Ben Heck has been at it again, this time taking a Commodore 64 and transforming it into a laptop that “looked exactly like a computer from the early 80’s, yet in a new form.” As well as fully-functional C64 hardware, the laptop has a 15-inch screen, original keyboard and even a separate sub-screen for memory status.
More photos and video of the C64 laptop after the cut
The Space Invaders Piggy-Bank was one of the more recent gadgets to make us wail at not living in Japan, and just to rub it in the Akihabara team have been playing with one. Made by Takara Tomy, the 1/6th scale table has a working game built into its lid, triggered by feeding it coins.
Video demo after the cut
Take the guts of a Sega Dreamcast, fashion an ejecting GD-Drive mechanism and stuff it all into a 15-inch monitor housing, and you may end up with this: the Dreamcast Tablet. Maker WERD of the Benheck forums also stuffed some batteries in there too, meaning the console is now good for up to 3.5hrs of standalone runtime.
Video demo after the cut
Chubby, lurid and with a definitely Apple-inspired UI, the GAME-800 PMP could easily be dismissed as yet another Chinese knock-off. In doing that, though, you’d be missing out on some retro gaming action, as this “MP5 Player” not only has video and audio playback but an emulator for NES, Famicom, GameBoy, GameBoy Color and Sega Mega Drive games.
There’s something about taking retro hardware and hiding modern gadgets inside that appeals to a certain type of mod-happy geek. Today’s example takes the venerable NES Advantage arcade controller and stuffs the guts of an Xbox 360 wireless controller inside.
Video demo after the cut
Some things are so brilliant they make you want to jump on a plane and fly to Japan for them. This Space Invaders piggy-bank is one such example, gobbling up your spare 100 yen coins and letting you play a tiny version of the game itself on the table-top LCD.
As lust-inducing modernized versions of classic German audio hardware go, this ReBraun MP3 player from Bootleg Objects is at the top of its game. Based on the 1962 Audio 1 Kompaktanlage, the ReBraun swaps the radio gauges for twin LCD displays, plus there’s WiFi for audio streaming.
Blaze have announced a third-party Sega Genesis (aka Sega Mega Drive) that not only allows classic games cartridges to be played but comes with fifteen titles preloaded. Onboard games include Sonic & Knuckles, Altered Beast and Golden Axe; as for the cartridge slot, it’ll accept any region’s Genesis or Mega Drive games.
Based on the open-source Uzebox project, the Fuzebox is a DIY 8-bit console kit where you not only build the hardware but write the software too. Titles can be written for the Fuzebox in C, plus there’s an emulator available to test them out.
The design of this Portable Digital Media Center may not be retro, but it’s interpretation of “portable” certainly is, taking us back to the days where a 14-inch CRT TV was considered highly luggable. In this case, Chinavision offer an 8-inch swiveling LCD display, DVD and CD player, FM radio and even retro NES gaming.
SlashGear Japan
