Slashdot Mirror
First Pandora Console Reaches Customer
neogramps writes "It's been a long time coming, but the first Pandora consoles are finally rolling off of the production line. (Well, this one actually walked out the door to a customer who lived near the 'factory.') Initial estimates had put production and development at taking two months, but Murphy had other ideas. Banking issues, design problems, problems communicating with the Chinese moulding company, escalating assembly costs, and even a volcano all managed to get in the way, but the small and dedicated team soldiered on, and just over a year and a half later, the wait is coming to an end for the 4,000 pre-orderers."
Shouldn't that be "soldered"?-)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
2 years ago these specs would have been exciting, but with smartphones already pushing over 1ghz and 512mb ram, I don't see the appeal. Pandora seems destined to be an emulator lover's delight and not much more. Sure you can run android on it, but it only has a 600mhz processor and 256mb ram. The same specs as a motorola droid. I guess $300 is an ok price to play every console game before the playstation, but my laptop does that and has a nice big screen too. 2 years ago I would have drooled at this machine (and I did), but anymore it seems like it will be so radically obsolete in a short period of time. My phone is already portable internet enough for me. If anything, I'd much rather have a nice 8-10" tablet that I can share my phone's 3g connection with. Once the tablets start getting near the $300 price point, I think things will get pretty interesting. I guess you could say that the pandora is like the ultimate portable console, but only if you don't want to play any newer games.
zosxavius photography
Looks like Gruso's blog got slashdotted pretty quickly.
Here's some more links to keep people occupied:
Official Site: http://www.open-pandora.org/
Wikipedia Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(console)
Pandora forums on GP32X: http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/forum/61-pandora/
Craig Rothwell's Twitter feed (all kids of pics there): http://twitter.com/craigix
Don't open the box!
This ain't rocket surgery.
"but where are the games?"
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi
It's an "open source" handheld with an eager development community, and games and other apps will come quickly once the hardware is released to the wild. By the time the pre-orders are complete and anyone not in the queue will be able to purchase one (and that will take a few months at this rate), there will be dozens of games available. Give it some time.
"fitting in a pocket comfortably. Just add a game controller..."
I don't mean to sound too sarcastic, but if you have a link for a game controller that fits comfortably in a pocket, I'd like to see it.
Yeah, it is a far better game platform, except for the controls but who needs controls to play a game?
Talk about not getting the point. This ain't about CPU power, it is about having all those controls available on the hardware.
What next, an article on a sports car being slammed because a jet fighter is far faster so race that instead?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
> the market will be a final arbiter of this beastie...
Market schmarket. This is the most powerful handheld gaming device out there, running linux, developed by and for an enthusiast community. As far as I'm concerned it is allready a success.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
The problem is the lack of a unifying vision. With an original project you need a project leader who can decide on the design but when the workers don't like the design dictated by the leader they leave (in a company they keep working because they're paid to work on things that may not strike their fancy). If you let everybody have a say you get design by committee or just a katamari of incompatible ideas. Deriving from an existing game, whether by making a clone or an opened codebase, at least gives a specific vision that any developer joining the project can see right away and most likely enjoys. I've seen a project where the gameplay was handled opensource style, the result is an ever-morphing mess that gains and sheds features as the participants see shiny objects and that got dominated by a derivative work that was rudimentarily maintained by one dude who followed the vision of the work it was derived from. Meanwhile players complained that the well-maintained project changed too much and was a different game every week.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I fixed my blog, kinda. Thanks for breaking it :P
http://pinopsida.com