Quotations, Production speed and the future (2011-09-01)

September 5th, 2011, 01:03 Posted By: wraggster

News via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....re-2011-09-01/

Firstly, I apologize to everyone who is waiting for eMail replies, repaired Pandoras or similar from me.
The business plan and the planning of the production in Germany did eat most of my time, so I'm way behind with emails and Pandora repairs!
It's the most important thing right now. Once the business plan is finished (probably early next week), it's time to find investors to get all the money needed and then it's time to sign the offer with Global Components.

Once that's done, the move to a german production company will finally have started and take a while. That's when I will have a lot more time to work on mails, Hotfix 6 and repairing Pandoras.

Even if some won't believe it: I'm only human. Yes, really

Now, time for some news, isn't it?

1. Quotation from Global Components

I got the final quotation yesterday. As expected, it's more expensive than CircuitCo (Germany is ALWAYS more expensive), but I'm pretty content with it.
As the price is calculated on the time that is needed for production, I also got a first estimation of how fast the production can happen.

Basically, calculating the estimated time is simple:

The main population is being done by a machine.
It is known, how many parts per minute the machine can place on the boards. So based on the amount of parts that are on a Pandora board, the time can be calculated.

First you load all the needed reels with the parts into the machine. Depending on how many different parts you have, this takes a while.
For the Pandora, this actually takes a full working day (8 hours!).

Then the machine automatically populates the PCBs. This happens in three steps for the Pandora: Both sides need to be populated and the RAM needs to be put PoP (package on package) on the OMAP.
It takes 22 hours to populate 1000 PCBs (approx. every 1,5 minutes one PCB is fully populated).
After that, they go into the oven so that the parts are baked onto the PCB. And that's it.

So SMD population of 1000 boards takes about 30 hours. That is about a week. Nice

After that, there's manual soldering to be done. Nubs, Volume wheels. And testing. Each test takes 4 minutes.
Since they have multiple people working on this, it will be another 30 hours.
However, that can be done while the population goes on.

So basically, they could theoretically produce 1000 boards within two weeks.

Right now, I'm planning with 1000 boards each month for a start. That should be realistic. And better be safe than sorry... something we learnt the hard way.

So, while production speed actually seems to be pretty fast, this does not mean that we'll have thousands of Pandoras soon.
The machine needs to be programmed, bare PCBs need to be prepared and a prototype testing run needs to be done (though if that one goes without issues, the real production can start right away).
And: It won't happen before the order is signed - and therefore, money is needed.

Which leads us to the next point...


2. Investors for OpenPandora GmbH welcome

To move the production to Germany, money is needed.
There were quite a few refunds lately and CircuitCo delivering boards at a crawling speed is not helping much either.
And we need to make sure there's also money there when more people want to get a refund before the Pandoras are finished!

Of course, we could try to fund it with iControlPad sales at some time - but who knows how long that would need.
Aditionally, we don't just want to deliver all remaining preorders but have the Pandora produced at a regular basis so future users can buy them without having to wait.
Production needs to become reliable and steady.

That's the reason I've been working on a business plan for the last weeks: It actually is a pretty accurate calculation of the costs and time needed.
Once all preorders are fullfilled, there can be made some money from it. I discussed this with my tax counsellor (who is experienced with stuff like this) and she thinks it should certainly be possible to get some big investor.

I prefer trusted community members and known Pandora users. You can be sure notch will be one of the very first to receive a copy of the business plan!
Of course, anyone here from the boards can also help us out with some investments.
We need to set a minimum amount though, otherwise it will be way too much paperwork. The minimum amount should be something like 10.000 EUR.

If everything goes according to the plan, the invested money would be fully refinanced next year May and from then on, it's time to make money with the Pandora.

This should be a very interesting opportunity for every investor. You can be sure my main goal in September will be to find an investor and sign the order for the production as soon as possible.

