Starting my ultra-portable PC project (PCp?) update Nov 26th

Unidentified Assilant · Sun Jun 05, 2005 4:09 am

teraflop122 wrote:Yet more good news: I discovered the perfect solution to the mouse & keyboard integration Woes (sorta):

JoyToKey

With that program, any gamepad can emulate the mouse or keyboard- the choices are unlimited. You can even select a button that will let the other buttons do a second function instead of the first! Now I need an gamepad with one or two analog omnidirectional pads (Ala Playstation 2 controllers)

I talked about that eariler, glad to see someone else agrees with me, its a great program

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:05 pm

You going somewhere soon terraflop? I'm curious why you need the parts so quickly.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:30 pm

Either the 14th or 15th, I will be going to Hawaii.....from Florida. Long plane flights are...well...grueling, and I neither have a GBA nor wish to spend lots o' money on GBA games. I must survive about 20 hours in the air!

So, the truth is out.

It's all coming together in your minds, now: That is why I needed it to be so small- why I avoided Lead-Acid and wetcell batteries- why I was so obsessed about uber-long battery life.

Soon, my evil plans will come to fruition.

I have purchased every part as of now, except for the PSone LCD- the one crucial components which now looks as if it will cost more than expected. I will exhaust every last cent of my funds for this project. The addition of a generous 9 GB hard drive will allow me to store every ROM and Emulator known to man!!!

WAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:46 am

teraflop122 wrote:I have purchased every part as of now, except for the PSone LCD- the one crucial components which now looks as if it will cost more than expected. I will exhaust every last cent of my funds for this project. The addition of a generous 9 GB hard drive will allow me to store every ROM and Emulator known to man!!!

Check in the screen forum, someone posted a link to $30 used screens online. 9GB isn't even close to every emulator and rom. A full MAME set was over 12GB last I checked, and it's been awhile since I checked. There are X-Box and PS2 emulators now, those roms would be huge, up to 9GB each. With the sheer and utter number of games for Atari(thousands), your HD could be eaten up, due to cluster sizes.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:49 am

That was a joke ~_~

9GB will allow me to get the roms I'd like to have- the NES and SNES mario games, the Genesis Sonic games, Phantasy Star series, Final Fantasy series, Mario Kart, etc- as well as two or three actual PC games, such as Alpha Centauri, Civ 2, SimCity3000. I already have an ISO ripper and CD-Rom drive emulator to remove the need of an actual CD-Rom drive.

I will also load it out with all my MP3's (only less than a GB worth)

EDIT: 9GB is also a much needed upgrade from my previous plan: just a 512MB CF card.

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:41 pm

Do you have the origional civilization? If you dont I can send it to you, I still have some floppy disks with civ on them.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:53 pm

I can get all of that at http://www.abandonia.com/index2.php

I think I may go with Civ 2 also...though I will most likely stick to the uber-cool Alpha Centauri (nother game made by Sid and folk, think Civ in the future, on an alien planet)

EDIT: BTW, thanks for the offer.

EDIT AGAIN: Does anyone notice that the Forum is suddenly running slower than ussual, or am I just clinically psychotic?

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:32 pm

Update: I measured the current draw of the board, and it's around 4 Amps.

Means the power supply will probably last a little more than an hour. I'm planning on picking up another battery, and run it in parallel with the first, to get me at least two hours. I need to either get 3 more 7805s and run them in parallel, as each can only give 1 Amp, or figure out a better solution.

:/ My 1GB test drive bit the dust. I've been using the 20GB as a storage drive, which means it's full of stuff I may need to off-load. The data on the 20GB is actually from an older HD from my previous system that refuses to work in my new rig, so if it got erased, it's no big deal, however I'd lose access to the data for awhile. I need to either finish getting Gentoo installed to my 160GB and copy the data over to it, or just dump it, and copy the data from the orginal using my brother's system to a spare partiion on the 160GB at a later date.

Also, I need to figure out how to install to the 20GB, either while it's in the USB drive adapter, or on the system itself. I'm thinking of maybe net-booting the embedded board and installing that way. I don't have an adapter for notebook to regular IDE right now, and I'd rather not order one for a one time use.

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:45 pm

Im going to be making a laptop-type-of-micro-itx-whatever-in-breifcase-thing, estimated priced is probably around 500 dollars, I'll post something when I have around 300 saved. Its not going to be battery powered, as I could care less about going out of my house with a computer if it means no internet access and no power plug nearby. I'll probably just use it around the house and at friends' houses.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:19 am

The 6v/5v problem has come up again. I should have seen this coming, really. I cannot use resistors to bring the voltage down because no resistors that I have seen can handle 15watts. If I attempted to combine resistors, I would need quite a few of them, and they would need a resistance of approximately 0.34 ohms. Perhaps my calculations are incorrect.

