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SNES Portable

Posted by Hemos on from the makin'-it-pretty-small dept.

Tha_Zanthrax writes "This guy is really good: the same dude that built a portable PSX a while ago and has also made some really old Atari 2600 portable has did it again. This time he 'compressed' a Super Nintendo System. The comicbook-like intro is nice to."

53 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. I�m waiting til someone builds a compressed... by uncl_bob · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..gameboy.

  2. Dot come failure pros and cons by fobbman · · Score: 2

    One of the good things about the dot come failures is that there are now many more geeks out there with enough spare time to come up with these cool ideas. One of the downsides is it also gives them the time to come up with odd presentations of their cool ideas.

  3. Downloadable ROMS? by sketerpot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An ability that would be really nice is being able to store ROMS on a memory stick or something. That way you could download obscure games and play them on this thing. It works great for computers with SNES9X and ZSNES; why can't it work for this?

    1. Re:Downloadable ROMS? by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2, Informative

      Orginally the devices that were used for copying games were also used to play the copied images on the system.

      One of the most popular of these devices for the SNES was the Mutli Game Doctor. Try a search for it.

    2. Re:Downloadable ROMS? by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Blah smack me, you'll want to search for Multi Game Doctor.

      Even if you do preview you still have to read. :P

    3. Re:Downloadable ROMS? by gosand · · Score: 2
      I know there are flash-disks, and flashing utilities, for GB and GBA. A friend of mine had about 50 games for the GBA before he even got his GBA. It is sweeeet. I think you can put something like 15 games on the GB card, and 3 or 4 on the GBA card.

      He got these from someone who imports them from Hong Kong. ROMs via the net.

      --

      My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  4. Portable XT by wackybrit · · Score: 4, Funny

    I just thought of what he could make next..

    A portable 286.

    Think about it.. you could run all the old favourites. Windows 286. GEM. DOS 2!

    --
    mogorific carpentry experiments
    1. Re:Portable XT by pi+radians · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or a portable Apple ][.

      Hey, I have an old Mac Plus sitting around in my basement. I should convert that to a portable system and play Police Quest on my way to work (no, I won't be driving too)

      Seriously, I would be interested in making a portable Dreamcast though. Now that the price has dropped it may be a fun and not-too-expensive project.

      --

      sin(6cos(r)+5A)
    2. Re:Portable XT by Captain+Pedantic · · Score: 2

      Or.

      Step 1.

      Source an Atari Portfolio from ebay

      Step 2.

      Marvel at ancient PC applications running very slowly on your PDA...

      --

      None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
    3. Re:Portable XT by interiot · · Score: 2

      They got 'em already... they even compressed the keypad and added an antenna for ya already. Check it out here. DOS is being discontinued soon though.

    4. Re:Portable XT by Sj0 · · Score: 2

      I always thought that an ultra portable 386 could be a great machine. tons of apps, emulation for a few decent systems, and I'm sure with current tech we could get it into a wallet sized package. :)

      Why not? I'd love a portable nes, gameboy, sega, c64, trs-80, COCO(3), and whatever else I could get my hands on in one little package.

      --
      It's been a long time.
  5. Re:Meh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm sure he'll be devistated when he hears of your lack of interest...

  6. Yay! Secret of Mana in the Car! by eAndroid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Really, isn't the Gameboy Advance as powerful as a Super Nintendo? I'm happy to see some great SNES games coming to Gameboy Advance, like Breath of Fire and Mario Cart.

    But the continued akwardness between Nintendo and Square will probably keep classics like Final Fantasy II & III and Secret of Mana from the Gameboy Advance. What a pitty!

    Maybe this project is just the thing to take these great games on the road.

    --

    I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
    1. Re:Yay! Secret of Mana in the Car! by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually the GBA is more powerful than the SNES. And it seems that most of the worth while (and some of the less than worth while) games are being re-released for it.

      Of course hacks for hacks sake are just cool.

      (Now if the GBA could just be hooked up to a TV, stereo and had a better controller.)

