I just ran across a site mentioning this device: 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(console)' . It is a handheld game console, with a relatively strong 32-bit ARM processor @ 600Mhz and 128 MB RAM.
It will be running linux, so many already existing applications could be ported to it. I think Crafty has been compiled for the ARM architecture in the past, although there is no such option in the makefile of the latest version. Does someone know how much effort it would take for a programmer to compile his program for the ARM processor? Very little, I hope. How fast would it run on this hardware?
Not much certainty about this Pandora, but I would be very tempted if it could run a couple of modern chess engines together with scid.
Edit: No way I can make the url link work, Pls copy and paste the link.
Chess on a Pandora
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plattyaj
Re: Chess on a Pandora
Try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_%28console%29
Sorry I can't answer your question!
Andy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_%28console%29
Sorry I can't answer your question!
Andy.
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shiv
- Posts: 351
- Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:03 am
Re: Chess on a Pandora
I have a sharp linux pda running ARM with scid, toga, and crafty all working. It was not hard at all, however see last paragraph. There is a GCC option for the ARM architecture. If the code is in ANSI C, then I do not see any particular difficulty in a port (just change the compiler options in GCC).
The speed/performance gauging is tricky. ARM is not an out of order processor. In the past, I recall that a 400 Mhz arm processor is equivalent to a PII 233 Mhz.
The page does indicate that debain packages will be supported. That is a good sign.
In my case, I had to install an X11 environment as the PDA by default only had a QPE (QT based environment). As scid does not work with QT, I had to install X11 libraries, which took about half a day to get right. In the end, I settled for installing debian on an SD card, after which installing scid etc was easy.
From the pandora webpage, it appears that X11 is already installed and supported.
The speed/performance gauging is tricky. ARM is not an out of order processor. In the past, I recall that a 400 Mhz arm processor is equivalent to a PII 233 Mhz.
The page does indicate that debain packages will be supported. That is a good sign.
In my case, I had to install an X11 environment as the PDA by default only had a QPE (QT based environment). As scid does not work with QT, I had to install X11 libraries, which took about half a day to get right. In the end, I settled for installing debian on an SD card, after which installing scid etc was easy.
From the pandora webpage, it appears that X11 is already installed and supported.
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glorfindel
Re: Chess on a Pandora
Thank you for the detailed answer.
The wikipedia article on the Pandora might be a bit inaccurate though (now that I have read some more things about it). The device is not yet in the market, plans have not been finalized, and it is not certain it will be able to run Debian armel packages
The wikipedia article on the Pandora might be a bit inaccurate though (now that I have read some more things about it). The device is not yet in the market, plans have not been finalized, and it is not certain it will be able to run Debian armel packages