Let's get started with a Pandora port

For people waiting on Pandoras…

I received a similar email too. But when I placed an order, my bank (responsibly) withheld payment, possibly as the company isn’t well established:

“Google checkout have informed us that your payment has been declined. This could be due to your card issuer classing it as a fraudulent transaction due to the amount. You may need to contact them to confirm it is a genuine payment before they release the funds.”

The bank have now assured me that they’ll honour a future payment request but can’t retrospectively do so for the original order. Anyway, if anyone reading this has a similar experience – don’t be surprised!

[Edit: In Google Checkout, there’s actually also an option to retry the card.]

[Edit2: And there’s also a thread on the Pandora forum.]

And, as an aside, I wonder whether one of the developers could be persuaded to try out RISC OS on the Pandora in advance of Jeffrey getting his hands on one! (It doesn’t look as if RISC OS has been discussed on the official OpenPandora forum yet.)

But when I placed an order, my bank (responsibly) withheld payment, possibly as the company isn’t well established.

Yes, I had that problem as well. But a quick call to the bank and then hitting the retry button in Google Checkout was all that was needed to sort it out.

And, as an aside, I wonder whether one of the developers could be persuaded to try out RISC OS on the Pandora in advance of Jeffrey getting his hands on one!

There’s not much point trying it at the moment – the Pandora keyboard uses the keypad matrix of the TPS, so we’ll need a driver for that (fairly trivial), and it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some extra magic needed to get the screen to work (on the Touch Book the backlight is controlled by a PWM signal generated by one of the OMAP’s timers). Unless you can convince him to get involved in the porting effort, of course ;)

And, as an aside, I wonder whether one of the developers could be persuaded to try out RISC OS on the Pandora in advance of Jeffrey getting his hands on one! (It doesn’t look as if RISC OS has been discussed on the official OpenPandora forum yet.)

That forum is very new (just a few weeks old). RISC OS was briefly discussed on the other Pandora forum

I also mentioned RISC OS on the unofficial pandora blog which attracted a little interest (and linked back to this very thread, how odd)

Nubs: 100% Success! and Finally, production soon to continue! Not long to wait :-)

What on earth is a nub and why is it so hard to find out on the Open Pandora site?

What on earth is a nub…?

It’s now on this Wikipedia page . This reference links to a good quality photo, which may give some idea. But I’ve not yet used anything with them, myself.

It’s now on this Wikipedia page . This reference links to a good quality photo, which may give some idea. But I’ve not yet used anything with them, myself.

That’s not the best way of making it clear what type of nub it is that we’re talking about :)

The Pandora’s nubs are, in layman’s terms, the analogue joysticks. Except rather than being big, bulky analogue sticks like on a PlayStation or X-Box controller, they’re just flat discs that slide around in the X/Y plane, with springs to return them to the center position. The Pandora Wiki has some pics, and a brief explanation of why the nubs have been so troublesome:

http://pandorawiki.org/Nubs

It’s now on this Wikipedia page .

That’s not the best way of making it clear what type of nub it is that we’re talking about :)

Yes, right – and as you’ve described, it’s the second item on the current list there… and the reason I didn’t use a clearer explanation is because I’m a bit of a <first item on the list>!

The boards are now starting to arrive.

[Edit: Current status]

Got my Pandora this week and had a go at running the latest BeagleBoard RISC OS build. The screen clears and then I see the following:

cessor

resent – autobooting

It doesn’t seem to respond to the keyboard (ie typing *desktop doesn’t do anything). I guess we need a Pandora specific screen/keyboard driver.

I guess we need a Pandora specific screen/keyboard driver.

Yup.

I’m not sure why some of the text is being cut off the screen, but if you want to play around some more you can try connecting a USB keyboard/mouse. I think the USB host port has the same limitation as most OMAP boards (you can’t directly connect USB 1 devices), so you’ll probably need to connect a hub first.

I’m not sure when my Pandora’s due to arrive, but once I’ve got it it shouldn’t take too long to get the screen and keyboard sorted. It’s good that the screen’s at least half-working, though – it’ll save me the hassle of trying to get hold of a serial cable for debugging.

Putting RISC OS to one side for a moment, I thought this anecdote might be of interest.

Anyone who can afford the price hike can now jump the queue. This should ensure the survival of the project. Maybe off the back of this, they’ll consider making an open source laptop!

Here’s a plug for supporting the Pandora¹... For those who can afford it, supporting this project could open up further open source hardware possibilities which could benefit RISC OS users.

¹ Note that I’m neither connected with the project nor know any of the team working on it.

. . . For information, this article at element-14.com refers to iWave’s iW-RainboW-G8D SoM.

And now the i.MX536 iW-Rainbow-G11M.

And now the i.MX536 iW-Rainbow-G11M.

10/100 Ethernet. Meh.

Know of any suitable 100 Gigabit Ethernet ARM devices?

Know of any suitable 100 Gigabit Ethernet ARM devices?

I’m not sure there will be too many of us with 100GE networks to connect that to for a while yet… :)

In other news… NetSurf on the Pandora (running under the native OS).

Continuing problems with the board production have led to OpenPandora seeking a new fabrication partner¹:

• "bullshit"
• "will finish Batch 1"

¹ Courtesy of stalker.openpandora.org.

RISC OS work on the Pandora! You need a USB hub, keyboard / mouse and Boot Stick. The Pandora’s keyboard and the right SD card readers are not supported yet. In the left card reader is the created SDCreate boot card. An MDF is helpful to 640×480 (bad) and 800×480.

That sounds nice! Can you tell anything about battery loading, sound, touchscreen, additional buttons and speed and how long it runs on battery?

touchscreen, additional buttons

Those won’t work, I can tell you that much.

I’m still not sure when my Pandora is due to arrive, so don’t expect the keyboard/touchscreen/etc. to start working any time soon.

I would prefer to answer in German. The language barrier. Google Translator can not be better :-(
The questions I can not answer yet. I have the Pandora since yesterday. Battery is still 65% after about 3 hours (2,5 Linux, 0,5 RISCOS).
The touch screen makes good picture, the keyboard is a bit strange.
Sound still not tested. Next week more.
Jeffrey writes sounds good. I will push Craig and the Pandora team ;-).
Thomas M. has a touchscreen driver, but I have no idea how difficult the adjustment.

Bizarrely, there’s also pandrpcemu (and even apparently a native Pandora Elite)!

Raik, would you care to elaborate on the Pandora wiki page (don’t worry about the English – that can be revised later). Danke.

[Edit: And maybe a photo too if you have time?]