How to Read Pandora's Box Sd Card
Concluding twelvemonth – and even in 2016 – , there was a fair amount of new retro gaming news, with products such a Nintendo SNES Classic Edition or GameShell Portable Retro console, as well equally customs supported firmware such as RetrOrangePi 4.0. GearBest asked me if I wanted to review something a trivial different: Pandora's Box 5S (aka Pandora's Key 5S) arcade game console with 999 games most (all?) designed for two players.
This looked fun, and I was particularly interesting in checking out the hardware blueprint, and hacking potential, e.one thousand. if in that location could be a way to replace the board or firmware with your ain. And so in the review, I'll focus mostly on the teardown, before shortly testing out the system and a few games.
Pandora'due south Box 5S Unboxing
The device comes ins a large package (~70 10 24 x 16cm), so I'g surprised customs did not inquire any questions, and it merely went through without any problems.
Once we open the package, we can run across a bunch cables and accessories.
Those includes a bilingual (English/Chinese) user manual, 12V/3A ability supply and power cord, VGA cable, HDMI cable, USB cable, as well equally ii spare gaming buttons (is that a bad or skillful sign?).
Once we've removed all those from the package, we can take out of arcade game console itself with two sets of joystick, play/pause, player, and A/B/C/D/E/F buttons.
The rear panel comes with an ON/OFF switch, the power jack, HDMI and VGA video output, an audio jack, a volume rocker, a CFG button, and two USB ports.
Pandora's Box 5S Teardown
Opening the device is very piece of cake: Loosen the three screws on the front of the device…
.. and open it up like a auto'due south engine cover. I used a chopstick to go on it open.
There's plenty of space inside the case, with the mainboard in the middle, and RGB LED strip, fan, and speaker on the sides, and fairly neat cabling.
The right side is used to other player 2 buttons and joystick, and is fitted with the single speaker for the arrangement…
… while the left side comes with player 1'south inputs, and a fan.
The chief lath – Xiyangyangs2_V55dRX – is powered past Allwinner A13 Arm Cortex A8 processor combined with 256MB (2 Gbit) SKhynix H5TQ2G63GFR DDR3. Other chips include three HC245 3-state octal bus transceivers, some STMicro 78422 IC…
… an STMicro STM32F103C8T6 Arm Cortex M3 MCU probable used to handle I/Os from the volume rocker, buttons, and joysticks, a Lattice SII9022-ACNU HDMI 1.4a transmitter with 24-bit RGB input, and two more HC245 chips.
Where's the storage chip? At that place's none, and instead we'll find an 8GB micro SD carte with the firmware under the QC stickers. This should allow to mess effectually with the firmware, and potentially use it for other applications. If we accept a quick await into the content, nosotros tin run into the system calls /usr/init at kick fourth dimension:
| #!/bin/sh export PATH = / bin : / sbin : / usr / bin : / usr / sbin : / usr / local / bin : / usr / consign LD_LIBRARY_PATH = / lib : / usr / lib : / usr / local / lib consign QWS_DISPLAY = LinuxFb : / dev / fb0 export QTDIR = / root / real210 / qt3 slumber one while true do / usr / emu / emulotar done |
and so a program called "emulotar" in /usr/emu.
Nosotros'll find some audio and photo files in that directory, but those are not used by the games. Instead you'll find game data in /usr/sd/ with game information (roms) stored in zip files, and some avi videos stored in movies folder. Both demand to be accessed as root.
If you'd like to use the enclosure and buttons, and replace the board with something more than powerful, you may desire to check Grant Likely's open source arcade control panel that appears to be using very similar buttons and joysticks, but with a custom wooden enclosure, likewise every bit DragonBoard 820c board combined with STM32F3-Discovery board. ARMDevices.cyberspace has a video about his console that was showcased at Linaro Connect.
Pandora's Box 5S Mini Review
Time to put everything back together and first playing. Then I connected the device to the HDMI port of my Tv set, and the latter reported "Mode Not Supported". Oh well, switching to VGA worked. Audio is going through the internal speaker, and then I tried to connected my USB powered speakers to the USB port and iii.5mm audio jack of the console, and no sound from those external speakers, only from the internal speaker. Never heed, I could nevertheless play a few games as yous'll observe out in the video beneath.
The fan is not exactly quiet, but you lot may not really mind with the game audio, and racket fabricated past kids or friends may embrace it up… I become through the total list of the games at the end of video. I institute at to the lowest degree ii games I used to play when I was a younger self: Mortal Kombat and Bomberman.
This should be a lots of fun for kids and adults akin. Merely keep in mind that not all HDMI TV may back up the game, and so make sure you accept a monitor or TV with VGA input every bit a backup. I was as well unable to utilize anything else than the internal speaker for audio. I tried it on my other LG Television, and HDMI worked with sound, only the picture is not centered, and the left side is cropped out.
I'd like to thank GearBest for sending Pandora Box 5S for review, and if interested, you can purchase it for $124.99 shipped. There are other Pandora'south Box 5S or Pandora's Key 5S hardware around, but it's often unlike hardware, some kind of DIY expansion, or a similar model as the one reviewed above but for a single player.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, earlier quitting his job equally a software engineering science manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Source: https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/01/22/pandoras-box-5s-arcade-game-console-teardown-and-mini-review/
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