MAME handheld possible?

[mohrt]

I remember as a young kid in the 80's looking at these in magazines and wanting them more than anything:




Of course I was too young to realize that they were not anything like the arcade version, but just cheap little LED knockoffs. But today, we could make this a reality!

So, has anyone tried this yet? Off the top of my head, the parts that would be most critical:

* Small motherboard (Flex-ATX?)
* A small LCD screen (VGA input, or?)
* A quality set of miniature joysticks and push buttons
* make it battery operated?

Does anyone know good places to aquire these parts? I suppose you could gut a laptop, but the screen may still be a bit large for this project.

TIA
mohrt

[Jakobud]

I'm working a sort of handheld system.  But not really truely portable since it will require you to plug it into the wall for power.

1. For a mobo, what you want is a VIA mini-ITX (www.mini-itx.com)
2. LCD using TVOut from the mobo
3. Small joysticks and buttons...uhh maybe try to salvage the ones in that picture
4. Battery operated?  This is difficult.  The best thing you could do here is hook it upto a camcorder Li-Ion battery.  The guy who would know how to do it is this guy: http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/

But running a mobo and other computer parts simply off a li-ion battery would be tough.  A lot of power requirements there.

[mohrt]

I'm working a sort of handheld system.  But not really truely portable since it will require you to plug it into the wall for power.

1. For a mobo, what you want is a VIA mini-ITX (www.mini-itx.com)
2. LCD using TVOut from the mobo
3. Small joysticks and buttons...uhh maybe try to salvage the ones in that picture
4. Battery operated?  This is difficult.  The best thing you could do here is hook it upto a camcorder Li-Ion battery.  The guy who would know how to do it is this guy: http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/

But running a mobo and other computer parts simply off a li-ion battery would be tough.  A lot of power requirements there.

That's a nice motherboard! It's probably overkill for a MAME box, but you probably won't find a lesser motherboard this small. This is a UK site though, so $33.00 just for the shipping to me. Is there any US based places that sell these?

Also the LCD, I have no idea where to pick up one of these. Probably an LCD the same size as the ones in the pocket PC's would work well. Then there is the issue of hooking it to the motherboard, and getting the screen to fill correctly. I have no experience with this, so no idea what to expect

mohrt

[RacerX]

I'm working a sort of handheld system.  But not really truely portable since it will require you to plug it into the wall for power.

...clipped...

4. Battery operated?  This is difficult.  The best thing you could do here is hook it upto a camcorder Li-Ion battery.  The guy who would know how to do it is this guy: http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/

But running a mobo and other computer parts simply off a li-ion battery would be tough.  A lot of power requirements there.

I don't know.  That guy did a portable Playstation that runs off of a battery.  If he could do that...  

Isn't there a version of MAME for the Compaq PocketPC?  I thought I read that somewhere...  That would be the thing to use if there is.

[android]

You could also try using an older WinCE or PocketPC as the guts of your handheld. Mame has been ported to those devices and the screen is the smallest you will find anywhere, making your handheld a true portable system.

[mohrt]

You could also try using an older WinCE or PocketPC as the guts of your handheld. Mame has been ported to those devices and the screen is the smallest you will find anywhere, making your handheld a true portable system.

Yeah, you'd basically be fitting a PocketPC with arcade controls My concern would be performance, how is it on these handhelds? I tried ZMAME on a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 and it was just way too slow to actually play anything.

mohrt

[mhoward211]

I too was looking for one of those MB's and seems like I found a couple on Ebay or maybe Newegg.com.  Another idea would to be to put one in an old Mac SE machine.  You know the all in one Macs that were made in the 80's.  I think it has a 9" screen.  So maybe it wouldn't exactly be handheld but a good tabletop system?

[Jakobud]

Guys, that mini-itx site I refered you to is just a project site for people to show what they have done with the mini-itx boards.  You can find a couple sites on Pricewatch.com but a good bet is www.outpost.com.  This is Fry's Electronics online site.  They have the EPIA m9000 mini-itx board on there for about $160.  I am going to order one soon.

I don't think they are overkill for a Mame cabinet at all.  They feature a C3 processor running at about 933-1000MHz which is pretty perfect for most games, but of course this will not run a handfull of the games.  Anyways, they are perfect for Mame cabinets.  SVideo out, DDR Memory support, USB, Firewire....I've had my eye on them for a while now.  The new M9000 model just came out in mid December.

