Handheld Gaming PC Things (Split)

[XCVG]

Magnesium is useful in a pinch if you need to start a fire. Take a knife to it and you get sparks upwards of 2,500 °F.

Yeah, but you still have to light the magnesium

[jjhammerstein]

Magnesium is useful in a pinch if you need to start a fire. Take a knife to it and you get sparks upwards of 2,500 °F.

Yeah, but you still have to light the magnesium

How does this work again?

[XCVG]

Magnesium is useful in a pinch if you need to start a fire. Take a knife to it and you get sparks upwards of 2,500 °F.

Yeah, but you still have to light the magnesium

How does this work again?

It has a striking "steel" AND the magnesium, which you scrape off and hit with the sparks.

[bacteria]

Each key is about 3/8" square, with a gap in between. (The space bar, alt, etc. are almost half an inch tall each, and the D-pad is half-height. Full keyboard, full number row, full assortment of F- keys. It has a numeric pad and other keys (PrtScr, Home, End, etc) by way of a Function modifier key.

That sounds small, but it's nothing compared to the keyboard on the acclaimed HTC Dream Android phone, the iPhone keyboard, or what an on-screen keyboard on the 5" touchscreen would be. It's big enough to type with your thumbs or fingertips.

No idea if this is better or worse or of use to you, but HERE is another small keyboard as used in a small C64 project a while back.

[XCVG]

Why bother with a horribly small keyboard that's too small to type on and adds a lot of thickness. A 'dock' with a keyboard and some extra ports (essentially netbook-ising the whole thing) would be way better.

And a touchscreen OSC is a lot better than a crappy little keyboard. Especially if you bring weight and size into the equation.

[jjhammerstein]

Why bother with a horribly small keyboard that's too small to type on and adds a lot of thickness. A 'dock' with a keyboard and some extra ports (essentially netbook-ising the whole thing) would be way better.

And a touchscreen OSC is a lot better than a crappy little keyboard. Especially if you bring weight and size into the equation.

I agree. The best keyboard for it's size is the iPhone, I think. I can touch type on it and everything.

[tom61]

I seem to remember clicking on a thread about the Pandora console... Granted, it's only slightly more real than this ION UMPC concept, but newer knowledge instead of Pandora fanboys arguing with themselves (or versus a newbie) would be great... With a fairly major forum down, a fair bit of facts is harder to get a hold of, even if you were to wade through the fanboy antics.

[bicostp]

Yes the keyboard is smaller than a netbook's, but it's better than the one on the OQO and on cell phones, and gives you a bigger target than wasting valuable screen real estate on an on-screen board. (I tried an on-screen-keyboard printout, and it was as bad as the one on a Windows Mobile PDA. Besides, the Everun has a keyboard and it's only a bit bigger.

So the Pandora's supposed to be the next big thing that puts Linux on the map and thwarts the evil corporations and makes gaming free and open once and for all, but in reality it's all smoke and mirrors and they don't even know if they'll be able to swing another 400 unit production run and the community based around it has fallen to pieces?

Long sentence is long.

Sorry for the thread hijackage. I'll split it if you want.

[palmertech]

they don't even know if they'll be able to swing another 4000 unit production run and the community based around it has fallen to pieces?

Fix'd.

Like I have said earlier, I am waiting till June or July. There are so many new ARM based gadgets coming out, and I think the Pandora is going to fall.

Also, I predict that the next PSP will have an SDK and an online store for homebrew game makers. You heard it here first, folks!

[jjhammerstein]

they don't even know if they'll be able to swing another 4000 unit production run and the community based around it has fallen to pieces?

Fix'd.

Like I have said earlier, I am waiting till June or July. There are so many new ARM based gadgets coming out, and I think the Pandora is going to fall.

Also, I predict that the next PSP will have an SDK and an online store for homebrew game makers. You heard it here first, folks!

Palmer's hunches are good, I would bet on this.

[bicostp]

Yeah, I don't see why Sony's being so uptight about development for the PSP. Look at all the money and effort they wasted in fruitlessly fighting the custom firmwares and homebrew. I mean, just look at Valve. They give the Source SDK away with practically all of their games and they seem to be doing just fine...

[palmertech]

]Check this out, I pulled some quotes from a recent interview with the president of Sony (Questions in bold.

Consumers today are a lot different from how they were 20 years ago. They aren't passive any more. The spread of the Internet has given them the power to dictate how products are used, and an increasing number of people are discovering new ways to have fun, such as by creating their own content.

In your keynote speech at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), you said that open technology is important today. Is that feeling based on the needs of customers?

That's right. Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like.

Sony hasn't taken open technology very seriously in the past.

If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc of the US.

If that does not point the way, I don't know what does.

[XCVG]

The problem is that all the portable stuff is still not x86. Intel wanted to hit the mobile market with the Atom, but it's simply too big, too hot, and consumes too much power. One of the CPU manufacturers really needs to actually try. VIA is probably the closest, they've got a CPU and chipset into one chip. But it's still too high-power.

[bicostp]

Well, one of the Z500-series Atom CPUs (single core, of course) combined with their US15W chipset gets you a <5w TDP, but Intel's graphics leave a lot to be desired. (US15W = GMA 500.)

Apparently Nvidia bought VIA. It would be interesting to see what they could do with x86 processors, since VIA realized years ago they couldn't compete on the high-end, they started making low-power CPUs. And now that they have a viable company on their side, they could develop smaller CPUs. (I think they're stuck at 65nm.) Plus their Nano CPU is 64 bit and supports out-of-order execution, 2 features the Atom lacks.

[tom61]

Sorry for the thread hijackage. I'll split it if you want.

That'd be good to do, I think.

Edit: Splitage has occured.