By David Ponce
Some of you might have seen this man’s work before, but for those that haven’t, let me introduce you to Benjamin J. Heckendorn, maker extraordinaire. His claim to fame, according to yours truly, is his fabulous ability to make portable NES, and SNES consoles. That’s right, the entire console, with screen, in a device that fits in the palm of your hands.
What you’re looking at, in this picture, is the latest iteration: the nPod V2, an updated version of the original nPod. It has a smaller emulator chip, which allows for the reduced size. It uses 4 AA batteries which “last a long time”. Right now, it’s only a prototype, though Ben seems to be testing the waters of commercialization at $250 a pop, or $300 with extra features such as TV out and such.
I wonder about the quality of the emulation. Can a P4 emulate the snes with no lags? Obviously a P4 is way more powerful, but emulating several chips on one CPU doesnt always work so great.
Ben does not use emulation in his portable devices. He is actually using an NES or SNES console and a handheld tv screen.