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Open Source Gaming Handheld Project Wants Your Money
YokimaSun writes to point out a Kickstarter project that may warm the cockles of your heart: "Fans of emulation and homebrew have not had much to cheer about over the years; the recent generation of consoles has pretty much killed off any hacking by constant firmware updates. The days of PSP homebrew have died a death and consoles like the Caanoo, GP2x and even the mighty Openpandora never really lived up to the massive expectation. There is a glimmer of hope from a team of homebrew developers who have developed a new console called the GCW-Zero, a new open source handheld system which uses the OpenDingux Linux OS. The specs are impressive, with a Ingenic JZ4770 1 GHz MIPS processor, Vivante GC860, capable of OpenGL ES 2.0, 3.5 inch LCD with 320x240 pixels; 4:3 aspect ratio, 512 MB DDR2 and 16GB of internal memory which can via external memory card be extended by another 32GB. N64 and PS1 emulation and everything below should be at full speed in time."
Whats so impressive about the spec? Sounds like something from quite a few yeaars back.
The specs are impressive, with a Ingenic JZ4770 1 GHz MIPS processor, Vivante GC860, capable of OpenGL ES 2.0, 3.5 inch LCD with 320x240 pixels; 4:3 aspect ratio, 512 MB DDR2 and 16GB of internal memory which can via external memory card be extended by another 32GB. N64 and PS1 emulation and everything below should be at full speed in time."
No, that is not impressive. Super lo-res screen, slower than any phone that is available today. But it's open source, so I suppose that's good.
But what is the point? Learning? Because the thing won't sell, like the previous models didn't do. You can have the best hardware, but if you don't have games for the device it doesn't matter.
I, for one, would rather game on my phone which is faster and has a much higher resolution display, with a bluetooth connected game controller of my choice.
People who do gaming have widescreen TV's and monitors now. The days of teenagers gaming on tiny screens are over now. If they are looking at tiny screens its because they're busy cyberbullying their peers,not gaming. Too little too late.
The big challenge for the developers will be creating a device that's small, runs well, runs for a long time, and is cheap. The current handheld console companies - who set people's expectations of the technology - use economies of scale to push cost down, and often rely on hacker-unfriendly industrial design to cram components into the smallest possible space. They'll have to find a way to get around those limitations. And that's before you consider smartphones, which have set a ludicrously short life cycle for devices (heading towards 6 months) that's making it hard for even the big console manufacturers to keep up with performance expectations.
Maybe the answer it to simply embrace the smartphone. Do what Ooya did, use a commoditised smartphone platform, but keep the screen and throw in some thumbsticks and buttons.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
With Android, you have to make sure the device where you run emulators supports physical buttons. Android 4.2 broke Bluetooth gamepads on my Nexus 7, and very few Android devices have an internal gamepad: pretty much the Xperia Play phone, the JXD S5100 and S5110 pocket tablets, and the forthcoming Archos GamePad tablet. On-screen gamepads have their own problems, as any player of fast action games in DroidEmuLite will tell you. This sort of limits the game genres that are viable on Android.
Verdict: Figure out how to import more JXD S5100 tablets.
The problem with a home-brew or emulation-only game system is that the hardware is now easier than the software. We're now well into the age of mobile devices. The hardware here is basically a smartphone with a lower-resolution screen and slightly different processor. (Although the screen choice seems like a bad idea: 320x240 is just too low.)
The hard part is getting developers to write native games for it. Good luck with that in this day and age unless you're Sony or Microsoft and can spend millions on wooing developers with dev tools and conferences.
The emulation aspect is an interesting idea, but as someone who has fooled around with Playstation and N64 emulation, I can tell you that with most games, you'll find yourself wishing for a native controller pad if you play for more than a couple minutes. And why not? That's what the games were originally designed for and tested with. But even without accounting for the ergonomics, how are you going to play PS games when the device has fewer control buttons than the PS controller did?
