Portable NES by Eduardo

Homemade Portable NES

by EDUARDO

My portable NES 8bit with 128 built-in games!

Eat your Heart Out GameAxe !

Lucky me I found this Famicom with 128 built in games, it's about the size of a Dreamcast controller, it runs on 4 AA batteries that makes it run for about 8 hours, it can also be used with a power adapter. Another nice feature is that it came equipped with a 60 pin gamecart socket, much like a gameboy, useful to play games that are not built-in; two things I wanted to modify was that:

1) the video output cable was too short.

2) No screen.

I decided to make an internal mod, attached an external antenna and now by merely pointing the unit to my TV set I can get a display of the games. I made a few tests and adjusted the size of the antenna to make it work inside a 5 meters ratio, that way the display won't bother my neighbors or something :) So I ended up with a wireless NES.

Now in order to play 'on-the-go', I needed a screen so I attached a small Sony portable TV, it runs on 3 AA bateries that keeps it working for about 3 hours, since I converted my NES wireless and considering the small size of the Sony TV, I didn't really felt like ripping it away, so I created a detachable socket for the TV set, that way I can unplug the TV from the rest of the unit and still have a complete unmodified portable TV plus keeping my Famicom intact. I could have attached the screen to the upper side of the unit making it smaller but at the end I decided to attach it to the front panel because it will be closer to my eyes and that way it won't block the gamecart slot. The Sony TV comes with a digital tuner, it locks on the Famicom RF signal perfect, and since they're so close while attached I didn't have to do the composite Video modification, anyway I obtained a decent display from it.

The Atari VCS is my system of choice for everyday playing, but in this case a second tought jumped in my mind, at first I wanted to modify one of my VCS with 64 built in games, but I had to reconsider some facts on a close comparison to my Famicom 128:

a) The VCS is power hungry, it can kill an expensive 9v batt in one hour ($3.5), while the Famicom takes 8-10 hours of continuos gameplay to squeeze a much cheaper 4 AA package ($1.5), I don't want to mess around with rechargeable batts and stuff, is a drag.

b) The Famicom has 128 games (actually is about a 100 different games plus some 20 variants, still is a ton of games) and it came with some of the best Arcade ports for it already built in, not to mention the fact that I can also plug in multigame carts or american 72 pin carts using my 72-60 adapter.

c) Size does matter: the famicom is already miniaturized, to make my VCS smaller it will require many hours.

Some ppl said to me 'hey just get a GameAxe and insert a multigame cart' but in real life everybody knows how cranky and unreliable NES gamecarts are when the contacts become dirty or when you shake the unit. Ever accidentally hit your NES in the middle of a game? if you're lucky the graphix will corrupt or the whole game will crash, so I'm not really very interested to play it with game carts plugged in, unless it's not built in like Super Mario 3. Also the screen of the GameAxe has a poor quality display, unreadable text, etc. Anyhow having all those games already built in is a great advantage.

This was my first attempt, I still need to work a bit on the looks of it, it ain't handsome but it works and it's mine :) I'm having troubles trying to keep my friends and younger brothers away from it, they love it.

Some of the Highlights of the built-in games are:

Arabian, Galaga, Galaxian, Arkanoid, Tetris, 1942, Star Force, Contra, Bomber Jack, Pacman, Ms.Pacman, Pac Land, Millipede, Mario Bros, Super Mario, Pin Ball, Joust, StarGate, Star Juster (similar to Star Trek), Exerion (similar to Buck Rogers), Excite Bike, BalTron (similar to Gradius), BaseBall, Soccer, F1 Race (similar to Pole Position), Lunar Ball (pool), Battle Tank, Xevious, Donkey Kong 1,2 and 3, Sky Destroyer, Pooyan, Dig Dug 1 and 2, Elevator Action, Space Invaders.

Legal Disclaimer: I won't be held responsible in any way and I won't be held liable of any damage if you decide to build your own controllers using these ideas shown here. I'm not affiliated in any way with Atari, Genius, Sony, Nintendo, or any other company mentioned here. These projects were made as a labour of love for Testing and Educational Purposes only. They're shown 'as-is' without warranty. In a few words: Use them under your own risk.