Combining Systems...

[Recoil]

Well, hello everyone. After stumbling across this site it only took me a day to register cause I have a question about combining the portables. Please note that I have not yet bought the book, but plan to in a week or so. I also do not have much experience with this sort of thing, that is why I am going to sketch everything out and plan this before I start ripping my stuff apart.

So to start off heres my idea. I currently own a NES, Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, and 3 DS's (my wife found a good deal on ebay). Now, I do not want to make a massive system using all of my consoles, just maybe combining the NES and the Dreamcast with my extra DS. I also don't want a huge control area with 40 buttons and 4 directional pads. Maybe there's a way to solder something to something else to just use 1 or 2 directional pads and 10 or so buttons. Top load for the NES games would be nice, but do not know where to put the Dreamcast Rom at. Also all the DS cart slots, recharge point and headphone jacks and other crap could go at the bottom.....somewhere.....

I am hoping to get out of this with only spending a small amount of money, hence using the DS's screens instead of spending $100 or so dollars on one of those portable TV's.

Thickness is already thought of. I know this thing will be twice as thick as a regularly made portable. I am thinking of making a recess in each side so it is easier to handle instead of having to grip around the entire thing.

I am not looking for any freebies or anything, but ideas are appreciated. I just want input from the experienced members who know more than me who could tell me if this is a plausable idea, or if I am just hoping too hard. Thanks.

[nos_slived]

Without majorly hacking these systems apart, and having to carry a 20 pound system, this is close to impossible. You said that you don't have experience, so try doing something like an NESp. I don't think the DS has an AV input accessory, which means that you would have to make your own convertor.

[Warrior_Rocker]

yea... that and combining the controllers would be a big hassle, as a lot of systems use different methods for the joysticks. and just keeping all the systems happy w/ on standard controller would well, be hard...

[*o*]

combining controllers would be a bit much

[Recoil]

O.K. I was bored at work today began to work on ideas and sketches for my project. I glanced over cause something cought my eye...it was my clip board. It is one of the thick metal ones: 8 1/2" x 13" x 1 1/4". So instead of putting my NES in it, I would instead make a combination of my GC and parts of a laptop. I can then just have a hard drive with an emulator and my roms on it, not to mention a working computer.

I have already thought of ways to have the GC controller imbedded into this thing but figure a wireless controller would work better. Also a control for the roms could either be wireless or one to connect to the external usb port.

The only thing now is getting a laptop motherboard and GC to connect together with the 6" or 7" lcd screen I am going to have on top of it, (maybe a selector to switch between the two?). Also getting the power from the laptop battery to work correctly with the GC and the lcd. But the most important thing is getting it all to fit in the clipboard successfully. I have already thought of the size and weight of this, but would work perfect for my use.

I am pretty good at designing and planning things. I plan to have everything sized out before I buy one thing for it because if it will not work by my designs, or fit into the case, I can always look at this as an idea towards a different portable.

[nos_slived]

How exactly do you plan to use the LCD for both? The only way to do that easily is to use a Mini-ITX with composite out, a video card with TV out, or a VGA to composite converter.

The GC is also a rather difficult project. If this is your first project, try an NES, SNES, or PS1 first.

[bicostp]

While I admire your ambition, this project is close to impossible. Your best bet is to make a NES portable out of a pirate system, a Sega Genesis portable out of the Radica controller, or build a PSone portable.

If you want to play all these games, just buy a fast laptop and load it up with emulators. (If you want to play on a TV, look for one with a TV out option.)

To use a laptop screen, you would need to build or buy a complicated board that encodes the composite data for the screen, which takes digital signals off of the motherboard. To buy one would probably be very expensive.

[Recoil]

I don't think this would be as hard as looks, well not visually maybe. The parts for this can be found and used, but maybe not together. Thats the reason for all the planning.

The motherboard for the PC portion must be small enough to fit into the clipboard, and have video out, even if it takes a video card. It also need to be able to use a laptop battery.

Making the GC and the PC hook to the screen could be done with a video selector.

I plan to get the sizes for everything to see if I can get it all to fit in the clipboard drawn out on paper before I even think about buying anything.

All this is still in the planning phase right now. If it wont work, then I can come up with something else. But for right now I am just planning.

I re-measured the clipboard:
8 1/2" x 13" x 1 1/2"

The lcd screen and keyboard is going on top of the board, also I want to use a laptop mouse board the go on top aswell.....Drawing coming soon for where they're going. A built in controller was a great idea, but would be better suited with wireless ones. So the only things that would have to fit inside the actual case is:
1 PC motherboard
1 Slim 3 1/2 floppy
1 pop-open dvd rom
1 small HD (possible laptop HD)
1 GC board
1 Gc cd drive
and maybe a video selector. Only after I research the sizes on everything and get it drawn up to fit into the board will I begin.

Thanks everyone....