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Hand-Powered Hardware?
quiddity writes "Following the Goofy USB Devices post, one has to know what can be self-powered when the batteries all die. You can handcrank your Gameboy, recharge your cellphone or pda (even grandpa), wind up a webserver (with minions, a beowulf..), see in the dark, and project a movie. What else can we propel through the next blackout/apocalypse?" Some of these devices have have been on Slashdot before; what cool hand-powered tech hasn't been and should be?
So that's what they're calling it these days...........
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Not an academic question -- we lost power for 5 days last December and again for 4 days last January.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Say a Mini-ITX low power, embedded OS on flash with a broswer & email. Modem and Ether net. TV output for my battery powered TV.
Bicycles are the ultimate off road vehicle, and work just fine with no gasoline.
:: Awaiting bevy of masturbation jokes ::
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/24/1628214.shtm ls htm l
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/06/18/1953203.
Yeah, I use Beowulf to power my server.
...
Every day, I toss in the pallets of discarded Beowulf pallets from geeks who though it told you how to build a redundant array of inexpensive computers (RAIC).
...what the fuck is a "Minnesota wristwatch"? Could someone take just 30 seconds to tell me what it is?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I remember reading about a device developed specifically to assist third-world countries with their crop planting and communications via a radio that is hand-cranked and provides a large amount of listening time per crank.
:).
Apparently these countries suffer from a lack of information about weather patterns, which would greatly assist with the crop planting, and which is provided by the hand-cranked radio
An example of geeky inventing that actually has practial application, rare on slashdot
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/24/1628214.shtm l m l
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/06/18/1953203.sht
Even if we have some cool hand-powered hardware, how are we going to use it properly?
Maybe a power-generating keyboard and mouse, so the faster you type and move your mouse, the longer your hand-powered PC will stay on.
Freeplay are a company that specialise in wind-up electronic toys including a mobile phone charger.
I have this radio, designed by Freeplay that has a wind-up charger and solar panel. Works on FM, MW, SW and LW with a 30 station memory. Its not bad, works well and with good sound quality. It also doesn't look dorky like some of their earlier models.
Anybody know where to get a good windup flashlight, probably a white led one?
If you need a web server in the middle of nowhere, there's always the uCdynamo!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
A hand-cranked pocket vagina.
ask over at www.macslash.org
What else can we propel through the next blackout/apocalypse? I'm going old school and cranking up the old 8 tracks with some Barry White and my wife fsck all that other stuff. I'm contributing to the kids... segment lub dem kids
MoFscker
Of course, one might posit that it already IS.
You are not the customer.
i saw a washing machine in Popular Science that you power my doing a few cranks before starting it.
well, it isn't strictly hardware until it's been "hand-powered".
Sell energy back to your local utility!
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
This is nice and all but I would much rather see a device (like your cellphone, pda, or gameboy) take advantage of the piezoelectric effect so the batteries charge when you use the device.
The Cell Phone hand crank article wasn't too clear, but can you only wind for 6 minutes of call time at once? The way i see it, if 30 seconds of cranking gets you 6 minutes of call time, then why don't I just crank for 5 minutes and get a whole hour? The article, however, kind of implies that you gotta crank it everytime you want to make a short call. Which would suck.
I recently broke my cell phone charger (cheap POS from sony ericcson seperated, leaving the plug in the phone and the leads not). I'm too cheap to replace it, and the car charger is too inconvenient (I don't drive much). Something like this would be terribly convenient, except replacing my real charger would probably be cheaper.
From the depths of someone's truly twisted imagination. What would be more relaxing than a hand charged version of the Hello Kitty Vibrator?
Whew! This water sure is cold!
A well-trained human body can produce around 100 W of motion effect for a couple of hours. (bicycle style)
...without display.
So don't even think p4 ok?
maybe an via mini-itx or something
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
I think it would be really cool if someone would invent a two wheeled electric scooter, with a seat, and add pedals, so you could charge the battery. That way, instead of constantly going home to recharge, you could just hop on, turn the pedals, and ride it all day...
