Preorders will begin September 30th, 2008


Pandora will begin shipping Nov. 13th, 2008


Perhaps a pre-preorder for GP32X people can be established on September 15th for those who know they want one and don't mind paying sooner to guarantee their system? I guess that will be up to individuals to decide; totally optional of course.

This is my closest estimate based on lead times I see today. The 13th is my birthday, but mid-November is more accurate. smile.gif Sorry, it's a big project with few people. I'm trying for October, but why kid myself? This is more realistic. The launch will happen, but it will blow every time line we have ever established. Everyone here knows this isn't being done by a huge company with a mega staff so I truly hope the core of this community understands and respects that. As Craig always says, this has to be done right the first time.

Anyone who thinks they can come along and just whip one of these devices out (like the Zephyr) is totally kidding themselves. It is a huge, huge task! I haven't seen Chad in a while but I'm sure he'll be back to rip me a new one, but what can I do? I'm just one guy and I am already on this seven days a week. My focus will remain to make solid hardware, a strong functional case and a stable kernel with support for every piece of silicon inside the Pandora. That is basically what I am attempting to wrap up over the next few weeks. I already have a nice list of things based on the last batch of prototypes. As far as any application software goes, I really don't care. That's the easy part that any code savvy person can handle and we have lots of people dying to jump in on that.

There really isn't any "secretive crap". It just seems like nothing takes the time expected. We lost an entire two months with slow assembly and broken boards. It was a freakin' nightmare but now we are moving ahead again. We have to post some estimation date on the website for people viewing the site to see that this is in development and not some far off in 2009 project and at the time of posting, it always seems logical to expect completion by that date. ...

over at gp32x forums MWeston posed this

Preorders will begin September 30th, 2008


Pandora will begin shipping Nov. 13th, 2008


Perhaps a pre-preorder for GP32X people can be established on September 15th for those who know they want one and don't mind paying sooner to guarantee their system? I guess that will be up to individuals to decide; totally optional of course.

This is my closest estimate based on lead times I see today. The 13th is my birthday, but mid-November is more accurate. smile.gif Sorry, it's a big project with few people. I'm trying for October, but why kid myself? This is more realistic. The launch will happen, but it will blow every time line we have ever established. Everyone here knows this isn't being done by a huge company with a mega staff so I truly hope the core of this community understands and respects that. As Craig always says, this has to be done right the first time.

Anyone who thinks they can come along and just whip one of these devices out (like the Zephyr) is totally kidding themselves. It is a huge, huge task! I haven't seen Chad in a while but I'm sure he'll be back to rip me a new one, but what can I do? I'm just one guy and I am already on this seven days a week. My focus will remain to make solid hardware, a strong functional case and a stable kernel with support for every piece of silicon inside the Pandora. That is basically what I am attempting to wrap up over the next few weeks. I already have a nice list of things based on the last batch of prototypes. As far as any application software goes, I really don't care. That's the easy part that any code savvy person can handle and we have lots of people dying to jump in on that.

There really isn't any "secretive crap". It just seems like nothing takes the time expected. We lost an entire two months with slow assembly and broken boards. It was a freakin' nightmare but now we are moving ahead again. We have to post some estimation date on the website for people viewing the site to see that this is in development and not some far off in 2009 project and at the time of posting, it always seems logical to expect completion by that date. ...

craigix posted this on the gp32x forums
Hello everyone, well the video will have to wait until tomorrow.

Here are some size photos with the latest FDM. The LCD is in, the PCB isn't as that would have involved me fitting every key one by one by hand!

These photos mostly show how small it is, the video will show how well the control layout works and how it is very much like playing games using a classic SNES Dpad.

















...

craigix posted this on the gp32x forums
Hello everyone, well the video will have to wait until tomorrow.

Here are some size photos with the latest FDM. The LCD is in, the PCB isn't as that would have involved me fitting every key one by one by hand!

These photos mostly show how small it is, the video will show how well the control layout works and how it is very much like playing games using a classic SNES Dpad.

















...

Craig one of the forces behind the Pandora Console posted this Pandora News

Hello everyone, Craig here,

It's been a busy month and if you visit the forums I'm sure you will have been following all the recent news posted there, if not Chip has made a great sticky post with all the little nuggets of information we post which is updated almost immediately, well worth checking out.

Now, interesting news for those of you who didn't get a MK0 dev kit, TI have now started taking orders for the Beagle board OMAP3 development kit. It shares some main parts with the Pandora and those of you eager to get in to the development scene can buy one of these now, check out their site for more info, programs written on the Beagle should be quite easy to port over to the Pandora, it is certainly the closest thing to a Pandora devboard you can currently buy on the open market.

Now, there have been a lot of videos posted in the last few weeks of Pandora dev kits running software, here are the direct links to some and we will post a highlights video soon.

A Jaguar emulator running Tempest2000 by Firefox.

Notaz running Megadrive and MegaCD games without a frame limiter. Seeing sonic going at 200FPS is quite entertaining.

Quake2 running in software mode (not using the 3D hardware yet, but still pushing 60fps).

SNES running Chrono Trigger without a frame limiter.

Now, another area which has a lot of strong opinions is the Pandora default GUI.

The original plan was keep the GUI simple and put as much time and effort in to getting as much cool software running as possible, but after a poll we have changed direction.