In the end, I may end up just putting 6 volts into it anyways, and hoping that the components can handle it....

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:27 pm

You might want to check out the LM1084 then: http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM1084.html

I think it can handle a input that low, and can handle up to 5 Amps at the output for the 5V version. I'm going to get one for my project from Digi-Key, since the 7805 can only handle 1 amp, and setting them in parallel causes troubles.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:30 pm

It looks simple....but it isn't. It is trying to decieve me, that is what it is doing. According to a PDF reference sheet, that device has three pins: Input, Output, and GND/ADJ, but it also has a metal tab labeled Voltage Output.

I fear that this is beyond my understanding and resources. If it was a situation in which I could just solder one end from the battery and the other to the power clip for the motherboard- like with resistors- I'd be able to do it, but this thing looks like it needs accompanying circuitry. Oh well.

I may just blindly trust a batteries tendency to drop voltage as it is used to keep the components safe. Rechargable D's are an option, but they don't last very long compared to standard energizer alkaline...

Woe is me

EDIT:

God, it has gotten hard to get Roms these days- SNES, Genesis, and earlier are easy, but trying to find GBA roms is a futile goal! It is as if the producers of those games are trying to STOP us from STEALING them! Yeah, I know, pretty stupid thing to do.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:07 pm

It looks simple....but it isn't. It is trying to decieve me, that is what it is doing. According to a PDF reference sheet, that device has three pins: Input, Output, and GND/ADJ, but it also has a metal tab labeled Voltage Output.

It's fairly simple, if you get the right version. The 1084IT-5.0 acts pretty much like a 7805, three wires simple.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:51 am

Hmm, RadioShack doesn't have the 3000mAH version, only a 1500mAH version.

3 wires simple, aye? I think I get it. The positive battery terminal to the Input, the Output leading to the mobo(and then back to ground), and the ground leading to....the ground. I suppose you could say that it just diverts a portion of the voltage back to the battery? Assuming that no other electronic components need to be used along with it, I suppose I could handle it...

EDIT: Ugg, the RadioShack version is adjustable, meaning that it must be accompanied by circuitry I cannot understand.

EDIT AGAIN: LOL, RadioShack had the 7805 all along! Of course, I would have to somehow fit them in parallel to prevent them from exploding, but it might be possible.

EDIT AGAIN AGAIN: Ok, I think I'm going to go with a 7805 or two. With sufficient heatsink area, they can dissipate the wattage I require without exploding. I may add a fifth D battery solely to bring the voltage up to 7.5

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:24 pm

Well, I got most of my stuff today: everything but the LCD screen, and I should have that soon as well.

The mobo is so sweet and tiny, but probably aniemic as I mentioned before. The 300Mhz Geode barely needs anything that could be considered a heatsink- the tiny sink reminds me of pre-pentium sinks.

Two 7805 5v+ regulators will be mounted in parallel to supply a total of 2 amps at 5volts to the motherboard, from 5 D batteries yeilding 7.5 volts. The PSone screen will remain unmodded due to time constraints, and will take the raw 7.5volt input from battery through it's integrated 7805 part.

I currently plan to mount the device within the metal casing of a standard 5.25inch CD-rom drive, but this may prove to risky. I'll probably end up buying some little tupperware box from Walmart.

To load Windows 98SE and the software onto the devices laptop hard drive, I will do the following:

1. prepare everything non-OS related that I need, such as Roms and games, and load it all onto CD-R's.
2. Turn of my main computer; unplug Sata array and plug in LAptop HDD(with 2.5 -> 3.5" adapter); plug in old pos floppy
3. boot up and instal 98SE onto hdd, physically copy device drivers onto hdd for installation later
4. load nifty software and games
5. rip laptop hdd out of main PC, and plug it into likkle 3.5" mobo
6. Boot PCp, let Win98SE do all that driver search garbage
7. Install any drivers not automatically located by Windows from hard drive.
8. Play

This is what I have already gone through to make PC games playable:

1. download ISO writing software
2. download CD-drive emulator/virtual drive software
3. rip ISO's of non-copyright protected discs
4. load ISO's onto multiple CD-R's
5. (during step 4 from first list) copy the ISO files onto the 9GB laptop hdd
6. (after step 7 from first list) install virtual drive software (30 day trial- I know, I know...)
7. Mount ISO files
8. Play

The likkle mobo has a Molex power connector, but it only needs 5 volts. I'm assuming, then, that it only needs the red and two black wires used by Molex. Gues using molex connector was just the most convenient for the company.