Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Consoles => Topic started by: Vicious on March 30, 2005, 01:59:37 pm

Title: BYO Portable
Post by: Vicious on March 30, 2005, 01:59:37 pm
Checking out [H] this morning and saw this (http://www.doomportables.org/completed.php).  My next project is definitely gonna be to build a handheld console.  Some of those are pretty bad, but to me that's incentive to make one that looks great.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: ChadTower on March 30, 2005, 02:34:10 pm
What, is this guy epileptic or something?  He can build a GC portable but can't work a freakin dremel?


(http://www.doomportables.org/images/gamelversgcp.jpg)
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Hoagie_one on March 30, 2005, 03:06:27 pm
he should of definately gone teh extra mile and had someone do a professional cut  for him
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: ChadTower on March 30, 2005, 03:17:37 pm
It's a terrible job all around... he could have made that thing out of wood at the very least.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: HaRuMaN on March 30, 2005, 03:21:45 pm
That is pretty heinous
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Vicious on March 30, 2005, 03:44:25 pm
I agree.  But, it's usually things that look bad that drives someone to say "Hey, I can do that and make it look a helluva lot better."  I'm already visualizing how I would do a portable GameCube.

No offense to the person who did this, but here's an example (http://www.geocities.com/jaracabinet/9_voila.html) of a 'cocktail table' that inspired me that I could definitely do something better.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Nannuu on March 30, 2005, 03:46:59 pm
Those things are burning my eyes!  Go to Ben's site to look at good console portables.  His book just came out too.

http://www.benheck.com/
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Shape D. on March 30, 2005, 03:55:00 pm
these are all poorly made and look like crap (http://www.doomportables.org/completed.php).
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: MrTroy on March 30, 2005, 04:11:23 pm
Yeah those examples are pretty beat. I guess cause they spent more time making it work than making it look right. Also that stuff looks really hard to hold. Has anyone done a portable multiple arcade machine.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: rohan on March 30, 2005, 04:18:39 pm
That's a good idea...Maybe just a bartop cab with a laptop would be cool...You could take it anywhere, but have maybe 3 hours battery life :-\
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Vicious on March 30, 2005, 06:04:32 pm
Those things are burning my eyes!  Go to Ben's site to look at good console portables.  His book just came out too.

http://www.benheck.com/


Thanks a million for that link, Nannuu.  I really want to do this so I just went to Amazon and ordered the book.  Hopefully I can build one that looks half as decent as his (but 10x better than those other ones.)


these are all poorly made and look like crap (http://www.doomportables.org/completed.php).

Hey!  I don't remember saying that (although I don't disagree, either.) ;)
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: pmc on March 30, 2005, 10:13:53 pm
Hopefully I can build one that looks half as decent as his (but

Man, the 18-pack of MGD that houses a computer is too cool. You should cram your portable into a pack of cigarettes or a box of trojans something. After checking out that site, my mind is buzzing with ideas on what could be done...  :P

I want to mod my waffle iron into a NES.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: slycrel on March 31, 2005, 01:27:17 pm
Heh, a waffle iron NES would rock.  =)

I saw that guy that nannuu linked to a couple years ago when he was first starting.  He was just finishing up the first NES handheld that he did.  He started with a number of 2600 handheld conversions.  I still have the pieces of a SNES to do the same thing around somewhere, back then I never could find a decent screen to hook it up to for cheap.

Anyhow, as far as a handheld arcade machine, look into getting an old windows CE handheld or soemthing similar -- I know that a lot of handhelds have MAME ported to them.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Shape D. on March 31, 2005, 02:48:35 pm
these are all poorly made and look like crap (http://www.doomportables.org/completed.php).

Hey!  I don't remember saying that (although I don't disagree, either.) ;)
I actually ment to take off the quotes i figured it would be easier to put in the url quoting you first but I screwed it up.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: oldsage on March 31, 2005, 05:16:10 pm
Anyhow, as far as a handheld arcade machine, look into getting an old windows CE handheld or soemthing similar -- I know that a lot of handhelds have MAME ported to them.

I honestly don't understand how come this hasn't been done before...
Project number 6: Handheld MAME!
I only need to finish five cabs and i'm there!!!  ;)
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: MrTroy on March 31, 2005, 06:24:42 pm
I've started researching something like this not that long ago. I think because of the obnoxious size of mini-itx motherboards(Still not small enough) I won't be able to make anything besides a clunky mess.(See above gamecube handheld and divide that by crap) Now portable just means "Take it anywhere" not necessarily "fit in your pocket" right?
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: slycrel on March 31, 2005, 06:29:30 pm

  Another option would be to use an older sharp zaurus.  From what I know, these run linux as their OS.  I have a friend who has one and he uses it for mp3s, games, movie trailers, email, the works.  Oh, and it has all the normal PDA stuff on it as well.  =)  They were ~$500 used a year or so ago when I looked last, which does put a damper on the idea.
Title: Re: BYO Portable
Post by: Nannuu on April 01, 2005, 11:27:44 am
You can make a handheld Mame by doing a handheld PS2 or Dreamcast and throwing a Mame disc in.  It would have to be a modded system of course but you're already hacking it up, you may as well put one more chip in there.  To me that sounds like the easy way to do a handheld Mame.