Since most potential customers seem to want a more advanced GUI as standard it's likely the default will be kDrive (X11 derivative) and any CPU intensive apps/games/emus can just kill kDrive when ran, set their CPU speed, have the system to themselves and just reload kDrive on exit.

For less CPU intensive games/apps/emus they can just run within X, so you can have your desktop like GUI (if you chose to set it up like that) with multitasking (ideal for browsers, media, chat).

Currently the Pandora defaults to 500mhz. As we know it can clock a lot higher. You will be able to change that to whatever you like, as you may have read the battery life is looking like it will be even longer than the estimated 10 hours, and clever CPU speed changes will be the key to optimising this even further.

We will have a real final MK0 Pandora complete with case later this month for photo goodness, if you write for a website or magazine and want to do a feature please get in touch. ...

Craig one of the forces behind the Pandora Console posted this Pandora News

Hello everyone, Craig here,

It's been a busy month and if you visit the forums I'm sure you will have been following all the recent news posted there, if not Chip has made a great sticky post with all the little nuggets of information we post which is updated almost immediately, well worth checking out.

Now, interesting news for those of you who didn't get a MK0 dev kit, TI have now started taking orders for the Beagle board OMAP3 development kit. It shares some main parts with the Pandora and those of you eager to get in to the development scene can buy one of these now, check out their site for more info, programs written on the Beagle should be quite easy to port over to the Pandora, it is certainly the closest thing to a Pandora devboard you can currently buy on the open market.

Now, there have been a lot of videos posted in the last few weeks of Pandora dev kits running software, here are the direct links to some and we will post a highlights video soon.

A Jaguar emulator running Tempest2000 by Firefox.

Notaz running Megadrive and MegaCD games without a frame limiter. Seeing sonic going at 200FPS is quite entertaining.

Quake2 running in software mode (not using the 3D hardware yet, but still pushing 60fps).

SNES running Chrono Trigger without a frame limiter.

Now, another area which has a lot of strong opinions is the Pandora default GUI.

The original plan was keep the GUI simple and put as much time and effort in to getting as much cool software running as possible, but after a poll we have changed direction.

Since most potential customers seem to want a more advanced GUI as standard it's likely the default will be kDrive (X11 derivative) and any CPU intensive apps/games/emus can just kill kDrive when ran, set their CPU speed, have the system to themselves and just reload kDrive on exit.

For less CPU intensive games/apps/emus they can just run within X, so you can have your desktop like GUI (if you chose to set it up like that) with multitasking (ideal for browsers, media, chat).

Currently the Pandora defaults to 500mhz. As we know it can clock a lot higher. You will be able to change that to whatever you like, as you may have read the battery life is looking like it will be even longer than the estimated 10 hours, and clever CPU speed changes will be the key to optimising this even further.

We will have a real final MK0 Pandora complete with case later this month for photo goodness, if you write for a website or magazine and want to do a feature please get in touch. ...

from the pandora developer blog


Just to catch up, here are some of the updates for July:

- Final AV connector has been selected. It has enough pins to support line level inputs and outputs, TV output, UART, power and some GPIOS. It has 14 pins but looks like a larger USB OTG port so it has a lot of strength for hanging cables off of it.
- The new analog nubs will be showcased on final pre-production PCBs in August. They are all black with 2mm of travel in each direction. They have a nice smooth travel, but no center click. It was debatable whether this feature would have been a pain due to accidental pressing anyway. The nubs have a large 15mm diameter disc with a concave surface. Their position in the Pandora has remained the same as before due to some constructive negotiations with the nub manufacturer.
- Wifi/BT is now integrated into the final pre-production PCB. Software testing will begin in August.
- Several emulators that run on the GP2X have been ported over to Pandora to show that they work and that everything you have come to enjoy up to this point will carry over with no trouble, and in many cases (where needed), run faster.
- Early testing of the battery at 500MHz, full screen brightness, audio section powered but not providing sound, and no power management has yielded 8.5 hours before the system shut down. A lot of software can run at slower speeds, plus screen brightness control and power management should make 10 hours an easy reality. ...

from the pandora developer blog


Just to catch up, here are some of the updates for July:

- Final AV connector has been selected. It has enough pins to support line level inputs and outputs, TV output, UART, power and some GPIOS. It has 14 pins but looks like a larger USB OTG port so it has a lot of strength for hanging cables off of it.
- The new analog nubs will be showcased on final pre-production PCBs in August. They are all black with 2mm of travel in each direction. They have a nice smooth travel, but no center click. It was debatable whether this feature would have been a pain due to accidental pressing anyway. The nubs have a large 15mm diameter disc with a concave surface. Their position in the Pandora has remained the same as before due to some constructive negotiations with the nub manufacturer.
- Wifi/BT is now integrated into the final pre-production PCB. Software testing will begin in August.
- Several emulators that run on the GP2X have been ported over to Pandora to show that they work and that everything you have come to enjoy up to this point will carry over with no trouble, and in many cases (where needed), run faster.
- Early testing of the battery at 500MHz, full screen brightness, audio section powered but not providing sound, and no power management has yielded 8.5 hours before the system shut down. A lot of software can run at slower speeds, plus screen brightness control and power management should make 10 hours an easy reality. ...

from admin posted on freedo forums

During our transition to opensource project, we've came across small problem -- the team that worked on new website just doesn't have enough time to actually finish it. Is there any volunteer who want's to help? Deep knowledge of PHP is a must. Experience with web engines is a plus ...