OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3638 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

December 19th, 2011, 00:08 Posted By: wraggster

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Pandora News - A tale of snow, tons of server requests and coordinates (2011-12-16)

December 18th, 2011, 23:58 Posted By: wraggster

If you followed the last news thread, you have probably seen we had some problems with the Pick and Place files for the PCB that needed to be solved - as well as having issues moving the cases, batteries and other parts from Craig to me in Germany

1. The tale of the lorry and the snow

Once upon a time there was a man with a weird hat.
He had boxes of full of treasures: Plastic cases, batteries, Wifi antennas and other, weird things (that most people wouldn't consider to be treasure at all).
One day, he lost that hat. While it's not important for our story, he was never again seen with this hat on any video again - which made many people sad.
But, as said, we won't care about that here - we care about his treasure.

In a land far, far away, there lived an EvilDragon. He wanted to grab the treasure of the man without the weird hat.
Somehow he managed to agree the man to send him all his boxes of treasure.

However, the boxes where too many and too heavy for the man without the hat to transport them himself.
He tried to get help from someone named UPS.
The next day UPS came - but the transporter he had with him was way too small.
He tried to load all the treasure boxes into his transporter anyway. However, it didn't work. They were too big and too heavy.
So he went home, promising the man without the hat to return with a bigger lorry the next day.

The next day came. It was cold. There was a lot of snow coming from the sky. UPS didn't come. He delayed and delayed - and finally, the man without the hat saw him in the distance - his lorry stuck in the snow.
Somehow he managed to get his lorry out of the snow and finally arrived at the home of the man without the hat.
It took an hour to load all the precious treasure boxes, and when he tried to leave for Germany... his lorry got stuck again.

It was getting dark, and UPS sure was scared - but somehow he managed to get the lorry out of the snow.
Therefore, the treasure boxes are on the way to the airport, headed for Germany.

Short story:
Craig tried to ship the Pandora parts he had to Germany. Yesterday the UPS driver had a too small transporter - and today he was fighting his way through piles of snow.
However, he managed to come and pickup all the stuff. So all the parts (cases, speakers, WiFi antennas, hinges, batteries, etc.) are now on the way to Germany.


2. Server slowdown: Script kiddies had fun playing

You probably noticed that the server today was unbearable slow. This was thanks to some random scripts sending tons of requests to apache2 and using up 90% of the apache2 Server.
I didn't have much time to look into it and after installing some useful mods (that didn't help much here, sadly), I finally found mod_evasion which worked fine.
Thanks to notaz for some help here. The server is now running fast and fine again


3. The fight with the Pick and Place files

This was the main concern of the last few days - and cost a lot of nerves, work and time.
As you know, we have ALL parts needed for the prototype run at Global Components already. Thanks to the GTA04 team, we even got the memory chips in time.
Then, Thursday morning, Global Components started to program the machine. Loaded up all the needed files and also loaded the Pick and Place files into the machine.
To those who don't know:
Pick and Place files are simple text files that have all the coordinates for every single part which is being put on a PCB in it.
The program which is used by the designer spits out these files automatically, so nothing could go wrong there... well, that's what most would think. We thought so as well.

However, when GC imported these files into the machine, all the parts were completely messed up.
Why? Well, some quick googling revealed it: It looks like there are different ways to define the coordinates of the parts. Some use Pin 1 of the component as coordinate, most use the center of the part as coordinate.
If you try to import Pin 1-Coordinates as Center-Coordinates, everything is messed up.
The funny thing is: The text file doesn't say ANYWHERE what coordinates it uses. It even has a header where it defines the units and the coordinates origin - but it doesn't include the information, WHAT type of coordination is uses... the only way to find that out is to load it up and see if it fits.

So, okay. MWeston used 1pin-files whereas the SIEMENS machine only eats centroid-files. So we had NO way of using these files.
We were busy for the whole day looking for solutions. There exist some programs that could recreated the PCB with components and export centroid files, but it turned out the only really proper way is when the PCB designer himself changes the coordinate type for every part and exports them...

Well, that's what MWeston did... it took hours and hours, but finally, he created ALL the needed coordinates for every part (511, to be exact) and exported them into new Pick and Place files.

That has happened, we got the new files. GC already got them and will probably hack them into the machine on Sunday, so we can finally start the prototype production on Monday / Tuesday (probably Tuesday).