If you are seriously interested in investing money or do know someone who would be interested, get in touch with me (via PM or eMail). I'll send you a copy of the business plan as well as soon as it's finished.

One thing is sure: I'll only accept silent investors. That is: Investors who get their share of profit each year, but are not involved in any decisions. We all want to keep the Pandora the way it is!

I'm happy to share the success of the Pandora with anyone, who helps to make the Pandora successful



3. Preorder time!

What? Again?
Are you kidding me?
You want more money from us before you even delivered the units?

Well... no.
Yes, there will be another time to place a preorder soon.
But no: You won't need to pay any money upfront.

As said, we really NEED to move away from paid preorders.
So what's the reason we want more preorders then?

Easy. Basically, there are two reasons:

1. I get so many eMails from people who want to order the Pandora. A preorder makes sense
2. The more preorders we get, the more easy it is to find an investor! Just imagine you can tell an investor "Hey, I already got way more customers than I need!"... this will certainly help a lot.

I will start taking preorders probably the end of next week.
If you are interested in a second unit or know anyone who would love to get a Pandora: Let them know!
The more orders we get, the better. And there is no risk involved - well, except for that you will have to buy a Pandora once it's finished.



4. What about CircuitCo?

They are still repairing the remaining boards. That takes some time.
They shipped another 50 boards last week.
So there will be some more Pandoras shipped soon, but I personally don't expect them to be able to repair much faster.
That's why I'm currently concentrating on the future Pandora production.



5. Conclusion

In my opinion, things are looking good.
Yes, it surely will take a while until the "German Pandoras" will be finished. I'm happy if we get the first units until November / December, but I can't guarantee anything.
Well, I can guarantee to keep you informed about every step that happens.

First step is to gather enough money to make this happen. But this certainly seems possible. The Pandora will keep alive. I'm sure of that, because as a community, we can achieve everything if we just try to do so

So for everyone who walked with us the long way: Thanks a lot! You really rock!
And to newcomers: The Pandora rocks. That's what so many people who got one tell you. And that's why you can be sure we will do EVERYTHING we're capable of to continue the production!

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3400 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

August 31st, 2011, 11:49 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



r3400 | utunnels | 2011-08-30 21:34:43 -0400 (Tue, 30 Aug 2011) | 8 lines
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
M /engine/openbor.h
M /engine/source/gamelib/commands.c
M /engine/source/gamelib/commands.h

New script:
data\scripts\loading.c
Called in loading screen update loop.

Randomize the movement of an AI controlled entity if its path has been blocked for many times. It's a temporarily solution, I shall refine the wall checking code in the future.


Expand attack## to 99.

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3394 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

August 27th, 2011, 15:21 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

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Pandora News - Preparing for Germany (2011-08-26)

August 27th, 2011, 11:59 Posted By: wraggster

Heres another update from the Openpandora Team:

A lot of important things have happened behind the curtains, I'll try to summarize everything up here, though it might not be easy. I hope I can make myself clear and won't forget anything.

One thing upfront:
I saw some posts that asked if Craig simply ignores the Pandora right now, as you don't read any Pandora news from him.
Craig is still in the team, of course.
However, all he can do right now is wait for CC to produce and ship the boards. Well, and to take care about possible legal actions...

I am mainly the one working on continuing the production in Germany, of course with a lot of help by Michael and Fatih.

Craig uses most of his time to take care about the iControlPad, while I am fully working on the Pandora right now.
I never was the smartphone gamer, but I love OpenSource stuff, so I'm happy to mostly work on the Pandora and not on the iCP

This is just a quick information at the beginning of my post.



Creating a business plan

You all know that we're currently working on moving the production to Germany.
This is a very important step and therefore needs to be done very carefully.
We have no idea how fast and how many finished boards CC can provide us in the near future.
So for my business plan, I am currently assuming the worst case scenario: Not a single board from CC anymore.
That's highly unlikely, but better be safe than sorry.

