Building a Portable Nintendo 64

eight years ago i was a fairly typical 16 year old guy with typical 16 year old dreams not like this guy at all this wasn't me and i'd defy you to actually find a 16 year old who looks like this google images is a lie this is 16 year old me i was known for two very defining characteristics my ability to pull off the classic blue flannel green undershirt combo and my fascination with a very specific type of diy within the gaming community known as being a in 2012 at this adventurous state i decided to take out the insides of my beloved nintendo 64 and put them inside a cardboard box in an attempt to make it more portable because playing an n64 that was a box was like extra defiant of social norms i guess i don't know as a young and i had a fascination with old video game consoles specifically early 3d gaming and the n64 was my favorite this obsession led to me discovering the side of the community that makes portable versions of old consoles since then my only dream in life was to make my very own portable n64 console not with all the fancy soldering rewiring controller splitting and 3d printing that all these skilled fancy pants nerds were doing rather make one exactly as i would have as a teen with no skills just hot glue an actual n64 console playing actual cartridges instead of a dedicated mini computer now when i was young at the time i felt hopeless and unable to make this dream come true i treasured my n64 too much to do something irreversible to it and i didn't have any money for the extra components i would need but then something magical happened to me that allowed me to fulfill this dream i became older and obtained the ability to make money so it's finally time to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams and build my own portable nintendo 64 with no printing welding wiring only using things i found from amazon just like the younger me would have wanted may he rest in peace i turned him into arnold schwarzenegger so i'm pretty sure this is everything i'm gonna need to accomplish my dream of finally bringing my life to its full potential and fulfillment after which i'll have nothing to live for but i'll be very content with a portable n64 so equal trade-off we're gonna take the insides out of my collectible uh pikachu n64 i'm kidding i have a black sharpie one and this is actually the original n64 that i put inside a cardboard box everybody knows about that right the notorious cardboard box n64 classic internet legend so we're gonna take the insides out of this insides of the n64 will be connected to the screen now this has a power source so it's also going to need to be plugged into the battery so so far we have the n64 this and this all plugging into one battery on the inside so the battery is actually it might be the most expensive component at all this you can tell because it comes with a carrying case it's got a lot of ports on it but the important thing is this just a standard outlet might say we're plugging in three things in the n64 how are we going to make it so that they can all be plugged into this uh-huh i'm having a gastro reflex attack that's why i have this quite frankly a basic outlet extender so now we can plug all our components so this will be inside of uh inside of the case as well so for the case itself big containers as you might have guessed these are uh what i'm going to be using hot glue which this hot glue gun has the flashiest packaging of everything here i have this this is just like a heat knife that cuts plastic really easy so we will be doing a little bit of plastic carving um of course with all these components and a lot of electricity being used it needs some kind of circulation so i actually did kind of a smart techie thing and i got a fan usb so i can plug it into this see i plan these things ahead of time obviously having a regular three-pronged n64 spear controller that looks like a trident that a demon would use will not convert well to being a game boy quick note this is peter's editor peter and i wanted to mention the image in the thumbnail is not the final product for this video but rather a prototype that i built ahead of time using the parts that i had with the goal being to make it look exactly like this if i can i just figured you know people come to this video and the first thing they see is the finished product and what's the point of actually watching the video so you know make it a little bit surprise maybe get a better image for the thumbnail i just want to let you know the good news that it might just look wildly different from this so the screen will be up here controls will be down here now this i have had already because i've opened this in 64 many times in my life this is just some basic nintendo screwdrivers because they're like we don't want you making stupid tupperware portable consoles with our stuff okay this is a gamecube adapter and i know for a fact i got it for this project and for the life of me i can't remember why this having been opened several times the screws are already pretty loose and i of course uh have replaced one or two with a basic phillips screw because who cares actually i like here now i have to go get a regular screwdriver look at how tiny