Yes, it was hugely delayed, but I own one and I do think it certainly meets my expectations. Sure, it's not cheap, but it has much better specs than the GCW-Zero: 800x480 screen, two full SD slots, full keyboard, massive battery life. It has great emulators for all those consoles mentioned (the PS1 emulation is actually better than the original, it does double resolution rendering without glitches), and more emulators are developped as we speak: NDS and PSP for instance. Also the Pandora community is very much alive and kicking.
So I would say OpenPandora never lived up to the expectations, it just took a few more years than originally planned to get production going as well as it is now.
Seriously, what's the point in making new hardware when so many own android phones. They should be doing something like making cases for popular models with joystick and buttons built in.
I really wish that the open-source hardware movement would target a broader subsection of homebrew gaming than "emulators". Someone needs to buy games to keep Jeff Minter in wooly coats and sheep dip.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I, for one, would rather game on my phone
My phone is a flip phone. An Android phone would involve a much higher recurring fee. For example, Virgin Mobile USA won't activate an Android phone on a $80 per year dumbphone plan; it requires a $420 per year smartphone plan. I imagine a lot of children and teens are in the same situation: parents are willing to pay for a low-end plan to call home in an urgency but not more than that.
with a bluetooth connected game controller of my choice.
Provided that Android system updates don't cause your Bluetooth controller driver to fail with "No route to host", as they did when I tried using my Wii Remote after upgrading to 4.2.
Mini-USB is theoretically deprecated in favor of Micro-USB. You could have saved someone carrying an extra wire around, and it's not like the ports or cables cost much different when it comes to production.
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Remember, everything from ps1 and N64 (and below) were made to run on a tv.
True, most PlayStation and Nintendo 64 games run at 240p (LDTV). But there are some that run at 480i (SDTV), such as Tobal No. 1 and Ehrgeiz. There are even a couple Genesis games that run at 480i, namely the multiplayer of Sonic 2. The Super NES was capable of 480i, but I don't know if any games used it.
An HD-screen wouldn't make a difference here
But a full SD screen will.
If you're into (real) retro-games and MAME
What MAME calls a "standard resolution" monitor is essentially an SDTV with component in. Most games run at 240p, but several run at 480i. I seem to remember the menus of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme being 480i.
The hard part is getting developers to write native games for it.
Games for GP2X and the like are already written for SDL, Allegro, and the like. Porting them to use a particular platform's screen size, audio output frequency, and button layout is likely a couple days' work at most.
I'm one of the people working on this console. The point of it is retro gaming: emulation, classic PC games and homebrew and indie games in retro style. Touch screens and physical controls are completely types of input: you cannot play a game designed for physical input well with a touch screen or vice versa.
We've got a light embedded Linux distro on it and with C/C++ applications writing directly into the framebuffer (set up via SDL, usually) you can get very decent performance from these specs. For example, my prototype has 256 MB of memory and 240 MB of that is available for applications. Similarly, the OS footprint on the internal storage is less than 100 MB.
Thirdly, the games are already available; IT RUNS EMULATOR ROMS.
If something is advertised as running ROMs, what will the console makers say? I'm not a lawyer, but I see potential for a lawsuit on grounds of "inducing infringement" (MGM v. Grokster) unless the manufacturer makes a point of advertising it for use with the Retrode or similar copier, which opens up a defense under 17 USC 117(a)(1):
I posted a question on their kickstarter, asking what they would do to avoid being another OpenPandora fiasco (four years later, first-day pre-orderers are still without hardware and being asked to stump up again for the device to be delivered and refund requests ignored), what sort of experience they have in the area, what sort of business acumen and supplier management they have in the project, etc.
i.e. I trust you can BUILD the device, how are you going to buy the parts, pay someone to put it together, distribute it, sell it, etc. I also inquired about the status of SDL libraries, hardware acceleration in those libraries, etc.
The reply I got is below, in its entirety:
"I have a bussiness degree and have former game studio president for consulting with, I also have a tech school willing to assist with flashing and QA of the console in the works. Yes there are sdl libs in our os if you look in the updates we have released our source for the kernel. Any other questions please consult with MTH our lead developer on irc.freenode.net the channel is #GCW"
Geeks make good hardware, they don't get it into people's hands well enough, though - and I avoided OpenPandora, despite coming from the GP2X community onto it, precisely because of the non-existent customer support and the fact that they could just never deliver what they promised.