    2. Re:Yay! Secret of Mana in the Car! by Flounder · · Score: 2
      (Now if the GBA could just be hooked up to a TV, stereo and had a better controller.)

      VisualBoy Advance or Boycott Advance, a PSX to USB controller adapter (or any USB gamepad), and Morpheus to download ROMS. I don't even play my GBA anymore, as I can actually see Castlevania now.

      --

      No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova

    3. Re:Yay! Secret of Mana in the Car! by yerricde · · Score: 5, Informative

      The GBA is actually more powerful than a SNES

      Twice the CPU, twice the RAM, twice the graphics, and no more sound I/O lag.

      it has pretty much the same gfx capability

      Exactly twice as powerful. On Super NES, you could get three layers of 16 colors per tile or one Mode 7 layer of 256 colors per tile, and each line could hold only 256 pixels of sprites. On GBA, you can get four layers of tiles, two layers of tiles + one layer of Mode 7, or two layers of Mode 7. Each GBA scanline can hold more sprite pixels, allowing developers to fake more background layers. GBA sprites can also be 256-color and/or scaled.

      worse sound

      True, in a way. Super NES sound was 16-bit, with instruments compressed 4 to 1. GBA sound is 8-bit with uncompressed instruments. However, how many times will you be connecting the GBA to a rack system as opposed to a pair of simple headphones? Also, the GBA's ARM7TDMI CPU can see all the sound registers; the "loading" you saw on most Super NES games wasn't a problem with cartridge media but rather with the brain-damaged bus between the main CPU and the sound CPU. This was especially evident on Lord of the Rings, where turning off background music made map changes twice as fast.

      it's not just a SNES in a tiny form factor, one has to recode

      The Super NES was an enhanced NES, which used a single memory-mapped port for data writes to video RAM. The GBA is a new architecture based on memory-mapped everything, somewhat similar to the old Game Boy.

      Recoding shouldn't be a problem; the GBA's ARM7TDMI processor has a decent GCC build available, and this makes coding much easier than it was for the 65c816 and SPC700 processors inside the Super NES, which could only use assembly language because they each had only three semi-general-purpose registers.

      However, you'll never see Square games on GBA. Nintendo hates Square and Square hates Nintendo after how each treated the other in the Super Mario RPG project and the early days of the Final Fantasy VII project. On the other hand, what I've played of Golden Sun doesn't suck at all, and you already have the old Dragon Warrior games on GBC.

      I would pay big bucks for a port of Zero Wing to GBA.

      --
      Will I retire or break 10K?
    4. Re:Yay! Secret of Mana in the Car! by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 2

      GBA sprites can also be 256-color

      For the record, so can SNES sprites, though they weren't used all that often because of memory reasons (video memory moreso than system memory).

      --an old SNES game programmer

    5. Re:Yay! Secret of Mana in the Car! by JimPooley · · Score: 2

      I would pay big bucks for a port of Zero Wing to GBA.

      So long as it still had the badly translated introduction, right?

      --

      "Information wants to be paid"
  7. Wisconsin... by yunfat · · Score: 5, Funny

    After reading this article there is no way in hell I will ever move to Wisconsin. Clearly, there is nothing to do there.

    --
    "Smokey, this isn't Nam, there are rules." -Walter
  8. This guy kicks ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not only is he a sick designer/engineer, but a funny bastard as well.

    My favorite line:

    Like Timmy T, I had to give it one more try

    What an amazing obscure reference. Anyone remeber that old joint from about 10 years ago?

    One more try,
    Let me show how much
    I love you.
    One more try,
    Let me put my arms
    Around you.
    Livin all these lonely nights
    Without you.
    Oh baby, can we give it
    One more try?

    1. Re:This guy kicks ass by MikeFM · · Score: 2

      I loved the look of this case too. Very stylish. If one of these projects to make a Linux based console wanted to hire somebody with some experience and a groovy sense of style this guy would be the guy. I only wish he could mass produce these and sell them.

