More cheap stuff from eBay - Gaming Player Handheld Video Tetris Game Console Kids Children Boy Portable Toy

I'm drawn to the underside of eBay. The placed where strange bits of electronics are sold.  This interest comes from making things and needs odd bits of electronics to realise my (awful) creations.

On one of my regular trawls of ebay I found this.

Gaming Player Handheld Video Tetris Game Console Kids Children Boy Portable Toy

Looked interesting.  OK the display is obviously mono-colour LED and not back lit but for £1.39 I thought it was worth a punt.

From the Listing the dimension are: Product size: 14*8*2cm
Bigger than the Sony PSP Go 12.8*6.9*1.64cm
If Sony can squeeze a 4.3" widescreen display in the PSP Go then this could be a very useful case to work from. A nice sized case with 10 buttons.

For reference a Raspberry Pi Zero is 6.5cm x 3 cm.  An easy fit and with dimensions greater than the PSP Go one of the many 3.2" LCD displays I see running from a Pi should fit nicely.

£1.39 for a case with 10 buttons that should easily take a Raspberry Pi Zero and 3.2 " screen with space for other bits is a bargain.

I see a plan coming together so I ordered one two weeks ago and it arrived today.

The packaging is the same as the listing which is always a good start.

Opened the box and inside was the actual console. OK a bit rough and the sticker isn't straight.  Not a problem as I plan to remove all that anyway.

But there was something else not right.  I checked the listing again and confirmed the dimension Product size: 14*8*2cm

The dimensions on the actual one I received seem a bit off.  Annoyingly I don't have a ruler with me at the moment so I'm using AAA (not AA) as the standard measure.

An AAA battery according to Wikipedia is 4.45cm long.

From the picture below it looks like this may not be 8cm wide or 14 cm in length.

It is more like 9cm in length so a Raspberry Pi Zero may still fit inside and 5cm in width.
There goes the plans for a 3.2" LCD display. Maybe one of the  0.96" OLED displays might fit.


I almost forgot.  What about the 999 games.
It does have Tetris, a variety of Breakout games, a Tank combat game and a Driving game.

The driving game is especially bad as there are only 2 lanes and you just move from left to right as the cars come down the screen.

In summary how does it compare to the listing title.

Gaming Player Handheld Video Tetris Game Console Kids Children Boy Portable Toy
It is a game playing handheld video Tetris Game Console.
No kids, children or boys included, but it definitely is portable and a toy.

As an added bonus you also get the amazing driving game, breakout and tank combat games, so in a way it over delivers on the gaming promise.  I didn't count whether there are 9999 but I suspect we all know the answer to that.

But, if your reason for getting it is to have a 14cm x 8cm x 2cm case with an opening to put a 3.2" display and a Raspberry Pi Zero you will be very disappointed as it's most definitely a lot smaller than the listing.

It is held together with screws so maybe a teardown is needed to see what's inside and if there is anything I can salvage from it.



UPDATE:
I think I may have found an actual correct listing for the one I purchased
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272730431909
Listing states the dimensions are: 10 x 4.5 x 2.4cm

Then there's also this listing for £1.79
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222452404318
With the dimension listed as: 15.5*6.5*2.5cm

If the larger one really is those dimensions then a project may be on to use it as a shell for something more fun.

Arduino TVOut 3 Blocks Falling

Still working with the Arduino and the TVOut library.
Now I have 3 block falling instead of 1.
Starting to look more like the basics of a game.  A bit more coding to do and maybe some buttons to enable the player to actually control something.

Arduino Uno running TVOut on NextBase Portable DVD player

August last year I posted that I tried the TVOut library with the Arduino but didn't post a video as it was just the usual TVOut demo that I used.

Well, today I again used the standard TVOut Pal Demo but this time something of my own.
We have a NextBase dual screen portable DVD player for keeping the kids occupied in the car. Fantastic invention, would recommend to any parent who has to drive more than an hour with small kids.

While wiring it up I saw the Video port says in/out, so it is Composite, so should work with the Arduino/TVOut combo.

1 re-purposed headphone lead and a couple of resistor later and I had the Arduino outputting video to the NextBase screen.

This means the 14" portable in the garage is now redundant as this is far more compact.

Below is a short video showing it working.

I'd suspect there may be many a household with one of these lying around.  Either with the DVD player part broken or because the kids have upgraded to a Nintendo or iPad.  So, ready to become part of the tinkers box of bits.

Update: I did a bit more coding and managed to creat my own bitmaps and get them to move down the screen.  Not a major achievement but a step in the right direction.

The following video shows it.  There are 6 bitmaps all 7x7.  The program selects a random column to start and then scrolls the graphic down the screen.

Trying to build up to something actually useful.