Today I Retire My Wiz


b1ueskycomp1ex

Open Sauce Fanatic & AMD Fanboy
Joined
May 19, 2009
Messages
721
Website
https
After a hard life, many adventures, many triumphs, many losses... I say goodbye to my GP2X Wiz handheld console. My wiz answered Many important questions.


My Wiz has gotten me through at least 30 Different emulated games from start to finish. I've been able to use most of the software on the Wiz archive, see it work, and be amazed at the strength of it's community. With one final activation of TV-Out displaying Jacksterson's very old, very experimental black and red Wiz menu theme, I was able to say goodbye to a loyal companion that saw me through a lot of boring idle time in my life. It's put up with sustained abuse, being dropped, disassembled, reassembled, experimented with and hacked. The year wouldn't have been the same without it.

R.I.P GP2X Wiz - 8/20/2010

.

In addition to my very sad final video, I present to you what it was doing before it was torn apart for science for the final time, an example of the very nice TV-Out capabilities no one seems to want to use or support (Even though making a cable is fairly easy).

sspx1347.jpg

And as it's final act of providing interesting information for the community, it's finally revealed the reason why a rectangle of pixels seems to go bad on every device with a faulty or broken screen:

sspx1375.jpg


It seems to be a pad of some sort, not sure why it's there. In the other photos you can see that there's some sort of machine-readable barcode type thing and some backwards letters/numbers. Don't ask me what any of it is. Anyway, that's the reason for the shape of the pixels that die.

And for more pictures of it's autopsy, go over Here, where you can see (or you really can't, actually...) the extremely thin, barely-noticeable crack on the ACTUAL OLED SCREEN (rather than the touchscreen, which is what broke.)

The screen is actually comprised of a plasticy overlay and glass screen (for the touchscreen) Followed by the glass of the actual OLED screen, which is only maybe a micron thicker than a credit card. Only a very tiny, thin crack caused the screen to fail, but it's behind both the plastic sort of touchscreen cover, and some more glass. It is well protected, so you don't have to worry about small drops or things like that.

I do plan to stay active on the boards, and I hope to be able to afford a pandora soon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's a shame to hear about the loss of your Wiz. At least it offered some progress in its scientific pursuits with the autopsy.

Still, you're going for a Pandora once you have the money, eh? Out of curiosity (I don't intend to put any pressure, but there's simply no neutral-sounding way to ask this), why are you opting for a Pandora instead of a Caanoo?

Really, I'm probably a stupid newbie for asking that, but I don't recall hearing any opinion about the Caanoo in any of the past posts I've seen from you so I thought I'd give it a shot. :p
 
Sorry to hear about your loss :( . Sad indeed.
I'm going to agree with Lily's mention of the Caanoo. I think your best bet would be to grab a Caanoo. My Wiz, like my left arm, goes with me everywhere but if something happened to it, I'd pick a Caanoo up that day! I'd already have one but my WiZ is perfect at the moment and I'm really giving the community a chance to port more stuff over to the Caanoo as its offerings are modest at the moment.
 
Interesting post, I wonder what the pad on the back of the screen is for...
Lily Surette said:
Still, you're going for a Pandora once you have the money, eh? Out of curiosity (I don't intend to put any pressure, but there's simply no neutral-sounding way to ask this), why are you opting for a Pandora instead of a Caanoo?
Is there a reason to choose a Caanoo over a Pandora? (apart from price ofcourse :) )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ndbsolar said:
Interesting post, I wonder what the pad on the back of the screen is for...
Lily Surette said:
Still, you're going for a Pandora once you have the money, eh? Out of curiosity (I don't intend to put any pressure, but there's simply no neutral-sounding way to ask this), why are you opting for a Pandora instead of a Caanoo?
Is there a reason to choose a Caanoo over a Pandora? (apart from price ofcourse :) )