There's only one thing I'm scared about: The leadtime for the bare PCBs is about 4 weeks... and the bare PCBs are being produced in China.
Chinese New Year is coming, and it might be hard getting the boards before the Chinese New Year... which would delay the planned production by 2 weeks.
Nothing is set yet - we're in contact with the bare PCB company and are trying to find a solution.
They know it's urgent and we have a high priority - so they might be able to finish all 1000 or at least 250 - 500 of the needed bare PCBs in time.
But that's something we can't tell for sure before the prototype testing run is finished and working.

Nikolaus Schaller (the designer of the GTA04 PCB) calmed me down during the last days - always telling me with a smile: "Such issues are perfectly normal before the main production run. It's very complex work, it's very rare nothing happens."

Thanks again to him for his help

Well, so another issue solved - the new files should now work fine (we'll find out within the next few days) and then it's finally time for the prototype run.

I've also got some neat surprises for you - but I'll keep quiet about them until christmas

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....es-2011-12-16/

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Pandora News - What a day! (2011-12-14)

December 18th, 2011, 23:56 Posted By: wraggster

Whew - what a day.

Prototype production run

It started with some bad news: Micron didn't deliver the samples of the RAM as promised (should've been delivered last week), and without the RAM, we couldn't do the prototype run.
So both Global Components and me had our hands full to organize that RAM chip to be able to do the prototype run.
And we managed to get some.
Global Components found a distributor in US who had some parts left and ordered them express. They should arrive on Friday, latest Monday.
Well, and I contacted Nikolaus from the GTA04 team - they are using the same memory as we are and I know their production run starts early next week as well.
He has some spare RAM chips for us - so they're being picked up tomorrow morning (the company where he is doing the production isn't that far away, thankfully).
The parts from Texas have arrived at EBV / AVNet (the distributor) in the meantime and will be delivered tomorrow morning between 9 and 10 am at GC as well.
I think AVNet already checked the parts for completeness, so we should have all we need tomorrow.

As programming and loading the machines with parts takes quite a while (about 8 hours), the production run itself has been rescheduled for Friday, but preparing and loading will happen tomorrow.
My contact from Global Components will visit me tonight to grab some of the PCBs from GC, as that will speed up the programming and creating the solder profile.
(It's 8pm here, and it's a 1 hour drive, so I think it's pretty awesome he does that!).

So, whew, this was one fast solution. It did cost us some nerves, but we managed to get it done so far.


Even more bad news

While this caused me quite some stress today, it wasn't the worst message I received.
The worst message I received today was from an ICQ contact.
One of our fellow Pandora community members has been murdered a few weeks ago.
He already had a GP2X and was one of the very first preorderers from Germany.
He didn't have an account at these boards, but he was known as jonai on the German boards and on GP32x.com.

The (german) article about his death can be found here.

So, why am I posting this?
Not just because it makes me very sad - but also because the police is currently looking for clues to find out who did it.
While I am supporting them as good as I can, I didn't have much contact with him.

But maybe someone from the community was in close contact with him or has any other information where he can help out?
Please do contact me in case you might have some information, as I'm in contact with the police in Leipzig already to try to help them.

Thanks.

Let's think about him for a minute. As far as I was in contact with him, he was a very nice and helpful person. And it's always a loss seeing someone leave us early.
Especially if it was such a horryfing death like this.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ay-2011-12-14/

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Pandora News - The grand day is nearing (2011-12-12)

December 18th, 2011, 23:55 Posted By: wraggster

via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ng-2011-12-12/

Whew, finally.
The parts from CC have passed customs and will arrive tomorrow at Global Components.
All the other parts for the prototype run are already there, so we're planning to do the prototype run on Thursday.
This will be an exciting day for me - hopefully, we'll be able to produce working Pandora boards.

I will do some hardcore tests with some of the working PCBs then, like running N64 emulation overclocked with full brightness for 48 hours during the weekend, to see that everything works stable.
Once that has happened, it's time to order the PCBs for the mass production run!

Speaking of the mass production:
With the parts that arrive from CC, we've got most of the TI parts for 2000 Pandoras ready.
4000 nubs (for 2000 Pandoras) will be ready on December 30th, 1000 WiFi modules will ship on January 10th.
The RAM will ship about christmas.
All other parts are already here.
So we've got everything needed for the mass production PCB run.