the actual control panel in this is like we don't even need this metal thing it's just for cooling purposes so this is me unscrewing screws from the console oh look how fast i'm going that's pretty crazy really don't have anything to say i just had to add narration here so yeah this is all an n64 is but keep in mind this was made in the 1800s so it has a cartridge slot on it so the cartridge is going to be sticking out you know about an inch like that there's not much i can do about that you could probably take this off and re-solder it in a different direction i do not want to do that so however i put this inside my plastic tupperware container case i would like these to be sticking out i'd like this to be sticking out somewhere and these need to be accessible so figuring out a way to do all that and make it usable is going to be the difficult part also this just needs to be in the console for it to work so i don't have an expansion pack i'm sorry we're not going to be playing donkey kong 64 on this thing whoopty flip and do no monkeys on my console [Music] it's getting hot in here there's a window back here so i'm gonna now when i go through and edit this i'm gonna be paranoid that i'm gonna see some footage of like a peeper peeping in my window you ever do something like you're working on a big project like for me it's videos or something or maybe you're like drawing a digital picture and you're zoomed up on a part and you're working on it and you know you don't want to take a step back and look at it until it's completely done so that the endorphin rush that you get from making something cool is all at once instead of slowly at a time as you watch a project come together so that's kind of how i want this to be i want this to be the most fun i've ever had in my life because i'm really excited to make this so basically i want to get everything put together and then test individual parts again there's going to be tons of people in the comments who are like well you know it's much easier simply uh buy a raspberry pi game boy that's pre-made and then just play in 64 and i was like there's better ways to do this i just don't want to do them pikachu looking at this dead n64 like dang glad that's not me all right so this will be the screen and it's going to be like this is here and then this is here kind of a thing except it's going to look better or worse it's going to look different oh yeah oh that's a pretty powerful fan like if i aim it down it'll fly away you know i thought it might have this is all the stuff we're going to need to put inside which really isn't that bad so we'll just get the case aka plastic organizing container and kind of plan out how everything is going to be of course it's going to be somewhat multi-layered i'm probably going to have to fasten some plastic around to hold things up and and you know watch my collets and doodads all right you're above me now do you want anyone to get confused there i think maybe i flipped the room upside down or something this is a very strong desk i can assure you fine we're fine we're fine we're not fine i'd just rather have a stool so first off i cut off some plastic parts of this spare container to use as risers because i can't just hot glue the motherboard to stuff this is the first time i'd ever used a hot knife and i didn't realize that of course it's going to be melting plastic and creating fumes so i conveniently use the fan and battery which i already had to cool it down look at me being very resourceful so i made some little slits for the motherboard to slide into and after using the knife for a little bit i remember that i could probably just use scissors for 90 of the plastic stuff i'm doing measured the fit a few times just to make sure it was all good and then i cut out spots where i wanted the controller ports to stick out of the console but not before having pudding of course that's a very crucial part of this why'd i leave that in i needed the motherboard to be placed in a way so that the controller ports stuck out the cartridge slot stuck out the bottom and so that i could still fit the fan underneath it which i will cut holes for as well overall my first time using a hot knife wasn't too bad i had to like remake these circles about 500 times but for me that's not too bad basically we've got these pieces of plastic holding it up these pieces of plastic which i haven't had glued any of them yet then i drilled exactly one billion holes all right so this took a little longer than i thought it would but that's fine because it's kind of an important factor here so far this is going really well as you can see it's in there good there's the fan i cut out a bunch of holes uh for ventilation but i'm gonna have to do more for sure so this is the only place that this battery pack can go at this point and there's not much space above it for the screen when we do something like this it will be protruding ever so slightly either ways some very high-minded stuff i don't expect everyone to understand what i'm talking about it's just cramming things into a small space it's really not that complicated the controller is going to be right here if we have the controls and the buttons literally attached to the lid of this thing let