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
For a physics assignment last year a friend and I created a hand-cranked generator using an old windshield wiper motor. It worked pretty well: we were able to power a boom box, a Game Boy Advance, a small water pump, a large light, and a few other items.
We were thinking of selling it on the street during the blackout last summer, but decided that its nostalgic value would end up outweighing any monetary compensation we would gain.
---
Hello, Slashdot user. My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
Idaho tire-iron
Jersey buffet
Alabama trophy-wife
Arkansas dowry
Kalamazoo hooter
Seattle prayer
Mackinac Island Fudge
Tucson mudbath
Colorado avalanche
Cincinanati Skyline
You get the picture. nudge nidge wink wink
2-and how many of these gizmos would be killed by a nuclear EMP anyway?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Has anyone ever made a tomato-powered web server (or potato, or any other vegetable)? I think I heard about such a thing once, but a google survey turned up nothing.
Try Thinkgeek.
WTF!?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I predict the owner will be getting a LOT of excercise right now.
...sun glasses could be real useful during the next blackout. Damn things are always running out of batteries just when you need them.
How about pedal-powered aircraft as the ultimate human-powered tech-toy?
One problem is the low power budget for human-powered systems. The average fit adult can only crank out about 75 W. (No specs on the power output of the average computer user). Even a athletic cyclist only puts out about 200W.
A cyclist should be able to power a laptop, but running much more than that would be difficult.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
ahhhh MY EYES MY EYES!!
would it be worth it? Ladies, answer me!
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
Lighted tissue dispenser.
I wonder what kind of portable hardware could you keep powered up just by using reasonable size solar cells. Like a laptop with its LCD backside/cover covered with them, so you direct it towards the sun (the cover casts shadow on the screen for better contrast, and even partially transparent for free backlight) and it runs, charging standard battery... Of course it won't be a P4 or such, but with current technology, how hard would it be to create extremely-low-power 486 clone with flash instead of HDD, no fan, low-speed cdrom...
Say what you want, Linux runs nicely on 486 with plenty of RAM.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
How many slashdot editors does it take to handcrank the slashdot servers?
Why hand power it when you can get mice to do it for you
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
My sex life.
Hate me!
This site sells stuff that can be powered from your telephone line. Clock radios, calculators, vibrators, police scanners, wet dry brooms,etc.
weird...
Telco powered electronics
when playing Gameboys and other such devices, isn't it possible just to harness all the extra energy expended beyond that which is required to tell the device, "Yes, move up, and then left, and then..."? Don't mod this up to funny: I'm serious. Think of all the energy that is wasted by just heating the plastic, when it could go into powering the device in the first place.
[ home ]
One to hold the crank. Three to turn the server. And one to misspell something.
Oh, I really wanna see that. Can you imagine how much he'll have to crank his ass off when he gets slashdotted? On the other hand, we could build a great weight-loss / fitness regimen into something like this. You can KEEP your Herbalife.
...does no one know?!??!!??!?!
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Is it like the Louisville lewinsky?
Well uh.. To some extent this is what modern cpus are doing, but in general, most of the power doesn't really go to the cpu in something like a gameboy (advance or not) Things like sound, display etc take up a fair share. Oh, and eh, the warming up of the device, well, this is an unwanted side effect, count on it that if it could be reduced in a feasable way, they'd do so.
ref: James Burke's CONNECTIONS
I like microcars
I saw one somewhere .. for cheap .. cant remember what where though.
Just a bicycle dynamo has a wire to your cell phone which fits in a holder.
If you can figure out a way to convert such a paltry amount of heat into useable electricity, tell me, and we'll both be billionaires.
-Reid
"All I know about Bush is I had a job when Clinton was president."
Oh! A Taliban member on Slashdot! You've fallen on hard times since Bush was elected, so sorry to hear.
ipod or other portable music devices like walkman's, discman's, etc. I hate it when I am away from an electrical outlet and the battery runs out =/ would be nice if you could just crank it up again.. I don't think stuff like ipods take too much power.. do they?
