More news from the official Pandora blog!

Here we go:

Hiya folks!

It’s been a bit calm around here in the blog, right?

Well, that’s for one good reason: Everything is going smoothly right now.

The first check of the case data is finished, the company started creating the moulds. As soon as the first rough mould is finished (which will surely take a while, the case is a pretty complicated mesh), they are gonna do a first rough case and check that everything fits (with a final board, so that nothing can go wrong here!)

In the meantime, the PCBs are still in production. It will take them a few days longer, as they optimized the machines a bit more in the beginning. This does mean, that the boards will probably ship 10 days later (beginning of August). But it does also mean, that the build quality will be better and the failure rate is way lower. No time lost, as the case company won’t need the board before August. And if the failure rate is lower in the beginning, mass production itself will be faster. So when the cases are ready, we can go full speed ahead!

So everything is going pretty well at the moment. Seems like Murphy is on holidays – which is something, we’re really glad of 🙂

Of course, we used the waiting time for other stuff.
The first prototype of the TV Out cable is working, we are now designing that thing and optimizing it (i.e. put IN and OUT on the connectors, decide for the colors, etc.)

Another thing we’re working at is CE / FCC. You might have seen the discussion on the gp32x.com boards. One guy said, that you need a final PROTOTYPE for FCC. The company I did ask said, the final UNIT is needed. I’m going to find out, if a prototype is enough – as that would mean, we can do FCC and CE at the same time and do have all the needed certificates when the Pandora is ready for shipping!

That should speed up everything 🙂

Michael also did some quick checks already, the Pandora doesn’t do any bad things, radiation seems to be within the allowed areas. It’s just a rough test, but if there was something really wrong, we could certainly find it out that way.

The only really critical part for radiation might be the WiFi antenna. But that is something that can be fixed within a few days, so we’re positive CE / FCC will go smoothly.

That’s it for todays posting. I’ll make sure to keep you informed!

http://www.openpandora.org/blog.php

FCE Ultra GX is a modified port of FCE Ultra v0.98.12. With it you can play NES games on your Wii/GameCube. The GUI is powered by libwiigui.

Features:

* Wiimote, Nunchuk, Classic, and Gamecube controller support
* iNES, FDS, VS, UNIF, and NSF ROM support
* 1-4 Player Support
* Zapper support
* Auto Load/Save Game States and RAM
* Custom controller configurations
* SD, USB, DVD (requires DVDx), SMB, GC Memory Card, Zip, and 7z support
* Custom controller configurations
* 16:9 widescreen support
* Original/filtered/unfiltered video modes
* Turbo Mode – up to 2x the normal speed
* Zoom option to zoom in/out
* NES Compatibility Based on v0.98.12
* Open Source!

Changes:

Core upgraded to FCEUX 2.1.0a – improved game compatibility
State issues fixed – old state files are now invalid!
Cheat support (.CHT files)
IPS/UPS/PPF automatic patching support
Fixed “No game saves found.” message when there are actually saves.
Fixed shift key on keyboard
Text scrolling works again
Change default prompt window selection to “Cancel” button

Free and legal NES roms to try with this emulator can be downloaded from here: http://www.pdroms.de/files/nes/

News source: http://www.wiibrew.org

http://code.google.com/p/fceugc/

FCE Ultra GX is a modified port of FCE Ultra v0.98.12. With it you can play NES games on your Wii/GameCube. The GUI is powered by libwiigui.

Features:

* Wiimote, Nunchuk, Classic, and Gamecube controller support
* iNES, FDS, VS, UNIF, and NSF ROM support
* 1-4 Player Support
* Zapper support
* Auto Load/Save Game States and RAM
* Custom controller configurations
* SD, USB, DVD (requires DVDx), SMB, GC Memory Card, Zip, and 7z support
* Custom controller configurations
* 16:9 widescreen support
* Original/filtered/unfiltered video modes
* Turbo Mode – up to 2x the normal speed
* Zoom option to zoom in/out
* NES Compatibility Based on v0.98.12
* Open Source!

Changes:

Core upgraded to FCEUX 2.1.0a – improved game compatibility
State issues fixed – old state files are now invalid!
Cheat support (.CHT files)
IPS/UPS/PPF automatic patching support
Fixed “No game saves found.” message when there are actually saves.
Fixed shift key on keyboard
Text scrolling works again
Change default prompt window selection to “Cancel” button

Free and legal NES roms to try with this emulator can be downloaded from here: http://www.pdroms.de/files/nes/

News source: http://www.wiibrew.org

http://code.google.com/p/fceugc/

Dop-IOS lets you download and install any IOS from Nintendo servers. You can also apply the trucha bug to them.

Features:

Download any IOS from Nintendo servers
Select between oldest version or newest version of any IOS
You can apply the signature hash check (trucha) again
You can also apply ES_Identify function patch to IOS36 (useful for AnyTitle Deleter and >3.4 users)
Protection: you cannot install stubs. You could get a brick if you install an stub IOS that your System Menu uses. If you want them, just update through Wii menu or disc.
Stores files on SD: you can reuse all your downloaded IOS with Dop-IOS or another application.
Shows your IOS versions

Changes:

Fixed ‘IOS62’ bug.
Added IOS56 (WiiSpeak channel users only).
Added short descriptions to IOS selection.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Dop-IOS

Dop-IOS lets you download and install any IOS from Nintendo servers. You can also apply the trucha bug to them.

Features:

Download any IOS from Nintendo servers
Select between oldest version or newest version of any IOS
You can apply the signature hash check (trucha) again
You can also apply ES_Identify function patch to IOS36 (useful for AnyTitle Deleter and >3.4 users)
Protection: you cannot install stubs. You could get a brick if you install an stub IOS that your System Menu uses. If you want them, just update through Wii menu or disc.
Stores files on SD: you can reuse all your downloaded IOS with Dop-IOS or another application.
Shows your IOS versions

Changes:

Added support for IOS57.
Cleaner code.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Dop-IOS

Want to create Mii’s directly on your NDS? Here is your chance!

Thanks to http://www.nintendomax.com for the news.

http://www.playeradvance.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33257

Got a stuck pixel on your NDS? This application might help!

Thanks to http://www.nintendomax.com/phpBB2/posting.php?mode=reply&t=10361 for the news.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=2148241691#post2148241691

Giana’s Return ( http://www.gianas-return.de ) also runs on Pandora now, thanks to Pickle.

There is no release yet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHpKHId4NTw

Space Destroyers is a space shoot-em-up with a twist. As your score increases, you level up as in a typical RPG. You are currently able to choose between increasing ship speed, increasing bullet speed, or increasing number of bullets fired.

http://forum.palib.info/index.php?topic=7591.0

Visual Boy Advance GX is a Game Boy Advance / Game Boy emulator for Wii and GameCube based on VBA-M.

Changes:

* Fixed “No game saves found.” message when there are actually saves.
* Fixed shift key on keyboard
* Text scrolling works again
* Change default prompt window selection to “Cancel” button

More than 500 legal ROM’s for try out can be obtained from here: //files/gameboyadvance/

News source: Tantric via MSN

http://code.google.com/p/vba-wii/