Archive for the ‘Pandora’ Category

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Official Blog: Keep it going

March 11, 2010
Posted by: gruso

A loong official blog post from EvilDragon.

Long time no blog post – and a lot has happened, really!

First, let’s start with some OS development.
The OS is getting better and better. We will probably add another minimal menu, similar to gmenu2x with no fancy effects and graphics but PND-Support.
This is for all the purists of you.

Also, notaz and DJWillis are slowly stepping forward in getting WiFi working.
While it’s not perfect, the packet loss is decreasing and things are getting better.
It might still be a long way (or it might be finished soon, you never know with such things), but it’s improving.

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AC/DC (adapters) start the party

March 10, 2010
Posted by: gruso

The UK’s newest assembly line is showing the first signs of life, with the arrival of several boxes of PSUs and one very tired pigeon. (A few Twitterers mistook the boxes for something else from China until Craig cracked one open for a closeup. Arrgh!) Note that a UK mains plug is shown, but you’ll be getting something to suit your region.

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Video: Internets

March 3, 2010
Posted by: gruso

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EvilDragon gets busy on the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.

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First batch: None blacker

March 3, 2010
Posted by: gruso

Silkscreening looks to be off the table for the first batch. Over to MWeston, who doesn’t mince words:

These cases will not have a silkscreen as that would push delivery out into April and even then Craig worried they would screw it up and stiff us with the cases. The problem is the mold company outsources the work and so they all have to be packaged up carefully, sent to this other company, printed, repackaged carefully and sent back to the mold company to be shipped to Craig with everything else. It could cause as much as another month of delays with the way we should trust them.

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Video: EvilDragon triple feature

March 3, 2010
Posted by: gruso

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A triple treat on Youtube today for those who ticked the UMPC box on their Pandoria visa application. First up is a solid ten minutes of OS bits and bobs, delving into office apps, audio & battery settings, and multitasking. Tacked on to that is a further two minutes devoted to themes and colour schemes. No matter what operating system you’re coming from, there’ll be something in here to make you feel at home. To cap it all off, ED toys around with some Pygame source code and launches it from the terminal – all on the Pandora. Hey, stop giggling up back. Barbie Seahorse Adventures is awesome.

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Case factory makes contact, set your watches for the 22nd

March 2, 2010
Posted by: gruso

Craig tweets:

Looks like everything will have arrived here by the 22nd. How exciting.

EvilDragon tweets:

Production, here we come! Just confirmed with Fatih, cases will arrive in UK March 22nd. We’ll have the assembly site ready by then! Go! :)

Craig elaborates:

(The 22nd) is when everything should be here, including the cases. To be on the safe side we probably won’t start until a few days after that.

I feel a lot more confident about this now we are back in control.

Our own assembly line, this will work far far better for batch 2 and so on. It should always have been like this.

Perhaps not quite the news you were waiting for today, but solid information beats cold silence in most cases. This gives Craig ample time to set up the new production line with things like ESD protection and business hammocks, and ED the opportunity to set up the best webcam feed this side of the Thames. Whatever that means.

Sources: [1] [2] [3]

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Assembly to take place in the UK

March 1, 2010
Posted by: gruso

It’s set to be Panarchy in the UK in the coming month, as team Pandora descends on a sleepy village in the north of England to finish what they started in Texas. This change of plan has come about following an exorbitant quote from the factory in Texas (think six figures) to case up the first batch of Pandoras. It seems that MWeston’s stringent assembly procedures were a little daunting for the Texans, who expressed their concern with zeroes. So MWeston sent the procedures to Craig instead, who just happens to own suitable premises for the job.

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Video: Kronos, BattleJewels, Mplayer, more

February 26, 2010
Posted by: gruso

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There’s something for (nearly) everyone in this video, as Skeezix shows off his own apps Kronos and BattleJewels, launches a video in Mplayer (don’t worry, there is a GUI for that, he’s just not using it), and throws in a bit of file browsing and PND recognition for good measure. He also gives us his take on the current state of software, in the brief text below.

Some real-world stuff here :) When EvilDragon posted some status updates, some folks loved it, some did not — its a new device, a niche target, for hackers and joe public alike. Some features are rough around the edges, but most of the device works great. Still, thought I’d show a few real world scenarios – run a couple games and apps.

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Official blog: What’s to expect

February 24, 2010
Posted by: BackAssward


We all want news, and many of us are waiting with baited breath. So, when we have a bunch of news at once, we can wonder. Is this really good news, or are we just hoping? Well, we have some news from the Official blog. I hope everyone is as excited as I am.

EvilDragon

Chinese New Year holidays are over – work has begun at the factory!

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Twitter: Pandora app tracker, more OS updates

February 24, 2010
Posted by: gruso

We still haven’t been let in the front door of the app store (name pending), but as of today we can follow progress from a slightly different angle. Craig was wedged a Twitter API into his store code, giving followers a live feed of new additions to the catalogue. You can follow the dedicated Twitter account, or if you think Twitter is dumb, just grab the RSS feed.

EvilDragon has also been turning over the tweets, with a string of OS updates over the past week:

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We labelled that mofo. Er, mobo.

February 24, 2010
Posted by: gruso

When a photo of the latest board revision was posted a few days back, a handful of commenters pondered the possibility of a labelled version. The GP32X trainspotters had actually done this before, on a much older revision. So a new request went out on the forums, and the community got busy once again. And how! Click the image above and you won’t just get a high resolution version, you’ll get a space-age interactive experience with enough hotlinked reading material to sink a brick shiphouse. Thanks go out to all contributors, with special honours to wea0 for digging up the bulk of the part numbers, urjaman for putting together the clicky version, and LeChuck87 for re-hosting it.

Please note that this is 100% unofficial. It has not been endorsed or confirmed correct by OP Ltd. If you’re planning on building your own Pandora from this diagram, you’ll have to figure out what’s on the other seven PCB layers. Ha.

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Video: Ocarina of Time, Sin and Punishment

February 23, 2010
Posted by: gruso

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It’s been one of the most requested videos since Ari64 materialised in the scene with dynarec in hand, and it’s been delivered today by Adventus. He doesn’t own a HD camera (or a video camera at all – this was filmed with a mango), but look past the lo-fi exterior and you’ll find ten glorious minutes of sixty four. From the Youtube description:

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Text adventures. Better than books.™

February 22, 2010
Posted by: grue…so

“You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.” If these legendary words mean nothing to you, you’ve been deprived of one of the great lost arts of gaming: the text adventure. But fear not, weary traveller. It’s never too late to be eaten by a grue, especially when Skeezix is bringing his interactive fiction interpreter Kronos to the world’s textiest known handheld.

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Sometimes, news is good.

February 20, 2010
Posted by: BackAssward

We expected the worst; Chinese New Year would be two weeks, but, a tweet from Craigix:

Chinese mould factory are back at work :)

Source

Could it be? We have production before we hoped? I can’t say for sure, but this is good news.

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The mysterious case of the cases (no, not those cases)

February 18, 2010
Posted by: gruso

It’s the last nagging detail of the Pandora accessory suite. We’ve seen the AV cables, we’ve seen the power supplies, but where are the cases? No, not the ones in China. We know where they aren’t. The carry cases. Finally, Craig has posted a picture in the forums that believe it or not, introduces another question. Craig describes this as “the hardcase which will probably come with the carry case free.” This could mean that the case you ordered is larger, with this one thrown in for free. Or that the case you ordered is this one, and it comes with a limited edition Tote Bag (with Craig screenprinted on the front). Whatever the case, it does look pleasing. Better get one for Justin.

Source

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