Other than the power for hd, other power intake should be reasonably low. And hd's dont alway need to be spinning.. they could set up a small 128MB flash buffer of somekind, so hd isn't always spinning..
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and do not, in any way, reflect the opinions of my employer or university.
A short list of devices you can hand-crank?
I'd like a AA battery that I can hand-crank, that I can then put into any device laying around the house, etc...
Haven't seen this one yet. I think there should be a hand-powered fire starter (spark generator basically) for lighting candles when the power's out or lighting camp fire kindling, or whatever else needs a flame. It'd double as a stun-gun I suppose if it could store sufficient power.
the best hand-powered hardware
oo difficult to convert energy in the form of pressure into something the device can use. This is the same reason we don't "hook batteries up to lightning rods", as many electricity novices suggest. The equipment required to convert from a megavolt spark to a sustained output at a reasonable voltage is too expensive and inefficient to make it cost effective. The energy output from button mashing isn't enough to overcome the losses you'd incur converting it from erraticly pulsed, short-throw kinetic energy to steady, usable voltage.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Not exactly on topic, but there are a few items I've either owned or used that were interesting:
1) Self winding wrist watch. Kept decent time as long as you wore it every day.
2) Flashlight -- flywheel powered light would shine for a few seconds on a single squeeze.
3) Crystal receiver with ceramic earphone. It was very faint, but you could hear several stations by just sticking a wire in the ground (literally in the ground) and making a simple circuit.
4) Flywheel powered fan. You kicked it a few times and it would draw a considerable amount of air from a building. I always pictured some well-to-do pre-electric couple hiring a guy to sit there and kick the flywheel to cool down a house.
5) This one is new -- a fluorescent bulb attached to a hand-cranked flywheel. It was surprisingly bright, at least bright enough to read instructions or do close tasks. (I collect flashlights and lanterns. Few batteries compare with some of the modern gas lanterns so if you're looking for hurricane supplies, make sure to keep a working gas lantern).
6) Potato powered clock.
7) Penny and vinegar clock (I think it was vinegar. Search for science experiment and vinegar should find it).
so the post is about human powered tech, not alternate power tech. they're already being looked at for militay boots ,but i'd like to see the piezio electric shoes/boots for use with an integrated system of things like woven heaters in pants/coat/shoe liners, entertainment/communications. a powered antennae woven into the back of a jacket would be a leap on signal strength and have the added bonus of being shielded, most use handsfree anyway so just plug into the clothes. granted, it is a specialized and initially costly set of applications but over time (assuming there's a technology rich future available to us given current events and lessons of history, but i digress) we could see such things as being more easily available.
Next? Hand cranked content?
Oh, wait....
And oh yes, hand-cranked ice cream freezers never fail to produce a product that beats store-bought hands down. :-)
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
I had a victrola once. It was great: we used it to play our 33 1/3 lp's.
The nice feature was that the needle gouged a deep white groove wherever it had been. Once you blew away the curls of black record shavings, you could actually see on the record where it had been played.
This made it great to know where to place the needle next time.
Flint and matches are not reusable. Also, in my experience using flint and steel is tedious and leads to cuts on hands.
Cranking makes you go blind! Dad says so.
Table-ized A.I.
i may have my terminology mixed up, but couldn't we place a geostationary turbine (a la hydro power) and generate large amounts of power from the rotation of the earth? talk about a massive crank...
Maybe the submitter of the prior story should read this one.
screw wind up flashlights, I'm about to launch a new company selling solar powered flashlights, anyone want to invest a couple of million?
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Ok, I'm sitting outside in a dry wood and need to start the fire. The bow drill is acceptable. But say I'm sitting inside during a storm trying to light a candle, should I run outside and try to make a bow drill out of some soggy sticks? And something like a button-press spark generator would seem to be less troublesome to use than the bow drill.