I didn't bother to follow up, or put money into the kickstarter. You may feel differently, though. I though the device was really pretty cool though, and would probably have paid for one outright if the answers had been different (or even answered most of my real queries, rather than a brush-off by telling me that someone has a "bussiness degree" - I can name lots of people with those. Most of them have never run a business in their lives).
Short version: Dingux is Dingoo Linux and OpenDingux is a reimplementation of Dingux.
The project originates from the scene formed around the Dingoo A320. Ignacio García Pérez (aka booboo) ported Linux to this device and called that Dingux. Dingux worked great, but it was a one-man project and Ignacio didn't have time to keep supporting it. The code was based on the Linux kernel released by Ingenic (the manufacturer of the JZ4740 SoC), who often invent their own kernel interfaces instead of sticking with the standard ones. Also, the Dingux kernel was quite old (2.6.24) and difficult to update because also internally it took some shortcuts instead of using established interfaces.
There was a different device, the Ben NanoNote, that used a very similar SoC and had a much cleaner kernel (thanks to in particular Lars-Peter Clausen); many of their drivers are even integrated into the mainline kernel now. So we (mainly Paul Cercueil and me) started OpenDingux to merge Dingux and the NanoNote drivers into a modern kernel that uses standard interfaces.
When Justin Barwick started the GCW Zero project, he contacted Paul and me to port OpenDingux to the new device. The code is currently a mix of Ingenic's drivers and our own and while it still needs a lot of cleanup before it's ready for mainline submission, it is at least keeping up with mainline kernel releases (Linux 3.5 when we started, 3.7 now).
We just kept the name; many people who follow Linux handhelds news are already familiar with the OpenDingux name and we didn't have any great ideas for a different name either. I know I've probably answered a rhetorical question but I thought it was nice to present a little history nevertheless.
I believe this name comes from the Dingoo A320, which is a similar device that was popular a few years ago. The Linux port is called "Dingux."
Do you not know what the OpenPandora was? Same thing, but stemming from the GP2X, really, and even the Dingoo in part.
The units exists but in terms of actually delivering, I doubt they qualify as having done that well. First day pre-orderers from four years ago still have no units (well, they can get one, if they pay hundreds of dollars again to someone else now). The software available is all pretty much OS stuff recompiled. In four years, they never really got to the sort of stability and popularity of even the GP2X they meant to replace.
And it was supposed to be an "open" project, by the community, etc. etc. etc. Go ask the community how that worked out (you can't, really, because the ones who still linger there are the ones who didn't just pull out after years of waiting and years of excuses, and most of the original community left before they could do anything useful).
I see no reason that this can't be the same. "The community" doing something doesn't mean they'll do it any better than the big-guns. Take community wifi as one example - sure, there are outstanding projects out there that have been running for years and made money - but they are the exception rather than the rule.
P.S. I have ported software to the GP2X (I own two of the original F100's without touchscreen), some people then subsequently ported my work to the A320 and other devices (even the PSP at one point), I frequented the OpenPandora site for years hoping for the magic turning point where I could buy one with confidence. I'm hardly an outsider or an automatic nay-sayer. And this project looks set to follow the same route, I have to say.
3.5 inch LCD with 320x240 pixels
1999 called and wants their resolution back. not acceptable in 2013 on a 3.5 inch handheld. especially not with a ghz class CPU, MIPS no less.(equiv or around 2ghz x86?)
wvga
800Ã--480 or better, is the bare min.
I would love to buy Jeff Minter games, but he doesn't publish them on any acceptable platform. Paying the Apple tax for a device I don't fully control is a complete deal breaker. If Yak wants my money, he can publish on a decent platform. Say, the C64.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The only reason this might be interesting is if its very cheap, I don't see a price listed anywhere. Why do people insist on re-inventing the wheel when it comes to portable consoles. I keep hearing of some ARM/MIPS-Linux hand held that turns out to be vaporware or bombs. Who is going to carry a 1ghz, 512MB 320x240 Linux console when their phone already has a quad-core ARM, 1-2GB RAM, gigabytes of storage and a high rez screen? Just because its open source doesn't mean much at all unless it can compete with iOS and Android phones on a hardware level AND make calls. You need to either replace their already powerful computer-phone or add to its capabilities. Not make yet another gadget for them to lug around.