And the rest of the parts needed for Pandoras?
Well, I bought off the remaining cases, batteries, keymats, etc. from Craig, which should be enough for the first 1000 units (well, actually 4000 batteries are more than enough).
Hopefully, he'll ship them within the next days so I've got them here on Friday.

I'll also get a new sample of the revised case (which hopefully will prevent some annoying cracks from appearing) from DSW within the next days.
Then it's time to order the next 4000 cases as well.

I still got 1200 LCD cables left, so it's also time getting more LCD Cables for February / March.

I still have to buy some LCDs and AC Adaptors for the first run, but we're working on that.
I don't know how many LCDs Craig will include in the package to me, so I don't know how many I need to buy for Batch 1.

And the TV Out Cables? Well, still waiting for a quotation and hopefully a sample before the end of the year.
Chinese New Year is in January, so we'll hope we have done most of that before that.

I'll keep you posted

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Pandora News - Getting closer... (2011 - 12 - 01)

December 5th, 2011, 01:17 Posted By: wraggster

via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....er-2011-12-01/

While there still are some things missing, we're approaching the prototype run!
Here's what's currently going on...

1. Parts

I already got some parts lying at my office (like the EXT Ports, USB ports, battery contacts, WiFi Modules, etc.), the parts that were lying at CC in Texas have been picked up early last week and should arrive within the next few days, the bare PCBs will arrive today and all remaining needed parts have been organized by Global Components as well.
Well, almost: One part, a coil, is causing a small headache: While the manufacturer can deliver as many as we need until the mass production, they cannot deliver the needed samples until next week. Therefore, GC is looking for a third party source for this coil or a replacement part we can use. Well, in worst case we will rip them from broken CC boards.
As said: We will have them for the full production run. We're only doing 20 units for the prototype run.


2. Prototype and Mass Production Run

The prototype production run has been scheduled to happen next week Thursday or Friday.
Until then all parts should've arrived, so we're ready to go.

The mass production run is scheduled to start January 16th. Of course, this depends on the prototype production run. If the PCBs have some issues, we first need to find out what and why and fix that.
But if they are working properly and without issues, we're set


3. Other tidbits

We found some companies that could produce the TV Out Cables and are currently waiting for quotations.
We'll most probably also have proper AC Adaptors with Pandora stickers on them.
The case mold has been modified a bit to prevent some of the most popular crackings, a sample should be finished tomorrow.

I still need to move some needed parts (like cases, batteries, LCDs, etc.) from Craigs place to my company. Craig packaged that up already and we should be able to move them soon as well.

Oh, and as you might've seen: The repository now offers commercial games!
Therefore, indie game developers could now also become interested in the Pandora.

Do you know some indie or iOS games you'd love to see on the Pandora?
Let's gather a list and contact addresses.
I'll try to officially contact the authors and tell them about the Pandora. As we got some developers who agreed to help with porting the games, we might see some of these games on the Pandora as well!

Just let me know!


Well, that's it for now. Let me know if you have any further questions

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[PANDORA] Inside The Box - Pandora Ezine

December 5th, 2011, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=961478

CrossPost from the Pandora forums:

I've created an article on the PandoraWiki here regarding plans for the first edition of the zine. I do feel like I've kind of railroaded StreaK's idea, but I hope the zine and the community benefit from this.

I've managed to cobble together a handful of people willing to contribute an article or two for the first issue. People are still welcome to participate if they have some time, and feel like they have something to say.

There's a section on formatting the articles on there, please, if you write something, follow this, or you're article may not end up exactly how you expected it to look (or might even get dropped).

The original thread can be found here

Any questions, please ask

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3619 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

December 5th, 2011, 00:15 Posted By: wraggster

OpenBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com.

This release is for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wii, Wiz, GP2x and Dingoo:

Heres whats new;


r3619 | utunnels | 2011-12-03 07:12:24 -0500 (Sat, 03 Dec 2011) | 3 lines
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
Re-adjust enemy attack chance after playing some mods. When there are too many enemies on screen, their chance to attack is also lowered. Because the new ai patterns tend to swamp on the player, difficulty increases too much when there are more than 5 enemies.
Reduce the chance for the default grab. Previous logic will prevent the entity with a greater index from grabbing another with a smaller index when they are both walking.
http://lavalit.com:8080/OpenBOR/download.php

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[CAANOO] Pcsxrearmed Random Slowdowns

November 21st, 2011, 00:37 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=960997

Here's a Conversation between me and Javy3, anyone have these problems on the Cannoo?

