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NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: soop on April 26, 2011, 04:27:01 AM

Title: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 26, 2011, 04:27:01 AM: Just get the cheapest core unit you can and fix an LCD to it? Also, I wonder how much power a core unit draws? Might be able to battery-power it.

*edit* In fact, by the power supply, we know that it's 9v and less than 1000mAh. And todays LCDs will draw far less power than the old ones.

*edit 2* Ok, 2 things; firstly, the old screen is 4 inches, but it obviously has a large bezel. The second thing is, screens nowadays are all widescreen. So I think the best screen to use would be a gamecube/PSOne 5" screen. Of course actually attaching it and fitting it into a "lid" is another matter.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: Tatsujin on April 26, 2011, 05:20:26 AM: Easily said, it all depends all on which parts you will use. A possible selfmade LT can be between 40 and few 100 bucks. And yeah, batt operation woulnd't be much of a prob today.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 26, 2011, 05:30:50 AM: Damn, I'm really tempted by this. I might get one of those Gamecube screens.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: hoobs88 on April 26, 2011, 07:01:02 AM: This forum member made his own portable system.

http://moddedbybacteria.wordpress.com/multi-platform-console-system-projects/turbografx-pce-hucard-console-intografx/
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: thesteve on April 26, 2011, 10:25:13 AM: sweet
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: jperryss on April 26, 2011, 12:17:50 PM: Quote from: hoobs88 on April 26, 2011, 07:01:02 AM
This forum member made his own portable system.

http://moddedbybacteria.wordpress.com/multi-platform-console-system-projects/turbografx-pce-hucard-console-intografx/

Yep, and with a full-sized TG to boot. I imagine you could go even smaller/lighter with a PCE or CG.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 26, 2011, 09:24:53 PM: also, for some reason a PCE is about half the weight of a Core Grafx. And since I can't use it without an adaptor, I might use mine.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: Vecanti on April 28, 2011, 05:10:47 AM: Might be cool to find an old CD-Rom shell and mod that. Put the LCD screen in there and make it open and close to reveal the LCD screen. Put it in to a suite case with a core unit. In the big grey back part of the suite case where the units connect maybe you could fill all that space with with batteries.

(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5991/76752723.jpg)

Instead of a CD unit a screen pops out...
(http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3928/11133204.jpg)

Another angle, sorry for the weak photoshop skills... lid is sort of missing, but you get the idea,
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8443/41313339.jpg)

Screen folds away when done to look like a normal CD unit...
(http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/9424/50233827.jpg)
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 28, 2011, 08:23:23 PM: that's actually a pretty good idea!
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: thesteve on April 29, 2011, 05:46:52 PM: i had a Pentium 100 laptop running magic engine
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: tru on April 29, 2011, 05:58:09 PM: What would be really awesome is a potable PCE CD Rom... the portable PCE/TG16 has been done already... its called the TGExpress/PCGT... make a cdrom portable and then we'll talk...

Still much better than what I could do though...
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 30, 2011, 03:41:00 AM: The big drawback of the CD ROM is battery. Having a physical motor spinning constantly will drain battery quickly.

I have a 3.5" screen coming that I was going to put into my Nomad, but I might play about with it in a PCE first. My main concern is a workable hinge, which the Gamecube screen would solve, but the gamecube is slightly bigger than a PCE so it may not work well.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: Vecanti on April 30, 2011, 04:00:14 AM: Quote from: soop on April 30, 2011, 03:41:00 AM
The big drawback of the CD ROM is battery. Having a physical motor spinning constantly will drain battery quickly.

I don't know, I use to have a CD walkman that ran for 9+ hours on two AA bateries. LCD screens however would suck two AA down pretty fast. The PCE cd-rom probably take more power, but it might not necessarily be that much of an issue.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 30, 2011, 11:53:31 AM: The main difference would be in the amount of buffer needed to store data. In the case of a PCE, that's next to zero, which is fine for a home console, but for a portable, it would last about an hour on batteries, without everything else combined.

For a modern(ish) discman, or minidisc, most of the data is stored in RAM, but with a 1x CD ROM, it's going to constantly have a motor spinning, which is more power than solid state or a new LCD. And LCDs aren't tha bad either, AAIK, it's the backlighting that kills.
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: thesteve on April 30, 2011, 02:33:25 PM: make a drive interface with buffering and solve that
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: soop on April 30, 2011, 08:30:24 PM: Quote from: thesteve on April 30, 2011, 02:33:25 PM
make a drive interface with buffering and solve that

The PC engine isn't designed to buffer that much, so i isn't designed to read that much. You'd have to build it from scratch
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: thesteve on May 01, 2011, 03:37:53 AM: i know.
it would require a custom cd rom interface, and a different drive
Title: Re: How hard would it be to "make" an LT?
Post by: Vecanti on May 01, 2011, 12:07:34 PM: I haven't used a CD walkman in a long time, but I remember the drive always spinning/streaming data and never turning off and I don't recall ever thinking they were huge battery hogs. Don't the PCEngine and TurboGrafx drives act as portable walkman and take AA batteries? (I've only ever owned Duos) How long do the batteries last playing music as a portable? I'm just thinking that there is no way the screen bats are going to out last the CD batteries. You're going to have to charge it when the screen bats go down so you'll just be topping of the CD bats at each charge really.