Question PS1 Portable?

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Mar 20, 2018
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Hi all,

I've lurked on the forums for a long time, but I finally decided to become legitimate and join your secret society! Now that I'm on the inside... I wanted to share an idea with you all. Feel free to laugh uncontrollably at me, but nonetheless--

I have two Playstation consoles, one that I use, and one that has a broken lid spring that I don't use. I want to repurpose the one that I don't use into a portable. I've seen that the PS2 is by far the more popular portable candidate, but I just wanted to know if the PS1 is just as worthy?

I have some stuff laying around... here's the shortlist:

-PSone (the miniature one) console
*besides the motherboard and controller ports, what all has to come out of the console?
-3rd Party Controller
-Powerboost (from Adafruit)
-a 5'' screen, but I don't know if it's compatible yet.

I know I need batteries and some speakers (recommendations are welcome)... but... I guess I need a little insight on those; I see that a lot of forum-goers use these batteries with a pastel green coat to them. They look really cool and exotic (to me)! Are they special for this application?

For the enclosure... is vacuum forming something accessible for a newbie?

I'm sorry for throwing so many questions out... I'm eager to begin work... but I also don't want to step on a bunch of landmines.

Thanks for any and all help.
 

cheese

the tallest memer in town
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but I just wanted to know if the PS1 is just as worthy?
That's more for you to decide, portables can be a decent amount of work, so you have to like the system enough to make it into a portable. If you enjoy the line of games the PS1 provides, go for it!
I see that a lot of forum-goers use these batteries with a pastel green coat to them. They look really cool and exotic (to me)! Are they special for this application?
18650s are pretty common inside many things (laptop batteries, electric cars, etc). The most common thing you can find them as now are vape batteries due to their high capacity and current capabilities.
 

fibbef

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The hardest part about making my PS1p was mounting the disk drive. If you have a disk-less solution it would make your portable soooooooooooo much easier.

Controller ports aren’t required since you can hardwire your player 1. They’re only needed if you want external controls as well. Mem card slots are also optional, but you definitely need some way to save. Wiring an internal mem card saves room over having 2 card slots. If you only wire up one card slot then you can use that to transfer saves off of the internal card (if you go that route).

Powering the PS1 is dead simple; it runs off of 7.4v natively, so no need to mess with custom regulators!
 
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So for loading games without a disc drive the only thing I found was the PSIO, but it requires an original PS1 with a parallel port so you wouldn't be able to use it with a PSONE. I believe I read that there was a possibility of having a solder in version for the PSONE but I don't think anything came of that.
 
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So for loading games without a disc drive the only thing I found was the PSIO, but it requires an original PS1 with a parallel port so you wouldn't be able to use it with a PSONE. I believe I read that there was a possibility of having a solder in version for the PSONE but I don't think anything came of that.
Yes I was rather hoping to see a modchip-like version of PSIO for the PSONE, in fact in theory it still would be doable, assuming you could find all the same contact points on the PSONE board
 
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I was thinking of keeping the disc drive, actually. I heard about the PSIO a little bit ago, but also learned that it needed the parallel port from a PSX. :(
 
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Well i don't want to shoot you down Thats a great idea but if your going to put work into a portable you should put it into a ps2 for the fact that the ps1 cant play ps2 games but the ps2 can play bolth ps1 and ps2 you can use pops loader to play your ps1 games and you can ditch the disk drive and use Freemcboot it would be essential to do it that way but if you do make a ps1 portable i would love to see it
 
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