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
  9. Schematics? by atyr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The comic styling of this guy is quite hilarious, but the lighting on that isnt done very well. Is there anywhere with a parts listing and instructions on how to do this. I wouldnt mind doing something like this. It would free up room for newer consoles on my wishlist ;D and im sure more than just I wishes to attempt this obviously dangerous feat of heroism. Now im off to find a somewhat dusty Atari to prevent any further alarming !

    --
    every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people every year trying to find it.
  10. Ugh, jesus, thanks for that... by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 2

    I'd gone for about 8 years without hearing or thinking of that highschool-mixer, slow-dance ass-grab song. That and anything by C&C Music Factory, or Another Bad Creation, or Martika.

    Blasts from the past they ain't.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  11. Re:um.. by Quasar1999 · · Score: 2

    um...didn't Nintendo already do this? I think it's called Gameboy Advance

    Ya, right... sure... Unlike the Gameboy advance, this unit has a display that is actually visible in a room without a 3000 watt light, and your hands don't cramp up trying to play it for more than 5 minutes. Oh, and a good software library to boot.

    --

    ---
    Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
  12. Re:neat, but... by thesolo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would someone want this? I guess if SNES is more addictive for you than heroin, maybe this'd be up your alley.

    I don't know about you, but even though I own some newer systems, the ones I play the most are NES, Atari, and SNES. Who cares if they aren't current, they are FUN.

    Also, the games on SNES are a hell of a lot more entertaining than the games on Cellphones. If I wanted to play "Snake", I would load up QBasic on my 486.

    The fact of the matter is that many gamers love playing older games. New games can be fun, but I often find myself longing for the days of 2D, side-scrollers. Myself and those like me would love to have portable NES & SNES systems.

    Besides, a system like this is GREAT for buying old games at Flea Markets, etc. You can test to make sure the games work right then & there! That's enough right there to justify having one of these.

  13. Next: Portable System Utility Belt by fireboy1919 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If he's going to have all of these systems, he needs some kind of a belt that he can use to carry all of his portable systems on. That, and portable controllers, batarangs, and webshooters.

    I think we should call him "PVGSman" (portable video game systems).

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  14. how many times? by Suppafly · · Score: 4, Funny

    How many times are we as a community going to /. this guys site. I bet he dreads putting up new articles, because within a week of him doing so /. finds out and sends a million hits his way making his bandwidth bills go through the roof.

  15. I seem to remember... by skroz · · Score: 2, Troll

    ...a commercially produced portable PlayStation. In fact, a buddy of mine bought one. So what's special about this?

    --
    -- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
    1. Re:I seem to remember... by DeMorganLaw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, what is special is that this guy built it himself. Not with the help of a team of engineers and a fabrication plant. But in his garage with the full sized console and components that could be found at radio shack. What fun is buying a portable unit when you could build one yourself. That man is true to the origional hack philosophy, reverse engineering something for the sake of fun and knowledge.

    2. Re:I seem to remember... by LMCBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I know of a guy who built his own helicopter in his garage. Thing's got a VW engine and a big rubber belt to drive the tail rotor. He actually flies around in the thing.

      Gotta tell you, when I heard about that, my first reaction was not "So what? You've been able to buy helicopters for decades now!"

      --
      Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
    3. Re:I seem to remember... by Omerna · · Score: 4, Funny

      When I read that my first reaction was:

      Don't you mean he FLEW around in the thing? Until he stopped in a firey ball of death?

      That's crazy than that Rocket Guy! At least he can parachute down if he doesn't die in the explostion, a helicopter would give you just enough time to think, "Oh shit, I knew I should have used a stronger rubber belt to-"

      --


      No sig for you.
    4. Re:I seem to remember... by LMCBoy · · Score: 2

      yeah, apparently he inspects that belt veeeery carefully before each flight. heh.

