Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended

Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by throwaway6734 on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @08:40PM (#33617775)

Agree, the gba is the perfect handheld system. I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to play one recently but they were selling for ~$150 so I went with an ANBERNIC RG351P instead. Same form factor

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Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by agentwiggles on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @11:35PM (#33618898)

But the thing is, they're _not_ the same form factor. I've been somewhat interested in getting one of these new emulator snc devices like Anbernic makes, and the 351 is the most interesting - but man, if they sold one that looked just like an original GBA, I'd have already pulled the trigger.

While looking into it recently, I kinda came to the conclusion that the best bang for buck was probably to just get one of the PSP Vita models.

To be fair, this has a kind of synchronicity, since the original PSP was my first exposure to homebrew hardware modding.

IDK, either way, I'll probably eventually end up with an Anbernic device or something similar. They're just so neat and the idea of a tiny little Linux box with a built in gamepad appeals. But I can't help but think they could do better.

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Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by throwaway6734 on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @09:31AM (#33623546)

Anberic: 5.98 x 2.8 x 0.71 inches

GBA: Approximately 145 mm (5.7 in) x 82 mm (3.2 in) x 24 mm (0.94 in) (WxHxD)

Not exactly the same, but very close.

I wonder if you could drop the internals for the anberic into a gba frame

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Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by agentwiggles on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @10:03AM (#33624191)

I didn't realize that the Anbernic thing was that close to GBA size, based on the appearance I expected something closer to the size of the Switch (entirely my own bias here).

But still, one of the things I liked about my GBA was how well it fit in the hand, part of that was because the back was somewhat contoured. The new trend of everything being flat rectangles makes devices a lot less comfy for me.

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Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by throwaway6734 on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @11:30AM (#33625843)

>I expected something closer to the size of the Switch

I see where you're coming from here. I like playing the switch handheld but it's way too big for true portable gaming.

>part of that was because the back was somewhat contoured

It's got very slightly elevated grip pads on the back and the build quality is high so it feels solid.

https://main.retro-handhelds.com/content/images/2021/09/RG35...

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Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by agentwiggles on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @03:46PM (#33630291)

I'm increasingly tempted to grab one of these! Might have to just pull the trigger.

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Re:Adding a hinge to a Game Boy that God never intended by throwaway6734 on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @07:30PM (#33633210)

Nice! I can't find where I ordered mine from but I remember trying to go through the anberic website and it wouldn't successfully add things to my cart.

I found the Retro Game Corps YouTube channel to be a big help when getting everything setup.

I ended up modifying the behavior to hide everything on the launch screen except for 1-2 games I'm playing and made them always launch from save states on boot.

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