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OpenSource Handheld News - Gp2X, Dingoo, Wiz, Pandora, GCW Zero and Caanoo is a News and downloads site for Open Source Handhelds, We have all the latest emulators, hack, homebrew, commercial games and all the downloads on this site, the latest homebrew and releases, Part of the
DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network.
THE LATEST NEWS BELOW
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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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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).
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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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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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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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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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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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October 23rd, 2011, 21:55 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.
r3553 | utunnels | 2011-10-22 12:37:43 -0400 (Sat, 22 Oct 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
Fix various bugs in previous update.
Download Via Comments
via http://lavalit.com:8080/OpenBOR/down...p?file=OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3553.7z
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October 23rd, 2011, 19:05 Posted By: wraggster
This will be a short newspost, as I had a loooong day and want to get some rest... but...
We got enough investments to start everything here in Germany!
Thanks a lot to anyone who kindly invest their money for the trust - I will do everything to get things running as good and smooth as possible!
If you are one of the guys who are thinking about investing but haven't made your final decision yet:
Don't worry, you're not too late - I've got 350K EUR right now and will accept investments up to 450K EUR... as that means that I can buy more parts at once which decreases the production costs as well.
So, during the next week, it's time to prepare all the contracts and send them to the investors.
We're very good within my timeframe, so it still looks like the big run in Germany will start in January.
Tomorrow I'll have a meeting with the guys from EBV (major distributor for parts, we bought all the TI parts from them) to discuss how to move the parts for Batch 2 from CircuitCo in Texas to Global Components in Germany.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Also, if you didn't see it yet:
Both Craig, me and quite a few guys from the community will be at the Replay Expo 2011 in Blackpool.
So if you ever wanted to meet us, here's a good chance. There'll be lots of arcade games, etc, as well - i'll be fun!
So, hope to see you - and thanks again for all your support
http://boards.openpandora.org/index....go-2011-10-19/
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October 23rd, 2011, 19:04 Posted By: wraggster
We're not slowing down here, things are happening and therefore, I'll summarize them for you
As usual, I'll be open about anything here - so if you have any further questions, just ask
1. Bare PCBs ordered and paid!
As mentioned in my last post, I've ordered and paid the bare PCB production, so we'll have the PCBs ready in-time for the prototype production run next month.
They should take about 4 - 6 weeks and when they're working fine, I will immediately order the big batch (1000), which will take another 4 weeks approximately.
This will make sure those will be ready for the production run in January as planned.
2. Investments coming along
The investments are coming along nicely.
Only three potential investors made a retreat so far, whereas 26 confirmed their investment, which adds to a total of 195,000 EUR we've got so far.
I'm still waiting for a confirmation from 15 more investors (which would add another 183,000 EUR) and 28 potential investors haven't even told me how much they are planning to invest.
So, will we get enough investments? Or will things get narrow?
Hard to tell right now. Statistically, with the remaining potential investors left, there should be more than enough money, based on the amount those 26 who confirmed already, invested (most of them were from Germany). Things would work out with 350K EUR quite nicely, though 300K EUR would also be enough.
However, we don't know yet whether and if those remaining investors will really invest.
They've got some things to check out, as tax things are a bit complicated when you're outside of Germany
.
If you're interested in investing as well, send a mail to info@openpandora.de. I'll send you the business plan, information about the profit share you can make (up to 40% interest with 10,000 Pandoras sold per year), etc.
So, what happens if I don't get enough investments together?
Well, there are still some more ways to get things going.
For example, we've got 17000 users subscribed to the newsletter. There might be some potential investors here as well, so I could ask here as well.
I could also ask for small donations. While not all might be interested in the Pandora anymore, there might be some who would still support the idea behind it. If only half of them donated 10 EUR, that would be another 85,000 EUR as well.
Also, crowd-funding like Kickstarter.com and similar sites exist today. Another option.
If just a bit of money is missing, I could also get a bank loan. And I'm still in contact with some bigger investors as well.