In case someone doesn't know exactly what a business plan is:
It's basically a document you create, that includes a detailed plan of the total costs needed, any plans for production, how you plan to make profits, what issues there are left, what needs to be done, etc.
This is absolutely essential if you try to get a bank loan or an investor, as they use the business plan to calculate their risks.

I'm about 90% finished with that, I just need a few more quotations, including the most important one: The PCB production. I'll get that one probably within the next days.


So... what IS the plan?

Well, of course: Produce Pandoras
That's the simple version.

It's much more complex though. Moving the production costs money. Thanks to the production issues, we lost an awful lot of money as well.
The goal of the plan is, to find out how much money is needed to start the production and how many Pandoras need to be sold to make sure the production will continue and we can deliver the remaining preorders as well.

Altogether, there are 1200 preorders left (500 from me, 800 from Craig). This includes ALL preorders. Also the ones from Batch 2.
While the plan is not yet finished, it looks like with 3000 units produced, we'll be able to fulfill all the remaining preorders AND have enough money left to continue the production.
Right now, it looks like about 250.000 EUR is needed to get everything rolling.

This actually sounds like a lot of money, but for such a production, it is not that much. And with 3000 units produced, the money can be paid back and everyone of you would have his Pandora!
After that, profit starts.

This is, as said, the worst case scenario. Every PCB delivered by CC will make things better.

Where to get that money?
I've got plans for that as well. Investors would be possible, I'll also try getting a loan.
With a carefully thought business plan that shows that the loan could be paid back within a reasonable timeframe, this shouldn't be a big issue.

I'd still love to get notch as investor. He was one of the very first preorderers of the Pandora, he seems like a nice chap AND he really supports indie stuff.
I was in contact with him early this year and he was interested, however, I never got a reply from him since then.
I guess he's just swamped with his normal eMail address, so he probably missed mine.
If anyones in good contact with him, please let him know I'm trying to contact him. It would really rock if he would support us - and it would make things so much easier!

BTW: Global Components (they will most probably produce the PCBs) are also interested in investing. That would also be great


Preorders... again?

Yes, there will probably be another preorder round.
However, with ONE significant difference: NO money has to be paid upfront!

What use is this, you might ask?

Easy. Imagine you are looking for investors. Or you are trying to get a loan from the bank.
Of course they are careful and will ask you: Are you sure anyone will buy that thing?
Then you'll take out a big list with a lot of people who preordered already... and you win.
That way, getting money will be WAY more easy!

I'll inform you when that preordering starts - and then you can tell anyone who always wanted to buy a Pandora but didn't want to pay before it's available to go and preorder!
But please don't order another one there if you're not interested in actually buying it later. It would just lead to problems.

It will be exciting to see how much interest there is. But based on the daily "I want to order a Pandora"-mails I get, there should be quite a few orders.
I also know some of you told me you'd want to get a few more units once they are available without prepayment.

If this will be a success, getting a loan will be easy and production can continue!



What... a new CPU? What the **** is this talk about?

This actually is one thing I'm currently thinking about a lot.
Some of you know about the BeagleBoard xM. It basically features the same SoC as the Beagleboard (or the Pandora), just with 1GHz standard clock, a faster RAM bus and a more recent 3D GPU.
As years have passed since we designed the Pandora, this faster SoC shouldn't cost much more than the old OMAP one.
According to TI, it's also easier to get.

As it is compatible, we can simply put it onto the new PCBs. It would be compatible with our OS, so all Pandora stuff would work on both units.
The new one simply would run a bit faster but would be completel compatbie.
OS and programs would be the same.

There are a few reasons that speak for that SoC:

* Wouldn't affect price
* Would make the Pandora more attractive
* Compatible, faster speed
* Preorderers who are still waiting would receive that one as bonus as well!

Of course - it could annoy the ones who already have a Pandora.
So what to do?
It's not easy.

Well, I don't know if the price will be the same as for the OMAP anyways. Maybe it's not worth it.
But if it IS worth it, I need to know what to do.