This is just a bad idea! Forcing nerds, geeks, and dweebs into physical activity would give them the ability to finally defeat the jocks and get the girl.
Personally I prefer this hand-powered flashlight. Squeezing is a much more natural motion than shaking or winding, though it requires an extra gear or two.
While I'm on the subject, pretty much any device that you use infreqently and for short periods is a good candidate for cranking. IMHO, those noisy, em-field producing, plug stealing or battery eating electric toothbrushes they have these days are really good candidates for this - twist the handle until it stops, and it brushes your teeth for one minute. The kids'll love it. Also shavers, cameras, and yes, vibrators.
In addition, micropower devices don't even need cranks, and could get their power just from piezo electric button-pushing or shaking, or photovoltaics. Remote controls, smart cards, calculators, watches, smoke detectors, etc.
To say nothing of mechanical devices that don't need to be electric.
Really, there's way too many wasteful items requiring expensive, toxic batteries that would require replacing. Hell, how about an exercise bike that plugs into the wall to put power back in the grid?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
haha yeah my grandmother once said that she had to use a device like that too... but you had to KEEP cranking it... loooooong time ago.
thats why lighters and matches were invented. how many candles do you light with electricity? wait...dont answer that one...:)
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
by powering your P4 using a bicycle generator. Imagine a notebook strapped to an exercise bike and powered by motion of the pedals. That would be a great way to get into shape. Heck, even I could become an athlete then!
Thinkgeek has the Forever Flashlight that uses Faraday's Principle of Induction to generate power for superbright LEDs.
What about a system to redirect the downward force of the button pushing and send it to a flywheel in the device? Like some tiny levers attached to a winding mechanism (like the pull start on a lawn mower, just MUCH smaller)
Sure you'd have to make a gameboy advanced as big as the origional gameboy to fit it all in there, but you could add another, more effecient method of spinning the flywheel to the back of the device, so when the batteries do finally drain, you could charge it while it's off.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
here
:)
That radio was distributed in war zones and refugee camps.
By the way that's a great article on subject, i.e. personally powered devices
would that be ok to talk about? I saw one the other day.
Don't use this during a lighting storm! You might get touched by the hand of God!
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
there are always things you can do either with your own hand or the hand of another if you find someone willing...
and when the lights are out looks don't matter... but sharp teeth are still the same - ouch! Watch that biting please...
wouldnt a hand powered charger be a pain because you still couldnt play your game because you'd be busy charging the damn thing. so what's the point?
I still prefer MY handpowered hardware.
Hey, how about somebody making the iCrank for the iPod? Give your little iPod the boost of power it needs after the battery dies! Soon for the iPod mini, but it no longer fits in your pocket.
(You heard the name here first!)
Actually, this might not be that bad of an idea, after all there are already battery alternatives for the iPod, including an AA battery pack by Belkin.
Something like...
a hand-crank generator.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
I have several hand-powered drills. They're cordless and not even electric.
One piece of gear that kinda fits into this discussion is a wind-up non-battery portable cassette player that I remember hearing about. It uses a clockwork/spring system for the tape transport and generates the small amount of power neede to run the electronics and drive the headphone.
I've thought for a long time that it would be a really cool thing to have, but haven't ever tracked down who makes and sells it.
Oh, and there's a DigiComp 1 for sale on eBay right now. That's a hand powered all-plastic digital computer. I had one when I was a kid. It's selling for a heck of a lot of money now.
---
I really think the pr0n industry should come up with a hand-powered video player.
Thats a great idea, a universal Dynamo that can power any portable device. Then if you hands get tired, you could build another device with a motor & batteries to turn it for you and..
oh.. hang on a minute..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
given the context of the post, I was expecting the linked 'grandpa' article to possibly be something like "recharging grandpa's pacemaker".
You can handcrank your Gameboy, recharge your cellphone or pda (even grandpa),
My grandpa is cranky enough already without needing me to handcrank him.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Generic 230V power?