You want to kickstart a mobile open source game emulation platform? Don't waste time re-inventing the wheel. Design a compact, portable, near-universal phone cradle that gives you a D-pad, analog stick, buttons and connects via USB or Bluetooth. Bonus points if the entire design can be available to download and be 3D printable. Then write an open source emulator for the app store (not available on iOS but that is not a concern). If you want, create your own open-source app store which allows users to browse the OSS game repository. The user simply has to allow "unknown sources". And if you want to go the extra mile, provide a frame work or game engine for novices to create games (like Flixel does). Now you have a portable open-source virtual console that is an addition to their existing device.
If you want to game on the go, this guy has the right idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM7BWFlZikw He should kick-start his idea and make a simple clip that attaches a phone to an off the shelf controller. SIMPLE.
That or something like this is also pretty damn cool, iPhone only though :-( http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/icademobile. That is what someone should kickstart.
It was a major design flaw to not have this run Android. By running Android, you make your device have access to a lot of apps right from the start. Without a bunch of apps, this thing will be lame.
Jeff Minter is one of the few people I buy the games of whether I intend to play them or not. He can do more in kilobytes than most of today's programmers can do in megabytes, and is a rather nice guy too.
I think its a great project. The kickstarter is ... a smidge steep IMO. for $135 you ought to get a console for sure - not "a shot" at a console. Not sure if this is just poor wording or what.
It's how kickstarter works. You don't get anything if they don't meet their goal. You don't give anything either.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I can get something like this for a few dollars more and still run my Android apps. Also the link above has a touch screen. I just don't see why anyone is getting excited.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I'm curious what you needed so badly in 4.2 that you upgraded to break your other devices?
For the "A new system update is available" notification to go away.
You can get a smartphone
True, one can buy a new smartphone at MSRP and a new gamepad and forfeit accumulated service credit when switching to a new carrier, or one can stay on his existing phone and carrier and buy a dedicated gaming device with a built-in gamepad. I imagine that the latter is among the use cases for which this product is intended.
I'd love to be helping to polish and work on Pandora, AnonymousCoward, but after placing an order two months in, early December 08, I have no hardware and little hope.
OpenPandora has not disclosed how many units have made it out into the field.
OpenPandora has not told us anything about the current rate of fulfillment for backlogged units.
OpenPandora claims to be out of funds.
OpenPandora claim to be using new sales to fund the backlog.
But we've been strung along for four years already, and I'd be shocked if I ever saw a thing from the $330 I mail ordered to them.
EvilDragon here, from the OpenPandora-Team (just didn't register with Slashdot yet ;))
I'm not sure if you really followed everything very closely, since it seems you missed out quite a few things.
Yes, the start was a sad story and it's still sad for customers who bought from the UK shop, as there are still many first-time preorderers waiting for their units... I'm offering them my help by letting them upgrade to a 1GHz-Unit shipped right away for production costs.
This is the best I can offer, since these are not my customers and you can't possibly expect me to make losses to ship out units to foreign customers.
Sadly, Craig (who started the OpenPandora and is running the UK Shop) doesn't say much about the remaining queues, refunds, etc. He doesn't seem to really be communicating with his customers, something I don't like, but I can't do much but help here as good as possible.
I'm also giving my profit from new sales away to get units to his customers as well.
My own shop (formerly GP2X Shop, now DragonBox Shop) has 80 old customers left who are waiting for units from Batch 2, all Batch 1 customers got their unit already. I had 700 units left to deliver last year summer, so this is pretty good.
New orders are being shipped instantly after shipping, so there's no need to worry for those, and right now we're selling about 10 units per day.
In the last few weeks, a lot more software has been released - and pretty impressive one as well.
