HUMAN ingenuity truly knows no bounds, as an American modder has turned the bulky 30-year-old PlayStation (PS1) console into a working handheld console.
Posting on the tech forum BitBuilt and then on X (formerly Twitter) under the username YveltalGriffin, he explains that the handheld – called PS Hanami – is made using components from an actual PS1, rather than a handheld running an emulation software.
Due to the size of the PS1’s hardware and needing to compartmentalise it into handheld dimensions, the original motherboard was cut in half, folded and wired together. As it is an old-school style portable, the components inside were then secured and held together by a lot of hot glue.
In order to play games on the original PS1, players had to use CDs because the console came out in the 90s. Due to the technical logistics of the handheld, it has no disc drive, so the modder threw in an optical drive emulator called Xstation, which lets the PS Hanami run PlayStation disc images from an SD card.
As good as it looks and sounds based on YveltalGriffin’s posts, the PS Hanami has quite a few issues.
For instance, the handheld has enclosed stereo speakers but there are no volume controls, the power button is sensitive enough that lightly brushing against it turns the unit off and due to the lack of heat sinks, the PS Hanami “gets nice and toasty after a while”.
