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Nice introduction, thanks.
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As you heard we'll talk about this little machine.
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It's about the size of a Nintendo DS, and there are a few peculiarities about it.
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First of all, there isn't a major corporation behind it.
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This isnt' a device by Sony, Nintendo, Samsung
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or some other large company.
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The idea was born back in 2007
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between a few people in an internet community
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who were saying:
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'so PSP and homebrew are nice,
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but it's annoying how all the time
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Sony keeps closing loopholes
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and then people hack it again, just so that
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we can run our own things on the device.'
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And this led to the idea, 'Hey ...'
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just a crazy idea at first: 'Let's try to build our own handheld.'
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To figure out whether there was any way to do this.
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And I'm one of those five people,
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and this took a while because
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there were many, many difficulties on the way.
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If anyone wants to make this sort of hardware
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they will at some point learn that it's not that easy.
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But we did make it this far.
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Now here we basically have
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a complete pocket-sized miniature PC.
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The great thing is, it's not just a PC,
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not just a tiny netbook,
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but we have game controls on here.
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The reason is simply that all of us have
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always been obstinate games, so ...
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it was really a design specification,
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we need excellent gaming controls.
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A lot of people have held this thing and said
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this D-Pad is among the best on the market.
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Apart from that we have analogue controls,
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we have a touchscreen in there
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and we have the usual shoulder and face buttons.
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In other words, this is a cross
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between a netbook and a game console:
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I can do word processing on this,
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I can surf the internet, I can have it play music,
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but I can just as easily use it for gaming.
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Another important feature is that it's open, that is,
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you won't need to jailbreak or unlock anything.
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You simply get on the internet,
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download games or emulators for free from hobbyist developers,
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throw them on this box, and off you go.
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How it works, and what you can do with it,
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we'll show you live on the big screen in a minute.
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But first a few basics:
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Like I said, we have a keyboard,
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gaming controls, high-res touchscreen,
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then in the back we have ...
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Don't be surprised that the colours on this don't match.
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This is a prototype which has differently-coloured case parts on purpose
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so I can easily tell it from the normal pandoras.
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So we have the power connector,
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USB, TV-out and a normal USB connection.
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It's really like a little PC:
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I can plug in an USB thumbdrive,
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I can plug in a harddisk, I can connect
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a DVB-T stick or a UMTS stick, and they'll work.
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And similarly, the operating system is pretty much like on a usual PC.
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I have my ordinary start menu,
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which I can navigate with the D-Pad,
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if I don't want to use the touchscreen all the time.
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I can move the mouse pointer with the analogue controls as well.
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For instance I can open my home directory,
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or check the SD card to see what's on there, so
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it really works much like any other PC.
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And if people are saying, 'Man, that's incredibly complicated!'
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It isn't really.
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We made the whole system behave in such a way that
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anyone who knows even a little about computers can use it.
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I get the games off the internet,
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download them, copy them to the SD card,
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I can even do this directly on the pandora,
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and then I can run the games right away.
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Of course there are quite a lot of games.
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A lot of them are linux ports,
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which means there's everything from tiny diversions
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up to relatively complicated and complex games.
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For instance, here we have ...
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Does anybody here know Battle for Wesnoth?
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That is one of the best strategy games
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available for linux, and it runs on the pandora
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perfectly well and in high resolution.
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That is, a small strategy game, pocket-sized,
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and completely free of charge too.
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The sound works, as you can here. Let's turn it down a bit.
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That's another important thing I forgot to mention earlier:
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We have a real volume control.
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Not like with many new handhelds
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where there's just a key combination or a couple of buttons for louder and softer,
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no, we have a nice volume wheel.
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Now here, if I start a campaign ...
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let's just go with the intro ...
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I have a classic strategy game right here on the big screen,
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or on the go on the device's own screen.
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Turn it down some more ...
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Loading can take a little while, like in the PC version.
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OK, let's skip the backstory.
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Right. ...
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Now as you can see
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everything runs well, scrolls smoothly
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as you'd expect from a turn-based game.
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And it's displayed in high resolution.
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Yeah, more backstory ...
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Right. Now here I can take control,
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navigate the map myself ...
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I can play my turn,
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move my units around as required
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and once I finish my turn, of course
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the computer opponent will do the same.
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So this is one type of complex game
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which you can run, and as you see,
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It does run well.
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Another thing this is really well-suited for,
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and one of the reasons we're all here,
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is retro games.
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And there's a lot of possibilities now, so
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one thing everybody knows, there is ... now where was it ...
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ScummVM ...