      --
      Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
    5. Re:I seem to remember... by RESPAWN · · Score: 2

      That's crazy than that Rocket Guy! At least he can parachute down if he doesn't die in the explostion, a helicopter would give you just enough time to think, "Oh shit, I knew I should have used a stronger rubber belt to-"


      Actually, with commercial helicopters (and I'm assuming that his home built helicopter's design won't vary that much from commercial designs), the helicopters are built with an auto-rotation design. I.E. if the engine ever stops, the helicopter blades will just automatically rotate to give a slow decent to the ground below. If the belt ever gives out, all the guy needs to do is shut down the engine and just wait it out as the helicopter decends on it's own. You'll probably get a little dizzy as the body of the helicopter will most likely want to counter-rotate and you won't have any direction control (then again you wouldn't have any direction control without the belt, either), but at least you won't come hurtling down, gaining speed at a rate of 9.8m/(s*s), eventually crashing and burning in the horrible flaming wreckage.


      On a slightly related note, a friend of my dad's built his own airplane, powered by a small block Chevy V-8. There's no instrumentation and only very rudimentary controls, but it's as safe as any other airplane, and I'm sure he enjoys it a lot more knowing that he built it himself. He painted it John Deere green and calls it his John Deere airplane. :-)

      --

      If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

    6. Re:I seem to remember... by DarkZero · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The "commercially produced portable PlayStation" is the PSOne, and it's sort of awkward. It's basically a console with an optional screen attached. You still need to hook up the controllers externally, it needs a constant power connection to run, etc. It's only barely portable, whereas his PlayStation Portable is a complete unit that fits in your hand and can run either on batteries or a wall connection.

    7. Re:I seem to remember... by RESPAWN · · Score: 2

      Hmm... I apologize. It appears that my understanding of autorotation was somewhat inaccurate. In effect, you take that sharp dive in order to achieve the autorotative effects. Previously, when I read about helicopter control mechanics, it was worded such that it seemed that the autorotation process was automatic. Here's a link about autorotation:


      http://www.helicoptersonly.com/Helicopter_Traini ng /Autorotation/autorotation.html

      --

      If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

  16. Re:neat, but... by LMCBoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe you missed it, maybe you're trolling. The guy isn't hawking a product here, he's showing off something cool and interesting that he did. So, yes, no one would want one of these; that's not the point. The point is, as you say, that it's neat.

    I for one think it's really cool, and the comic-book style presentation was hilarious.

    Thanks portable video game guy!

    --
    Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
  17. GBA is not binary compatible with Super NES by yerricde · · Score: 2, Insightful

    um...didn't Nintendo already do this? I think it's called Gameboy Advance

    GBA isn't binary compatible with Super NES. Thus, even though you have ports of many Super NES games, you don't have ports of anything by Square (FF, Mana, Chrono) because Square and nintendo no longer talk to each other after SMRPG and FF7.

    However, this curse becomes a blessing once you get GCC for ARM and a $50 "MBV2" PC link cable: you can easily write your own code for GBA.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  18. Re:C&C Music Factory by jermz · · Score: 2, Funny

    Arrrgh! My eyes! You bastard!

    Let the rhythm take control...
    Let the rhythm move you...
    *bump* *bump* *bumpbumpbump*

    --
    Hi-Technical Excellent Taste and Flavor!
  19. Emulators! by zmokhtar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It depends on what you mean by portable. If a laptop is "portable", then you can run SNES, old dos games, NES, gameboy, SEGA, PS2, etc. emulators on your laptop.

    If you mean a gameboy is portable, it's only a few more iterations until we get there. Right now, I run PocketNes and it works great! Genesis and Lynx emulators also exist. I haven't tried Lynx but the Genesis one is still too slow. If you are willing to run Linux on your iPaq, you can run SNES. As for people who want XT, there is even an 80186 emulator! That means you can run DOS on top of WinCE! They even have screenshots of Windows 3.0 running on a PocketPC.

    In short, I am amazed at my iPaq. These things are actually powerful enough to be classified as PC's. These 200Mhz handhelds are what sat on desktops in 1997. Check out Gateway's homepage as of 1/1/1997, they are selling P166's.

    --
    Why aren't we told when editors moderate our posts?
  20. Simply put.. by merauder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Besides the 'geek factor', this guy has once again done somthing ingenious. He obviously knows what he's doing, and even routes out his own cases, and they look professional, i think the latest SNESp (his word) is very well done.. I think a console company should hire this guy to help design the next portable..

    --

    ..and knowing is half the battle.

