To start this day we have fully functioning Wi-Fi driver! And we have a mock up of pandora case tagging.

And now to the main event! We have new build of N64 emulator! And it's nearly fullspeed with sound!

Two videos after the break! 

This is a NEON optimised build of the graphics plugin gles2n64 paired with Ari64's dynarec for mupen64plus running on an OpenPandora rev4 devboard. The board is at 850mhz and its rendering at 800×480 resolution with NO frameskip. It is 25 to 30 fps for the ingame sequences, the mario head is initially ~25fps but drops down to ~16fps after awhile. Sorry about the terrible quality.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_EXdG5x7j0

Mupen64plus emulator running on a Pandora prototype unit.
The first part of the video is Super Mario 64 at 600MHz for more real life performance without overclocking. The second part is at 800MHz. Mariokart 64 is at 600MHz again but could use the speed boost.
The Y axis of the nubs is backwards in the software which made controlling Mario so much fun. :)
I take no credit for having coded any of this. That goes to some amazing software folks who provide me with the pleasure of testing beta code. ;)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgP6PEhH4uQ

All in all there is progress. And I will be doing updates again from this time on.

And now there is couple of photos of CE test and videos of those emus after the break.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHUvR-sKZE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gYfwtj7Mok

Hiya!
Sorry for so little news during the last days, I did have very busy times.

I quit my job, so from April 1st, I’ve got more time for Pandora and my other job (which is TV commercial production).
However, this means I got more to do during the last week, as somebody needs to take on my old job.

Well, anyways, back to Pandora stuff. I received three new ribbon cables from Michael on last Monday but didn’t have time until today to rebuild my Pandora devboard and put it into the case. But, it works now. So (except for the keymat I’m still missing), I also got working board in a case now.

I hope I’ll find some time making a nice little HD video with Quake 3 and some other new emulator (you’ll like it) during the next days. You will also get to see a more finger-friendly matchbox-theme I designed. Give me some time, though, still got a lot of work in real life.

Now, onto some other issue you already heard on the boards: The case. You’ve seen it and you read it, it fits quite good (better than we expected) — but not PERFECT. There is SOME stuff to be fixed, but nothing that major. We don’t want to deliver a non-perfect case to you, though (and I’m sure you all agree), so we’ll work on it for the next few days.
I’ll also post the final keymap for you soon, so stay tuned — and thanks a lot for being so patient.

Also JayFoxRox has posted some information about the PSP emulator he’s working on for the Pandora. It’s currently very early in development, but he already has a few screenshots. He’s aiming to get commercial games running at a reasonable speed and believes it to be very possible. The PSP has a very impressive line up of games, from GTA to LocoRoco, these would definetly be a very welcome addition to my Pandora games library. More screenshots and information at the source! Pics after the break.

Direct re-post from felipec.wordpress.com about DSP libs.

It took some time but finally tiopenmax 0.3.5 was released. It’s essentially 0.3 plus DSP binaries that actually work.
I verified with gst-openmax (git omap branch) and they work just fine Thanks Daniel D?az!
So people with OMAP3 hardware (beagleboard) can already try D1 MPEG-4 decoding using less than 15% of CPU.

Read the full entry for a Beagleboard powered DSP demo.

Pics and a Quake 2 Video after the break. 

Pandora-PSP

Quake 2 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F34GxKdIE6s

Here is a quick and much requested video of the white Pandora which was built a few days ago. It is the first fully working, portable, near final unit. Still some things to tweak up which we are not happy with, but we are almost there now.
You can see use of the keyboard, the nubs, the dpad, the action buttons, the LEDs and the touchscreen.
The game is Quake@800*480 via the SGX (solid 60FPS with dynamic lighting), the OS is Linux (Angstrom). We will do a video with Quake3 soon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k82bMZ3kMoI

Additionally there was couple blog posts by ED :

So, what has happened during the last days, you might ask?
Well, besides me starting to make the Pandora Matchbox theme to be more finger-compatible (so you can use it without stylus), Michael finally got his case and he began to assemble it properly.
I also had to do a lot of boring stuff... finding out a lot of the legal stuff and doing phone calls.
If you're not interested in legal mumbojumbo, you can skip the rest of this blog entry.

