Dingoonity.org

Could you post A380 related stuff in the corresponding section please:
Other Portable Consoles -> Dingoo Technology A380

Link:
http://boards.dingoonity.org/dingoo-technology-a380/

"Official Firmware" = ?C/OS-II

The one used on A320s and DT-A330s.

Doesn't the A380 just use some old Dingux kernel with dmenu for it's native firmware? It would make more sense for this to go into the Dingux section of the board, then. But that isn't really appropriate either, which is why the A380 has it's own little section. And that's all it needs, since only like a dozen or so people were tricked into buying the inferior piece of crap.

It doesn't deserve the board it has. Hopefully people will research and see the superior models first, and will stop buying this POS, so we can get rid of the board and console altogether.

The A380 is not necessarily inferior.  It trumps the A320 in terms of hardware and power, all it's lacking is full Dingux.  The A320 did not have Dingux right when it was released AFAIK.  In fact, the native software was even WORSE than the A380's native software is now.  A lot of the emulators it comes with are just edited ports of Dingux emulators.  Hate on it all you like, but all it needs is a little love.  Sonic Shocker has made huge strides with the A380 and I have a feeling that because of his recent discoveries, we will soon have Dingux working on the A380, putting it way ahead of the A320.

Sonic Shocker has made huge strides with the A380 and I have a feeling that because of his recent discoveries, we will soon have Dingux working on the A380, putting it way ahead of the A320.

No offense, but Sonic Shocker did not find anything that could lead to a better support of the Dingux apps or which would help a new Dingux port on the A380.

You are correct that the A380 has better hardware. What it lacks is support from the entire homebrew scene. If you want to have OpenDingux running on the A380 you'll have to send an A380 to one of the OD developers. Plus, the manufacturer does not understand (nor abide by) the licensing terms of the software they included on the device. Therefore not many developers are motivated to work on it. Porting requires supporting a new architecture and creating a new LCD controller driver. It's not as easy as just recompiling the current Dingux version.

The A380 may have a better hardware, but we have yet to reach the limits of the A320... OpenDingux (and the legacy Dingux too) isn't still fully optimized, there are several areas which could bring a nice speed boost on games or emulators when correctly optimized.

And don't say things like that Neither me or mth are motivated to work on a OpenDingux build for the A380...

The native firmware for the A320 is great, as are its emulators. They're not ports of Dingux emulators, as they were created before Dingux even existed. They are most likely ports of open source emulators from various sources.

The A380 does have better hardware, but hardware is nothing without the software that drives it. The software for the A380 is in a poor state atm and will most likely never see improvement. It's also a little expensive, given that the A330 has similar hardware and features and costs a little less - and is slowly being worked on regarding software.

I was actually talking about the A380's native emulators being Dingux ports.  I should have made that more clear. 

There are people like me and Sonic Shocker, however, that have A380's and want to improve the software.  From what I've been told and have read, the native emulators for the A320 were terrible.  That's why Dingux was created, to have the option of better emulators, etc.

I'm pretty new to the Dingoo community so if I'm wrong with anything correct me. 

[...]

And don't say things like that Neither me or mth are motivated to work on a OpenDingux build for the A380...

That's what I tried to convey.

Indeed. You guys got gypped. Get an A320. No one is ever going to do any work for the gAy380. And not necessarily because the hardware is bad or anything. It's just DT has flat out lied to and conned us all one too many times.

We don't resort here to personal attacks. It's logical that you want to protect your investment and it's possible that you can actually enjoy the product.  There is just no incentive to support a company that does not understand the target market. The company (Dingoo Tech) that produces the A380 was even confused that we didn't like them using Dingux with stolen emulators. Dingoo Tech had to resort to using Dingux because they were unable to license/steal the source code of ?C/OS-II after splitting from the original Dingoo Digital company.

So ATM there is lack of support for the A380 but we can still use the A320's emulator's..
And because there is a lack of developement we are doing our own mods.
(So why you care?)

No offense, but I really doubt you or anyone else currently in the possession of an A380 is capable of updating the firmware and emulators. Without proper backing of any of the active developers you are not going to see any bugfixes or new programs on the device. Remember, simply recompiling a program for the target platform does not result in a properly ported program.

No offense, but I really doubt you or anyone else currently in the possession of an A380 is capable of updating the firmware and emulators. Without proper backing of any of the active developers you are not going to see any bugfixes or new programs on the device. Remember, simply recompiling a program for the target platform does not result in a properly ported program.

You're entirely right in saying that there's not many people. if anyone, with a Dingoo A380 with any real firmware experience.  However, we are at least trying to improve the device.  And so far, I'd say, for a couple guys who's experience may be laughable to legitimate devs, we've done a fair amount so far.  Now, what we've found out in days probably would have taken devs 10 minutes to figure out, but we still found these things out.  Sonic Shocker has even made an unbricker for the A380, which seems to be a big deal to me.  Now I, along with any others who want to, can explore the firmware of the A380 and experiment with it without being afraid of breaking it for good.

I am a beginning programmer with a VERY basic understanding of programming terms and concepts.  But I am using the Dingoo A380 as a learning ground.  I will learn far more about the A380, how it works, etc. and about programming in general. 

So I don't really see why anyone is wasting their time telling us how bad the A380 is and how we should get an A320.  We already have A380's.  Getting A320's at this point would just be even more money out of our wallets. 

When we ask for questions that you devs may see as silly or wow-this-kid-knows-nothing-and-shouldn't-even-be-trying types of questions, such as how to cross compile into .dge format, instead of immediately going onto a "A380 sucks why'd you buy it" speech, perhaps just help and answer the question as best you can.  (Not trying to say that anyone has or will.  Just a preemptive request)

Right now, everyone sees that there is loads of room for improvement on the Dingoo A380.  Sonic and I (if there are any others, I do not know of them) are just trying to fill it as best we can. 

Guys i dont know why some of you are getting so wound up...

Yes the A380 should have had potential, it has faster CPU, more Ram, some extra features, everything should have been going for it.

But it was not, not at first due to lack of support, bugs and what not.

I dont think people on here are saying dont get a A380 because its poor, i think its a case of for the solid base of homebrew comunity the A320 has and good development for it, people see little point in getting a A380 over the A320.

Pretty Much like with the Wiz and Caanoo people dont see the point in getting the Caanoo, it has extra Ram, and a G-Sensor but then the Wiz had a good base of support already and there simply was not enough reason to go for a Caanoo over a Wiz. (i went for Caanoo because i got one cheap and had fear over screen rot).

I have not tried a A380 so cant really say how good they are, i will get one for the right price but for the prices now i dont see the point, and if i did not have a A320 i would consider getting a 2nd hand A320 first.

The A320 Emus are not bad, the Snes was not bad, just PocketSNES is a big improvement, the Sega MD is fine apart from sound problems mainly with speach etc.... Pitty no one ported Pico Drive for Native or indeed updated Pico Drive for Dingux.

Those who do have a A380 but no A320 should keep a eye out for 2nd Hand A320s as they are cheap and worth paying out $40-50 to have a mess about and then compare them.