Talk:Pandora (console)

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[edit] Forum post references

Could somebody please convert the forum post references in the wiki to real citations, so it doesn't reference another wiki? Thanks. atomicthumbs‽ (talk) 03:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First for N64?

This is claiming the Pandora will be the first to be powerful enough to run N64 emulators. This is incorrect; The PSP has a port of Daedalus that apparently runs several games well. 65.184.147.182 (talk) 19:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The PSP system software requires all executables to be signed by Sony. Which licensed publisher has used the emulator to port one of its games and release it on UMD or PlayStation Network? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
True and, nonetheless, absolutely irrelevant. The point of replying to a comment is to comment on it, not to argue a completely different point. What you mention could very well be used to defend the Pandora if someone was attacking it but the OP is only mentioning the Pandora is NOT the first portable console to have a N64 emulator and this is true. --eduo (talk) 21:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs to be cleaned up.

I'm not trying to advertise the Pandora; rather, I'm attempting to create a Wikipedia article on it.

It's not vaporware, it's coming out in March or April. Engadget did an article on it, and it has significant differences from any handheld game console ever produced.

I intend to add more to the article (proper references to the actual forum posts, more information, etcetera) over the next few days, but I'm extremely busy at the moment. atomicthumbs‽ (talk) 06:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I've attempted to make the article more objective --90.194.112.221 (talk) 17:17, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Over the next day or so I'm going to remove the citations that are forum post links. These aren't largely acceptable according to Wikipedia:Verifiability. If there isn't anything more reputable that comes out then I'll remove the unsourced information altogether.
I'm not attacking the device itself, I just worry about verifiability. Since the release of the product is only supposed to be a couple months away it won't be long until this information can be re-added. Gh5046 (talk) 07:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I finally got around to removing it. Please do not re-add it until more valid information is released. Postings on forums and wikis are not good sources. Engadget and other sites references those same forums and wikis, so they are not any more valid. Gh5046 (talk) 23:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
The technical issues are proyects of the designer. I mean in the article you shoult put "estimated hardware" or something like that. If you make a citation on a forum with the developer it will be Ok because you are talking about estimations. Plus you can see some demos of software in the account of the developer on youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/MWeston2. Plus if you CITATE THE DEVELOPER you have a DIRECT CITATION no matter if it is con a web page, newspaper, forum, book, etc. Otherwise you could not citate to others (like some companies) who officially post news on their forums. They also have an updated Wiki with the harware of the pandora. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.66.68.59 (talk) 02:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
It's still a forum, it's not a press release. The only actual pictures that have been released have been of a PCB, which doesn't have the chips on it. It's an unfinished product, let it be finished and have the article contain real information, not estimates or guess work. Gh5046 (talk) 17:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Err you do know the people posting on those forums are the people who are actually making this device don't you? What could be a better source than that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.174.115 (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Something that isn't on a forum. Gh5046 (talk) 01:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
This is what you get when you have people insisting on the letter of the law without realizing the conditions under which it was adopted. But hey, we've got the official site which links directly to the forums, so no worries. Tcaudilllg (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you read just a little further down on the page mentioned, you have WP:SELFPUB, which seems to me to apply directly to this situation. You have a "questionable" source (a forum) where there is information posted by developers about their own product, and as far as I can tell fulfills all the guidelines of WP:SELFPUB. I can understand wanting to use only the best sources, but in this case those forum posts are the best sources we have.70.230.2.66 (talk) 21:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Open source

It will _NOT_ be opensource in any way beyond the OS (or maybe even parts of the OS, if there'll be closed kernel drivers), the hardware itself is _NOT_ open source! So it's not "fully" opensource! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.178.125.223 (talk) 16:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

O Rly? Since you don't work for the people making the system or the SOC you have no idea, so stop speaking like you do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.39.247.100 (talk) 14:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You do realize that there are pretty much no open source systems on the market by your definition, right? It seems much more resonable to assume that everyone will read "fully open-source" as the software being fully open source, which will be the case from the sources I've seen.70.230.2.66 (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
The term "open source hardware" is already defined. If you sell an "open source console", people will expect open source hardware, not open source software. 87.178.116.179 (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


I don't know a whole lot about this system, but I went ahead and changed the article to say the software is open source so it wouldn't be confused with open source hardware. That was the whole issue, right? --Eruhildo (talk) 17:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Then what is the word for a gaming PDA designed to run free software, including a free operating system? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I've never seen source code of hardware. Can I compile it with gcc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.192.93.76 (talk) 13:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Hardware has source code. See Verilog. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 21:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree that it's not open source hardware. There have been no statements by the development team that the hardware will be closed source. On the other hand they have not explicitly said this to be the case, but open source software tends to assume drivers as part of the software. (we saw differently from Creative recently, but they aren't open source anyway).
Might as well seek clarification though. Tcaudilllg (talk) 06:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
The Pandora will use the TI OMAP platform, which is closed 'source'. Also, OMAP uses PowerVR technology which they licence, and which is closed source. The 3D drivers on the Pandora will be a binary, without source code available. So the hardware is defintely closed, and the OS partially. Therefore I'll change the wording a bit. Jalwikip (talk) 08:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
To claim that the OS is not fully open source because of a binary blob driver is to claim that no modern Linux distro is fully open source. There are many closed source binary drivers for Linux. Pandora's OS will be Linux based, and fully GPL compliant. Candre23 (talk) 11:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 900 MHz

Somehow we should mention that zodttd has reported it running stably at 900 MHz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.127.175.78 (talk) 16:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

What source do you plan to cite? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


just after a fast search find a cite

http://zodttd.com/blog/zodttd/status_report_time_b-50_sid-6210576b47684b492b629e96fa788c31.html

--Andri12 (talk) 22:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Unbrickable" design?

I think this might mean that unlike many other devices it won't become corrupted if there is an error when updating the firmware...? Is this the case? I'm sure there must be a more suitable way of saying it though? Barrylb (talk) 03:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It might just be a fallback bootloader in mask ROM that loads a rescue image from an SD card. (The PSP supports something similar if a battery with serial number -1 is attached.) But we might as well wait for more verifiable information about the Pandora PDA's bootloader to become public, which should happen this summer when the product comes out. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 14:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
(after more research) In fact, that's how it works.[1] But I'm hesitant to use that source in the article because it's a forum post, despite that it was posted by gp32x.com staff. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Internal Bluetooth

Hardware developer MWeston confirmed that the "easter eggs" on his personal Pandora site were accurate and the Pandora will indeed have an integrated Bluetooth radio. Only his forum post[2] exists as proof at the moment, so I didn't include a confirmation link. If you read the whole thread[3] though, it's clearly not a joke.Candre23 (talk) 12:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Big/little endianness

The text says "The Pandora will have an existing software base due to having a package manager that will accept Debian packages for the ARMEL (little-endian ARM) architecture." However, TI specs claim the chip used is Big Endian. Jalwikip (talk) 08:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)