Some of you may have heard of a little open source handheld called GP2x. This thing is entirely open source, with hundreds of homebrew applications for it. But the best part is the emulators, and the ability to have hundreds of legally backed up ROMS in the palm of your hand. It even emulates PSX at fullspeed for most games. Most people ask "Why not get the PSP?" First of all, the PSP is not an open source handheld, and there is a small homebrew community, but they don't get the constant update treatments the GP2x does. The GP2x scene in a sense, is for the "real" homebrew hackers ;). I loved having an entire libraries of MAME, SNES, NES, etc. in my palm. Did I mention it also plays a wide variety of video and music files? Oh, and you can overclock this baby too. The latest version comes with a touchscreen too! Imagine playing old SCUMMVM (Monkey Island, the Dig, etc) sitting in a bus! (The DS has touchscreen and SCUMMVM too, but it doesn't hold a stick to the GP2x)
A small group of people have decided to build a better machine built on the idea of the GP2x. Thus, the Pandora was born. It's built on hundreds of feedback from the community, and built with "open source" in mind. Apparently, it's the most powerful handheld system that exists. It's due to ship very soon, and I encourage anyone interested in open source hacking, or oldschool gaming on the go, to check out the GP2x and the Pandora.
Since it's very close to launch, Craig (Leader) of the project sent the community an email, and I wish to share with H.
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Thank you all for signing up to the openPandora.org newsletter, this project has been going
on for an amazing and exhausting 2 years and is finally reaching the launch. It's been a very
long time - but with your help we have produced the most powerful, cutting edge handheld in
the world:
* ARM Cortex-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
* 430-MHz TMS320C64x+ DSP Core
* PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
* 800x480 4.3inch 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
* Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
* Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
* Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
* 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
* Around 10+ Hours battery life
* GUI: gMenu, various X based desktops, Ubuntu etc. or make your own.
If you have not had the chance to see some of the videos we have posted, we have included
some of the highlights here, oh, and we will be posting more videos before the preorder date.
Pandora Prototype overview (Emus, Quake etc.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0YGgQ3S_X8
Ubuntu on the OMAP3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9cWOK1spw
Amiga Emulator on a Pandora prototype: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwuI6_zCjxY
The custom made analogue controller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdJ2V7ltxg
Pandora devboard arcade compilation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbPQJUOsQBQ
OMAP3 Graphics demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJ0Vr8LjYk
See more and get up to date via our blog at: http://openpandora.org/blog.php
The preorder date for the Pandora is the 30th of September, the Pandora will start shipping
at the end of November.
The first batch will be limited to 3000 units worldwide. The next batch will be made in
2009.
Orders will be on a first come first served basis. If demand is too high we will start to
limit the orders to one Pandora per person, although any multiple orders recieved before
that would still be honoured.
The price is $329.99 / £199.99 (Inc VAT) / E249.99 (Inc VAT).
Anyone from anywhere in the world can order a Pandora, and we have special distribution
arrangements for USA, Canada, Spain, UK, Ireland, Germany & Turkey.
You can pay via US$, £GPB or Euro.
Spanish orders must be ordered via the UK but the shipping charge will be normal internal
Spanish rates, after this Hardcore Gamer will be the Spanish distributor.
We will also be setting up an affiliate system, we are offering a version for news sites and
a version for you, the regular customer, if you want to promote the Pandora to your friends.
If you run a news site please get in touch so we can work with you in advance on promotion.
As many of you know we have made the Pandora and done all the work on a tiny budget, so we
need your help to spread news and sell the Pandora, this is a system made by the users, we hope
it can be sold by you guys too.
If you run a news site please post news about the Pandora and the history behind it, join
our affiliate system so we can work together to promote it. There are no middle men with
this system, you will be speaking directly to us, we hope this is a unique situation and
will work out well.
Developers, Linux guys, hackers - we will be putting up everything you need to know over the
next month - join the dev forum at http://www.gp32x.com
That goes for everyone else too - if you want to ask something or get involved join us at the
forum - http://www.gp32x.com/board - but remember to read the FAQ first!
There will be another newsletter on the 30th with ordering information, but first we would
like to say thinks to you all for all your input, dedication to the project, ideas, arguments,
bitching, emails of support, news posts, help and everything else.
You can be sure we will look after all you preorder people in the best possible way and all of
you will be able to email or phone us directly - see you on the 30th!
Thanks,
Craig & the http://www.OpenPandora.org team.
PS you can email us on [email][email protected][/email]
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That's it! Hopefully, this will poke interest at fellow users wanting to try an open-source handheld...