I have a memory stick question? On a portable console.

Zangoose0078 · Post by **Zangoose0078** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:34 am

Ok here is my question. I notice good things are being done with making comsoles portable. My main question is, is it possible to replace the cdr,dvd drive with a bootable Memory stick drive? Meaning in stead of the cd or dvd rom drive as the main boot you can replace that with a different boot like a memory stick. I know this sounds weird, I'm not asking anybody to work on it. But I think console motherboard will boot a memory stick the same as cd or dvd rom drive. You might need to solder the points to the motherboard but I don't see how it couldn't boot the same. Now if this a possible, putting games on the memory stick would be easy. Plus there would be more space to add all the composits on the console like network adapter ,lan support and memory cards. Another plus would be that making the portable console smaller and cheaper to make. Just my thouhgts. Is anyone else thinking about this? Or I'm the only one.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:44 am

It would help if you said what system it is. I'm guessing PS2, and people have been using the PS2 HDD hack since it came out.

Zangoose0078 · Post by **Zangoose0078** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:51 am

well I mean't any of them. I'm not talking about the boot hard drive but a pure memory stick boot. For example GCN, Now if the GCN was portable, then instead of using the cd rom boot replace it with memory stick boot.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:42 am

We have gone over this on every board on these forums, and unless you have extremely advanced programming experience in assembly language, and can design a circuit to read the stick, it is impossible. Just because you have to switch carts or CDs doesn't mean it isn't portable. the only people that have ever successfully found a way to run an N64 off a hard drive(and trust me, there are few), have all had to use existing products that cost like $200 and up, and still needed to modify the programmed BIOS.

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:06 pm

http://www.gcdev.com/

It is now possible to run Gamecube games on a SD-card. This is used mainly for homebrew games, but in theory, it could also work for real games. The main problem would be shrinking the game small enough to fit on the SD-card. So, if you're really good at hacking games, or if you happen to have a really big SD-card, then it may be possible.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 12:04 am

As long as your not intent on Sony Memory Stick cards only, then yes.

The harddrive hack for PS2 (as long as you can use any hard drive with it) should work with a compact flash card, as both are interfaced via the ATA protocol. You can get adapters to go from 40-pin IDE to Compact Flash (completely passive).

The X-Box can boot games from its HD, and you can replace the drive if you mod the system. However, that's not very practical to portabilize in the first place, and I'm guessing you'd need an 8GB or larger CF card, and that isn't practical right now (an 8GB CF costs over $10K last I checked).

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 10:33 am

The only bigger unit I could think of would be the Q*Bert Arcade portable! (75 pounds of portable gaming goodness!)