I'll make a poll about that tomorrow, please help me decide then!

On a sidenote, we might use a different paint on the case as well. Granite black metallic.
You might remember the blue metallic one Fatih showed us. He's been using it for six months yet.
The paint looks better (still looks like it is brand new) and as the paint is a bit thicker, the display stays open in every position.



Conclusion

Well, there's still a lot of work for me to get things started.
Things are looking good though. There are no debts except for the preorders, so as long as you will support me, I'll continue to work on the Pandora as mch as I can! That's a promise!

Nothing is carved in stone yet, I'm still checking out different options, but I'm getting there.
I hope I could give you a basic idea of what I'm planning to achieve.

If not, just ask, I'll try to answer it

Of course, you'll be the first to know once some stuff is fixed and done

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ny-2011-08-26/

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

[CAANOO] Virtual Jaguar For Caanoo

August 16th, 2011, 16:42 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=955807



Hi,

Riviera71 from the French Caanoo Community ported Virtual Jaguar. It's an early port and things need to be improved.


Launch a game :

- first you need to recalibrate the stylus, because the Caanoo screen is smaller than the Emu menu. 2 or 3 pixels down can do the trick.

- launch the emulator

- touch the screen when it's black

- go to Jaguar ---> Load

- you're in the rom directory, your roms should appear here

- select your game, it must be highlighted in orange

- click on Load, the game must ALWAYS be highlighted or it won't launch. Load must be highlighted in WHITE, the game in ORANGE.

- if it's ok, it will go back to the first menu screen

- go to Jaguar ---> Reset

and be patient, it's really slow.


Controls :

Direction: D-PAD
Jaguar C : Caanoo A
Jaguar B : Caanoo X
Jaguar A : Caanoo B

Home : emu menu



It needs to be improved, any help would be really appreciated. Sound is off for better performance.

DL here : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FP63KIR5

French topic here : http://caanoo.forumactif.net/t904-virtual-jaguar

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3373 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

August 16th, 2011, 16:37 Posted By: wraggster

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Pandora News - Just to let you know we're not dead (2011-08-16)

August 16th, 2011, 14:49 Posted By: wraggster

via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ad-2011-08-16/

While the title suggests that there are NO news, this is not entirely true.

Things ARE moving, but there's not much I can show you right now. I think I'll just summarize what happened during the last weeks.

While waiting for the quotations from the different companies here in Germany for the PCB production, I was trying to catch up with the work I have to do - and that's A LOT.

What is currently happening

Pandora repairs
I got quite a few Pandoras that need a new LCD Cable or nubs that I had to fix. As some might know I repair ALL of them (also the ones Craig sold), so this eats quite a bit of time.
I finished repairing most of them, I get a few new ones each week, but I'm catching up!
Repairing one unit approximately takes about 30 minutes, and you know I've got limited time... but I'll try to do my best!

CircuitCo

Also, I browsed through all eMails to and from CircuitCo, sorting out the important ones that prove that the issues we currently have are caused by them... that's done as well.
Why I did this? Well, we MIGHT need all that... depending on how the whole situation with CircuitCo works out.
My wish would be that they simply finish the 1000 missing PCBs as soon as possible and that's it. But we'll see about that...

You know they sent about 50 PCBs last week - and while those were all working (seems they REALLY are using our new test!), we haven't gotten an update from them yet but will keep asking and I will keep you updated!
On a funny sidenote they sent us an invoice for the production of those 50 PCBs... yeah, right. We shipped them over 300 broken ones that we already paid for back and they ask for money for the next 50 now? Awesome.

Pandora Production in Germany

I got a few further questions regarding parts that reached its end of life where we need replacement parts. And I already got one quotation from one of the companies, so things are moving there but I still have to wait for more.
The first quotation is below to what I set as maximum limit for me, so this is a good start.