Have you ever thought about how complicated it would be selling a battery within Europe? Firstly, you need to make sure nothing serious can happen... and if there are any special infos about how it has to be wrapped up. A lot of phone calls were needed to find out anything about that, as nobody seems to know much about that — not even the guys that are supposed to check if everything is fine. Well, I found everything I need to know. Even if some stuff is weird. Even the size of the «don't-throw-it-away»-icon on the battery has to be correct...
Another thing about the batteries is that you actually need to take care about the recycling... I did also take care about that.
Similar stuff for the Pandora itself: Recycling is something that needs to be taken care of... that's fun, eh?

Anyways, after those boring legal stuff, back to the really important things now: Finishing the Pandora and the OS!

I don't think I need a lot of words in this blog entry — I just posted a video (HD again) where I assembled a Pandora prototype case.
Two things are important:
1. I broke my flat ribbon cable, so I can't show the unit running (a new one is already on the way to my place).
2. The motherboard doesn't fit perfectly, as the final case is for MK3 and the board I have is MK2, we moved around some stuff.

Apart from that: Enjoy :D

Video is after the jump.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B50Kh70AeE4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=spIcUPsLvZA

Just four days ago we were shown the Dreamcast BIOS booting up on a Beagleboard. Today, we get Prince of Persia. This ride is fun already. Take it away, ZeZu:

Please note the framerate in this game is 30fps or so, the cpu percentage is correct and the RPS is similar to the framerate.
[ as in 8 / 30 would be 14fps+ PAL or ~16fps NTSC (if it worked out in that fashion)]
You might not label it “playable”, but its looking up from things a few days ago.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o4y9k0s_Xc

Hello everyone, Craig here,

Here is a video which Pickle made showing the classic Quake engine running at 800*480 with the SGX first at 55Mhz then at 110Mhz. (Video is after the Jump.)

The results with Quake2 are almost exactly the same, we are also able to use full screen antialiasing in Quake2 at 800*480 while still getting over 30fps.

These early results show that a) the 3D hardware is up to the job at our high resolution and b) there is a lot more power to extract once we move to OpenGL2ES (this port is using 1.1ES) and begin to experiment with using the NEON command set to speed things up further. The final ideal situation would be full OpenGL2.0 somewhere in the future.

Then there is a Tweet from Craigx that he recieved his case.

And a Quake 3 video!

Demo with some bots running I guess, it appeared to me the average framerate was around 40. This at 600 Mhz and 110 Mhz.

Quake 1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5qtvD-MJ9E

Quake 3

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW6CAD2UVek

Well, some people may have met me at the Olymptronica during the last days and played around with a Pandora devboard
ALL people were amazed by it, that's for sure. I'll post more about it (and a little video) soon.

You might have also read and seen that Pickle got Quake 2 running using OpenGL ES on the Devboard! He's currently working on Quake 3 — and it's looking good already.
So expect some more hires videos from me within this week.

Yep, the prototype case is finished (and WHITE, it will surely become something special :D)
When it arrives at Michaels place, he's gonna build a nice working Pandora for you... expect more soon :)

In other news.

Cpasjuste has posted an updated video of the menu system we saw the other day, showing some more UI polish and some application action.

And Quake 2 running OpenGl with full 800×480, sadly with only 55\500mhz on the chip (standard clocks are 110\600), but still managing 32fps with no optimizations.

Like allways, Videos after the jump.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF0P7onjKLo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HysmLjxGXP4

Well, all the errors of the case files have been fixed — and the final prototype cases are now in production!
They will be finished and shipped out on Friday, huzzah!

After that happened, we need to do stability and CE tests as quickly as possible, and if everything is fine, the moulds will be produced.

