New to these things

[gameramps]

I've heard about people making portables from actual consoles only recently and got me rather intrigued. I have an N64, a Snes, a Genesis, and a gamecube so I have quite the variety to choose from.

I also have an old Dell laptop that I was thinking about using for one of these consoles. The laptop has fans, speakers, li-ion battery with charger and a large 17" LCD screen and several little electronic things inside that I may use for this (?). It's a big laptop but I was thinking the n64 and/or the gamecube ought to be merged with it since they are the hardy 3d rendering and game power. The laptop recently died out, possibly a video card since that was on the fritz (kept short-circuiting itself whenever the power chord connects/disconnects causing weird retro lines on the screen).

The only thing wrong with my gamecube is that the disc player isn't spinning very well. It will often give up on trying to spin so I was thinking maybe try to use my laptop's dvd player for it since apparently it can read small discs (although I've never tried via gamecube game and gamecube emu).

I do have controllers for all of these consoles.

I wouldn't know if anyone has tried a laptop before or is crazy enough to do so. I figured I should either trash it (since I took it apart to save the hard drive) or try to make something out of it. The warranty on it had been long gone before I took it apart.

Any advice/suggestions or maybe post here to tell me that it's impossible to merge any console onto a laptop and why?

[bassmasta]

It's not impossible.
Laptop screens usually have the controller and inverter board embedded in the motherboard, so you'll need to get a controller and inverter board.

[bicostp]

However the cost of those two things put together is usually more than just buying an LCD that will work out of the box.

[Sparkfist]

Also look at the SNES first. It's a much easier project and good for getting the basics down. N64s are known to break quite easily, and also require a more advanced power supply, same goes for the GameCube.

If you want to know about the kind of screen you can use, look at the forum listing and go to the Screens forum. It was discovered that a 3" LCD sold on ebay works great, and for only ~$30.

Good luck on your project.

-Sparkfist