Dare we go there again? Another video on the way (TM)

Posted by: gruso

It must be said, last time we announced an impending video based on a passing comment, it didn’t end so well. But here at op.wp we’re addicted to mayhem, and if you’re reading this, you are too. Go on, admit it. This little sequence of craigix communicoids goes from promising to amusing to promising again, and seemed worth sharing. First came the tweet:

Doing a new Pandora software roundup video with the latest wares. Going well.

Then a comment on the forums. It turns out a certain fruit-emblazoned box of tricks took issue with Craig’s ext2 formatted SD card.

I just made the mistake of putting one of the Pandora SD cards in to a mac. It seems the mac, being a mac, thought it would be a good idea to do something macish to the SD card which has now caused it not to work in the Pandora anymore.

Great. Let’s see if I can solve this on the PC.

AV Cables and July Release?

Posted by: PlopperZ

From MWeston:

I’m told production samples of the A/V cable are being built next week so whenever they are done, some will be shipped to me to review and destroy (well one of them for sure to check the internals and make sure they followed my guidelines). It doesn’t look like there will be a problem shipping these cables with your initial orders and as I mentioned before, we had to place a minimum order of 5000 cables so there are plenty out there if anyone wants to add it to their order.

I wish we could have just thrown these in for free like you get with those Chinese MP4 players but this thing was pretty expensive to make using the custom connector and the price even went up after the initial quote because they were obligated to use more expensive materials that meet environmental safety/recycling rules or something like that. At least the Pandora project is doing its best not to destroy the environment with its product!

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From Craig: (add the usual grain of salt)

I’m prepared to say July.

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Update: More July talk.

I’m pretty sure on July. Unless something goes wrong with the dpad redesign we will be good to go.

Edit: What I can’t promise is 100% wifi compatibility, that’s still a work in progress, but it won’t stop us shipping as I’m pretty sure you are all capable of installing an updated driver.

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Wizzley Presto: The 30 Day Game

Posted by: gruso

Drawing board to AppStore in 30 days. That’s the challenge being undertaken by craigix, zodttd and Ruckage, who are currently one week into development of their iPhone game Wizzley Presto and the Mysterious Time Machine. And they’re not just doing it for laughs; they’re blogging the entire process for the benefit of interested developers and anyone else who wants to go along for the ride. Once the game is released*, the first person to complete it will land themselves $1000.

Wait – what does an iPhone game have to do with Pandora? Ahh, that’s what rumour tags are for, dear readers. Keep an ear to the ground and an eye on the Twitterix…

Update: Those who have delved into the 30daygame site will know by now that Wizzley Presto is indeed bound for Pandora. Rumour no more!

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*Here we shall make reference to the potential for deadline jokes, so you don’t have to. Saving you time, that’s what we do here.

Thanks to Tripmonkey for the tip.

Twitterix: Duke WHO on Pandora?

Posted by: gruso

A typically enigmatic tweet on the Twitterix this morning…

Interesting conversation with 3D Realms. Now focusing on mobile platforms. Stay tuned.

Adding to the intrigue, a forum member caught this little gem on IRC last night:

[gbroussard] We’ve got our eye on a certain handheld in the open source scene. Seems like we’ve been waiting Forever to see it. But an announcement is just around the corner.

Who knows what to think…  all we know is, we’re definitely out of bubblegum.

Ebony and ivory

Posted by: gruso

There’s no hiding on this internet. Wherever a Pandora dev has a chunk of webspace, you can bet someone’s in the wings hitting F5. Forum member Vorporeal has turned up this tasty teaser in a certain Canadian’s online photo album, which appears to have been snapped and uploaded in the past day. These CNC cases may still be missing some small parts as mentioned by MWeston the other day, so it’s probably a little to soon to get excited about an impending video. In any case, it’s a nice little snapshot of Pandora’s evolution to date, and couldn’t not be shared.

No Sticky Keys?

MWeston made a post regarding the keyboard layout that seems to imply that sticky keys will not be available:

This layout as it is shown in the picture is impossible because you can”t press 3 keys at once unless it is game button/keypad combos. I have already let ED know that so I”m sure he’’s still working away at it.

UPDATE: Nevermind
From MWeston:

I think sticky keys should definitely be used. That will be great for keys that are used less and were less optimally placed for that reason.

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Teeworlds teed up for Pandora

If cute, squeaky bundles of death are your bag, then you probably already know about Teeworlds. For everyone else, it’s a free online multiplayer game with retro underpinnings and an abundance of adorable carnage. According to an entry from our friends at pandora-blog.de, Teeworlds creator Magnus ‘matricks’ Auvinen has a keen eye on Pandora and intends to port the project as soon as they get hold of of some hardware. If we could send him one right now, we surely would. Video after the break.

Caster: the game, headed for Pandora?

If the whispers around the water cooler are true, Pandora could be in line for a commercial port of Caster, the frenetically paced 3rd-person gem created by one man coding army Mike Smith. Caster casts the player as (you guessed it) a Caster, sent to cleanse the land of destructive invaders with the aid of a highly visual arsenal. A saga in the making, the first episode has just been released for Windows and Mac (at a very nice price, it must be said). Video after the break.

A functional FDM Prototype Pandora coming soon

In reply to a query about the space bar using 2 contacts on the main board:

We tried this on rev2 and it was agreed by all that it was a bad idea. If the rubber was stiff enough to make both buttons press (ie. if you press in the middle), then you get two events back in Linux and it was agreed that would be confusing as you wouldn’t know if the space bar was pressed twice quickly or if you had to throw one event away. It was changed back to one input for rev3.

BTW, I just got some production analog nubs today so I’m soldering them onto a PCB for use in this FDM case. I had the whole thing together last night but I don’t think any games support the internal controls because everyone has been using USB gamepads and keyboards. If I can get a new build that works, I will definitely make a video.

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Pandora’s Git Repository reveals some secrets, like WPA support for WiFi

The Pandora Git Repository has been open for a while now and has rapidly swelled from its original size. The repo now includes more sub-repos, including the wifi repo – thi contains a library called “WPA supplicant” – so looks like we have WPA support too. This is probably already in the specs, but it should be interesting to see what else we can dig up.