I am also getting some up-to-date quotations for parts we have to get ourselves (LCDs, cases, etc.), so yeah, I'm doing a pretty comprehensive business plan right now with all costs involved.
This is of course also mandatory in case I need to get more money for the production.

I'll keep you updated about that, and as usual, I will dedicate everything I can to continue!


Pandora Website

Nothing has happened here, but basically, I am also planning a major revamp, as the current site doesn't make much sense.
There should be more information about the released programs, the repositories, etc.
The developers blog doesn't make much sense either, as the development is over already. It should be moved into an archive.
I'd rather have some compact history about the Pandora, information about what's happening right now for new users, etc.

This is also planned, I hope to find some time for that soon, but I won't bet on it, as there is so much more to do right now...

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

[CAANOO] Pdnoo

August 9th, 2011, 12:24 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=955251

I want you to know that I compiled PDa (pd-anywhere) for caanoo and that it is available for download on OpenHandhelds.org.

PDa is a port of Pd (PureData) for PDAs, and it was compiled also for gp2x some time ago.

Pd is a graphical programming language for musicians, it makes easy to develop your own synthesizer.

I compiled PDa without graphical support, it is quite useless without a graphical interface, for that reason I included in the distribution a very simple program in Bennu which sends touch-screen coordinates to pd through pdsend, which is a binary included to the distribution. This is the simplest way to make an application talk to puredata.

I hope that it can be useful to musical experimenters or to game developers who want to implement more dynamic sounds than a static collection of waves.

If you want to know something more, you can read the README inside the package, if you want to read the README without download the package yuo can find a copy posted here http://elettrofonesi.blogspot.com/2011/08/pdnoo.html

If you run the application and see anything but a black screen, don't worry, try to touch the screen and be pleased by a simple *amazing* am synthesizer.

If there are problems or questions, please let me know, I would be pleased to answer.

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

[PANDORA] Bennugd R263 For Open Pandora

August 9th, 2011, 12:22 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=955381

Finally I can made the port (thanks to SplinterGU).

Download BennuGD r263 for Open Pandora:

BennuGD r263


To identify the OS where BennuGD is running use 'os_id'.

In Open Pandora 'os_id' is: "os_id = 1010" or "os_id = OS_PANDORA".

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3367 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

August 9th, 2011, 00:18 Posted By: wraggster

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Homebrew Devs - id Software to release Doom 3 source code

August 5th, 2011, 10:52 Posted By: wraggster

Could be very interesting for Homebrew devs out there:

id Software will release the source code for Doom 3 later this year.

Speaking at Quakecon 2011, id's technical director John Carmack revealed that parent company Zenimax was supportive of the move. He also challenged other developers to release their own source code, arguing that it helps the community.

The source code will be available after the launch of Rage, which hits shelves in October.

id's engine Id Tech Five will also go open source, but not until it's no longer used for official projects. Carmack speculated that this could be as long as ten years away.

Carmack refused to talk about id's next big project, Doom 4, but did reveal that there were already plans for Rage 2. He also described a browser-version of classic title Wolfenstein as “off the table.”

Quakecon is an annual gaming event held in Dallas, Texas, and and curated by id Software. The event will run until August 7.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-3-source-code

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3361 - - for Dreamcast, Wii, wiz, gp2x, dingoo and PSP

August 1st, 2011, 22:17 Posted By: wraggster

The Lavalit guys have released a new version 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 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.


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

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Pandora Batch 2: A new hope (2011-07-28)

August 1st, 2011, 01:21 Posted By: wraggster

via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....pe-2011-07-28/

If you followed the recent threads you knew that I was visiting a company today which would be a good candidate to produce Batch 2 (and hopefully many more later batches) of the Pandora.

Doing something like this is always exciting.

Can the company produce the boards?
Do they want to do the job?
Can they do it for a good price?
Will they help you with your project? Or simply do what you tell them to do?
Are they friendly, open and honest?

There's so many stuff swirling around in your head before visiting a company... the future of the Pandora depends on finding the right partner.