So yeah, there ARE more than one way to get things going, and as long as there's some life left within me, I'll continue to work on this
3. Preorders also coming along
As you probably know, preorders have started again.
So far, we got over 250 Preorders already - without ANY advertising at all and without sending the newsletter to the 17K subscribers.
That's impressive, if you ask me!
I think we'll see a lot more preorders once a few more press reviews will be out there (shipping some Pandoras to magazines next week), after the prototypes are working, after christmas, after delivery has started and after the Replay Expo 2011 in Blackpool. It doesn't seem to me we'll have any issues selling the Pandora at all
4. Moving parts
As mentioned, some parts for Batch 2 are lying at CircuitCo and need to be moved to Germany.
Those parts had all been delivered by the distributor EBV (a big german distributor), and thankfully, they are helping me moving these parts over.
They are currently organizing the transportation to Germany, which is great, as they have experts who know how to deal with customs, etc. Saves me a lot of time and nerves.
5. Meet us in UK!
As mentioned above, I will be at the Expo Replay 2011 on 5/6 November in Blackpool.
But I'm not alone - Craig will also be there as well as quite a few guys from the community (and of course, thousands of Retrogaming freaks).
We'll have the iControlPad and Pandoras there, so if you always wanted to meet us or want to see living Pandoras, it's well worth a visit!
http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ts-2011-10-13/
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October 9th, 2011, 21:36 Posted By: wraggster
Heres a new release of Openbor for the PSP, Dreamcast, Wii, GP2x, Wiz and Dingoo from the Lavalit team at http://lavalit.com:8080/
Beats of Rage is a customisable video game engine made by Senile Team and inspired by Sega's classic Streets of Rage series. With Beats of Rage, users can create their own beat 'em up games - no programming experience required!
Beats of Rage was first released for DOS in November 2003. It was not advertised in any way other than by word of mouth, yet it soon gained enormous popularity. Ports to many other systems (e.g. Dreamcast, Linux, Windows, GP32, GP2X, etc) soon followed
r3517 | utunnels | 2011-10-08 05:33:20 -0400 (Sat, 08 Oct 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
y + 4 when use screen related spawn/summon to neutralize default gfx_y_offset.
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October 9th, 2011, 21:27 Posted By: wraggster
Whaaaat? Another news post? What's happening, so much to report?
Well, yes.
I'm actively working on a lot of things in parallel right now to get things moving.
1. Another visit at Global Components
Yesterday I had another loooong meeting (5 hours!) with Global Components.
We were discussing the production of the Pandora, how to proceed, etc.
The people involved in the meeting were the project manager (with whom I am in regular phone contact as well), the CEO, the parts buying agent and the population machine operator.
We were discussing and making a production plan, when to order what parts, what issues could occur with the production and how to prevent them, etc.
The bare PCB production will be started right away and takes about 4 - 6 weeks, which means: We could do a prototype production run in mid-November (15 PCBs).
I will be there for the whole day and will also do a FullHD video - so you can actually see a Pandora board being populated and born
After that, the full series of bare PCBs will be produced which takes another 4 weeks approximately.
So end of December / early January would be the production run with the first 1000 boards.
We are planning to produce 1000 boards per month from then on.
This is a plan - but for that to happen, a few things need to be taken care of:- The parts lying around at CC that were planned for Batch 2 need to be transported to Germany. That's one of the things I'll work actively on from tomorrow on.
- The investments need to be done. I'll get the english contract within this week and will send that to the investors.
Then it's up to them to decide, whether they want to invest or not and how much. There's about 650,000 EUR from potential community investors, but you never know how much you'll get in reality.
Also, I don't want to annoy and push any investors. This needs time to be thought through, it's quite a bit of money. When enough money has been confirmed until the end of October and at least 100,000 EUR have been transferred until early November, then the plan will work out. Otherwise, the production will be delayed until the money is there.
These are two important things, and I really hope I can get them done in October. But I'm optimistic here.
