Game software hackers draw a lot of interest in the online gaming community, but let's not forget about the game hardware hackers.  Retrogaming has an interesting interview with Benjamin Heckendorn, the man who is probably best known for converting familiar home consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sony PlayStation into handheld portable equivalents.  In the interview Heckendorn speaks of his love of hardware hacking and his favorite projects, plus he plugs his new book.

Racket: What system would you most like to get slimmed down, but just seems too challenging?

BenHeck: Well, the Dreamcast was a target for a while. But, like the Gamecube, it's kind of square shaped, so the components are on top of each other (rather than beside), so it's hard making it thin. Another system with this quirk is the Gamecube, which I might be taking a look at soon. I've seen this mock-up drawing of a portable Gamecube on the Net, it'd be interesting to see how close I could get to the person's pipe dream.

Some of Heckendorn's creations are particularly intriguing and serve as a reminder that over time today's home console can easily become tomorrow's pocket-size portable.  Er, by "pocket" I mean "takes two hands to carry", as some of his units are particularly bulky.  And by "easily" I mean "after some impressive investigation", as there's plenty of stray wires hanging around Ben's workbench.  The overall principle remains the same though for the most part.