PSX Emulation couldn't be better (best PSX emulation on any portable system so far, fullspeed with all features including HiRes rendering), NDS Fullspeed Emulation (maybe not for 3D games though, but that can't be said yet) is round the corner, Fullspeed Amiga Emulation with Harddrive / Hardfile support up to 68020 and AGA, FBA is running even games like Street Fighter III fullspeed with sound...
There's A LOT of optimized stuff.
Then someone has just released a first beta version of a wrapper for OpenGL to OpenGL ES, so porting normal OpenGL Apps is a lot more easier than before (no need to convert them to OpenGL ES anymore)...
A LOT is happening there right now, especially within the last few months.
Yes, remaining preorders are a bad thing, but I'm personally doing my best to diminish them as fast as possible, even for customers whom I am not even liable to, and each three sold units another old preorder gets his unit. Or upgrade for production costs and get a unit which is a lot better than when you ordered... that's the best I can do and it works pretty well.
Any phone or whatever can do the same stuff hence why care?
I frequented the OpenPandora site for years hoping for the magic turning point where I could buy one with confidence.
I think the "magic turning point" where you could buy an OpenPandora with confidence happened early 2012, when production moved to Germany. They now have units in stock, so if you order one now, it's just a matter of waiting for shipping. No unexpected delays anymore.
You're apparently experienced
I am aware that I am an edge case, and edge cases are less profitable for mass producers than the mass market. The majority of end users are not similarly experienced enough to know when they can safely run an unpatched system, and they would be seriously inconvenienced if their paid games would stop working after a security update. When I mention drawbacks of something, should I phrase them as affecting "me" or should I phrase them as affecting "people"?
You not only have a driver so you can run a Bluetooth controller on your tablet, but, as implied by your other posts, you BOUGHT an app to add that support.
The "Wiimote Controller" app is free, unlike the "Sixaxis Controller" app to which my other post referred.
And yet somehow you DON'T know how to ignore system update warnings until the update's been vetted by someone in the community? Isn't that sort of homebrew's whole bread and butter?
I thought the only system update warnings that one was supposed to ignore were warnings about updates that would plug the holes that allow block execution of homebrew in the first place. Such updates would include updates to the cryptographic verification of approved software, updates to make the menu erase corrupted saved games (e.g. blocking of Twilight Hack in Wii Menu 4), and the like. That doesn't especially apply to Android, which has an intentional hole called Android Debug Bridge and another intentional hole called "Unknown sources".
The Nexus 7, a device which you can root and downgrade at your leisure
Not everybody who owns an Android device specifically owns a Nexus device.
Congrats, you've suddenly ceased to be taken seriously.
If end users in general are not to be taken seriously, that might help explain why games from established developers hit iOS, PS Vita, or 3DS first and Android later if at all.
I know of a way to make a handheld console with much wider software compatibility and access to a larger community.
1. Build a handheld case for the Raspberry Pi.
2. Profit.
So it'll be a little bigger than this -- so what? The wider userbase means that stuff will actually be written that works with it.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
At a guess, because it's the instructionset the developers used at university.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
A majority of the games on PS1 are 320x240, however, there are a significant minority of games that use more than that. Some of these are pretty popular titles. I know that tekken 3 at least uses 320x480.
I don't see why they want to create another handheld device, we already have great opensource handheld devices called Android-devices... and let's not forget iOS and Windows phone..
You order it from a foreign company who then posts it to you.
And have it confiscated at customs.
Sort of like this one?
Granted it's a little later to the game than I would have liked. Could have saved me a lot of headache forcing PS3 controls to work with Linux, but better late than never.
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Archos Gamepad? Forthcoming? I've used one. It's a current release.
Not for another two to six weeks in my country.
Openpandora never really lived up to the massive expectation.
Never lived up to expectation? Tell me about it! I never got mine! Just a $400 (2009 USD) donation to someone else's hobby project.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Actually no, scratch that -- it's because they're using OpenDingux, presumably to make it backwards compatible with the A320, which used an Ingenic MIPS CPU.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
It is always difficult for open source projects to get decent help now a days Maybe if these companies would pour some effort into it would be worth it