Bacteria's N64/GBA combined portable - Nintendo 64 Advance

TheOnlyOneHeFears · Post by **TheOnlyOneHeFears** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:42 am

Dear lord!

The bar for kickass portables has once again been raised. Congrats bacteria on finishing a sweet portable

I've been re-inspired! (goes to work on the old Gamecube)

Any future projects planned?

minkster · Post by **minkster** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:10 pm

congrats bacteria! looks great!

Just curious, do you have the original raw video file? Because I know how to get pretty good quality on youtube by a certain way I encode the video. If you want I can help encode it for you so you can upload it to youtube.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:45 pm

Turbo Tax 1.0 - I am pleased you like it, thanks!

TheOnlyOneHeFears - Many thanks! Pleased you like it. Yes I have a couple of projects in the pipeline, including modding a GP2x with better buttons, D-pad and joystick (may make them removable pots to swap), rotatable PSone screen.

minkster - Many thanks for the comment and the offer to improve video quality. My camera records in 320x240 as .avi mode only. I used Windows Movie Maker (free one with Windows XP) and cut out the start and end bits to leave the bits I wanted; saved it as .wmf as about half a meg; I thought about saving it as an .avi from that program but it would have been uncompressed at 35meg! Thanks for the offer to encode - I have a couple of programs that can do encoding, what one is best and what type of file format should I save it as? If I can't do it, I might ask if I can e-mail the files to you.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:36 am

This file was a bit big for Windows Movie Maker originally, so I downloaded MPEG Streamclip from nonags.com (freeware), did the trimming nicely. I then used Windows Movie Maker to increase the brightness in the video and make a minor zoom-in on the final seconds of the clip.

Video showing inserting N64 cart (Mario Kart), turning system on and playing game. Didn't seem worth making a short video of moving a switch, turning system on to play GBA, but if you want me to, I will quite happily.

Hope you like the video, not great quality, as before, but functional. It is a bit longer this time, 1 min 29 seconds. As always with videos which aren't too tiny, it is a good idea to keep the video on pause until it has loaded and then play it (otherwise it keeps pausing).

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:37 am

Quite an update on the briefcase. I spent a while thinking how to do this, to make it look reasonably nice, securely hold the console in place yet be easy to remove it. I decided to build a skeleton out of polystyrene (left over a while ago when we got a new freezer for the garage!).

Working out where the console will fit in the briefcase:

The polystyrene:

I cut out four corners so the console fits nicely, and can be removed from the sides or top:

I used some old cloth table napkins spare, one was cut into four pieces so covered them fine. I used hot glue to glue the polystyrene to the cloth (you can't use normal glue as it melts polystyrene):

Done. Hot glued them to the case:

Thought this looked rubbish, and also it wasn't secure, so I cut out some mounting board strips and hot glued them between the polystyrene parts:

I then put another table napkin over the top, put the console on top, when I was happy with it, I took off the console, drove some heavy duty stapes through the construction in the corners to keep everything in place and hot glued the material in place to the sides where needed.

Put the console back:

As you can see, there is plenty of space to lift out the console from the sides (or top and bottom). It doesn't have to look taught, it is nice to have looser material, looks nice.

When I make the holder for the carts and the PSU (not with polystyrene, I used this before for the console's height), I can cover them with the napkins, to keep uniformity. As to the corners of the parts above holding the console in place; if I put some mounting board on top and secure this into the polystyrene with nails, I can glue a napkin to the tops and make it look smooth!

More work to do to finish this, but you can get a feel for how it will look when finished.

I anticipate being able to house about 16 or so N64 carts in the briefcase; about a fifth of my N64 collection.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:59 am

Ever since I was a young lad I was always making things out of surplus stuff and scrap from around the house. I am quite the "Blue Peter Modder".

Look at this project for example: making the case from perspex, wood, picture frame wood; then there is the home made buttons from tin foil, soda top caps, mounting board and sticky foam pads; now the case which I not only remade the lock catches (including some metal from a candy tin); and now making the inside of the case from table napkins, polystyrene and mounting board.

Hey Moderators; any chance of "Blue Peter Portablizer" as a title please?! That would be sweet!!

dudex77 · Post by **dudex77** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 11:05 am

Huzzah, it's finished, and holy crap does it look nice! Why do you have to be such an poop egress and make such an awesome portable? Now all of our effort will look like poo in comparison

Really that thing is awesome great job!