One quick question. It runs very well on the default settings for the emulator just fine up until the scene where you shoot the guards with Merel. After that the game slows down significantly, barely playable. What I wanted to know is if that is as good as it gets or if there is a setting that I can put in the emulator to improve the framerate and speed of the game. Thanks again.

I quite frequently have times where the some games just suddenly start to slow down , but its random and I think its a memory problem, I usually just reset the emulator and the game runs fine. Just make sure you save alot and use save states too.

Games that do this often: Metal gear solid, Syphon Filter, Vagrant Story

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3596 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

November 21st, 2011, 00:30 Posted By: wraggster

OpenBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com.

This release is for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wii, Wiz, GP2x and Dingoo:

Heres whats new;

r3596 | utunnels | 2011-11-19 10:23:28 -0500 (Sat, 19 Nov 2011) | 4 lines
Changed paths:
M /engine/openborscript.c
Add candamage, hostile and projectilehit to getentityproperty.
Allow interger value for the three in changeentityproperty, by having the highest bit set. This makes property copying easier.
For example, changeentityproperty(self, "hostile", openborconstant("TYPE_ENEMY")+openborconstant("TYP E_NPC")+0x80000000);

http://lavalit.com:8080/OpenBOR/download.php

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Pandora News -Everything still going smooth? (2011-11-18)

November 21st, 2011, 00:14 Posted By: wraggster

via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....th-2011-11-18/

Well - almost!
Everything was going WELL too well for the last few weeks, therefore something HAD to go wrong.
I'm happy to tell you it's nothing too serious - but just read on, and you'll know

1. Prototype production

Prototype production is still planned to happen in November, it might also be early December though (depending on the speed of FedEx and the customs).
These few days delays don't change the January full production run which is scheduled to start January 16th.
The only thing that could REALLY delay the production run would be problems with the prototype run - but we'll hope (and expect) everything goes well here.

Quite a few parts are currently being shipped to me: USB Ports, volume wheels and soon the parts that are lying at CircuitCo as well. It was quite an act to prepare proper documentation for customs, but FedEx has already been given the confirmation to pick up the parts.

Some Pandora parts are already out of production, so we had to find some equivalents but that's already been taken care of as well.

So everything here is still in schedule.


2. TV Out Cable production

Well, I mentioned not everything is still going smooth as it should.
As soon as I got the confirmation for all the investments, I placed the order for the TV Out Cables - but suddenly the company doesn't want to do this anymore.
This is totally weird - they produce the samples, they created the needed tools and now when they only need to PRODUCE them, they don't want to do it.
They don't want to get our money? Weird. Well, that's China.

As said: It's not serious, as it won't affect the Pandora production and it's not hard to find another company. Such a cable is nothing complicated.
It's just annoying. I would've been happy to ship you the TV Out cables for christmas... but sadly, that didn't work out



That's all I have for now
I'll keep you updated with anything that happens

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[PANDORA] Headoverheels

November 15th, 2011, 13:20 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=960513

This is my new port HeadOverHeels from http://www.headoverh...al/en/gallery/2
It's an allegro based remake of the original Spectrum game, and is programmed by Jorge Rodríguez Santos.

If you don't know nothing about this game, you should visit this link (by the same author of the remake..)
http://www.headoverh...rupal/en/node/2 .Inside there are all the info also about the original programmer (Jon Ritman).

Main feature of this remake are :

• The "pixel-art" style graphics.
• The game resolution is 640 x 480 pixels.
• The isometric engine casts shadows.
• In the biggest rooms, a camera "follows" the character.
• The game can be saved when you eat the reincarnation fish.
• Available in no more (and no less) than twenty languages: Afrikaans, Bable, Basque, Catalan, Croatian, Danish, English, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latin (yes, in Latin too), Polish, Portuguese (both Portugal and Brazil), Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish (both Spain and Americas) and Valencian.

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3591 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

November 15th, 2011, 13:18 Posted By: wraggster

OpenBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com.