[eightbit]

I have the origanel model compaq Ipaq Pocket PC device. It plays a lot of the mame roms quite well. I purchased a thumbpad controller for it thats snaps on like the mini thumb typer keyboards.
That resolved the problems with the Ipaq only being able to push one button at a time. This thing is portable with sound and the battery goes a couple hours. I'd like to give it a try on one of the newer faster ipaqs and see how much better it can be.

[MinerAl]

Also the LCD, I have no idea where to pick up one of these. Probably an LCD the same size as the ones in the pocket PC's would work well. Then there is the issue of hooking it to the motherboard, and getting the screen to fill correctly. I have no experience with this, so no idea what to expect

mohrt

Perhaps one of the 4" or 5" LCD TVs from this site...
http://www.overclockershideout.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=o&Category_Code=DE
Not my site, etc.  

Seems like $119 for a 4" LCD TV might be about right.   Seems similar to the little PSone clip on screens though which go for less, but have the plastic casing.

I like this idea... I might rip into my old Zaxxon table top, but probably not.

[mohrt]

Also the LCD, I have no idea where to pick up one of these. Probably an LCD the same size as the ones in the pocket PC's would work well. Then there is the issue of hooking it to the motherboard, and getting the screen to fill correctly. I have no experience with this, so no idea what to expect

mohrt

Perhaps one of the 4" or 5" LCD TVs from this site...
http://www.overclockershideout.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=o&Category_Code=DE
Not my site, etc.  

Seems like $119 for a 4" LCD TV might be about right.   Seems similar to the little PSone clip on screens though which go for less, but have the plastic casing.

I like this idea... I might rip into my old Zaxxon table top, but probably not.

It looks like there are a few 5" LCDs left on amazon.com for 84.99 (for game cube?)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/offering/list/-/B00005RJJV/all/ref=dp_pb_a/002-2322623-5740866

[SirPoonga]

I have the snoopy and pacman tabletops.

Anyway, there is a version of mame for windows CE.  So gettinga  CE devise would be a solution.

[eightbit]

I have a 5" LCD for my xbox and it works great for in the car. I've also seen xbox and ps/2 controllers with a 2.5" screen attached to them. Then you'd just need to miniatureize the console to make it portable.

[mohrt]

This site seems to have some good deals on LCDs.

http://www.eio.com/

[LockeN]

That's a nice motherboard! It's probably overkill for a MAME box, but you probably won't find a lesser motherboard this small. This is a UK site though, so $33.00 just for the shipping to me. Is there any US based places that sell these?

I was shopping for the EPIA M9000 the other day and found a few US-based retailers.  The one I've bookmarked as having the best price at the time ($158, IIRC--though I didn't look at what they charge for shipping) was:

http://www.idot.com

If you go to VIA's website and look up the mobo they have a link for "where to buy" with a list of retailers around the world.

[mohrt]

KRI Computers has it for $145.

http://servercase.com/cgi-bin/miva.cgi?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=VIA+EPIA+M9000

So, now where do we find the smallest power supplies?

mohrt

[Frostillicus]

Here's an idea - no idea if it's been thought of yet - but is there a version of MAME that could be run on a gameboy advance?  I saw this thing on game-gizmo:
http://www.gamegizmo.com/products.php?sysID=5&pID=701 so I know you can run stuff on smartmedia in a GBA.
Plus they are coming out with a new GBA-SP(thinner, flip-type GBA): http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/categories/products/product.asp?pf_id=520112 maybe that could be a source for a color screen/controls/case, etc...

[mohrt]

KRI Computers has it for $145.

http://servercase.com/cgi-bin/miva.cgi?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=VIA+EPIA+M9000

So, now where do we find the smallest power supplies?

mohrt

Another note here, This KRI place also has an 800mzh board for 1/3 the price ($105.00 US), it just doesn't support floppy (who cares?) and they also have some nice cases w/ power supply for these mini ATX mobos ($58 US w/ 150w ps)

http://servercase.com/cgi-bin/miva.cgi?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=GA610i&Category_Code=Mini-ITX

Get the extras (shown) and you have a complete system, sans memory and HD.

[mohrt]

Hmm, something to keep your eye on, a new PC that is almost PocketPC sized.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/103340_vulcan09.shtml

[M6A4TS]

This looks like a cool idea!