We'll admit it. While the Atari Lynx was an incredibly svelte and sexy gaming machine, it was just too small for us. Even if we managed to find it at the bottom of our oversized backpack, our expansive grip completely obscured our round of Electrocop. Nope, we've been 64-bit gaming at home with our Jaguar ever since then, dreaming of a day when Atari would make their triumphant return to the hardware space and deliver us a real portable Jaguar ... a Jaguar Lite if you will. Though that day hasn't come, we're more than happy to settle for Ben Heck's homemade handheld. Finally, we can load this thing up in back of our pickup and play Aliens vs. Predator on the road ... or, even better, some Kasumi Ninja.

[Via Engadget]

Engadget columnist, and console hacking guru, Ben Heckendorn has returned to the PSP thumb nub hack that he started two weeks back. Not to be outdone by others, Ben built his hack with IC sockets, an analog thumb stick, some hot glue (lots of hot glue) and ... some shredded beef jerky chew?

Yup, the not always so pragmatic Heckendorn went with the jerky's plastic tin because it was both cheap (good for us) and readily available to the novice hacker (that's good for us too). Ben's made a detailed guide, with plenty of pictures for the instruction-impaired. Watch as everyday household ingredients (like solder and beef jerky cans) coalesce into an easily detachable analog thumb stick, ready to go wherever you and your PSP do.

Engadget's newest columnist, hardware hacker extraordinaire Ben Heckendorn (yes, we're jealous) has built a very nifty PSP joystick mod, and provided handy steps so that you can also void your warranty and save your thumb. However, taking BenHeck's mod and improving on it, Joe Stranger has posted his own "ghetto" joystick mod in the DCEmu Forums. Stranger cleans up the design from BenHeck's schematics (giving him the proper amount of props), and makes the mod detachable with a tight little enclosure that houses a USB adapter. Check out the drool-worthy ghetto thumbstick video after the break. We want to send our PSP direct to him for pimping out.

As far as mods go, this has to be one of the most useful we've ever seen. It makes us want to pick up Loco Roco again, since we won't have to wear off the skin on the pads of our thumbs to finish it.

Read - Engadget's analog control stick how-to
Read - DCEmu's version of Engadget's mod

Master of all things portable and playable, Ben Heckendorn has managed to create an Xbox 360 laptop within the space of three months. The unit weighs approximately 14 pounds, is 2.8 inches thick and, more importantly, can play Dead Rising. Through an intricate process that undoubtedly involved soldering, bending and the use of arcane magic, Ben combined the 17" HD monitor, Wi-Fi adapter, a keyboard and a water-cooling system with the innards of an Xbox 360 to produce what is likely one of the least productive (and possibly best) laptop devices we've seen yet -- this stance will likely change should robotic lap dancers suddenly become the norm.

Ben's official site seems to be taking a hammering, but the page dedicated to his latest creation still appears to be functional. If you encounter problems when viewing the images (none of which depict the system placed on an actual lap), wait a few moments and refresh. If you're wondering how exactly he put it all together, you'd best start reading the article right from the beginning.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Just as Nintendo has dropped the unwieldy designs of their past in favor of svelte, smaller designs, so too has hacker-extraordinaire Ben Heckendorn (that's Benheck to you kids). He's gone and updated the dated retro-Nintendo look of his original nPod with something decidely more Apple modern-Nintendo like. Behold: the nPod 2!

The Geppetto to this Pinocchio writes, "[The nPod 2] uses a different kind of NES on a chip motherboard and is actually even smaller than my original nPod. It has an easy-to-use sliding battery pack (4 AA's that last a long time) and clean, simple styling. And lo and behold it has a headphone jack! Customization would also be possible, such as all the gray parts could be a different color, for instance."

Just how small is it? "Think of 2 NES carts stacked atop each other, and that's pretty much it." Not bad, and bonus points for using Nintendo's metric of x amount of something stacked atop each other. Better still, you won't have to settle for ogling it through the dense and unloving prism of your computer screen. You'll be able to throw $250-300 (he guesstimates) down and buy one for yourself (or a loved one). Whaddya say? For the price of a Wii, are you buying?

See also:
Top 10 custom-built consoles
NES Micro by Ben Heckendorn
benheck does it again - the portable N64

[Via TechEblog]

The site for this incredible portable N64 dubbed -- mysteriously -- the L64, has been presumably recuperating after a thorough digging and Engadgeting(?) last week. Worst part about it all: the L64's creator, Marshall, turned us onto his creation ten days before that! We missed the boat and we deal with the consequences; namely, not being able to show you this thing until now.

Now that his site is all better, we think you'll be plenty pleased with Marshall's labor of love. His site has plenty of pix of the assembly with some added commentary. Think he might have made himself a BenHeck-killer there. So sure, Marshall just happens to work as an industrial designer with a dozen years fabbing ... what's that? Marshall says, "In fact I'm not any bigwig of the game industry, I'm just a 16 year old with too much time..."

Yeah, and now we're totally dejected. Seriously Marshall, tell us you were kidding. You're a pro, right?

TechEBlog has assembled a list of the "Top 10 Strangest Custom Gaming Systems." It should come as no surprise that more than one of their selections was created by console hacker-extraordinaire Ben Heckendorn. In addition to variants of popular consoles like the NES and Genesis, the list includes portable versions of famous flops like Atari's Jaguar, and Sega's Genesis add-on, the SegaCD. We're hoping these aren't ranked in order 'cause that portable Colecovision totally houses that NESPlusSega monolith!

[Via VH1's new game blog, Game Break]

Hardware hacker extraordinaire Ben Heckendorm has shoved a working NES it into a tiny little container measuring just 5.25" x 2.625" x 1.63". You thought your PSP got you looks on the subway? Whip out this bad boy, pop in an NES cartridge (blow on the cartridge first, for dramatic flair), and them other brothers can't deny that you'll be the envy of the morning commute. Hot.

[Thanks, Princess Zelda]

This guy, Ben Heckendorn,  is a perfect example of how we are all put on this planet to find our talent; and to practice that talent to the best of our ability. If only we were all so lucky!

Ben is at it again, this time popping the top off of an N64. He clearly struggled to retain control over the wonky Nintendo engineering, but, in the end, there was success.

Now if he could just turn a PS2 slim version into a portable...

[via digg]