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Let me think where I keep my Scumm ...
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Exactly.
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Some may know this from their PC:
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There are ways and means now
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to revive the old Lucas Arts classics on modern hardware.
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Of course this is a case for the touchscreen.
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Most of you will have some vague memory of this one:
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Day of the Tentacle, a true PC classic.
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So these point and click adventures,
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I can carry with me and play them on the go.
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And they're well suited for a touchscreen, so
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I can have a look around, and use anything ...
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There's that too: PC classics, up to a Pentium 90 or so, will run on this.
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Or particularly these adventure-type games.
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Another thing you can do with this,
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and these are among the showcase projects:
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Let me just change the tv settings for this.
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PC emulation is one thing.
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But interestingly, this is also
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a portable playstation.
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You can use this thing
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to run playstagion games.
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Let me show you an example:
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Here's something you can also play on the tv at our stand.
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Here we have Spyro,
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a proper classic for the playstation,
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and as you can see, this thing runs
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at full speed, no problem there.
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Of course on the pandora's screen as well,
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it's running full speed.
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Particularly the fans of retro classics
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will really enjoy this machine.
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There are several other emulators as well,
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other classics of course.
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I expect everyone will recognise this one as well:
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Probably many of you, like me, grew up with him:
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Another classic, Sonic the Hedgehog.
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And of course there's no problem running this either.
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I just noticed, it's a little jerky here on the big TFT.
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Unfortunately these new TFT screens do this to old games,
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even if you plug in the original consoles.
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A lot of the times there's stuttering.
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But here on the small screen
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you see no stutter whatsoever.
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You can also test this over on the normal CRT television.
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So, yeah, that's just another thing.
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And then there's something which to me
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is like the holy Grail of emulation,
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so I'd quite like to show you.
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We have ...
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hold on a second, I'm launching the emulator ...
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There.
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This too has ...
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yes.
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This too has savestates.
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Again a lot of you will recognise this.
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If you've passed our stand, you'll have seen it somewhiere.
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This is the original Turrican 2.
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By which I mean, the genuine Amiga version,
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that is, I have a portable pocket-sized Amiga here.
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I have a portable C64, I have Super Nintendo, I have Playstation ...
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Here you see how smoothly it runs.
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... so here I have an Amiga emulator with no issues.
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Including sound.
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Let's load another game which
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again quite a few might know ...
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Speedball 2.
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Here again it's nice to be able
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to work with savestates.
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This saves me the long loading times
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which the Amiga used to have.
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Well, and here I have
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another classic, Speedball 2,
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fitting in my pocket.
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And this is really the essential characteristic thing about this handheld.
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I have a complete emulation station for my pocket,
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I can develop my own software if I want to,
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but I can also join up with the community
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and work on various things, and,
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well, I can browse the internet, I can write email,
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I can play the old classics and run new games.
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All that in this little box which will fit in a pocket.
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In additon I have two SD card slots,
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so I can put up to 256 gigabytes of memory in there.
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Now, if you're wondering how long the battery will last ...
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We have a few pandoras lying around over there for people to play with,
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and we don't change the batteries on these.
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They run from morning to evening on one charge.
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We get 12 hours of playing out of that battery.
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Now if we just close the pandora
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and leave it lying around somewhere, then the battery will run up to 150, 160 hours,
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that is, on standby.
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At home I just have this lying around,
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and when I need it, when I want to play something,
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I just open it and play,
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and I recharge it like every three days.
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But the battery is replaceable too, which means
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I can buy a spare battery and keep one charged,
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so I could play 24 hours on two battery charges.
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Which I hope nobody will try, because
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that sort of thing isn't really healthy.
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But say I'm on a plane somewhere,
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if I'm traveling somewhere,
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I can simply read a book, I can simply type some text,
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or I can simply read some comics, listen to music,
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play a game or two,
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all on one device.
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And it is completely open too. The really important thing is the philosophy:
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This device must remain open.
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You will never have the problem that
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one day a firmware update breaks something
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because we want to block that activity,
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but rather, the point of this device is:
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People can do with it whatever they want.
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There are different operating systems too.
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Our factory default is to put on a fairly quick Linux system.
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To demonstrate the 'quick' part of that,
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I'll show a little example.
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Now if I just launch a word processor
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and then maybe some document viewer on top of that,
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so I can load a PDF ... there.
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Here we have a small PDF document.
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I can move the windows around as usual, I can switch here,
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like on an ordinary PC,
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and as you see, this really works without issues.
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I can maximise and minimise windows,
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and it just works with no particular slowdowns.