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 11:58 am

Got my title! Thanks very much! Great!!

dudex77 - Thanks!

gamemasterAS · Post by **gamemasterAS** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:26 pm

Wow thats one of the nicest portables I think I have ever seen, I love it. Nice work and I hope you tackle something like a Dreamcast.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:04 pm

Just saw this (forums slow yesterday and I was gone over the weekend), looks freakin awesome. Well worth the wait. Not quite as sleek as some others, but the best documentation by a looooooong shot. GBA built in is cool, too.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:08 am

gamemasterAS - Thanks! I won't do a Dreamcast because there aren't any games on the system I ever wanted to play. I am also not that interested in systems with a CD drive in them (apart from GameCube), as far as modding goes, I like cartridge systems or systems using memory cards - they are far quieter!

vskid - Thanks! Yes, I agree, a couple of the vacuum formed cases are excellent, especially marshallh's L64; however most of us don't have such facilities and have to make our own cases from scratch. Whilst mine is not as pretty as vacuum formed cased ones, I would wager that mine is the prettiest and best made of cases which don't use vacuum forming!

Anyway, as a break from my modding a PDA project (see Handheld Hacking forum) I decided to make some more updates on this briefcase mod.

A couple of pics so far, more to come:

Used some of the cloth from the section (made with mounting board) I just added to overlap where the console fits, makes it look sleeker. I also hot glued the other side to the case itself, after making spacers with more mounting board.

I managed to get 8 N64 carts at the front, I can't get a 9th in there otherwise I can't get a cart out. They are all wedged in nicely so won't fall out when the briefcase is carried about. I can also fit 4 carts on the side, with the PSU. (I haven't finished the side yet, I put them in place for illustration purposes).

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:06 am

Previously, I had only played on my system for up to about 30 mins or so at a time; last night I had a good session of about 1.5 hours. Everything behaved properly: I find supporting the console in the middle of my lap between my legs to be very comfortable and very natural; it also keeps the system slightly angled nicely and gives plenty of space to hold the controls and use them comfortably. It means basically that the system is being supported by your legs rather than hands, which is so much better.

One issue, I wired the B button controls on the N64 part to the left C button, and vice versa! Before, when I tested the system, I pressed the B button and it moved me back to the previous menu as I had wanted; however I was playing Mario Party (I love the series, at least on the N64), and wondered why I couldn't press the B button in a game; I then tried the GBA, all fine, realised what was likely to be the issue, played some Banjo Kazooie and realised the mistake; Banjo attacked with the left C button and only changed view on the B button, instead of the other way around!! Oh well, at least playing Mario Party proved my Z button worked beautifully - some of the mini games needs Z + A to do a slam drop; lovely!

Had to therefore open the case to change the two button controls over, fortunately I had made the case easy to open (with care), so did the repair this morning. It took me about an hour and a half to do the work, most of this was locating the offending wires, re-wiring them and testing.

Anyway, buttons are right now. Just played the bit on Mario Party I had the issue with before, beat that level this time (now the B button is wired properly)!! Playing the Mario Party games on the N64 was one of the driving forces for me to make this portable; they (three of them) and a few other titles I think really shine on the N64.

I took the opportunity while the sides of the case were off to cut a thin strip of BluTak and seal it against the top of the PSone screen, so the top of the case is darker (I mentioned about this a few postings back).

I didn't have to remove the entire system to do the work above, the only time I will have to is if the Start button needs repair at any stage.

I must say in regards to the home-made buttons, that they feel far better to use than than using tact switches, and more responsive than the rubber buttons in a normal controller as they need a lighter touch to work (they never work without me pressing the button, I add). The only downside is that I used mounting board and hot glue for their strength, rather than plastic and superglue; if any of them fail and I need to remake them I will make them from that material instead; they will last for years then!! If they don't fail, great, if they do I know how to improve them.

Sharp Sapphire · Post by **Sharp Sapphire** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:56 pm

That suitcase looks BA.

Now all you need is an office job (If you don't have one already), then walk in with it and brag about all the files you got in there, then pull out the N64.

GoldenfrankO · Post by **GoldenfrankO** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:19 pm

you by anychance want to sell it? I'd love to buy it.

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:57 pm

Wow!... Just, wow. That is truly amazing. It's beautiful!

Great thread, I can't believe I just read through the whole thing! I haven't gotton up for hours!

I'm working on an NES portable, and even though this is a Nintendo 64 Advance, I still found tons of useful information! I'll send pics of mine as soon as I get it done. (May be a while, though.)

By the way, you're amazing with a dremel.