The production of the moulds will take about 30 — 35 days, however, once they are finished, the company can produce 50.000 units a day... should be enough for us. The good thing is, that the company that produces the moulds and the case is exactly the same company that made the prototype cases, so we won't have any file export errors this time.

The last pieces missing for the board productions have also been shipped and are on their way. This means that everything should be ready for the mass production of the boards. If everything goes well, we can start producing the boards shortly before the cases are finished so we can begin to ship early / middle of April!

Oh, I (EvilDragon) am at the Olymptronica this weekend — with Pandora devboard as well as with a WIZ prototype. So, if you want to come over and have a little chat or test some stuff on the prototypes, you're welcome. I hoped I could take the case with me, but as the show starts one day after the cases are finished, there's no chance getting one to me in time.

Hi,
I told you, cpasjuste is currently working on a simple and clear launcher, using skeezix libpnd to work with PXML.
cpasjuste just posted a small sneak preview of the menu, you can see how PXML works (showing icons in categories, preview pictures, etc.).
skeezix libpnd is already pretty advanced. Together with vimacs, he made it possible for EVERY dev to easily use PXML and therefore, automatically add games and programs into the right categories as soon as you put an SD card into the slot!
We will show a video with that feature included into the matchbox UI as well soon!
Now onto some news on the case: The company is working on it already, however, a few files got errors while exporting them. We are working together to fix them, should only take a couple of days.

Watch video after the jump.

Viridior and the Gentoo team now have their own news blog. Check it out.

We started our own news/blogs site to help us keep track of Gentoo Pandora development. We are charging forward at full speed to get a nice small and functional image well before the Pandora ships, if your interested check out http://gentoo.openpandora.org, it has a RSS feed.

PXML, the ‘ID Card’ of all Pandora applications, has just been updated.

skeezix together with cpasjuste implemented PXML into his lib_pnd (yep, every dev can use that lib and easily read out all PXML stuff).
PXML has changed slightly to be more easily read by his library, so I updated the specs.
For those who have no idea what PXML is:
It is basically a file which devs include within their games archive. The Pandora menu reads out that file and can automatically sort the game into the correct category, show descriptions or preview pictures and associate filetypes with. So basically, the user puts all his games onto the SD Card, inserts that into the Pandora, and the menu becomes automatically populated.

Download: PXML v1.5

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BI9c6Mna_k

Hey, we did a lot of good work to get Gentoo ported to the armv7-a platform. Looks like we will have something to install the day you get your Pandora. No worries, this is the ‘dev’ image, finalized user images are the next goal and can be produced much quicker.
Gentoo-pandora-dev-0.0.2 is released. (And it works great on the BeagleBoard)
You can see the full software inventory here.

Highlights…

[software]
bash
vim
nano
screen

[compiling]
armv7a-softfloat-linux-gnueabi toolchain
gcc-4.3.2
python-2.5
perl-5.8
distcc

[networking](usb works) (eth not tested but should work)
ssh
nfs
ntp
autofs
rsync
wireless-tools

Installation instructions here

You can find us in our normal stomping grounds in FreeNode#gentoo-pandora

Yes, yes, the dreaded D word. It does sound like it’s only a little blip on the radar, though. And here in the Pandora community, we know blips.

Anyway, the moulding company found an error on one of the parts and need to tweak it, so it’’s going to take a little longer — craigix

It probably won”t be much of a delay (it’’s just a missing join on one part), I do wish we had done an SLA* at the same time though, but never mind. — craigix

Just another day at the office by the sounds of it. There are still plenty of other things going full steam behind the scenes (software development, keypad layout) so it’s not like the pause button has been pressed.

Hi,

still waiting for the case, however, I got some news: According to the factory, it should be finished by next week, so there was a one week delay because of the chinese new year here. Could be better, but it could also be worse!

So, in the meantime, I injected MDaves theme into my Angstr?m image of my Pandora devboard and can show you a nice video (HD  ).

It shows, how easy it is to change the icon size to suit the menu to your needs.

As a little bonus I also ran some first version of ScummVM. Some seconds are missing though, as the video footage was broken for some reason. Watch video after the Break.