2. Investors and funding
I'm not only depending on community investors (though with 650,000 EUR, a few could back out and there would still be enough left), I'm also working actively on getting major investors from my area involved.
I've got a few appointments within the next week as well, so it might be there's enough available without ANY community investors. Those kind of investors that said "Oh well, that's not that much money" when I told them how much I need
Of course, community investments have a higher priority for me You all know what the Pandora is about.
So far, everyone who has seen the business plan told me it's very well thought through, which is a good sign.
Even my bank would offer me a loan for the full production - so in case something is missing, I could get a loan from then if needed.
Don't hope that'll be needed though.
But I'm working on various backup plans, just to be sure.
3. Parts, parts, parts
As mentioned, I need to move the parts from Texas to Germany. This will be one of my main priorities right now.
I've also setup a timeline on when to order the remaining parts from where.
I've got leadtimes, and I always add about 1 month to that leadtime so the parts will REALLY be here when needed.
The biggest thing is the order mentioned above from Global Components: The parts we need to order early November, the bill where I have to pay 100,000 EUR in advance.
The remaining investment money has time until a bit later. But that's one of the things I need to work on and hope, enough investors will have signed their contract until end of October.
I'll keep you informed
4. Website, Publicity and preordering
Preordering hast started, as you already know.
However, I'm keeping that pretty much internal so far, not going for the big publicity yet.
Many potential customers would go away because it's still a while until the Pandora is really in stock, so we would probably lose them.
Also, I want to work on the website.
My goal is to put all the nice projects on the website, as well as link to informations for users, developers, include a photo and video gallery for user uploads, etc.
Tidy it up, explain to new users, what the Pandora is about, tell them the history, the planned future, etc.
The main feature of the Pandora is the openness and the community - and that's what I want to show on the website as well.
Once that has happened, there will be a few more press releases to gain publicity. After the test production run, I plan on actively raising publicity by contacting various news sites, Linux magazines, giving interviews, etc.
That should be just before christmas and the Pandora shouldn't be too far away by that time. Perfect time to get more users interested
Maybe I'll also do a coding competition, where you can win one of the prototypes that is produced at Global Components. Signed by me in the battery compartment.
Sounds like a nice idea
Well, that's it for today.
I'll keep you informed about the various processes running in parallel right now, and hope to have good news soon.
I'm working as hard as I can on that, but I really think it's worth it.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them
http://boards.openpandora.org/index....rm-2011-10-05/
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October 9th, 2011, 21:26 Posted By: wraggster
As promised, preordering the Pandora is now possible again - and no need to cash in the money for the whole console anymore!
Of course, if you already HAVE a paid preorder, it stays valid and you should get your unit shortly after production in Germany has started.
The current price is 375 EUR, but I'll still have some negotiations to do, so it might drop.
If you preorder now and the price drops, you will also get the new price, so 375 EUR is a max right now.
The only thing you need to do to get a valid preorder is head over to the OpenPandora.org website, place your preorder and make a prepayment of 10 EUR.
We are currently planning to have 1000 Pandoras produced per month starting from January - so to make sure you get one as early as possible, be sure to place your preorder early.
Once production is running sweet, my main goal will be to support OpenSource development and developers here from the community to turn the Pandora into the ultimate portable Mini-PC/OpenSource-Gaming platform!
Of course, you are very welcomed to help us as well.
Spread the word, inform friends, colleagues and family about the Pandora or whoever you think could be interested!
Thanks 
http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ed-2011-10-04/
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October 3rd, 2011, 00:01 Posted By: wraggster
More Pandora News:
The last post was only a few days ago, but I thought you'll be interested in the stuff that happened.
1. Investment capital
I can't stop to tell everyone how impressed I am about the power of the community!
About 70 community members are interested in investing so far.
38 reported back how much money they are planning to invest (some gave me a certain value).
The amount of money raised is simply astounding:
About 194.000 EUR are certain so far, whereas it sums up to 455.000 EUR including the amount of money from the users who are still thinking about it.