me get the lid it's a cheap plastic so it's going to go like this when you push the buttons so i would love to have this plastic front of the controller to this all right okay i got to get to work so this whole thing was just putting plastic brackets to hold everything in place again this is 90 of the process of putting things in this thing surprisingly the hot glue actually didn't melt the case uh even though hot glue is literally just melted plastic anyway can you enjoy this work with my big head in the way it's great footage peter good job i also had to cut some holes in the sides that the buttons on the battery would show as you can clearly see again by the great footage is just being blocked by my hand i put this kind of apex here to keep things together keep keep these edges from wobbling fits right there quite nicely i got some real janky looking holes cut in the side this one down here is to hold this thing in place i really like this so far and think it's working great it's a little heavy here's the only test it needs to pass i would like if you could play it comfortably in a car and yes i know there are some of you out there who may want to play a portable n64 on a train or a boat i'm just going to assume the car will be a test that will broadly work for any of them so i think we'll work on the screen and then we'll call it a day we'll do the rest of it tomorrow because it's getting a little bit late surprisingly enough i have at least one other thing i want to do today besides build a portable n64 at least one thing i'll probably use that one thing on like going to the bathroom or something uh for this segment i chose some music from was it monkey ball uh step roll i think um because i thought it was really funky poppy song kind of sounds like something straight out like a hasbro cartoon that's my favorite line because the song itself is actually indicative of the game where you're using a wheat balance board or something to play monkey ball so they kind of asked the artist for this song to write it about super monkey ball and about balancing and all that i was there in the studio at the time i got to chat with the vocalist a little bit she's like yeah well this song is about monkey ball and balance so the lyrics are like god balancing playing monkey ball we're doing it and it kind of sounds like sonic uh colors theme song um the chorus is coming up here the vocal rise is a great song to make a portable and 64. uh abc yep they threw the abc line all right that's enough this was easily the hardest part out of this just trying to get the screen to fit here look at that i can tip it around that's a big thing like even though it's going to be heavy and obnoxious i at least want to make it so you can like tip it around without things coming unplugged or falling off or whatever and it's actually at the point now where we could just plug all the cables in and see if it worked we wouldn't have the controller yet but i don't want to test it yet because this is my baby and i'll do it how i want my workspace is a mess right now my back is hurting from sitting in this darn stool and uh i'm hungry so we're gonna pick up on this either tomorrow or really late tonight or something now we'll be working on the controller so let's just kind of soak it up and enjoy how clean and nice this looks uh before i potentially hack up the entire bottom half because that's probably what's gonna happen so this part's going to be a little bit controversial so i kind of want to explain what my thought process here and how i was going to go about the controller first i kind of plugged the stuff into the screen tucked everything in there but here's the thing i really really wanted this to look exactly like the prototype did that was like my main goal for this but as you can see me just sitting here contemplating i started to think about just how much the controls and the buttons would just wobble with the plastic i wouldn't be able to carve everything correctly so the buttons stuck out correctly it needs to be playable so what i did is i cut the feet off this controller yes i'm pretty sure that's what those are called right anyway i cut the controller up as best as i could and i was just gonna use the controller itself uh on the front of the console instead of just taking the buttons in the uh the motherboard or whatever it's called i had to sand it down quite a bit to make it smooth this is the last thing you'd expect to be doing to a portable n64 but well so basically i also had to have it sticking out about an inch so that the triggers could be used uh so i kind of cut a hole out so it protrudes a little bit but so that's why i did it the way i did it it's for the greater good you wouldn't understand okay it's a new day so last night i had a dream that i was walking down the street and i found this young boy and he was trying to play the portable nintendo 64 which i had made and in the dream apparently mass produced and sold on some sort of black market and he was crying and very sad because couldn't hold the controller very well and it was i think until now i've been very selfish and thought oh well i just kind of want to have one so that i can be the cool guy um but now thinking more i i really