App instalation explained :

We’re building a system to make app installation stupidly easy.

We’re still banging it out, but assuming it all comes together and works (and it should, we’re nearly there) ... you’ll download special apps in a bundle, a .pnd file. Inside that will be a directory structure and so on for the app to live, but users won’t care (unless they unpack it into a directory.)

So an entire app (all its data etc) can be downloaded as one file, dropped onto an SD card. Stick the card into Pandora, and te launcher shows the app in its category. Tap to run and it just works. No unzip, no set up... just download and run. Piece of cake. (You are of course able to unpack it, futz with it, put it in anywhere you want on sD or in NAND, etc.)

We also intend to build the OS in such a way that you can just use Angstron packages if you want to, but thats suboptimal. (I can explain why if you want.)

Anyway, its going to be easier than on the gp2x, which was not really rocket science either

We or I will start writing up some docs on the wiki soon, so folks can get an idea how it wll/does work.

(For devs... it is pretty easy to pack up the files into a .pnd; trivial on linux, a little work on Windows.)

In response to the current timeplans there have been a few comments from EvilDragon and Chip:

EvilDragon

CE shouldn”t take one month — I know the test itself can be done in a couple of days and we”re looking for a company that won”t give us a long wait before they start testing.

Chip

The case manufacturer already has the CAD files, as they are the ones making the CNC prototype as well. That is why we went with CNC (as opposed to other, much faster rapid prototype technologies). Since it is the same factory, we know they have the exact dimensions down. Since it is the same machines in the same facility, there is little chance of (and no excuse for) variations between the prototype and final cases.

These cases are being made in China. As I understand things, the cases will be shipped to TX where everything will be assembled and tested. The completed, tested Pandoras will be shipped to the UK and from there to everybody who ordered one.

EvilDragon

… and to Germany ;\)

Chip

It would be cheaper in some ways (to ship the ones destined for the US to MWeston), much more expensive in others. MWeston has a day job which would preclude him from boxing and labeling hundreds of Pandoras in a reasonable timeframe. I have offered to do it, but Craig declined for what are actually quite good reasons that I”m not sure I can discuss. Rest assured that it is being planned in the most reasonable way possible.

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfE2vSk3Hbc

]]> http://openpandora.info/en/archives/239/feed 1 http://openpandora.info/en/archives/235 http://openpandora.info/en/archives/235#comments Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:05:12 +0000 Hotcooler http://openpandora.info/?p=235 New blog update from EvilDragon :

While the mould for the keymat is currently being produced, we're concentrating on working more on the keyboard layout.
We mostly scrapped out old layout since we had too many important keys missing — so there are no Umlauts or language specific keys on the layout, it's a plain English keyboard with a compose key to do special characters.
That layout is not final yet, it's our current WIP.
It might look weird and mixed up at first sight, but there's one major difference with a standard PC Keyboard: You only use two thumbs for typing on that one, so it's much more important that the most used characters are convenient to reach (which can be a problem when using the Fn Button).

And a new video demonstration of 3D hardware after the jump.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnr4HCIoFlk

So, what does this all prove. Well Mobile Broadband sticks (at least the Huawei E220) will work on the Pandora, NetworkManager is happy to configure the connection and as soon as I can get the NetworkManager 0.7.0 GUI going this whole process should be ‘plug and play’ just like it is on other major distributions like Ubuntu.

As you may or may not know, the Beagleboard is a OMAP powered micro-computer. Its hardware specifications are almost identical to the Pandora, it is used by many Pandora developers who do not have Pandora development boards, like the Gentoo Pandora developers. This is OGRE (the 3d engine) running a few tests on a Beagleboard using the powerVR SGX core (the exact same one avaliable on the Pandora). It looks like those 3d drivers are finnaly coming into circulation!

Quote from craigix:

Good stuff, we are hoping to show off more 3D on the Pandora in the coming weeks too now that the drivers are working.

Video after the jump.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDtUE5PIhV0