Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units. | Hacker News Reader

Pandora: Community driven linux based hardware project, actually shipping units.

openpandora.org

70 pointswozname44 comments

I just discovered this system today, looks really cool.

Wow talk about brand confusion. I thought it was going to be a music player.

OFFTOPIC: That zany version of Tux the pengiun looks awful yet gets used everywhere. The original one is much more tasteful.

It's not actually "open source hardware" in the sense that you can build your own. They were a bit paranoid that it would get ripped off to the detriment of the project if they did that. But it is very community driven and based on a lot of open source software.

Gutted, I thought it was open source. That would have been cool but I'm still impressed they managed to ship anything at all.

the just didn't want to show that stuff to early. The will realeas the plans and in the meantime you can ask MWeston (he is the hardware designer of the team) he will help you if you have questions.

releasing the plans AFTER you've ordered some thousands from the factory seems to defeat the purpose of being open

Would you have taken the risk there is no compony behind this (like with Neo Freerunner). And open is not all about finding bugs is alsow about learning from what others did.

I just don't see how they are going to attract developers to make games for this. The GP2X suffered similar problems.

Sure, this will attract emulator crowd but why do I need a separate device for that when my smartphone will do it (there are even emulators running in javascript/html5 which circumvent any Apple iPhone store issues).

This device has dedicated gaming controls. Most smart phones don't.

except for that multi-touch screen stuff

There are a lot more classic console games that use a rocker and a/b buttons than ones that use multitouch. (This thing is targeted at emulation, remember?)

i'd totally buy a bulky phone case with decent controls for gaming.

it would be as bulky as carying a GBA, but not as expensive as having another device.

The same people are also working on re-using much of the hardware designed for the Pandora (the analog "nubs" are said to be very good) in a device called the iControlPad. See http://icontrolpad.com/.

Please note that the current hardware to uses Bluetooth to interface with the phone, rather than a physical connector since there seem to be licensing issues with that on (many/all?) of the Apple devices. Here's some video showing the iControlPad connected to a PC and used to control a game of Quake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg7AtVuMqZU&feature=p....

ObPandoraJoke: I'm expecting my Pandora in two months, tops.

that's awesome! despite the unfortunate name...

Neat project... except for the 8 games available on it. Why develop for something with 20 users when you can develop for a (more powerful) mobile phone with several orders of magnitude more potential customers?

Pretty cool that it's open and finally (after what.. three years or so?) shipping units, but I doubt it'll ever gain steam.

Yeah, I don't think you'd be targeting your latest masterpiece at this. Probably it will receive mostly ports of existing software.

It will also support a lot of retrogaming.

It came out of the retro emulation community, so it has a couple of magnitudes more games available than that. Whether those old games appeal to you is a very good indicator for whether or not the Pandora is for you.

I spent about twenty minutes googling around trying to find a central repository/library/listing of games available/ported to it... with no luck. That would probably be important for gaining traction.

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi

A community around these small handhelds such as the GP2X Wiz and the Dingoo A320 [0] has sprung up over the past couple of years. These small devices are cheap (about $100) and typically made in China somewhere. They are almost exclusively used to run emulators for classic games.

The OpenPandora is basically a response that the existing solutions (such as the GP2X Wiz) just aren't that great (which is true, I have a Wiz and I really don't like it). The OpenPandora will almost exclusively be used to run emulators, a smidge of web browsing, and that's about it.

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-33IdcH3Wb8&t=6m36s

The specs (SoC, display) are almost identical to N900 and Palm Pre, so you can play games made for those. Palm Pre games run already on the N900. You could also put some other flavor of Linux on there such as Maemo or MeeGo when it comes out.

FWIW, that processor is easily overclockable to 1GHz.

Hi all, I acully am one of the first who ordered a pandora and I waited for 2,5 years. Last week I got mine. I think its fantastic that they pulled threw. You would belive what problems hit them. It was a wild trip.

I really like my pandora its a full linux computer for you pocket. I play N64 most of the time, reliving my early gaming days.

Here you can find games and stuff: http://www.openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&...

The OS is not perfekt but it gets worked on quite a bit.

I would recomand the pandora for everyone that wants linux in his pocket or if you want to play games with really good controles (the nubs are just fantastic)

That my little report.

Also in a similar niche are the Always Innovating products: http://alwaysinnovating.com/

Seems a lot like the phone from 2009: Nokia N900. (In specs, obviously that wasn't a flip device...and the N900 isn't as bulky)

Anyone else thinking about all the ways the gaming controls can be used on non-game applications?

I'm pretty sure you'd be able to code efficiently on the Pandora, given some custom key-bindings.

Surprised it's not android based given that it has an app store and some reasonably popular games already. Anything that would stop them moving in that direction?

It was around before Android so that's one reason why it's not Android based. I think that becoming just another Android device wouldn't be a good business move either, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Is trying to attract developers to a niche micro-platform a better business move? Android market might be crowded but it is for good reason. Getting developer mindshare is very very hard.

Sums up my thinking on it exactly. I can't see this being more than a curious news item if it stays in this format.

I agree that it probably won't become a huge success, but I think that if they switch to Android they'll end up with nothing since there's nothing special about the hardware. They'll lose the interest they have now and no one will have a reason to choose this over a cheaper and more available device from another manufacturer.

I'm sure it can't be too hard to port it.

My understanding is that not every Android device can participate in the app store anyway. Am I misinformed?

No you're correct, it has to have Google's blessing to have (at least proper, and not hacked) market access.

I know that at least one hacker is working on getting Android running on these things.

While Android is great, I hope you realize that it's not some magical operating system that makes every device with it better.

Agreed, my thinking was mostly about existing customer base and exposure, not the technical side of things.

Looks like a nice SSH terminal, actually.

OpenPandora had great promise. When they started it there was nothing more powerful. But now it's slower than even the most dated Android phones on the market.

600 mhz A8? We're in the 1.2ghz range right now. Two, three, and four core designs are about to be commonplace.

True, but who cares if you smartphone has 1.2ghz? Its not open and you want get costum optimized stuff like an the pandora.

Its not all about the numbers.

I bought a pre-paid zte blade (http://www.okmobile.ch/de/mobile/index.php?id=smartphone) for 90 euros the other day to use as a dev phone. It has a 800x480 TFT touchscreen, 512mb ram, hardware accelerated graphics, GPS, 3G internet, WiFi, bluetooth, and accelerometers/magnetometers. It's pretty open as it runs Froyo 2.2, jailbreak/root is easy, kernel source is available.

Sure, it doesn't have any buttons, you can use a bluetooth joystick/keyboard (i.e. http://www.talkandroid.com/guides/using-a-bluetooth-gamepad-...) if you really want to.

I agree. Open Pandora was really interesting for me when it first came out. Now, I have a Nokia n900. Other than the game controls the n900 is mostly comparable, with the additoin of GSM support. The n900 is also very open, and prevents me form having to carry a separate phone.

why only gaming videos?

what about sshing into a crashing server and fixing it? editing code in vim on the bus?

those would be cool videos too. And knowing the emulator scene a little, i bet the keyboard will be used more than the joypads... or you will only play the 'easily' portable ones and not try that game that no one got working yet?

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