  21. Re:Man that was lame by Antipop · · Score: 2

    he didn't even show any action photos of what the games actually look like on that tiny screen

    I guess you didn't see the video of him playing it.

  22. Many pictures - now can we see the actual device? by Nailer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Okay, the comic book intro and story was worth a laugh, but jesus christ, can't he actually show us what the damn final product looks like? I was anticipating at least one high res frontal non clipped shot of what he actually built. Now I read through the article to know what the back of it looks like, what the battery looks like, and what the internals looks like, but I still haven't seen the actual finished product.

  23. You gotta read this guy's... by The_Pey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...alt tags.

    I swear the comic is funny enough, but get read the alt tags for a bigger laugh... Montezuma's Revenge... Hehe

    --
    Hmmm...
  24. GameBoy Advance ZX-Spectrum Emulator by strags · · Score: 2

    If any of you here are British, (or just inordinately fond of the ZX-Spectrum, or Timex-Sinclair whatever-it-was-released-as-in-the-USA), you may be interested in looking at http://foon.pocketheaven.com.

    You need a GBA flash cart (available from a number of vendors), and a GameBoy advance. Hey presto - portable Speccy!

  25. Game Doctor by The_dev0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have one of these for my SNES. It is awesome, i have probably about 200 games for it. you just dump the cartridge onto 1 or 2 floppy disks and thats it! Im currently mucking around trying to get rid of the floppy and instead use a HDD but that project died in the arse when I saw the Doctor V64. Hmmmm... N64 cartridge backups? tasty!!

    --
    Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
  26. Re:Many pictures - now can we see the actual devic by nEoN+nOoDlE · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, you could actually follow the links until you come till the end where it leads to home. Right there on the front page is a high res image of the front of the system with a link to an even HIGHER res image... but I guess that's too much effort for you so just click here.

    --
    Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
  27. Re:Meh. by SilentChris · · Score: 2
    Too bad a major gaming company -- oh, I don't know, let's say Nintendo -- hasn't come up with a portable 32-bit system capable of easily handling SNES-style graphics and gameplay, along with ultra-small battery consumption.

    Wait a minute...

  28. Re:um.. by DarkZero · · Score: 2

    Sports games? How about FIGHTING games? In the first Street Fighter II game for the GBA, you have to change the button arrangement in the options when you switch between characters to get the most special moves out of each character, and in the second one, they just plain cut out two of the buttons. :(

    A controller with four main buttons and two or more secondary buttons isn't absolutely necessary for a solid gaming system, but it's certainly necessary for ports from a system that had six main buttons.

  29. Re:Where does this guy get his screen from by DarkZero · · Score: 2

    He uses Active Matrix screens from 2.5" RCA portable TVs, which run about $150 each. Basically, he just takes the thing out of the case, replaces the tube with LEDs, and then pops the thing in his custom portable case and hooks the composite connection on the console to the composite connection on the screen. Surprisingly simple, but still sort of pricy.

  30. PDP-11? by davidhan · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...or whatever Spacewar originally ran on.

  31. Ben and His Projects by hyyx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was going to post a story on Ben Heckendorn's SNES portable, but I decided to wait until he is finished with something far more interesting.

    The Gamecube is already a very much portable unit, considering it's external and internal size, carrying handle, and detachable screen. This is Ben's next un/confirmed project over at his site. I found his comment on this in the forums. While the portable aspect of the Gamecube is nifty, Ben focuses on making consoles into handheld units (so yes it is portable already, but not handheld). The SNES is interesting, but I'm waiting to see how this turns out.

  32. Not only the badly translated intro by yerricde · · Score: 2

    So long as it still had the badly translated introduction, right?

    Not only the badly translated introduction, but the entire Flash movie along with it. That would be very doable on GBA; heck, I've done it on an NES cartridge (but couldn't fit anything else on the cartridge).

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  33. /. AWARDS NOMINEE by squaretorus · · Score: 2

    This guy deserves some sort of award for entertaining us!

    /. Awards! Categories will be obvious - I nominate this guy for

    'cool but wierd' 2001