NES 80's Laptop

Includes Atari 2600, Nintendo 8-bit, Sega Master System, MSX and more!

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wallydawg
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by wallydawg » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:10 pm

I just picked up a different screen for it so progress should be starting up again soon. I think the lowest it can run at 8v so hopefully that's not a problem.

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MichelMoermans
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by MichelMoermans » Thu Jul 21, 2011 12:47 pm

Ah great to hear! Looking forward to your new progress!

What screen did you buy? Did it cost much? (I'm really having a difficult time finding a big enough screen for a fair price)

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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by wallydawg » Tue Oct 25, 2011 1:59 am

Oh yeah this thing. I wanted to have this done by MGC11, wasn't even close, so here I'm trying for completion by MGC12, probably won't make it by then either. :p
Anyway here's a bunch of stuff that happened to it a while ago that I neglected to post.

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I painted it for some reason, even though I wasn't really completely done with cutting the case. The color is called "Pebble" it's a decent tannish-gray to try and give it a retro aged/faded gray plastic feel, which I doubt it does but I kind of like it anyway.

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Pesky rf box just wouldn't come off with desoldering tools so here's Ben dremeling it off for me at MGC 11. We sure put him to work, with this and some desoldering he did for Lorne. Guess I owe him a beer.

Anyway what stalled work on this was that I was having trouble with the PSone screen and getting a picture. It just kept showing a blank screen with the backlight on so I just decided to find a different screen before I broke it, since I do still use it for it's intended purpose. Production on this stopped until a few months ago I found this Intec Screen at Goodwill for $2.

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It's kind of crappy but this is just NES so the screen works decent enough for that.

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The backlight on this thing is HUGE. Even so, I'm not going to LED mod it, at least not for the time being. It fits fine with the LCD in it's part of the case, and this isn't necessarily a portable so I don't need to worry about battery life.

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This screen is also a bit bigger then the PSone screen, so I had to recut the screen hole. I'm going to use the screen cover overlay that was on the Intec screen to begin with, since I really didn't like the look of the thickness of the bezel with nothing there. Gotta sand it down and repaint but it came out good enough. I was worried that I would overcut it and it would keep falling out and have a noticeable gap when I secure it in.

...and that brings us up to date. Didn't tinker with it much during the summer but I'm back into working on it slowly. Tomorrow I'm going to relocate a few capacitors on the bottom of the board so it will sit lower in my case.
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MichelMoermans
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by MichelMoermans » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:27 am

Nice work dude! Keep it going :)

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Muniosi
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by Muniosi » Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:09 pm

Keep it up man! Can't wait to see it finished!

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MC42
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by MC42 » Sat May 05, 2012 7:37 pm

Just amazing....

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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by wallydawg » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:52 pm

Hadn't touched this since the last post. I Brought it to MGC2012 to do some work on it there but never really got around to it with Nomad mods and all the show happenings. Today I finally got around to getting the everything to run off of the same AC Adapter (remember, not a portable so no need for batteries). I'm running everything off of the Screen's Power Adapter, and it works for about a minute or two before the screen goes crazy, and then the audio freezes up a few moments later. The screen has both a 7808 and a 7805, and for the power to the NES I wired the +5v from the screens 7805 directly into the NES so I suspect it's overheating. I'll try to either heatsink the screens 7805 to something better (right now, attached to the screen it has nothing), or wire an additional 7805 directly from the 7808 instead. The latter is probably overkill and completely inefficient but again, it's not a portable so I don't need to worry about battery consumption.

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Everything haphazardly wired together and working off of one AC Adapter. Since this is a laptop and will essentially be in two parts, some wires will be visible from the outside of the case. I'm going to use the cable from the NES for the wires between the screen and the NES to keep it looking tidy.

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Then after a few minutes this happens. Pretty sure it's overheating, as the time it takes for the screen to wonk out varies. I got halfway through Toad Man's stage on the most recent test, and then of course it flaked out in progressively less amount of time on each reset.
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by Metallica Man X » Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:27 am

Holy cow progress!!

If the screen fizzles out after a minute, it might be because the power supply isn't providing enough amperage for the whole shabang. The NES sucks up a beefy 650 mAh by itself. Dunno what the screen itself pulls, but i'm sure it's taking a bit since it's rocking a cathode filament for a back light.
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Weston Uchiha
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by Weston Uchiha » Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:54 am

Looking good. XD

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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by wallydawg » Tue Aug 21, 2012 10:01 pm

I just wired up a separate 7805 through the +8v out of the screens 7808 and it works fine now, but of course more peril as the screen is too think and doesn't fit in the top of the case like I apparently thought it did when I posted such (not sure what I was thinking there). I'm undecided on what to do now, whether it be to remove the backlight and LED mod the screen so it will be less thick, or just get one of these 5" car monitors. The auction mentions that it's 4:3, but you know how that goes with Chinese Screen Auctions, even if it would make more sense for them to say it was 16:9 when it isn't instead of the other way around.

Anyway, since no actual progress has been achieved, here's a picture of gratuitous Game Genie daisy chaining on the project instead.
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by ModderMan » Wed Aug 22, 2012 12:20 am

So many Genies!!!

Looking great so far!
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by wallydawg » Fri Apr 19, 2013 4:19 pm

Bump.

Still working on this project, been though a lot of revisions. I the Ps2 screen that I was trying to use would not play nice with an LED mod (some ground spots the lights were not nearly bright enough and the picture was way too dim and murky, and other spots the backlight completely washed out the screen), so I'm back to using a PSOne screen. Here's a picture of everything haphazardly wired together for testing purposes.

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Everything will run off of the PSOne adapter, and a switch will be put in to change to AV output to a TV/additional screen. A lot of this thread is me just spinning my wheels so I'm going to clean up the first post and any additional posts of mine that are now irrelevant to the project.
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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by 0wnage Modz » Sat Jun 15, 2013 2:48 pm

nice progress so far :D :D

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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by wallydawg » Thu Feb 27, 2014 2:02 pm

Bump. Starting working on this again to hopefully get it done and playable by MGC 2014, but I've been saying that for a while so don't anybody hold their breath. :p A lot of the pictures came out incredibly washed out, I'm fixing them bit by bit when I keep updating.


Here's the back of the bottom part of the laptop. The wires coming out will connect through a similar port to the top of the laptop. The wires and cable are from an NES controller. The switch turns the laptop's screen on and off as an option for when you are using the A/V out port.

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I didn't really like how the tops of each of the cases were coming together, just placing it right on top of the vaccuum formed pieces, so I decided to get some 1/16th inch bending aluminum from the hardware store to strengthen the sides. I then bent it around the outside of the case corners and glued it to the top pieces, then cut the access plastic around the aluminum and sanded it smooth. The sides of these case pieces will have a strip of black vinyl tape covering the aluminum and the edge of the plastic for a uniform look.

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How the case piece fits together with the vaccuum formed parts.
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Rough basic idea of what the laptop will look like closed. Again, the sliver and white parts where the laptop top and bottom comes together will be wrapped in black vinyl plastic for a solid color.

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Re: NES 80's Laptop

Post by Metallica Man X » Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:40 am

Huh...the blue washout of those pictures actually makes them look very artistic lol.
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The answer to 1984 is 1776!
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