This release is for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wii, Wiz, GP2x and Dingoo:

Heres whats new;

r3591 | utunnels | 2011-11-13 08:52:34 -0500 (Sun, 13 Nov 2011) | 2 lines
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
Force all player characters to be selectable when load a saved game.
This is a temporary fix until allowselect list can be saved.

http://lavalit.com:8080/OpenBOR/download.php

Download via comments

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Pandora News - On and on it goes. Still going strong (2011-11-09)

November 15th, 2011, 13:11 Posted By: wraggster

I was very busy preparing for the Replay Expo last week, therefore I didn't find the time to post updates.
Of course, that doesn't mean nothing has happened - so here's a quick summary of the current situation.

1. The ReplayExpo - a very quick impression

Well, there are already a lot of posts about the ReplayExpo in Blackpool, so there's no real need for a in-depth-post about it.
The ReplayExpo was great. We don't have such a big retro-scene in Germany, so this was totally overwhelming for me. So many cool arcade machines, pinball machines and classic computers.
Awesome!

While the Pandora is no classic system, most visitors were amazed by it.
Our table was crowded most of the time, all five Pandoras I had with me were being played on most of the time.
Most thought the price was decent, which is a good sign.

It was also awesome meeting some community members. And a VERY welcomed change from the daily organization work.
Thanks again to pmprog and sbt for the airport ride.

I'm pretty sure I'll be back next year


2. No break, everything going according to plan (that's something new, eh?)

Signed contracts are arriving daily (yeah, we need to send them back and forth using snail mail ), and each day more investments arrive on my bank account.
This actually made it possible to pay and order some parts already, which is great, as we need them for the prototype run.
The documents for the customs that are needed to move some of the parts from CC to Germany are also finished, so the pickup will hopefully also happen within this week.
I already got the WiFi modules and nubs for the prototype run, so we're pretty much set with the parts.

The bare PCBs have also entered production state. The company had 14 questions to Michael Weston which he all replied to.
The prototype run is still planned to happen in November, we're perfectly following our timeframe right now.


3. TV Out Cables

I promised that one of the first things I will order as soon as the investments are there are the TV Out cables.
I instantly requested an updated quotation (copper price changed within the last months), and as soon as I get it, the order will be signed and the cables will go into production.


4. The Website

Delicator volunteered to update the website quite a bit.
Here's what we've planned:

* Upgrade to latest Joomla Version (from 1.5 to 1.7)
* You can use your forum login on the site as well, which will enable you to do the following:
- Upload your own Pandora pictures into the user gallery (which will be public)
- Put your own videos (YouTube links) onto the user video gallery
- Post reviews
* Include a shop into the website (incl. Credit Card payment, etc.)
* Optimize the website (SEO, content, etc.)

When new users find out about the Pandora, they should find a plain and clean website that offers a wide variety of user commited content (videos, reviews and pictures) as well as links to the most important sites (repo, boards, wiki, etc.).


5. Some other things

Annette, a new employee I've got, will help me two hours a day with packaging and shipping, tax stuff and after a little while also with eMails.
This will help me catch up with all the mails and repairs I have to do, so things should get better soon (hopefully )

We're also working on improving the cases a bit to prevent the most popular cracks from happening in the future.


That's it for now
Let me know if you have further questions

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ScummVM 1.4.0 "10th Anniversary" Released!

November 13th, 2011, 21:12 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.scummvm.org/news/20111111/

It has been over 10 years. We are here thanks to the work of 131 developers. 49,124 commits were made just to the ScummVM tree and those turned into a massive 1,085,714 lines of code (excluding comments) and of course over 7.6 million downloads from the main site alone. I would say those were a great ten years.
The outcome is ScummVM 1.4.0 which we are releasing today, 11/11/11 11:11:11.11.
More games are supported: Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos <SMALL>(based on the same engine as Kyrandia)</SMALL>, the kids' game Blue's Birthday Adventure, and the science fiction game Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch. On top of that, practically all supported Sierra SCI games now have their Amiga versions working. Our musically inclined users will notice PC speaker support in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, CMS support in Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, fixed MIDI in the DOS versions of the Elvira series, and even sound in Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood!
As always, there are many more new features; you can find the full list in our release notes and the release itself on our downloads page.
Enjoy!


1.4.0 Release binaries
For a list of changes since the previous version, read the release notes.
1.4.0 is also apt-get'able from Debian unstable (sid).