should be making this something to be used and played so but i think we have to cut out the edges of this and also make it not quite as thick around these parts basically what i'm trying to say is doggone it i have to do a lot more cutting now or i could just sit here and stare at it for another 10 minutes all right so this is where the project deviates a lot from the prototype version but we need to make it just more comfortable to hold so we're going to make it so you can at least hold the bottom half of the console even though it's heavy and you're not really going to be holding it by there at least make it comfortable to play and this was a ton of cutting taken from other plastic containers i used up almost all the plastic i had this is actually almost like six hours of footage here but eventually i got it kind of comfortable i got the controller in place and glued in correctly so it's really sturdy added a few extra touches like a cartridge slot and a stand and that was actually everything that needed to be done that's it there's nothing else to do all right well this is what our portable n64 looks like i've done all the plastic work that needs to be done there's enough ventilation for now the only step now [Music] is to test it which i'm actually pretty excited for i have to uh clean up this area because it's a fire hazard but yeah i don't need to record and show you guys the cleaning process you've already washed through like five hours of footage of me cutting plastic and gluing things so i'll spare you that body is who you are i hate sitting on this stool it's as high as the table it's testing time why can't i get cameras right i was going to do mario 64 but uh because it's my favorite game of all time but despite being my favorite game of all time i don't have a cartridge so we're gonna do some smash bros instead because it's got a really hyped startup and if this thing works i'm gonna be hyped all right that's on the tv works and i found out i'm stupid i didn't i didn't make a hole to pluck to hit the power button all right the moment of truth as opposed to the moment of lies okay the n64 is on no signal what do you mean what could i possibly be doing wrong here let's try pokey park or it's not broken fur let's go smash bros you scared me you're dead why do i care that's them those are the pokemon stadiums okay i don't know how to play this game i gotta get something else okay i'm a legit i own mario 64. what is what why would i think i didn't really thought i didn't for some weird reason it's amazing it's him mario it actually looks pretty good on this screen let's see if i can speed her in the first boss you know i can't speed her in anything i don't know the speedrun strats that's not one of them [Applause] that's a cool little tech that i learned all right this is this is hard to play whoa didn't want to do that i don't know if i deserve to live that well that answers that question i'm really happy that this is working good but i must show you the angle you're seeing it from it looks pretty good like it's it's nothing crazy it's a little bit blurry it's not too crisp but in order to use this controller at this angle you have to be down here where things are a little bit uh you know inverted i mean i'm not complaining i'm just gonna i'm just gonna soak this in and enjoy myself check us out check us out who do you think i am huh who do you think i am ah who do you think i am i'm a speedrunner i know the tricks i know the tricks i can execute the tricks i can do it because i built this because i built this console i can decide whatever i want i made this game i am mario 64. there's a weird way to go towards the star [Applause] i'm so much better like for smash bros which is a game where i don't really need to use a shield as much because i'm just fighting cpus it's actually pretty good like i said you can plug other controllers in to where i could see where it'd be fine the magic that i always wanted a tiny screen playing n64 on an n64 controller i can pick it up and okay well i may have broke the game i can pick it up and carry it around assuming i don't bump the cartridge do i wish it looked a little cooler yes do i wish it was a little smaller no you can make a really tiny emulator if you want using way simpler stuff this is how i wanted it to be something that i would have made uh when i was 14 years old what about making it as if i was 14 is a good thing now that i've made like a really basic primitive one i kind of want to make one that's like legitimately good looking what i'm trying to get at is tune in for the next video when i make a portable playstation 5. shake it shake it now [Music] you

Channel: Peter Knetter

Views: 746,571

Rating: 4.908484 out of 5

Keywords: lets, play, playthrough, walkthrough, gameplay, review, reaction, facecam, comedy, parody, funny, moments, funtage, montage, best, of, compilation, nintendo 64, n64, original, hardware, how to, tutorial, intructions, console, nintendo, portable build, create, handheld, gameboy, battery, screen, portable, portable n64, diy, easy to make, simple, parts, 3d handheld, buy, shop, creaft, controller

Id: mhiwfQdKetM

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/aguyfromhere231]

Great video!