Here's the last project we built on the show! I need to swap the batteries and wax poetic. I kind of want to build more of these so I'm offering this one up for sale. Includes ramblings about Alfred Noble and EV batteries - enjoy!
I still play the hell out of the portable N64. I know it's the bane of your existence but it's still one of the biggest talking points of my game collection..and of course I always give you due credit. Oh also...just wanted to let you know after watching you and owning a book of yours for the past...hmmm...15 years or so? I am now a senior in the electrical engineering program at CSUS, an avid 3D printer, and I work at a retro video game shop doing repairs. You're really a role model of mine.
Oh yeah it'd be open source I don't give a toss. And I'd sell the PCB at cost. Kits are a PITA, manufacture is worse, I get really triggered by the Commander X16. The process, not the machine. Machine is cool.
We miss you a lot in that type of RU-vid show, Mr. Ben!! I remember me just sit in front of my laptop, at lunch, waiting for the new episode each week!! Take care and have a wonderful life!! Blessings!!
I think the coolest part of this whole thing is if you look at retro calculators and handheld games from the period this would be from, the bodge wires and everything handmade, it looks just like something that would have been built back then, minus the more modern screen. Nice crafting as always Ben.
Thanks for the video, Ben! I have learned so much from your content over the years and always enjoy your general commentary on other things as well. Hope you have an awesome weekend.
The XEGS has a lot of nostalgia for me. I would buy the heck out of a portable XEGS kit (no pun intended). Especially if any of it could be made simpler with CPLDs / GALs (or even if not). This is one of my favorite projects from your channel!
You can actually do quite a lot with emulation on the rp2040, could seriously reduce the cost, complexity, battery consumption of vintage kits, as well as bypass the need to gut other vintage machines for unobtainium parts. That said, I quite get the desire to use original parts too.
Given the equipment and the know-how you've got at your disposal now, I'd love to see you put an updated version of this beastie together (with mini 3D printed keycaps)!
Thank you for showing some Atari 8-bit love!! My favorite computer. Actually pretty powerful & well engineered. Upgrades would be Stereo Dual POKEYS & 1 megabyte of RAM, SpartaDOS X, and VBXE. I bought Mastertronic's NINJA and after making a backup copy, I sector edited the Room Text to Romanized Japanese descriptions. 😊
Perspective is an interesting thing: It seems Ben was so busy when building this portable that he has little love for it. On the other hand this was one of my favourite builds. I'd absolutely love to buy it, but I expect it's worth a good deal more than I can afford... or should I admit my other half would be happy about? My congratulations to the lucky soul who does buy it. Yes, it would be great if you did an updated version.
Thems some batteries that live up to their name of _"Spicy Pillows"_ (Wade of DankPods) I suggest using the metal cased ones, as they are more resilient (obviously). Albeit... a little more expensive (also obviously). *_edit:_*_ hah as I scroll the comments, I'm glad to see others also calling them _"spicy pillows"_ lol_ Granted, the case is one of the polarities, so you'd have to kapton tape them, but all being a worthy tradeoff in my opinion for being less prone to bulging. They CAN, as the cheap replacement battery pack of my mom's old Toshiba tablet, they pillowed up... Whereas the original cells Toshiba sourced never did pillow, as they were understandably a higher quality cell! _(I repurposed the not-bad cells; still using them, too, 10yrs later)_
Bill Herd, the principle designer of the Commodore 128, and likely one of the world's greatest experts on the Commodore 64 as a result, described the Commodore 64 in this manner: "The Commodore 64 doesn't actually work. It looks like it does, but it doesn't really work.)
18:20 I flew once with two glass tilt switches in my carry on, I actually knew about what mercury can do to aluminum, and I'm just shocked they allowed it on board with me. I had them double-bagged in a taped up plastic container. Long story short, I'm an orphan now.
I’d totally be interested in buying one of your handheld projects! You’ve been such an inspiration for me! I sadly don’t have anywhere near enough to pay what this is worth. :(
It would be super cool if you made a kit and had a video of you assembling one of them, but it would be even better if you perfected this design! Made it even more portable! Easier to swap batteries, and using a different type of SD card + loader. The Atari 800 was a pretty nifty little system!
Hey Ben, ive watched your show since like day 1. you inspired a generation bro!!! would luv to see some more pinball builds. or a new PS5 rugged laptop build.
I wouldn't mind a kit, I was planning on using one of my two Atari 8-bit systems to build an 1088XEL, I wasn't planning on taking apart my XEGS though, but maybe I could buy a kit that had the leftover parts.
Wait what? I thought I had seen all the Ben Hack show episodes, but I haven't seen this one! I need to watch that. I didn't have an 800 back in the 80s, I was a C64 kid. My friend had an 800 XL and we always sorta ridiculed it. But.... when you are older you can admit that it's actually a great system. The palette is better than the C64, sound is not bad at all and I spend some time watching demos and it's a capable machine. And since it has the same CPU as the C64 it was very easy for me to program assembly on it too and really love the pretty high level API like Player Missile sprites. Oh and Ben, I am up to ordering a kit!
Fun story about the name "Nobel".. my uncle was approached by a fellow student back in the sixties (because he trusted my uncles opinion) that was supposed to make a speech around Alfred Nobel and asked about how to pronounce the name.. "is it 'Noble' or 'No-bell' ?!" and since my uncle was in that mood he said dead panned 'it is Noble'. So when the guy was starting his speech with "I will make a speech about Alfred Noooble" the teacher just yelled "WHAT!? You dont even know how to pronounce his name properly?! Get out!" and threw him out of the classroom. But! I also got to hear that later on in another incident a couple of years later my uncle was punced so hard right in the face by this student that just water came out of his nose. :)
I was thinking of how that keyboard used for this project would be cool to use it for the upcoming The400 Mini to put underneath that non working keyboard cover. No it wouldn't be useful to do any typing on Atariwriter but it's more useful for pressing buttons for games like Star Raiders w/o have to drag out a big external keyboard. Just a silly thought..
Hi Ben, I really like the idea of a kit or even a parts list along with a Heck designed PCB and 3D print files. It would be cool to have a few episodes of you designing all the different parts and then a build video. Happy to buy the custom PCB from you or to pay you some how. Maybe one of the parts stores can have a Ben Heck project page where we can buy all the parts and you get a cut?
While I would love to own a Ben Heck original, I couldn't justify the expense right now. However if you do sell PCB (and STLs for the case?) I'd definitely buy it to build my own.
There is some pressure point (something underneeth is poking on it) at the back of the display when you use the controls. I love to see some kits of such devices. There was another handheld, the Atari 2600 (junior), that was an amazing design!
For Jerrasic Park, I was informed most dinosaurs have a tertiary nervous system. This allows them to continue moving at full speed even after their head is completed removed. They had one counter, the LAW system makes sure they can't move by simply disassembling the dinosaur.
I'd be suspicious why those original batteries ballooned up. It was seldom used. What could have caused it? Were the batteries defective or are those Adafruit boards not charging up the batteries correctly?
@@SkylerLinuxI did not know that. Thanks. And yeah, better it goes to a home that would use it. I very rarely if ever retro game. For me the build is the fun.
Nobel's family did not get blown up. His brother was killed from the explosive while working in one of the Nobel factories (his father's I think) but not his whole family, his mother and father died naturally. Equally, Nobel actually found soaking Nitroglycerin into diatomaceous earth, not clay, as a method of desensitising it. Nobel was also better known for designing safety fuse and time delayed detonators/blasting caps for the mining industry. Equally, the trope that he set up the peace prizes through some sort of guilt from his creation is also questionable as little evidence exists that suggested he felt that way.
It would be funny to add a Parallel Bus connector to a future version of it and then connect it to the modern re-creation of the unreleased 1090XL Expansion Chassis. One of the modern 1090 PCBs - with expansion cards - was shown at VCF SoCal just a few days ago. Also, props on playing Mastertronic’s Ninja [aka “Ninja Mission” on the Atari ST and the Amiga]. I wonder if the 8-Bit version allows you to cut off body parts when the computer physically gets hot like the ST version did.
Hmm ,I hadn't thought of the Adafruit power boost, my pocket C64 has power issues, it resets if the volume is turned up too high, other wise it works fine, and yes, you inspired it with this build, lol.though I took a while to build it.
That thing is so cool and it runs excellently, but I'm sure it's going to go for more than I can afford at the moment, which is probably less than the postage to the UK....😅
When Alfred Nobels brother died, a french newspaper ran the headline "The merchant of death is dead!" mistaking the brothers, and this made Alfred scared for his legacy. He wasn't so much so sad for what is invention had done, more his reputation. This lead up to the Nobel Prize'.
maybe redo such 8bit "all in one" pocket computer using a cheap Tang-FPGA board at its heart ? it would then be able to become a C64/PET/VIC20/TRS80/MSX/800XL/CPC664/ORIC/Spectrum/AppleII just by software changing of its FPGA core (or put a more expensive DE10-Nano board inside that already has all the necessary cores available under Mister-FPGA and more up to the PSX,N64,Saturn consoles)
14 when watched Jurrasic Park. Thankfully saw movie first, not sure how as had read some of his other stuff before. Liked the movie, but if I had read the book I would have hated it due to the changes. Edit: I don't know, a cool house vs Nobel Prize? It's a close call, especially nowadays. ; p
8:06 spicy boys 10:56 lol this is intense, jab it, jab it interesting I thought the body was some weird custom plastic but it's 3D printed with some coating on it
Darkness of the 7 samurai hearts could be more interesting IMO having each have to overcome their own problems before they can successfully help the village. At the start of the first Jurassic Park movie he did shout shoot her. Sucks that Muldoon's crew were not willing to follow orders. nope their friend getting the gate wasn't worth saving.
There's a lot of gun weirdness in JP1 like when you hear Grant fire off a bunch of shotgun rounds as fast as a pistol and then the bullet holes in the glass look like 9mm
@@BenHeckHacks that was two shotgun shells into the ballistic sounder. its what they loaded up and stood on before turning on the tv screen to see the ground penetrating sonar image of the Velosoraptor.
Akfred Nobel was shocked when a false report of his death led to the publication of the obituary headlines "The Merchant of Death is Dead." The Winchester rifle was actually invented by an engineer named Henry, the Winchester was a few relatively minor improvements on the Henry Rifle.
I've said this multiple times, right back to the Ben Heck show when you were trying to make a product with the hot glue gun or kit pinball machine, I would really *like* to buy an electronics kit / project from you. Genuinely I would like to send you a sum of money for an electronics *thing* that I then assemble based on a video. In this case however, a project that involves taking chips from a fairly hard to find *thing* is probably a non-starter for me. What about an enbiggened version of your Game Badge? I'm thinking a kit that I can buy from you with off the shelf non-unobtanium parts, solder myself and have a Ben Heck branded *thing*. Then we can 3D print out own cases here. It is a fair chunk of work but my gut tells me you would be able to shift a couple of hundred kits.
One thing I hated about the last few Ben Heck Shows and then with the Element 14 content was the useless time constraints and resulting bad compromises. I much rather watch 2 episodes of one project than one episodes with a way worse result because the self set time limit was in the way.. That is a problem with a lot of the "maker content" especially when it comes from the US and it gets worse the more "professional" the content is. That is also why I really like the content on this channel now- the competitive TV-show shenanigans are missing.
Yeah at that time 20 minutes was the sweet spot for YT videos. And any time you do a multiple part project the views decline per episode. That's why now when I make videos they're as long as I want.
here in Canada, to send anything with lithium batteries to the USA, we have to use a service that is called Expedited, which basically the package travels by land. nonetheless, if you do end up selling that thing, you could always take the batteries out, I'm pretty sure 98% of your followers own a soldering iron and have basic electronic skills
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Uiw8LISBVj4.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eV1lacUcZk8.html Ah... Good Old THBS Holy moly, who cuts onions , i got all teary here😥
I can't wait for battery tech to advance. I've had one very pretty but questionably useful laptop destroy itself due to puffy batteries. Which is one too many.
Yeah me too. Lipo is great for phones and screwdrivers but we need another big leap (like NiMH to Lipo) before it's going to be feasible for middle class EV adoption.
