Ben Heckendorn’s creations – portable consoles

Ben Heckendorn’s Atari 800 laptop – Engadget – www.engadget.com

Ben Heckendorn, master of stuffing old gaming consoles into portable packaging (see:
NES Micro,
N64p,
PPS2,
Phoenix 2600), has just revealed what is arguable his
most intricate project yet, a homemade laptop filled with Atari 800 guts. This throwback to the early days of video
games sports an 8-inch TFT screen, dual speakers, full QWERTY keyboard, 2-player controls, cursor control knob,
CompactFlash “disk drive,�? and two joystick ports. Even better, Heckendorn included an error reference list right
next to the display, which would be super-handy to have on regular laptops, except that a list of Windows error codes
would probably require a 500-foot tall screen.

Ben Heckendorn is at it again. The creator of the Portable
PlayStation 2, N64p and
Phoenix 2600, has created his smallest homebrew portable
game console yet: the NES Micro. That’s right. While Nintendo spins its wheels with the
Game Boy Micro, Heckendorn has built a pocketable
Nintendo Entertainment System capable of using cartridges created for the full-size console. The one-of-a-kind unit is
just 5.25 x 2.625 x 1.625-inches, has a 2.5-inch LCD, runs off of 4 AA batteries, and even has a headphone jack. We
have no idea what Ben’s next project is, but we can’t wait to see it (and, yes, we’re secretly hoping for a portable
Colecovision, just so we can actually use that old Zaxxon cart that’s down in the basement).

So the dude who we have to thank for the “portable�? Atari
2600 (not to be confused with the portable NES, or
any of the others), Benjamin Heckendorn,
apparently got busay again on a, uh, pocketable N64 system he somehow wrangled into a custom enclosure. He then
pitted it in an all out battle against the
DS—he doesn’t seem to think there was a
clear winner, but somehow we’re pretty sure a homebrew deconstructed home deck wedged into god-knows-what trumps the
real deal. Plus, as he points out, you don’t have to tap the screen just to get the thing going.

We’re still not exactly sure whether the PlayStation Portable will arrive on time or not, but if you can’t wait
until next year, Ben Heckendorn has a step-by-step guide to portabilizing your PlayStation 2 (the funny part is that at
the end of the how-to he admits he only owns two games for the PS2). Should keep you busy at least until the real one
comes out.

PSP? We don’t need no stinkin’ PSP. While
the rest of the world falls before the PlayStation Portable juggernaut (or
doesn’t), Benjamin Heckendorn, who created the
Portable PlayStation 2, is hard at work on a portable game console for the rest of us: the Phoenix 2600, based on the
venerable Atari 2600. Heckerdon is currently working on a prototype, and expects the final custom-made product to go
for about $300 with the trade-in of an existing 2600. Yes, you have to give up your original console; but that seems
like a small price to pay for the looks of envy and incredulity you’ll get when you whip this thing out and launch a
round of Asteroids or Pitfall.