Challenge: Handheld to Console

i was thinking the same thing, but instead of a lynx (better idea, kicking myself) i was thinking like an nds or gba. Be cool to have the controller incorporate the touch screen for an nds.

I actually seen a guy on youtube just make a GBA Arcade Cocktail Cab, Made up the buttons and stick idea himself it's very original his name is lukemorse1, I think this guy is amazing does amazing work too

His video on it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-XXcI0euAw

That was an interesting video, it's a shame that it's a miniature arcade. Seeing that made me think about seeing other systems turned into arcade machines. For consoles with cartridges, have a slot in front that can eject the cartridge after applying presure on it. For disc based systems with covers, have a space behind the control area for the discs, and for those with trays and slot-loaders, have it up front to place the disc into.

Back to the original subject. I still want to see handhelds turned into consoles. The Nintendo DS would be difficult to be turned into a console due to the touchscreen, unless the touchscreen area could be split to be shown on the controller as well as the screen, then the signal would have to be amplified.

The touch screen is a two piece thing - there's the LCD screen itself, then there's a thin layer on top of it that actually deals with the "touching", so to speak.

The closest I've seen to it being a console is the Jumbotron DS project, which connected the DS to a couple of tablets.  The button screen touch function would work on there just fine.

I checked out the picture with the IDE port on it and that gave me another idea. Maybe wire it so that you can get video out and use the system's internal headphone jack for audio.

There's already enough info out there that it can be done with a DS Phat.  I know all of the pinouts on the Phat and also know about a board that can be used in conjunction with it (the Chameleon USB FX2).  I've been trying to come up with something like that for a DS Lite (see my thread in this forum), but am not 100% sure on the pinouts, though I do have suspicions.  I do know what the controller pinouts are on the DS Lite (and have reasonable suspicion of what they are on a DS Phat).

I think this should be limited to the classic handhelds, like OP suggested - trying to do something like a DS only complicates matters because it's built to be an interactive screen, and the only way to replicate it would be by sandwiching 2 iPads together, which hardly qualifies as making it a console...

Personally, I think either the GBA SP is a great candidate - it has a huge library of games to choose from (GB, GBC and GBA) and would be a simple, yet satisfying build that I think Ben would have fun with, especially since he could go the retro route with the looks, maybe even base it off the original (brick) Game Boy =)