portable emulator system

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 9:35 pm

I'm actually starting one right now. I sold my Sharp Zaurus PDA to fund it (nice little not-quite-PC-but-close device).

I've got a PSOne screen, that mini PS2 USB keyboard, and a potentially usefull "Pentium Class" really small SBC board on order.

A Pentium level x86 won't be fast enough for watching most DivX files, but should be enough for most DOS emulators. Not much is currently known about this particular board, so I'm going through uncharted waters. The description doesn't make clear whether or not it has video out. If it pans out, it'd be a good start for others as well, as it's currently $40+shipping. If it doesn't pan out, I have my EBX Socket 370 board with 800MHz processor to fall back on, though that's a lot bigger.

I'm keeping my eyes out for interesting batteries, saw some NiMH intended for RC cars at Radio Shack that are 1500 mAh that aren't too big or heavy for ~$30.

Unidentified Assilant · Sun Apr 03, 2005 3:06 am

Cool, I'll make mine with an Nano-ITX (when I get the money i.e never), is that PS2 Mini USB Keyboard any good?

jellywerker · Post by **jellywerker** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 11:01 pm

I was going to make one kinda like a mac mini, 8in square with a 7in squre lcd, a 1ghz nehemiah cpu, a via nano-itx (mini-itx) mobo), a 20gb hdd running windows xp pro and linux (arch) 10gb each, 512mb pc3200 ddr ram, it would be 3 in thick, with a 1/2in lcd part (everything is a panel that clips onto other panels) 1-1/2 in cd-drive and other stuff part and a 1in battery part. Stuff it with emualtors, a webbrowser, and a mediaplayer, then add some portable speakers and a wireless keyborad and mouyse. I am considering taking the designs I have for this to a developer.

Edit: I didn't see that keyboard, it gives me an idea...

peppers · Post by **peppers** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 11:21 pm

watermelon wrote:its all very well modding consoles into portbles, but what about making a portable computer with a hard drive so you could store hundreds of games and multiple emulators.

has anyone done this before?

the only limiting factors i can see are cost and power consumtion. i dont have a clue what the power consumtion of a mini motherboard is to be honest.

its called a game boy advance and a flash cartrige

Post by **bicostp** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:03 am

If you wanted to play, say Unreal Tournament or Command and Conquor everywhere you go, you could always graft a controller to a tablet pc.

Doofus · Post by **Doofus** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 8:12 am

Someone told me Command and Conquer might be one of the titles coming out for the DS. I suppose the idea could work, being able to select units and things with the touchscreen.... Can anyone confirm this?

jellywerker · Post by **jellywerker** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:42 am

heard it, but can't confirm it. I also heard a version of aoe1 or 2 might come out also.

cennar · Post by **cennar** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:46 pm

Sparkfist wrote:sell your arms or sell your soul to Satan.

yeah its a bit out of any ones reach.

peppers · Post by **peppers** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 2:50 pm

huh I did not think of that games that are disgined 4 paying with a mouse would play well on the DS as soon as they get a better way of runing code on the cube outher than the current way I bet a lot of games are going to get homebrew ported and probubley professinal ported also

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 12:23 am

Unidentified Assilant wrote:Cool, I'll make mine with an Nano-ITX (when I get the money i.e never), is that PS2 Mini USB Keyboard any good?

Got the mini-keyboard yesterday, seems pretty nice. A bit bigger than the average PDA thumb-keyboard. Has nice tactile-feedback for the button presses.

Trv · Post by **Trv** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:28 pm

tom61 wrote: I've got a PSOne screen, that mini PS2 USB keyboard, and a potentially usefull "Pentium Class" really small SBC board on order.

What SBC were you looking at.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:03 pm

Noob wrote:
tom61 wrote: I've got a PSOne screen, that mini PS2 USB keyboard, and a potentially usefull "Pentium Class" really small SBC board on order.

What SBC were you looking at.

This one on Halted.com. Didn't pan out though, as the board has no audio and no USB, and was bigger than I thought. It has a non-standard 'Printer' and 'LCD CON' 40-pin connector that I don't have the pinout for, otherwise I could use a parrallel sound adapter (designed for old laptops).

The one I'm going to be using is a Advantech PCM-9574 EBX formfactor board that I managed to get cheap.

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:25 pm

i researched building a portable emulator from small mobos but in reality once youve got everything you need in the case no matter how small the mobo is, its still going to be big. remember you need a power source, battries, some form of harddrive, the conroller, a speaker ect, it adds up. i dont think its possible to make one that small.

i think a better idea is to just get a PDA, a nice sized memory card, take it out of its case a build a new one with controll buttons built into it. you dont have to copulate around with the hardware, and its pretty much guarenteed to be pretty small.

saying that i dont know how well emulators are supported on PDA OS's.

this-is-me · Post by **this-is-me** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:26 pm

Ahem, Watermelon, I guess you haven't seen this:
http://www.mini-itx.com/news/11544953/

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:00 am

its very impressive, but you still need a power supply and all the other jazz. also is the powerconsumtion appropriate for a portable?

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portable emulator system

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