Well, I'm pretty sure you all want to know how it went today, right?

Right.

The company I paid a visit today is called Global Components and is located in Oberhaching, near Munich. It's about 90km away from me, so it's not too far and I can easily visit them whenever I need.
I arrived at about 11:10am.
Do you know the rare feeling when you enter a building and just know you've come to the right place?

Well, I had that feeling today. I had a real nice meeting and was greeted heartily.
Everyone I've seen there was motivated, they have a great working atmosphere in there.
For me, this is a very good and important sign. It's always a sign of high quality.

The meeting was very assuring.
First I was given a nice company tour. They got high-quality machines in every room, it looks very organized and tidy. I also saw some boards from current production runs and they use even smaller SMD parts than the Pandora.
From what I've seen, I'm pretty sure they can easily produce our boards, and that's one of the most important things!
I brought some pictures with me. Just a little insight into the whole company. I'm happy that i'm allowed to make a movie of the birth of a Pandora board as soon as production starts.

As I had a Pandora PCB with me, their main technician took a look at it. He explained me some things I always wanted to know (like how PoP is being done and how the full population process works, etc.).
He also suggested a solution to place the shoulder buttons way better so we won't have manually fix the plastic with some buttons.

All in all, things looked pretty good for me. They agreed that they want to produce the PCBs
I'm now awaiting a quotation from them (this will take a few weeks), then we'll need to check on the leadtime of the parts and while waiting for those, the production will be set up.
This surely will all take a while. There's no company that can just get the gerber files and start with the production the next day.
The PCBs will take a few weeks to produce, the parts have a certain leadtime and the machine also needs to be setup and programmed.
However, once this is done, PCBs will be finished very fast. I'll get the amount of Pandora PCBs they can produce per week within the next weeks.

Oh, on a side note they mentioned that they would try to help us fix boards with issues as well, in case CC doesn't really move forward here.
I'll send them a few ones of them over, so that they can check if a repair is possible and much it would cost. So if CC doesn't do much, we might move the repairs of the remaining boards of Batch 1 to Germany as well.

Parts, setup, etc. need to be paid upfront, so this is another issue we need to take care of. CC did cost us a lot of money, and we still don't know how fast they'll send us more boards - there still are 1000 missing!
The iControlPad helps us earning money as well, which is great, but the faster we have the total amount of needed money available, the faster the production can start.
That's why I'm also checking for additional solutions to raise money faster. I'll keep you informed on that!
If anyone knows someone who'd like to support us, get in contact with me! I'm sure we can make some good deal here.

Well, anyways, it seems we found a new company that can do the production!
I'm very happy about that, as you never can be sure before visiting them.

The next steps for now are:

* Get a quotation from them, check what parts are needed and how fast
* Make a proper new business plan (including total costs, estimated times, etc.)
* Make sure to have money ready when payments are due
* Try to squeeze as many working boards out of CC as possible

Oh, and of course (as soon as got the top priority things done):

* Continue to work on HotFix 6
* Update the website (REAAAALLY needed!)
* Fix the remaining RMAs
* Check the remaining PCBs I got here

I'll let you know any further steps that happen, as usual

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Dingoo News Reopens

July 26th, 2011, 12:03 Posted By: wraggster

Hi everyone, continuing with our work on getting the whole DCEmu Network back to full operational status, we now have the Dingoo site back online, the site has every release and news for the Dingoo since the start of the console.

Check it out here --> http://dingoo-a320.dcemu.co.uk/

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

GP2X Emulation Returns

July 26th, 2011, 03:20 Posted By: wraggster



Finally after catching up with all the homebrew and emulation new its time to bring back online another massive site that has downloads for the GP2x, Wiz and Caanoo, checl out the news and downloads on all 3 consoles since the start of the scene for each console.

Relive the scenes here --> http://gp2x-emulation.dcemu.co.uk/gp2x-logo.gif

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Panta VS Dragon: El tesoro del Dragón

July 26th, 2011, 02:11 Posted By: wraggster

Newly released for Pandora, Caanoo, Wiz and GP2x:



A DragonFly remake by 'The FARM Team' (Futublog, Princemegahit & GECA soft)

gp2x - http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...,0,0,0,27,2890
caanoo - http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,27,755
wiz - http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,27,559
pandora - http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,27,430

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

[PANDORA] Pndtools

July 26th, 2011, 02:06 Posted By: wraggster

via http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=954515

Hi there,

so far I only posted this on the official boards, but seeing many devs are still exclusively active here, you may find this interesting, too.

PNDTools (in the lack of a better name)
is a simple and easy-to-understand GUI for opening, browsing, editing and creating PND files and
NEW NEW NEW
you can also view, edit and create PXML files with it (WIP, please send me feedback, see below).

What does it do?

• It can open a PND and display its contents in a tree structure
• You can then extract data from the PND or add new stuff
• It extracts the PXML and icon data
• You can create a new PND from scratch or modify an existing one and save the result again as a PND
• GUI for viewing and editing the PXML file (beta)
• It has options

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Lord of the Rings Engine for Dingux

July 25th, 2011, 00:35 Posted By: wraggster

Newly released for Dingoo



Lord of the Rings Engine for Dingux v0.1 (19/07/2011)
================================================== ===
Based on Michal Beneš Lord of the Rings Game Engine v0.6.5 [http://www.wonderland.cz/lotr/]
Dingux port by Shin-NiL [http://www.shinnil.co.cc]

Prerequisites to run the game
=============================
- Dingux installed with the latest elta's rootfs ;
- Data files from the full game Lord of the Rings Vol. I for DOS;

Installing
==========
- Extract the contents of the file 'lotr_dingux_v0.1.bin.zip' to your miniSD card;
- Copy all data from the Lord of the Rings game for DOS to the directory 'DATA', which is included in 'lotr';
- Create a link with your favorite application launcher to the file 'lotr.dge'.

Controls
========
Most of the time simply press the indicated key to perform the desired action. Note that in the main menu, the buttons L/R move the cursor left/right pressing the A button to perform the action. Using the the virtual keyboard, move the directional to select, A button inserts the character and START confirms the entry.

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,26,517

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Caanoo Skin Pack v2.0

July 25th, 2011, 00:31 Posted By: wraggster

Newly released for Caanoo



Caanoo Skin Pack - 07/21/2011
--------------------------------
This archive has bars & icons for many emulators and applications currently released for the Caanoo.
Updates will be frequent and new bars/icons will be added as they're created.

There is also a folder containing wallpapers and menu slides for the Skin Maker application found here:
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,50,562

There are also icons available for games/apps that are not released yet:
- D1X-reARMed
- D2X-reARMed
- Frodo (Beta)
- Hero: The Realm
- Menuisier of the dead
- OutcaST (Beta)
- Vice

Thanks to notaz for porting Ginge to the caanoo. This allows you to play your old favorite games
of the GP2X and Wiz on the caanoo. There are also some icons for these games.

--------------------------------
Images created by:
AJack
Thorax
ColdRush
Tryone (LenrLad)
mospaedax
hi-ban
Rikku2000
Jurk

--------------------------------

Feel free to make requests in this thread (official):
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...on-collection/

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,50,752

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here

Milkytracker

July 25th, 2011, 00:29 Posted By: wraggster

Newly released for Caanoo



Supports both button, joystick and touch screen controls. Has all of the features of the PocketPC version. USB keyboards definitely work, but USB mice are untested. I have included one of my own XMs, as well as a few songs I found online. Make sure you calibrate your touch screen before using this application. Please visit milkytracker.org for detailed information on how to use the tracker.

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...?0,0,0,0,6,751

Join In and Discuss Here

Submit News and Releases Here and Contact Us for Reviews and Advertising Here