Modern handheld game consoles are impressive feats of engineering, featuring full fledged computers in near pocket-sized packages. So what happens if you take an original Xbox and sprinkle on some modern electronics and create a handheld? Well, if you’re [James] of James Channel, you end up with this sandwich of PCBs held together with hot glue and duck tape.
The first order of miniaturization in this Xbox was replacing the hard drive. Because a
For the screen and batteries, a portable DVD player that had remained unused since 2006 was repurposed. The battery cells were rather unhappy, but managed to get resurrected with some careful charging. As it turns out, the iPod 30 pin connector inside the portable screen contains an . By tapping into that and adding in some power management for the batteries, the Xbox became a pile of PCBs that could maybe be taken places.
However, the form factor was not yet complete. With some careful angle grinder work, the controller got split in half, with jumper wires going between the two sides. By cutting slots into the housing, the Xbox mainboard could now rest between the two controller halves, along with some hot glue for good measure. By using hot glue as an insulating layer, the PCB sandwich started to resemble a handheld console.
A few gremlins still lurked inside, namely, inside the optical drive. The first issue was the mainboard supplied 2.5 V where 5 V is needed, so instead of debugging the issue, [James] simply tapped directly into a 5 V line. But the drive was still uncooperative. As it turned out, the hastily refurbished unit was broken, so a fresh one replaced it. Yet that still proved unsuccessful. Eventually, after testing eight drives, it turned out seven were broken, and the IDE cable needed to be re-crimped.
But at last, the portable Xbox could be used, so the build was finished off with a bit more hot glue and a case made of duck tape. While certainly not pretty, it does, in fact, work, with nearly 10 minutes of battery life. It’s not very handheld, or very portable, but it does meet the definitions of both while maintaining a CD drive, something likely never done before. Just keep your fingers clear of the spinning disc.
Looking for something that might actually fit in your pocket? Turns out the Wii can be turned into an incredibly compact handheld with some careful cutting.
Please, the language is going to hell, don’t make it worse. Do we tape ducks with ductape? No, we tape(d) flat foam replacements for thin steel hemorrhage-causing HVAC ducts! The only problem was the original tape proved great for everything except what it was designed for (radical temp changes from 140^F heat to 60^F air destroyed the adhesive in half a trice. One company paid their fees and trademarked Duck Tape, warning users not to use it for its stated purposes. – retitle or the makers may sue – haven’t tried it for I don’t want to hurt my fine feathered friends, but ducks are oil- feather beasts, and I doubt any tape would stick. Which won’t stop dukfriends to having you in court in a 60th of a second, a “US Jiffy (@ 50th of a sec in much of Europe.
I’ve heard that the name “duck tape” from it’s use with duck cloth. I didn’t know what duck cloth was until then.
While I have always called it duct tape, if there’s one thing that I’ve found that it’s terrible for that one thing is duct work. It dries up, goes flaky and falls off. There are much better tapes for that purpose.
Ducktape is a brand of duct tape in the UK.
This oz? Bet Thry sell thier too.
This is one of those midwit halfway-to-the-truth things. It actually is duck tape, but named after the fabric, not the waterfowl. It is absolutely terrible for taping ductwork because it was not designed for it, that’s actually a very different type of tape. That kind is like sticky tinfoil.
They are just ARM smartphones with some buttons and analog sticks. Nuffin’ to ‘rite home ’bout.
Some are full-on x86_64 PCs with some buttons and analog sticks. Kid me would’ve been pretty excited about that.
Actually, under the hood most Intel x86 CPUs translate CISC instructions to ARM-like code because it’s faster to run 10-15 ARM instructions than a single x86 one. AMD does similar thing, but differently because of patents.
I too know what microcode is.
O RLY?
This isn’t really true in regards to currently made Intel processors, unless you really stretch the meaning of “ARM-like”. See: https://fanael.github.io/is-x86-risc-internally.html
Both this video and the Raspi waste of money server have happily polluted my youtube feed for the past week lol. Didn’t watch either of them and now I know why :)
This one at least is made with good humor and fun.
As much as it sounds like someone failing until they succeed at a hackjob, it’s more watching a goof magically Frankenstein a portable while winging it.
The hack is still educational in how it helps one understand how hard it is to completely mess up and how shockingly naturally some bits will fit together.
Jame’s hacks are an absolute marvel. They are hair brained, half baked and maybe only 1/3 assed but it is very rare to see a person take an angle grinder to a PCB and then have it work.
The Xbox does not require a modchip for HDD replacement, you can extract the original key and lock the new drive with it, or simply reflash the original BIOS with one that doesn’t require the lock. You can also enable VGA output for increased visual fidelity with BIOS mods.
Most people will just use a SATA to parallel IDE drove adapter and an SSD, also copying the games to run off the internal storage removes the requirement for an optical drive.
I didn’t have a DankPods HackADay crossover on my bingo card today 😂. (James is ‘DankPods’ brother-in-law IIRC)
Typo taping -> tapping (oddly the word tapped is used later in the article).
This is an excellent hack. The original Xbox is a hack on its own, mashing up a fairly capable GeForce inside a Northbridge chip, and shipping the DirectX runtimes (and NT Kernel?)on each game DVD it never needed updates to support new games AFAIK. Pretty amazing.
Duck Tape = brand name.
Duct tape = tape for ducts, ie silver stuff used in HVAC.
From my experience working in EU construction (mostly France and Germany), ventilation ducts are sealed using Sikalastomer sealants.
Duct tape is worthless for sealing ducts. Use the aluminum HVAC tape if you want it to last.
So, Compact Flash uses PARALLEL ATA. Not serial ATA. That’s convenient since if it was Serial ATA, they would’ve had to use an adapter, which is why they used CF, which is why it’s both noteworthy and important to be correct. Also in the first paragraph; You’re instead of your.
you’re
Relax, the typos mean we know the article is still written by a human and not AI
Comments are 50% “this was written by AI because of the typos” and 50% “stupid human can’t write good”.
This is nothing new and rather raw. If you want to do it the clean way, follow millomaker
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGE2JL-V4Emj5jz-w4KQMGRUYEmEIApc
The main thing this video is for is comedy and showing people how much abuse stuff can actually take and still work.
He (James) used an angle grinder to make cuts, duck taped it all together instead of building a 3D-printed case, sat the CD Reader flat on the top of the beast to spin freely… Yes. You’re right. it’s rather raw. He doesn’t do these as instructionals, he does these raw hacks by design. It’s the point of the whole thing, to be honest. Thanks for the link though, I’ll definitely be watching the more sedate method :)