Famicom portable

[AnimeOtakuDrew]

Greetings, all! I am purchasing a Sharp Twin Famicom (Famicom and Famicom Disk in one) and would like to convert it to a portable system. Has anyone done this before? I have seen plenty about converting NES and regular Famicom, but nothing with the Famicom Disk System. I'm certain this will increase the difficulty of the project, but I have an abundance of free time, so I don't find the idea all that daunting. I just want to find out if it is something anyone else had done before and, if so, whether that person has posted videos or instructions so I can see how it differs from a standard NES/Famicom conversion. Thank you all in advance for any and all assistance you can offer!

 

[Prog]

I doubt anybody here has done it. The FDS is kind of rare stateside, where the vast majority of this memberbase lives. Mechanical storage media and portability don't tend to mix well, especially in the case of an old and unreliable floppy drive. To top it off, the FDS is also kind of finicky to begin with.

However, this whole community is based on impractical projects done sheerly to create a personalized, one-of-a-kind novelty, so I am in no way trying to discourage this! I would love to see it done. I am only hesitant for one reason; isn't the Twin Famicom fairly rare?

 

[AnimeOtakuDrew]

I live in the US as well, so I realize that the FDS and the Twin Famicom aren't exactly common, but my searches of Amazon and eBay showed that they are pretty much readily available to anyone wishing to obtain one. The biggest issue seems to be the pricing, which (in my searches) seems to average in the $150-200 range. This may not seem a lot to some people, but for others (like myself) that is a generally prohibitive cost. In fact, the high price of the system is why I came here seeking advice for the conversion, as I can't afford to buy another so I wanted to make sure I don't screw up this one. But, if there is nobody able to offer advice or directions to prevent that, perhaps I should abort the project. What do you guys think?

 

[Prog]

Personally, I think that for a first project, it would probably be better to do something well-documented to hone in your skills and learn what goes into these projects. It's difficult to innovate when you're stuck still trying to rope in the fundamental skills, like soldering.

 

[AnimeOtakuDrew]

The trouble is lack of money. I can't afford to buy a system especially for the purpose of converting it to a portable. I have a very limited fixed income, which is why I don't have all of the consoles or even games that I want. (For example, I had to use money I'd been saving up for four months in order to pre-order Metroid: Samus Returns.) With that in mind, buying a SNES or GameCube or whatever to convert just isn't an option. On the other hand, if I try to convert the one system I currently own (the SNES I got way back at its initial release), I run the risk of rendering it unusable so I have to replace it, which I can't afford either. Plus, even though it may sound kind of silly, I've had this SNES so long and through so much that I have a bit of emotional attachment to it and don't really want to change it. And, unlike the other hobby I'm trying to get into, there doesn't really seem to be a cheap way to get started on this one, and it's prospects for making money seem to be fairly slim, so (also unlike the other hobby) this one isn't likely to pay for itself. With that in mind, should I just give up my thoughts of making portable consoles? It's something I really wanted to get into, but my financial limitations make it nigh impossible to do properly.

 

[GingerOfOz]

If you can't spend the money to buy a used console, you probably won't have the money to build a portable. The console is generally the cheapest part of building a portable. I'm finishing up a Wii portable, and for my first portable I've spent almost $450 on parts and $150 on tools. And that's with minimal mistakes, some free parts, and good deals. And this isn't the kind of thing where you can use low quality parts and get the desired outcome. Low quality parts will waste your money because they won't work or have other flaws that cause more and more issues down the line. So if you do want to keep going, be ready to spend a lot of cash.

 

[Kickback]

There isn't an FDS portable, it hasn't happened.

The reasons I can think of personally, the FDS is of course a floppy drive, relies a ton of moving parts and tbh they really require stablity, jiggling around a floppy drive will do absolutely no good to it, which makes size an issue because you can't really make it smaller, and finally well... what games are on FDS? It's honestly a fun novelty but has very few exclusive games really worth checking out, realistically you could play them many other ways.

Not to mention, tons and tons of mechanical parts means prone to failure, best of luck finding replacement parts for the Twin Famicom of all things

 

[AnimeOtakuDrew]

The only reason I thought it might be possible is because people manage to make portables out of CD based systems. I figured, if a CD could be stabilized well enough to play on a handheld, a Famicom Disk should be able to be stabilized as well. Sorry for the mistake.

 

[Kickback]

No need to be sorry