Slashdot Mirror
'PalmPSOne' Takes PlayStation Into Handheld Domain
Anonymous Coward writes "'Some believe it was brought to Earth in the belly of an asteroid. Some
believe it was created in a mad scientist's lab. Some believe Tom Brokaw's name
is pronounced Tom Broke-off. These pages contain the real story. The
unofficial PalmPSone, a custom-made portable PlayStation, was created over the course of
about three months with a few hundred dollars (two units were made). Most would
consider the cost of both time and materials to be far too high. Maybe, but it
had to be done.'" This project is similar to Ben Heckendorn's PlayStation Portable, and there's an interview with Brian Gardiner, PalmPSOne's creator, over at IGN PS2, in which it's noted: "Gamers shouldn't be too disappointed since the nickel metal hydride batteries that power the PalmPSone provide a whopping one and a half hours of continuous gameplay."
Two trademark violations in one name!
That's gotta be a record!
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
OK, so it has some tiny feet on the underside, and a "guard rail" to stop things interfering with the spinning, but is anyone else as disturbed as I am at there being no CD-cover for the back of it?
It only takes one retarded klutz (and let's face it, there's one in almost every home) to push on the CD, and if it doesn't pop off and spin crazily through the air, it's going to get a remarkably circular scratch on the surface.
Gamers shouldn't be too disappointed since the nickel metal hydride batteries that power the PalmPSone provide a whopping one and a half hours of continuous gameplay
Is that sarcasm, or does he actually believe this?
My laptop can do twice that. Don't even think about comparing that battery life to an actual Gameboy, it's not even in the same league.
Random and weird software I've written.
$500? A bargian at half the price... no wait... Madness I say!
I was just working with my Palm OS PDA right before reading this so I was totally confused what it had to do with the Palm.
Might need to change the name to keep from getting in hot soup!
"Anything is possible with enough programmers, time and pizza." (Substitute caffeine for time as needed.)
If this guy was one these self thought, didn't go to college types or got a degree in some weird liberal arts topic, I'd really consider hiring him anyway having seen this. This sort of thing is very, very similar to the sorts of things we do when developing medical instruments.
Recent college grads take note! This is more effective than a Résumé
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
This guy has converted several different consoles into handheld units, including a PS1. My favorite is the wooden VCSp "Special edition" portable atari 2600. Very cool!
I wrote about Tom Brokaw on the free-response section of my AP Bio test! Dude has crazy eyebrows! My god! And like, I wrote about how terrorists send him anthrax and shit. I got a 5 (the highest grade).
I ask myself why? Half an hour isn't worth the effort it'd take to do this. For the money I can pick up a GBA, several games and a recharger set/lots of gameboy batteries.
:D
Plus I can't think of anything more fun then Mario world to jam with
I like muppets.
I like how he complains about the GBA's 'antiquated' technology, then displays his laughable 12-battery $500+ novelty item.
Seriously, I got a big kick out of the whole thing.
Glog!
...an OPEN cd-rom assembly on the back??!!!
I believe he used emachineshop.com for the machining of the case. Pretty slick. Some other people have used their services to make bits and pieces for their automated telescope mounts.
moox. for a new generation.
ever since I started travelling with my PS1 + Portable DVD player... put them both in 1 unit, and wile away the hours on the bus/plane/train playing Suikoden, Vagrant Story, etc... there are hundreds of PSX games that STILL kick ass to this day.
Screw the PSP. If Sony made one of these things, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
I almost didnt read this article since i imagined it was going to be some lame psone with a screen + battery stuck together with duct tape, but DAMN! thats the nicest looking mod I've even seen. very professional looking, although with such short battery life, not particularly useful. I guess with a 12v adaptor it would be nice for long car trips
TIAEAE!
If you have to ask why, you're not a member of the intended audience.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
That device has the worst ergonomics I've ever seen. A person operating it gets to hold on to nothing if they want to use the analog sticks. I think it could only be played if it was laying on a table, and then, just barely. Another way to play it would be if you held it upside down and looked in a mirror or something.
Oh well, still have to give him props for the overal fit and finish.
I have read articles about how the new Sony PSP is supposed to incorporate new features, support PS2-quality gameplay, watch movies, and be really cool to use. However, I look at projects like this one and wonder why Sony didn't decide to make a portable PlayStation long ago. Ben Heckendorn certainly proved the concept, and I had this thought at the time:
There's already a huge library of PS1 games. I loved playing them. Developers know how to write for them. Wouldn't it have been a great idea to create a portable game system that played PS1 games? You could have changed a few minor things to help battery life, and to keep it simple: the controller doesn't support vibration, there is no P2, the memory card is (possibly) internal, and the 640MB CD is replaced by smaller-radius media (Sony is moving to UMD for the PSP - but at the time maybe the 150MB CD would have been a good choice.) Use a screen similar to the GB, and now the low-res graphics of the PS1 look pretty good.
I'm sure Sony could have made lots of sales on this one. Developers basically get to re-release a lot of cool PlayStation games for the portable PS1. I would have gladly shelled out $30 for a re-release of many of the PS1 games I own (imagine Tomb Raider 1 & 2 using the TRC engine.)
But of course, I'm no systems designer (and it probably shows.) Maybe the 150MB limit in the smaller-radius CD would have made games impossible. Though, it seems a design like this might have made serious inroads against the GBA.
OK, if you're gonna make and sell these, do it for the right reason. This is not a better portable console than GBA, other than its graphics capabilities. It is, however, extremely cool.
You want to run on the look-what-I-can-do-isn't-it-cool ticket, I'm right behind you. You want to take swings at Nintendo with a really cool brick? You're on your own, buddy.
Seeing this made me want to go and, I don't know, send off a few of the billions of dumb things I made in Rhino (improved GBA gullwings with a link cable AND a GC cable AND headphones AND extended battery built in...) off to a prototype shop.
Thing is, that polymer's fuckin' expensive. I'd spend more on the item than I would buying a couple of new GBA SPs to mangle with a dremel tool.
But it would still be GODDAMN elite.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey