A theoretical question on making a portable.

Stu L Tissimus · Post by **Stu L Tissimus** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:35 pm

Out of curiosity, is there some type of way that one could replace the disc drive on a system with, say, flash memory? The thing that I think plagues disc-based portables (home-made or not home-made.... I'm looking at you, PSP) is their battery life. So why not replace one of the most energy-wasting components of a console with some type of card that converts the console's requests for data from a disc drive into requesting data from an ISO stored on flash?

Summary: Hardware-based Daemon Tools. Does it exist?

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:38 pm

the problem with that is that CDs hold at least 600mb and flash cards don't

Nicholai · Post by **Nicholai** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:41 pm

Possible.. maybe, Ben did it with his Atari 800 laptop, but that was a cart based system. Also, a CD based system has really big games, I mean you could only fit three on a big card.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:43 pm

Long story short: if you have to ask, you can't do it. You'll have to not only figure out how to connect it, but also make drivers for the thing

Stu L Tissimus · Post by **Stu L Tissimus** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:44 pm

Flash is getting really cheap these days. I just went on newegg and found a 1GB flash drive for $60. Of course, that wouldn't be the best implementation, since you'd have to build a USB-to-IDE (or whatever console you're working on uses) converter. Not useful at all for anything that uses DVDs, but this would make sense for something like a DreamCast.

And Sponge, remember, it's a theoretical question, I don't actually intend to build a portable for quite a while