Availability might be one
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Amon_Re said:
ndbsolar said:
Interesting post, I wonder what the pad on the back of the screen is for...
Lily Surette said:
Still, you're going for a Pandora once you have the money, eh? Out of curiosity (I don't intend to put any pressure, but there's simply no neutral-sounding way to ask this), why are you opting for a Pandora instead of a Caanoo?
Is there a reason to choose a Caanoo over a Pandora? (apart from price ofcourse :) )

Availability might be one
Fair enough, but the OP says he needs to save money, so that means he doesn't need one right now :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ndbsolar said:
Amon_Re said:
ndbsolar said:
Is there a reason to choose a Caanoo over a Pandora? (apart from price ofcourse :) )

Availability might be one
Fair enough, but the OP says he needs to save money, so that means he doesn't need one right now :)

Availability is the reason why i don't have a pandora, i'm not into pre-ordering things (ex Amiga user here, seen a lot of things fail early on :( ), if ED starts stocking pandora's i'll order one ;) (same for the caanoo probably)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Amon_Re said:
ndbsolar said:
Amon_Re said:
ndbsolar said:
Is there a reason to choose a Caanoo over a Pandora? (apart from price ofcourse :) )

Availability might be one
Fair enough, but the OP says he needs to save money, so that means he doesn't need one right now :)

Availability is the reason why i don't have a pandora, i'm not into pre-ordering things (ex Amiga user here, seen a lot of things fail early on :( ), if ED starts stocking pandora's i'll order one ;) (same for the caanoo probably)
My personal opinion is that for a few years demand for the Pandora will outstrip supply. I think without a preorder you will be stuck with your Caanoo and its newer revision.
Not a bad thing ofcourse :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry to hear about your loss. I also dropped my first wiz. It didn't seem to fall far, just 30cm or so, but the screen cracked and broke. Don't leave the community yet :) Stick around ;)
 
ndbsolar said:
My personal opinion is that for a few years demand for the Pandora will outstrip supply. I think without a preorder you will be stuck with your Caanoo and its newer revision.
Not a bad thing ofcourse :)

It's not exactly a good thing though is it?

I think b1ueskycomp1ex should buy a Caanoo. My Wiz hasn't been touched since I got it. I never loved the Wiz screen anyway, it was too grainy, so in my eyes the Caanoo outstrips the Wiz in every way. You could argue about the Analog stick all day, but the Caanoo is getting a nearly full speed PSX emulator soon, and I'd rather have an analog stick than a Dpad for that any day.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A very strange opinion you have Nova. You do realise that 90% of Playstation games only use the d-pad right?
Have you ever played a d-pad only game with an analog stick? It's horrible...
 
ndbsolar said:
A very strange opinion you have Nova. You do realise that 90% of Playstation games only use the d-pad right?
Have you ever played a d-pad only game with an analog stick? It's horrible...

With all respect, you are wrong. How do I know? Because I've been playing Dpad only games on it for weeks, and its anything but horrible, as pretty much every review of the console has said.

As for the Dpad only psx games, maybe for the first year, but after that, the dualshock cane out which most games supported. Far from your 90% figure then. The analog on Caanoo will offer a much more faithful reproduction of the controls, including the ability to detect the pressure on the stick.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Finally, the answer to the strange rectangle of death.

It gave it's life to further scientific knowledge.

A minutes silence seems in order.
 
ndbsolar said:
My personal opinion is that for a few years demand for the Pandora will outstrip supply. I think without a preorder you will be stuck with your Caanoo and its newer revision.
Not a bad thing ofcourse :)

I can live with that, and if demand stays that high for Pandora it can only be good for the guys behind it ;)
Just ordered me a caanoo, noticed they're in stock ^^
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Nova said:
ndbsolar said:
A very strange opinion you have Nova. You do realise that 90% of Playstation games only use the d-pad right?
Have you ever played a d-pad only game with an analog stick? It's horrible...

With all respect, you are wrong. How do I know? Because I've been playing Dpad only games on it for weeks, and its anything but horrible, as pretty much every review of the console has said.