• Windows Installer (4.8M Win32 .exe)
• Windows zipfile (8.4M .zip)
• Windows 64bit zipfile (8.5M .zip)
• Fedora 8-16 i386 package (7.3M RPM)
• Fedora 8-16 x86 64bit package (8.0M RPM)
• SlackWare package (7.4M .tgz)
• Mac OS X Universal Disk Image (15.3M disk image)
• PlayStation2 package (11.9M .zip)
• PlayStation3 package (14.8M .zip)
• Android Market
• Android packages (15M .zip)
• Windows CE ARM package (17.1M .zip)
• iPhone package (9.6M .deb)
• WebOS package (9.2M .zip)
• Maemo package (OS 2006, 2007, 2008 and Maemo5/Fremantle) (7.4M .deb)
• Dreamcast plain files (11.7M .tar.bz2)
• Dreamcast Nero Image & Demos for engines named A-Q (11.4M .zip)
• Dreamcast Nero Image & Demos for engines named R-Z (13.9M .zip)
• Nintendo 64 package (11.0M .zip)
• Dingux package (9.3M .zip)
• AmigaOS 4 package (10.3M .lha)
• MorphOS package (11.3M .lha)
• Atari/FreeMiNT package (68020 and up) (7.0M .zip)

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[PANDORA] Vvvvvv

November 7th, 2011, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=960124

pickle.gp2x.de/vvvvvv.pnd

VVVVVV PC versions come with a folder called data, this folder should be copied to the appdata folder which should be something like /media/mysdcard/pandora/appdata/vvvvvv

Either create the folder or run the pnd once, then copy the data over.

Once the data is present you should just need to run the game.

Note: Previous users dont need to change anything, just get the pnd and play.

Home/Pageup are mapped to Action
End/Pagedown are mapped to Enter (map)

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3581

November 7th, 2011, 00:17 Posted By: wraggster

OpenBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com.

This release is for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wii, Wiz, GP2x and Dingoo:

Heres whats new;


r3581 | utunnels | 2011-11-05 23:26:53 -0400 (Sat, 05 Nov 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
Removed unused variables in player_preinput.

http://lavalit.com:8080/OpenBOR/down...p?file=OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3581.7z

Download via comments

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[CAANOO] Pcsx Rearmed R11

October 31st, 2011, 23:05 Posted By: wraggster

news via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=959715

Caanoo: http://notaz.gp2x.de/releases/pcsxr/...r11_caanoo.zip
Wiz: http://notaz.gp2x.de/releases/pcsxr/...ed_r11_wiz.zip
Source: http://notaz.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/gitweb....sx_rearmed.git

It's finally finished (sort of), there is now scaling in, and performance should be a bit better for most games (GTE code should now match PCSX4ALL's performance or surpass it). Also there are many compatibility fixes, .cbin and multidisk eboot support (I hope, not tested too much), and new speed hack options that can give you more speed, but break games. There is a new Wiz build too.

Enjoy!

One note for those who say this is "just an early alpha version": well I've been working on this thing for more then a year now (there have been 9 pandora versions before first Caanoo release) and can say there is not much left to be done to speed the emulation core up further. One big thing that would help is making use of pollux 3D capabilities to do PSX GPU rendering, but I have no plans to work on that, sorry. Other than that, there are some small things but that would be a lot of work with very little benefit, probably not even noticeable. So what I'm trying to say is that future versions are unlikely to be faster, but will probably fix compatibility bugs.

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3567 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

October 30th, 2011, 21:53 Posted By: wraggster

OpenBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com for the Dreamcast, Dingoo, GP2x, Wii, PSP and Wiz.


History
----------------------
In 2004, Senile Team released Beats of Rage, a free beat-'em-up for DOS inspired
by SEGA's Streets of Rage series and using sprites from SNK Playmore's King of
Fighters series. The game spread only by word of mouth, but it nonetheless
amassed popularity very quickly. Senile Team soon released an edit pack allowing
anyone interested to create a mod for the BOR engine.
In 2005, Kirby2000 asked Senile Team to open the source code to BOR. They
agreed, and OpenBOR was born. Development on the engine was continued by the
community, and still is to this day.



r3567 | utunnels | 2011-10-29 07:35:42 -0400 (Sat, 29 Oct 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
M /engine/openbor.h

Change check_range macro so it returns true when minrange==maxrange..