Well I'm in the middle of a blackout now, and the UPS is getting more insistent every minute! I need a peddle powered PC.
Someone else might have mentioned this, but I would like a AA or AAA NiMH charger.
Many MP3 players use just one AA or AAA.
You'd probably want to just charge one or two at a time so the charging would go faster.
Are there any broadcast stations on MW and LW? I wasn't aware of any - maybe it's just where I live though...
Where do you live? The US?
There are quite a lot of MW stations in the UK; BBC Radio 5 Live, some commercial stuff using old BBC frequencies (for BBC stations where FM coverage is now almost universal); and there are also local stations which nowadays use their FM and MW bands for totally different services (local MW tends to the MOR/retro stuff, FM for more modern music).
LW is... not much used, except for BBC Radio 4. Sometimes LW Radio 4 broadcasts different stuff to FM; they use it for cricket commentary for example. Atlantic 252 (kHz)- a pop/rock station- started in the late 80s; that frequency was sold at some stage to a talk station, but it seems to be silent now.... so Radio 4 is all alone again.
I'd guess most UK radios support MW (usu. labelled as 'AM'), but less than 50% have LW, and very few ordinary radios have SW.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I remember reports a few years ago that Apple and Freeplay / Trevor Bayliss were experimenting to try and make a hand-cranked Newton or eMate.
Nothing ever came of it, but I'd have loved to see a bunch of business men on the train every morning, winding up their laptops.
"What if they're using IE?" "I've dumbed Mozilla down to cope with it." - BOFH
The average "elite" level cyclist can sustain about 700W, which is darned near 1 HP. Pretty impressive but, based upon some reading I've done in the wake of the death of Marco Pantani, I'm beginning to believe that it's also inhuman. It's starting to appear that the UCI actually permits athletes to artificaially bump their hemocrit levels, they just limit the extent to which they can do it...but I could be wrong. I'm not a doctor, but I am an engineer and constantly overdriving a system generally means it won't last as long.
Lance is fast - a monster climber and excellent time trialist, but if you really want to see impressive short term output, look at your sprinters.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Take a look into asynchronous computing.
One of the fundamental power wasters in modern computing is that every chip, every logic gate on every chip, draws just a little bit of current, whether needed or not, on every clock pulse. By designing a computer that doesn't require a clock, you can design it so that the vast majority of power wasted on the clock is not consumed.
While we're discussing mobile computing power requirements, tho, allow me to point out that LCDs require a current even when things are not being changed on screen. This current is between 50-100mA depending on screen type, size, etc. (RCA LCD TV at 2.2" is 50 mA) that and sound are probably your biggest power wasters. Most mobile devices top out for their total power utilization somewhere around 200 mA, though I've seen some that go as high as 500 mA... most AAs are (nominally) around 1800 mAh @ 1.5V so you can do the math, but beware the voltage converter...
The point being that its not just the computer that takes the power. In pdas and gameboys, if the manufacturer was smart, the computer could very well be the least power-demanding component...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
The open source alternative to Viagra
The original LUFO hurricane lamp-powered radio was designed as an alternative to hand-cranked radios with the added benefit of providing heat and lighting.
Traditional paper publications have never needed batteries, work well in low light and extreme glare, and can even function underwater if you're careful when you turn the pages.
Talk about a limitless resource of energy!!! Put a heel activated pedal crank/thingy (sort of like the foot switch for a sewing machiine) at every desk, give out free coffee, and let nature take it's course!!! (relieves stress, too!!!)
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
A deep cycle battery will cost you about $70/kwh. Figure out how much of a reserve you need, hook them up to an inverter, and you won't even notice when the power goes down.
I've tried the Sidewinder cell phone charger once. After that, the battery emptied in less than half the time it originally took (a single day instead of more than two). The measly instructions accompanying the product did indeed warn against its actual use. Should have RTFM'd before I tried, huh?
