BitBuilt - Giving Life to Old Consoles

Although the Midwest Gaming Classic for this year was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19, it didn't stop veteran portablizer Gman from unveiling to the world his brand new perspective on N64 portables. N64 portables have been made since the dawn of time, but in comparison to Wii trimming, N64 motherboards have always been limited in the amount that could be trimmed off. This resulted in much bulkier builds than their Wii counterparts. That is, until now. The modding community has forever been in doubt as to whether or not the PIF IC (responsible for various interfacing functions with controller/data security chips) could be successfully relocated. As it turns out, it is indeed possible! Enter the new age of N64 portables...

Robertlong13 demonstrates his CAD prowess with his latest project: The N64 Minii. Nintendo might not be delivering us an N64 Classic Edition, but that didn’t stop robertlong13 from taking it in his own hands.

The sleek, tiny, and curvy console looks like a 1:1 scaled down N64 console but with an upgraded way to play games using a trimmed down Wii motherboard. Powered by the Wii, he can play his favorite 21 N64 games on the Virtual Console and obviously remain compatible with GC and Wii games.

The N64 Minii also features beautifully done wiring and a custom power regulator board that he made opensource...

Gman just keeps getting better and better. For this year’s contest, Gman entered the wonderful world of clamshell design. The only thing that rivals its beauty is its features, so let’s get into it!



Gman used a handful of custom PCBs last year, but this year he went all out. Just about everything that could be mounted on a custom board is, and the controller is no exception. The above board’s primary feature is a custom PS2 controller emulator dubbed “PS2+”. Designed from the ground up by Gman, along with Matthew and Dave, PS2+ is still in development right now. Once finalized, it will change PS2 portablizing as we know it. This board also features controls for screen settings through the PS2 controller, an audio amp that switches between the built in speakers and headphone seamlessly, indicators for the current battery life, as well as FFC connectors that go to Nintendo Switch joysticks.

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Nold joined the forums last year and started off by posting a beautiful, tiny portable GameCube he’d made. From there, he tackled the N64 and built a sweet N64 portable. After that, he moved onto the Dreamcast and put more effort into trimming and portablizing the Dreamcast than anyone before him. What was left for Nold? The Nintendo Wii of course, and Nold wasn’t willing to stick with the basics, no sir! Nold decided that he wanted to start out by seeing how far he could trim the Wii motherboard down. Now, this is something we see a lot. Somebody with no electronics experience will come along, try to perform some crazy untested trim, fail, become discouraged, and leave. It’s a perfect formula with a single exception: Nold. Nold paced himself and started with the OMGWTF trim, hopped on a NAND bend, then reloacted the entire NAND without a breakout board, and then decided to go all out with the OMEGA...