Download Via Comments

via http://lavalit.com:8080/OpenBOR/down...p?file=OpenBOR

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Pandora News - Meet us at the Replay Expo in Blackpool! (2011-10-26)

October 30th, 2011, 19:09 Posted By: wraggster

Most of you already know - but just in case you missed it:

It's only a few days until the Replay Expo in Blackpool, UK (5/6 November 2011) - and we're having a small Pandora-Meetup there!

Both Craig, me and hopefully many community members and Pandora users will be there!

I'll arrive at Saturday about 1pm and will leave again on Sunday about 3pm.

We have a table setup in the Tournament hall, near the hall where the talks / presentations happen.

Additionally, we're having a talk about the Pandora there as well, though the time is not 100% fixed yet.

I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun there, so if you don't know yet where to go on that weekend and don't live too far away, you're welcome to join us!

There are also a lot of classic arcade machines there, so maybe we could play a game or two against each other.

More information on the official website.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ol-2011-10-26/

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Pandora News - Contracts sent out, parts (hopefully) moving in (2011-10-26)

October 30th, 2011, 19:06 Posted By: wraggster

While I don't really have much time lately, I still feel I need to let you know what happened lately.

1. Meeting with EBV (part distributor)

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a meeting with EBV, one of the biggest part distributors worldwide. We buy (and bought) all TI parts from them.
And their headquarters is only 80km away from me, which is great

I had the meeting for two reasons:
First, they wanted to know what the Pandora is all about (they only knew it's an embedded Linux device). And second, they help me to move the parts from Texas to Germany.

Some background information:
Batch 2 was planned to happen right after Batch 1 in Texas at CircuitCo... the plan was to start in February / March (yes, 2011...)
We all know this didn't work out - however: the needed TI parts for Batch 2 had already been delivered by EBV to Texas.
So we have these parts lying in Texas but now we need them in Germany...
All we need to do is pack them into boxes and send them to Germany... sounds easy, eh?
Well, nope.
It's crazy complicate... and here's why:
1) The parts are partly owned by OpenPandora Ltd. and partly still owned by EBV.
2) Those parts need to go from a third party company (CC) to another third party company (GC).
3) Well... now try to fill out the documents needed to get these parts through customs. Sounds like fun, right?

Dealing with custom documents if you're not experienced isn't easy. However, dealing with such a complicated case is hard ever IF you have experience with customs.
Luckily, EBV has agreed to prepare the documents for me - so we won't have any custom issues when moving them to Germany.
I am really thankful about that It saves me a lot of energy and time.

Some funny side-story:
You might know I've got an arcade machine in my office. When the two guys from EBV visited me, one of them immediately saw the machine and asked if it has real boards or some MAME emulation inside it.
"Heck - he seems to know something about the retro-gaming scene", I thought.
And yep, it's true: He collects pinball machines and likes retro gamings... well, as said, they didn't know what you can do with the Pandora. It was a GREAT background to start explaining the Pandora to them...


2. Contracts...

Whew, I sent out a bit over 30 loan agreements, adding up to a total of about 380K EUR now!
That's some great amount to get the Pandora produced in Germany!
So within the next days, more and more money should appear on my account.
We're still perfectly within our planned timeframe, no delays so far


3. TV Out Cables

As promised, as soon as I got the investment capital, I'll order the TV Out cables.
I requested an updated quotation and as soon as I get it, the order will be placed.
Finally


4. Future Plans

As soon as I'm finished organizing everything, I'll finish the RMAs I got and try to fix boards from CC.
Well, and to reply to all my eMails... a big sorry to everyone who is waiting for his RMA unit or for a reply.
I'm getting help with office work from November on, so things will improve here.

Of course, for November / December, some more promotion is planned as well so that we can really sell all the Pandoras we're producing.

When delivery finally starts, I want to concentrate on software development (OS, apps and games) and support different projects as good as possible.

I'll also try to achieve that ARM Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Arch, etc. will officially support the Pandora as well (with bootable images from SD Cards).
A lot can be done to improve the Pandora, and don't want to miss any opportunities here.
There's a reason that it is open: So that EVERY user can do what HE wants - so the more options there are, the better.

So much for today, more informations as soon as I get them

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....in-2011-10-26/

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