JeR
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stuart.kennedy60/gene rator.html
.pdf Acrobat format) from here - Richard Perez article (Use 'save-target-as'). This one is very good and includes how to build regulators and the priniples of charging batteries (accumulators). I've wanted to make something like this for ages. We had a power cut last week and another yesterday, so that was all of the encouragement that I needed to give it a go! What you see in the picture below is a first attempt. The battery terminal voltage when running is 14.2 volts which is the correct charging value (give or take a little), however, I do not have a high current ammeter, so can only guess at the charging current and I do not have a suitable load to see what it can manage to supply. I have a high power (600w) inverter on order with Satcure audio, when that arrives, I'll be able to do some load tests by adding on 240v, 100w bulbs one at a time.
Introduction
This project is a (crude) copy of an American/Canadian design that you can read about at the EPI centre. Another document can be downloaded (in
Hopefully you can see what it is, a lawnmower engine driving a car alternator (with built in regulator) charging a car battery, the whole lot is bolted onto a piece of board. The 12 volts can be used as if, lots of equipment can be powered from 12 volt or you can connect an inverter. The disadvantage of using the 12 volts directly is the size (thickness) of cables you need for more powerful equipment, but it is safer than 240 volts AC!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
A hand powered penis!
;)
couldn't resist!
Peizo electrics do the convert pressure into current (not very much) thing. :-)
Worst
You might not be able to run a P4 and a subwoofer, but you could easily light a room (LEDs), or power a small radio I would imagine.
"Powers. I have them."
ZAP.com, maker of the Zappy electric scooter-http://www.zapworld.com/ , used to sell a bicycle/motor/battery that used regenerative braking to extend the charge of the battery. I suppose that if you had two of them and one REALLY strong rider you might be able to keep a fresh battery for the other rider, or to run your game boy when you got home. But the manufactur's concept was to plug it into the wall. I guess if you have good balance you could even throw yer zap bike on a set of rollers and juice up a 24v. battery, or a pair of 12s, or a whole gang of 1.5v a-cubes.
Dutch designer Dick van Hoff recently designed beautiful hand-powered kitchen utensils. To quote:
Dick van Hoff's Tyranny of the Plug series of kitchen machines chop, churn and blend, but don't require electricity. They are powered by human energy-- by pulling on them, turning them or moving them to and fro... and they function beautifully.
Pictures on Designboom and Slowlab.Van Hoff is calling into question the fact that members of contemporary society readily accept new objects that are powered by electricity, yet rarely contemplate where the power is coming from. Instead, his products make people invest their human energy into powering them.
Sleekly yet simply designed of cast iron, chrome, glass, and wood, these machines run smoothly and with efficiency, while fostering awareness and contemplation.
...what some people wanna do with cars, tho. Use them as generators plugged into the grid when you're at home. Of course they don't mean fossil fueled cars - which makes it a pretty clean idea, I've often thought that a family of four could live in some of the cars I see going down the road, myabe they could use the power plant of that monster to alleviate some of the coal consumption at the big power plant.
If there is one on the market, I know I would like to get one. Being lost in the middle of nowhere and finding out that the batteries in the GPS are dead, sucks.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I just got it...
Men (and/or women) under the sun, turning a big wheel (or cycling, or whatever), using the wind to cool of...
Simplistic in my mind, but it could just work, ya know ?
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Unless you're willing to put up with mushy buttons that move .25-.75 inch with every press, all the energy you put into a mechanical flywheel system will be lost to friction and slop due to inexact tolerances within the linkage. A flywheel has to be moving pretty fast before it can be relied upon for decent power. You're better of coming up with a wind-up spring driven flywheel device than one attached to a rube-goldberg-like contraption drawing kinetic energy from button pressing.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Heh. Yeah, not very much. And even if they did, you'd run into the "lightning problem"-- how do you turn a high voltage, short duration spark into sustained low voltage current? I reckon you could put a huge 2.5F capacitor, but it'd weight 10x more than the gameboy!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.