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Now I can just decide
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to grab the keyboard
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and I can simply type away.
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As you can see, once you're used to the keyboard
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you can type very quickly with this thing.
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This is another advantage compared to smartphones:
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I do have a smartphone with a keyboard,
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but that's so small and fiddly
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there's no way to really write on that.
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But on the pandora, I can.
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I have here a proper all-in-one device,
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which is also very well supported by its community, that is,
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I go on the internet and I can chat with other users,
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and I can talk directly to the developers,
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which I don't think is possible with any other device on the market,
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and I can discuss suggestions, write my own software,
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and all that goes into the community in turn.
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Now many people might say 'All right, Linux ...
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there's not a huge number of games.'
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Well, there's another option,
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which I'll show you just briefly.
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Because we can also
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run a complete Android on this.
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So if you're thinking 'OK, Android has a few neat games,
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but gaming's just not the same without a D-Pad'
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then you can run your games on this.
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Let's see: Ooooh, I might need my other SD card for htis.
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Do I ... yes, I do.
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I'll just quickly switch cards.
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Right.
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Another nice feature: All the software and the games are stored on SD cards, as I mentioned.
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Now if I just remove my card and put it in another pandora,
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I'll have all my saves and all my software
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right there on the other pandora.
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So that's another nice thing:
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If you're running two or three of these at home, and everyone has their SD card ...
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there's no need to transfer the data from one device to the other by some detour,
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because it's really all right there on the card.
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Right. Now here we see ...
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I'm just quickly booting Android.
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That runs reasonably quickly on the Pandora as well,
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and it'll let us demonstrate what's possible e.g. in terms of 3D.
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Just takes a while to start.
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Now. This will look familiar to anyone who has a smartphone.
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We have no internet connection at the moment,
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which is why it can't update the weather information.
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So here I have your basic Android.
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As you can see it's quite responsive too.
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Now for a demo I'll use
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this little racing game I once bought for 2 Euros.
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And again here: Sound works.
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And the nice thing is, this game runs
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entirely using the gaming controls.
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So I don't have to fiddle with the screen,
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but I can play it while looking at the big TV.
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And here you also see what this thing can do 3D-wise.
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We have beautiful, high-resolution 3D graphics,
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which is also running smoothly with no problem.
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So it's really ...
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It's not so easy to explain the Pandora,
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because it's quite the grab bag of features,
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and it does practically everything.
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Now that I see your Angry Birds T-shirt over there:
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Angry Birds would of course run as well,
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because it does have a touchscreen.
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So there again I have quite a few options.
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For instance, a classic like World of Goo,
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another typical touchscreen game, which runs smoothly as well.
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The intro ...
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So if I go here and start a level,
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via 3d again,
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'Flying Machine'
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Again it's easy to see ...
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Well, on the device's own screen it's less jerky.
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Looks like once again the big screen can' t keep up.
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But ...
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Again you can see
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that the touchscreen works beautifully here.
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And, well, that's pretty much it for this level,
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if you know this level, because they're floating upwards now.
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But once again: Android games on the go,
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linux games on the go, emulators on the go,
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and everything is open, and whoever wants to can do something helpful within the community.
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Now. If anyone has any questions about this device, I'm available and happy to explain.
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Maybe some questions have come up.
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Otherwise, we have our stand over there
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with several Pandoras for you to try out.
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And our staff is threre, who will answer any questions about the device,
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and who will be happy to demonstrate things.
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The price, with the normal version, is 440 Euros.
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We basically have ... in two weeks we're offering another, slightly faster version.
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That will be 666 Euros,
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but that's mainly useful if you want to
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do PC emulation mainly.
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That'll run Win 95 with Starcraft, for instance.
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Or if I want to use this PC to have Firefox open with 20 tabs.
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But if all I want to do is play,
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like Playstation etc., all that will run on the ordinary version,
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entirely at full speed.
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And that really is, weeeelll...
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this device is special in the sense
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that there's a really small team behind it.
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I think it's really the first one that I know of
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which wasn't developed by a major company.
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By the way, we funded the whole thing through a community
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before Kickstarter was a thing.
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And if you're thinking, 'hey, didn't I hear
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about this device four years ago?'
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That's correct.
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We had major issues with our assembly company in Texas,
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they never managed to get the process right, and caused us a lot of wastage.
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Now we've moved production to Germany, and all of a sudden it's going well.
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We can now produce up to 250 units per week.
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So there's no shortage any more.
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You can now order this on the internet,
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and it'll be delivered right away.
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Any other questions?
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Or requests to show something?