That's 100.000 EUR more than needed!
And 32 haven't even told me how much they are planning to invest...
The german-speaking investors have already received a preview copy of the contract.
It's currently being translated into english language. While my english is not too bad, it certainly is not good enough to translate a proper contract.
That's why a professional lawyer is doing this.
Monday is a holiday in Germany, however, I hope I'll get the contract within the next week.
I'm having a meeting with two interested big investors sometime next week - but as things are looking right now, I'm not sure I'll need them...
Well, can't hurt having more potential investors - though the one from the community will have a higher priority!
2. Tuesday: Next meeting with Global Components
As things are looking very well with the investment capital, it's time to go to Global Components and discuss the production plan.
This will happen on Tuesday.
As it looks like the investment capital shouldn't be an issue, I'll also order the bare PCBs on that day.
The bare PCBs have some one-time-costs for tooling, etc., but I can afford that myself.
20 bare PCBs for testing will be produced. That takes about 5 weeks, which means we're going to see the birth of the very first Pandoras in Germany in November.
And yes, we WILL see it, as I'll post a full HD video of the very first Pandora PCBs being populated in Germany.
You will actually be able to see the process of a Pandora being born!
If those boards work without any issues, it'll take another 4 - 5 weeks until all 1000 PCBs for the first batch are finished - well, and then it's time for the full production run.
During October, we'll need to do some more small payments (to buy the nubs, etc.), but some investors already mentioned they could send the money right away, so that would work out fine.
Most of the money won't be needed before November, so there's time to do sign the contracts and transfer the money.
3. Preorders!
The next round or preordering is just round the corner!
If you're interested in getting a Pandora (or another one, if you already have one): The preordering will start on Tuesday.
The final price of one Pandora will be about 370 EUR, though this time, there's no need to pay in advance.
We're requesting a small downpayment of 10 EUR in advance - but I guess that won't hurt anyone who is really interested in getting one.
If you want to support us, you are free to pay more than 10 EUR in advance. The downpayment will be completely deducted from the final price.
Anyone is welcome to spread the word about the Pandora to friends, family or on other websites. Let them know the preorder has started!
More details on Tuesday, of course.
4. Some wishes I have
Well, you might've seen some threads popping up here at the boards where people have problems getting replys and refunds from OpenPandora Ltd.
Seeing this makes me very sad - both for the customers as well as for Craig (who is the guy running OpenPandora Ltd.), as I can understand the customers but also know it's not Craigs' fault he doesn't have Pandoras to deliver.
It makes me even sadder to see that some are thinking about taking legal action (or have already done so - though I hope not!).
In my opinion, the Pandora is something that should evolve by working together - and that's what I'm also concentrating on in the future: Supporting OpenSource development to bring new OSes and Applications / Games to the Pandora.
If you followed my posts for the past few months, you probably know that our real issue is CircuitCo, the company that is supposed to produce the boards.
Once we realized it will probably take ages to get the remaining 1000 PCBs from them (if we ever get them), I immediately started to work on finding a proper company in Germany for the PCB production.
To minimze the running costs for OpenPandora Ltd., I started to take care of most of the repairs (LCD Cables, Nubs, etc.), even paying the shipping costs back. Not just for my customers, but also for Craigs'.
He also minimized costs by reducing personnel costs.
This lead to the issue, that eMails no have a huge backlog - but it helps to keep going until I've setup all the investments here.
The business plan I created includes taking care Craigs customers, not just mine.
It includes paying refunds as well as delivering units to the remaining customers.
That's mostly for two reasons:
1. No one who preordered is responsible for the issues we have with the board production, so everyone should get their ordered Pandora - or his/her money back.
2. It's also not Craigs fault, so I want to support him as well as good as possible.
The only thing right now that can really cause issues to OpenPandora Ltd. are too many refund requests before I've got everything set up.