As for the Dpad only psx games, maybe for the first year, but after that, the dualshock cane out which most games supported. Far from your 90% figure then. The analog on Caanoo will offer a much more faithful reproduction of the controls, including the ability to detect the pressure on the stick.
I'm pretty sure it took longer than a year before the duelshock controllers came out. And even then, you only have one analog stick on the Caanoo. Most Playstation games used two. I'm happy, but slightly confused as to why you enjoy playing a game with only half the controls, but like I said, you have a very strange opinion...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Amon_Re said:
Just ordered me a caanoo, noticed they're in stock ^^

Welcome to the club :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Lily Surette said:
Out of curiosity (I don't intend to put any pressure, but there's simply no neutral-sounding way to ask this), why are you opting for a Pandora instead of a Caanoo?

Really, I'm probably a stupid newbie for asking that, but I don't recall hearing any opinion about the Caanoo in any of the past posts I've seen from you so I thought I'd give it a shot. :p

Well I like the caanoo. It's got everything it should have. From the reviews, it seems like everything works, it seems like there's no tearing or freaky screen rotation issues. Also, it looks like the screen is made out of parts that we've seen before, and it looks like it might be able to end up running GP2X and WIZ games, making it more or less the best handheld you can get. It looks really great, I think their tag line should be something like, "Let's see what the caanoo caandoo!", because that's just absolutely awful. GPH has a history of very lame marketing, and if it weren't for the open handheld scene I honestly don't think they'd have any customers outside of korea. (Seriously, do they have korean customers at all?)

But I digress.

The real reasons I want the pandora over the caanoo are very simple - It's a pocket computer.

I think a pocket computer was just one of those things that I wanted to have when I was a kid that just wasn't available at all. Sure, I had a gameboy - but could I dial up to AOL on it? Not quite. It's just the concept of taking a tiny device out of my pocket and having a full Linux desktop with Instant messaging applications, browsers, music players, and multitasking. The fact that it has a touchscreen is a plus. And with a few different things - Like TV-OUT and the ability to plug in USB devices and hubs, the pandora can literally transform into a miniature computer with a full keyboard and mouse anywhere you go.

The USB port really does make it almost infinitely expandable as far as peripherals go. I mean, gameboy printer? How about LASER printer? How about attaching a webcam? A mouse and keyboard? A joypad? How about plugging in a USB harddrive, and having something like 500GB - 1TB of game, application, video, and music data? The only real limits the pandora has are it's processing speed and memory. Aside from that, it'll continue to expand and people will find more and more uses for it. Nintendo 64 is even showing very promising signs of life on the device - Which is very exciting.

TL;DR version:

Caanoo - Nice gaming controls, has accelerometers, has an LCD screen, has USB Host, (IMO) Looks similar to a gamegear, good reviews, strong background, and considerably cheaper (I think about 200 dollars cheaper.)

Pandora - MORE gaming controls, keyboard, 800x480 resolution, TV-OUT that seems like it's actually getting support, USB host that's almost garanteed to have more support just in the fact that the entire OS and firmware is built by the same people that would use additional USB hardware, and the kernel can be recompiled and the entire device can be constantly optimized for faster boot speeds, etc.

TL;DR - Seriously, I'm not reading all that, what are you saying?


Pandora - Mini computer, bigger resolution

Caanoo - Gaming handheld, lower resolution


Also, I've been following the pandora since before I got the wiz, and back when the GP2X F100 was still around and I was considering one of those. I may have only been on these forums a year, but trust me - I was lurking.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Okay, firstly, that is truly awesome. Nice work on making your Wiz into an organ donor of sorts. :D

Secondly, that's perfectly understandable logic. The Pandora does have a lot of features the Caanoo doesn't. xD I just thought that, given all the parts you had fabbed, I would've expected migration to the Caanoo to keep making use of them (and the programs you've got already, after the necessary recompiling) instead. But no biggie, It all makes sense.

Jeez, I feel bad for making such a lightweight post compared to your explanation. :p

Edit: DIE EMOTES
 
Back
Top