I looked through this forum and couldn't find any mention of it. Surely some of you hardcore gamers in here have seen it. I would be interested in your thoughts about the product as I have been in the queue for it since they started taking pre-orders.
I'll order when the first batch is sent out and the second one waiting for orders
what is this ?
Yeah, well it's a shame that they may be asking for close to £280 for those that are in the second and later batches. An extra £80 seems like an awful lot of profit per unit to me. It's expensive as it is at the moment for most people.Originally Posted by MK2k
I'll order when the first batch is sent out and the second one waiting for ordersHave a look at these pages.
http://open-pandora.org/
http://open-pandora.org/index.php?optio ... =6&lang=en
http://kultpower.de/pandoravideos/
http://pandorawiki.org/Main_Page
It's so close, now. Just waiting for the first batch of cases to arrive and it's gonna be all my Christmases and Birthday's (for the last few years) all rolled into one. (Literally.)
^^^^^ how much we talking buddy ?
I like the look of the FPGA Arcade. It would be amazing to stick that together as a handheld to run old Amiga classics.
Handheld to run old Amiga classics!Sounds good...
The PSP (when custom firmware'd) is already capable of playing amiga classics.
However, the Pandora has it's advantages:
For point'n'click adventures (Lucas Arts, Sierra, Legend Entertainment) it has a large enough screen that is even touchable with a pen (not the smeary iphone crap).
Same applies to strategy games (Heroes of Might and Magic anyone?).
For interactive fiction it got the keyboard ready \o/
Capable isn't really the word I'd use. You can play some games on it at a reasonable speed (generally without sound). If this Pandora can run as an A500 at nigh on full speed with sound then it will be amazing but in my experience with UAE on the PC you need a fairly powerfull device to emulate the Amiga. I don't know if the Pandora will be enough.
You're right about the touchscreen and keyboard on it, though.
Just imagine Monkey Island in miniature, at full speed, with sound! It's almost enough to make me mess my pants.
If you phone the Open-Pandora team you may still be able to grab one of the first batch at $330 US, currently a little over £225 GB Pounds. Bear in mind that the cases for the first 1000 are just arriving and you would be at the end of the queue. You may not get the Pandora for a month or so. If you have properly been reading about the Pandora, you will know that it has been a long hard struggle making it. I pre-ordered it as soon as they announced it near the end of 2008 like a lot of people. It is nice to know there will be no more delays, now. It's just waiting for the batches of boards to arrive. Only 500 or so a week from Texas Instruments but at least OpenPandora LTD have 700 boards already. In the UK it's been covered in GamesTM magazine (just as it was announced in 2008) and Micro Mart. Check out the videos by EvilDragon1717, zodttd, MWeston2 and craigx on youtube.
There is a publicized ratio for working this out and it is roughly 8:1 i.e. you would need a processor speed of a rough minimum of 800 MHZ to emulate the DS's 100 MHZ CPU for example.
It ain't as simple as that with the Amiga, though. It only had a 7MHz processor but you need way more than 56MHz to emulate it because of all the custom chips it had for graphics, etc. There was a lot of magic in that old machine!!!!
I really hope that the Pandora can do the job, if it can I'll probably get one. I'm just a bit sceptical about it.
Here's a an edited quote from AmigaForever about specs for their package.
The overall (subjective) feeling of the UAE and Fellow emulators (without JIT technology) is that a Pentium CPU running at 133 MHz compares well with an Amiga 500, providing enough usability for tasks such as word processing and programs such as Personal Paint, but no real time emulation of the Amiga custom chips. Additionally, the Picasso96 screen modes not only offer high end graphics features, but make the emulation run faster than with the original Amiga modes. The use of sound, custom chip logic and the type of frame refresh rates used in many games require more powerful machines and in extreme cases can push even a 750 MHz system to its limits. A Pentium Pro or Pentium II running at 200 MHz feels like an Amiga 3000/030, again with a very responsive file system, and even a faster windowing action when used with the Picasso96 drivers. To make an example of a CPU-intensive task, compiling Personal Paint with SAS/C in UAE emulation on a Pentium II/400 MHz system takes about as long as on an Amiga 4000/040. By comparison, the CPU of an Amiga 4000/060 is about 2-3 times faster than an Amiga 4000/040 (the 68060 is roughly twice as fast as a 68040 running at the same clock speed). Intel systems running at 300 MHz have been tested running some of the most demanding games in real time, without missing a single frame. At 1 GHz, it can be claimed that all functions of the original Amiga 1000 computer can be emulated in real time under the most challenging conditions.
At the last look at the Pandora version (which was a port) in 2008, it was running un-optimized at a frameskip of 2 and was still smooth. Seems to me that with any hardware optimizations the Pandora should be well up to all but the JIT.
I hope it does, I really do. I got my hopes up with the PSP, I only got it for WipEout and to play Amiga games, but it wasn't really good enough for UAE. I suppose that's why I have a believe it when I see it attitude.
Bring on pocket Xenon II !!! (at full speed with sound, ha ha)
Why've you put these links in the coded boxes?
I've had to ask the question just to see what everyone's on about....
This forum asks you to do the same in the Introductions section. I just read the title of the thread and not it's first post. I didn't realise that hiding the links I put up would mean people needed to reply to see them. Anyway, glad you were interested enough to do soWhy've you put these links in the coded boxes?
I've had to ask the question just to see what everyone's on about....
Yeah Man, it's a Megablast.
The cases have arrived and all is good. Shipping retail Pandora's will start next week. Check out the unnoficial webpage (pandorapress.net) or the GP32 forums for pictures and maybe a video of an assembled retail Pandora tomorrow :ymapplause:. It may be expensive but there's nothing that comes close for a gaming handheld in terms of sheer power.
When do you think you'll get your hands on it, Rainbow?
Keep us updated when you do. I'd love to know how well it can run UAE or suchlike.
It'd be amazing if you could play two players by linking them. Imagine Moonstone two player on a hand held. If one unit ran the program and the other just duplicated the screen output and allowed control for the second player. That would be quality.
Guess I'm somewhere in the mid to late 2000's. It's all 'Go Go Go' now that everything is finally approved and complete. 500 or so boards a week from T.I. I guess it's gonna be about another 3 weeks to a month for me. I will post up my thoughts when I get it if there is still interest in it in here. GamesTM and Micro Mart already pre'd it so I guess it will appear in their pages again. I am watching out for it on BBC click and the Gadget Show (if they ever feature it).
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