Ben Heck’s Atari 7800 not so portable

Ben Heck has been explaining his reasons for building an Atari 7800 portable however; looking at the thing it is not all that portable, unless you have huge hands of course. Heck explained that he wanted to build this right after he completed the Atari 2600 portable but he got cold feet, but now he reckons that his feet are a lot warmer these days.

The motherboard which was used for the Atari 7800 is much larger than the one used in the 2600, so the new unit is a little larger than the 2600, so Ben decided to slap on a larger 7-inch screen for good measure. Ok I know what you lot want to know “The Specs.” Well firstly you have built-in rechargeable batteries, A/V output jack as well as Combination driving / paddle controller.

The Atari 7800 portable has a laser cut case with rounded corners; there are also several layers of black paint to finish things of. The driving controller is so cool, although it looks like a traditional paddle controller, the insides of the thing is a little different. Normally there would be a potentiometer, but Ben Heck has used a simple encoder wheel this is attached to the up and down signals to the joystick, this is an old system, 30-years old in fact.

Ok so we have now discovered that this unit is not that portable compared to all the latest handhelds that are on the market today, but Ben Heck’s mods are not about that, it is about providing something that old school gamers want, and the Atari 7800 portable ticks that box.

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