I can fully understand anyone who is pissed off by the wait (heck, we are as well!), but if you want a refund and are not urgently in need of the money right away, I'd be more than happy if you could hold on a bit.
As mentioned above, the investment stuff is looking really good at the moment - and then, everything will be taken care of.
No one, neither Craig nor me are trying to rip anyone off. We're still trying to do our best, but it's not easy with CC not really sending out PCBs at all.
So please consider to hold on a bit longer. I'm not asking to forget about your money, just to give us the time to sort everything out.
I've been working 3 years for free on the whole thing. I'm pretty sure giving up and just filing insolvency would've been the easier thing sometimes - but I could never do that.
I believe in the idea of the Pandora - and I won't give in because some companies had been a bad choice for us. Issues are there to be solved, and that's what I'm currently doing!
Please think about that for a while. Thanks!
http://boards.openpandora.org/index....sh-2011-10-02/
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September 23rd, 2011, 12:07 Posted By: wraggster
The Lavalit guys have released a new of their Beatem Up for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wiz, Wii, GP2x and Dingoo:
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.
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 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.
Available Platforms
----------------------
OpenBOR has a very modular and portabledesign inherited from Beats of Rage. Ports
to the following platforms are currently supported:
* Windows
* Linux
* Mac OS X
* Wii
* PSP
* Dreamcast
* GP2X
* GP2X Wiz
* Dingoo a320
In addition to the above, the original Beats of Rage engine (downloadable from
the Senile Team website is available for the following platforms:
* DOS
* Playstation 2
* Xbox
* GP32
* Palmtop
r3465 | utunnels | 2011-09-22 19:18:19 -0400 (Thu, 22 Sep 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
Allow float argument for forcemap since it uses second.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r3464 | utunnels | 2011-09-22 01:01:13 -0400 (Thu, 22 Sep 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/source/gamelib/transform.c
More clip check for watermode 3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r3463 | utunnels | 2011-09-21 19:54:26 -0400 (Wed, 21 Sep 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/source/gamelib/transform.c
Fix a minor problem in watermode 3 clipping.
http://lavalit.com:8080/
Download and Give Feedback Via Comments
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September 23rd, 2011, 11:55 Posted By: wraggster
via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....rs-2011-09-20/
Well, just some quick news to tell you that I finished the business plan this weekend and sent it out to interested investors.
Over 40 community members have sent me mails that they are interested in investing - guys, you rock!
I also sent a copy to notch - he was one of the first people to order a Pandora (and waited until he got it), so he might be a potential candidate as well.
I will let you know more details and informations about it soon, as well as the preordering that should start soon.
Right now, I'm just a bit tired and need to get up early tomorrow.
But I will keep you informed!
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September 11th, 2011, 21:10 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....rs-2011-09-09/
Phew, those were some busy days (and mostly nights) I had, but it all seems to work out quite well, so it's time to infom you about stuff that's happening
1. The Business Plan and Investors
The most important thing to get investors is to provide them with a well-thought plan.
They don't want to lose money, they want to make money in the end. So the plan needs to be realistic, you need to know how much you need to create and sell your product and how much sales you will get, etc.
It took me quite a while to calculate all the costs, take into account that some parts are paid in USD and the USD / EUR conversion rate can change, etc.
I also included additional costs for marketing and development, maybe hire someone for actively work on the OS or port software, etc. and make the Pandora more known and popular.
The more users and developers we can get, the better for all of us!
That was quite a bit of work, but I finished the plan two days ago and gave it to my really helpful tax consultant, who is quite experienced with such things as well (she helped some companies already to find investors).
She thinks the business plan is very well thought of. I've been very careful with costs to make sure I have MORE money than needed.
Actually, she told me she'll also invest, so that's a good sign, isn't it?
With the plan, she calculated the value of my company and the possible realistic profit for investors.
My lawyers have already started to work on the contracts for possible investors (together with my tax consultant) and I will create an english version of the business plan within the next few days (the current one is German).
So basically, we're almost ready for some investments!
