While looking around AliExpress I found this little 8-bit handheld game console for a mere $4 shipped, so I ordered it just to see how something like this could be made so cheaply.
To buy one of these, for $4 (as of Jan 2024) pick the 1 for $1.99 banner and look through those items, and you’ll see one for $3.99.
— Video Links
The actual unit I have came from this listing:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805868406483.html
Adrian’s Digital Basement Merch store:
https://my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spring.com/
Support the channel on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian’s Digital Basement (Main Channel)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE5dIscvDxrb7CD5uiJJOiw
— Tools
Deoxit D5:
https://amzn.to/2VvOKy1
http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1602/.f
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
https://amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
https://amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
https://amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
https://www.rigolna.com/products/digital-oscilloscopes/1000z/
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
https://amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
https://amzn.to/2wG4tlP
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33000308958.html
TS100 Soldering Iron:
https://amzn.to/2K36dJ5
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MINI-Digital-OLED-Programmable-Soldering-Iron-Anti-static-Structure/113382669853
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
https://www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
https://amzn.to/2RDSDQw
https://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DSLogic-Basic-Analyzer-16Ch-100MHz-4Ch-400MHz-Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA/202543965672
Magnetic Screw Holder:
https://amzn.to/3b8LOhG
https://www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-magnetic-parts-tray-90566.html
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-24-28-32-40-pin-IC-Test-Universal-ZIF-Socket-Fs/303206721971
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
http://www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-Micro-Scissor-125mm-PLATO-170-Electronics-Cutter-Side-Cutting-Pliers/163458746184
Heat Sinks:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32537183709.html
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
https://amzn.to/3b8LOOI
— Links
My GitHub repository:
https://github.com/misterblack1?tab=repositories
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA – Portland, OR – PDX Commodore Users Group
https://www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
— Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQVjwPsVFd8
— Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino
source
Wasted money. The tearing, bad controls, hacked games, no saves, terrible audio, wrong speeds. Why would you waste your precious time playing this? I could only see it useful to gift it to a kid to break.
I got the same console hours ago and you posted a video, what a coincedence 😀 😀 I was planning to dissasemble it to see whats inside but now i dont have to. Thank you for the quality videos you make 🙂
The quality of this thing is better than my $100 multimeter I bought. It makes me kinda sad. I opened the meter up and was appalled at how bad the solder joints looked and how half-assed certain things seemed. I realize that they used wave soldering in the production of the meter, but it just looked awful.
Character molded under battery is Doraemon
I'm actually more curious if you could put the PROPER roms on there and cancel out the jank with the pal ones
Thanks Adrian. We have one of these, I bought it for my daughter but she doesn't play these "old" games. I had Raid on Bungling Bay on my C64 – we played it a lot.
Actually, what are those external pads doing, because there's enough there it KIND of looks like those MIGHT be a controller port or two.
Hai Adrian, I have the same console… 'bought it' from Temu for 0$ (free product with order of $20),… it is awesome… only the screen is bad… I already have 2 white vertical lines in the screen after 2 months… but hey,… it's cheap so I will replace it soon. 😉
The power and scale of China’s vertical integration machinery is pretty insane. The fact that we get stuff like this for like $4 is crazy! Even considering the lack lustre quality which honestly for the cost is still impressive!
Hi would love to see you customise the rom if possible? Make it yours
Thanks for the videos!
Surprised you didn't plug in the USB to see if it mounts and you could R/W images off of it.
It would be very easy to add an external controller onto this. Just tap into the contacts. I bet the extra "C" "D" buttons are turbo versions of the B and A NES buttons. That's what they usually are on the FOAC boards. -Matt
Nice! Played so much Thexder on my original Tandy 1000. Thx
I've always been fascinated with the old HK SuperVision / Megacom multi-carts. The originals from 1988-1991 don't repeat too many (usually), and are always real commercial Famicom games. Almost always Mapper 0, or hacked to use Mapper 0. Some of my favorites are the 110in1, 190in1, and my absolute favorite, the "Powerful 250in1", with over 100 actual games, and the hacked variants, stuck together, and not all throughout, which is nice. There is something very nice about these collections of early games. It's a nice snapshot of the early Famicom days. So many of the classic Black Box NES games too. Almost all 30 are present. -Matt
Bungeling Bay is a pretty significant game. Max Wright's first game, and it was the inspiration for SimCity, after he found the animations for the cities in Bungeling Bay to be so intriguing.
Great bit of fun this one Adrian 🙂
Well I don't know if you got 4 bucks of fun out of this but I sure did 🙂 God knows how many copyright violations are in this little toy 🙂
400 pirated games. They paid for none.
How does one even start making such a product. You have to have access to so many things, knowledge, factories, distibution. And the result is a $10 junk.
My favorite is Rural Goblin. I wonder if the successor would be Urban Goblin.
bought something "like this" (as in, same exact shape, but I don't know if it was the same manufacturer) a few years ago after watching some youtube video about how they are not as bad as you'd think, and yeah it was not bad. gifted it to a friend's 4 year old son so he could play mario. it broke a few months later from abusing the charge plug, which was about as expected, to be honest.
Edit: Wrt the external controller, it connects via the usb plug but isn't usb. in fact that whole usb plug is not actually usb, but rather follows the NES controller "protocol" (which is just a shift register, clock out, data in).
Edit 2: I just realized the controller port is micro-usb, mine was mini-usb!!
Also I don't think mine had those audio issues, this version must use a different clone NES chip.
Hey Adrian, I find this video both interesting and funny. I actually bought 2 of these as gifts before Xmas (although they were 500in1 despite being labeled as 400in1 – the game list here is more cleaned up and has more different games than repeats) based on a video you posted on your primary channel 4 years ago called "Improving the $10 8-bit handheld game console". In it you tore it down, talked about how the membranes were not so bad, and improved the output quality by using a resister on the RC jack. I can watch these vids all day long, fun that you revisit it! Cheers sir!
The screen tearing is actually because the scaling is "nearest neighbor" and the LCD isn't an exact multiple of the native NES resolution. I have the same issues on the GameGear replacement screen. You need a screen with exactly 1x or 2x the pixels of the NES to not get this effect, or leave black bars around the screen edges.
I have an external controller for that little "Gameboy"
17:30 It’s the “Otto hotel”! This references a YT and Twitch.TV legend Jerma985, when he played a NES bootleg multi in one cart on hardware and came across this game. His dog’s name is Otto, and he joked with his chat about how the hotel sign looked like it said Otto’s Hotel. Jerma is a gem and it brought me joy seeing Otto’s Hotel again lol. These multi in one carts are all the same, but I’ve seen them enough they almost are nostalgic for me.
lol every game fully licenced i'm sure!
I bought one of these for my kid to use, the thing died 3 days after arriving. Lost image and started rebooting. They fully returned the money, but very poorly built.
Mine has angry birds on it, a really weird version