If you're interested in investing some money into the Pandora, send me an eMail to EvilDragon@openpandora.org (unless you haven't done that yet).
I'll contact you as soon as the english version of the business plan and the contracts are ready.
What's needed if you want to invest?
Well, the absolute minimum would be 2000 EUR.
However, that value would probably only make sense if you live within the EU. Yes, you would get part of the profit made, however, depending on where you live, bank transfer costs, conversion costs or taxes you might have to pay on such profit would take most of that profit away.
That's something you'd need to check out first. Bank transfer costs could be skipped by using PayPal, but the conversion costs from EUR to other currencies could eat a lot of the profit.
2. From Texas to Germany - to a company which is being praised by its customers
As you might know, we already own a lot of parts for the next few thousand Pandoras (the ones from Texas Instruments, to be exact).
One of the biggest distributor for TI parts is EBV, and that's where Craig bought the parts from.
However, EBV is also the distributor where Global Components (the new PCB company) buys the TI parts from.
I was having a chat today with my contact from EBV (also a bavarian company, BTW)
I was talking with him about the parts and they offered to move them from Texas to Germany. This saves us costs and trouble and is a really nice and helpful move from them
Another encouraging thing:
We were also talking about Global Components, and EBV has been working with them for years.
It seems customers are praising Global Components. They have a VERY good reputation and are very reliable.
That's something great
I'm really happy to have found a reliable company now
3. Preorders coming soon!
As mentioned in my last post, more preorders for Pandoras will be taken soon!
No payment in advance needed, but please only order if you're really interested in getting one.
If you always wanted to get a second unit or never ordered because you didn't want to spend money upfront - here's your chance. No risk involved.
Once the Pandora is ready, you will be informed and after you did your payment, the unit will be shipped to you.
In case you are still waiting for your preordered paid unit, there's no need to reorder here.
Your order is valid and will be shipped to you from either the shipments that are being sent from CircuitCo every once in a while or from the Germany company - whatever is faster.
4. Pandora repairs and OS upgrades
You probably know that I'm doing most of the Pandora repairs (bad nubs, bad LCD cables).
I was pretty busy with the business plan (top priority right now is to get everything going properly!), so I didn't have much time to repair units.
I fixed 8 Pandoras this week, about 15 are left to be fixed.
When the whole investor / business plan thing is done and I've finally signed the contract for the Pandora production, I've got a lot more time and repairs will happen way faster.
I also want to continue on the OS and finalize HF6!
I'm sorry it takes so long, but I'm just one person and can't split up yet (maybe someone should invent that )
5. Conclusion
So all in all, I'm content right now.
Of course, it would've been great if we never had these issues with CircuitCo, but it seems at least here in Germany things are working out.
The business plan is looking promising, Global Components has a very good reputation and is being praised by its customers so the only thing left now are investors.
Something that is certainly possible.
Once that has been done, nothing should prevent the Pandora production from happening!
To read more of the post and Download, click here!
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September 6th, 2011, 01:12 Posted By: wraggster
The Lavalit guys have released a new of their Beatem Up for the Dreamcast, PSP, Wiz, Wii, GP2x and Dingoo:
penBOR 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.
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 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.
Available Platforms
----------------------
OpenBOR has a very modular and portable design inherited from Beats of Rage. Ports
to the following platforms are currently supported:
* Windows
* Linux
* Mac OS X
* Wii
* PSP
* Dreamcast
* GP2X
* GP2X Wiz
* Dingoo a320
In addition to the above, the original Beats of Rage engine (downloadable from
the Senile Team website) is available for the following platforms:
* DOS
* Playstation 2
* Xbox
* GP32
* Palmtop
r3420 | utunnels | 2011-09-04 22:42:51 -0400 (Sun, 04 Sep 2011) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
AI character more tolerable to player_min_z and player_max_z, if they hit the two point vertically, they'll turn to the opposite direction instead of choosing a random direction that leads out side the screen.
Download and Give Feedback Via Comments
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