Category Archives: Articles

Death of an Old Friend

Late last night, a dear old friend of mine died…

Shed not a tear for me...

After half a decade of faithful service, my trusty $7 Radio Shack de-soldering iron finally bit the dust. It died in the call of duty, too, as it snapped while removing a large electrolytic capacitor. It has helped me build countless portables, sadly it won’t be around to see the one it was working on come to competition.

Oh, hm, it’s that pesky 666 date isn’t it. I guess this freak death is to be expected.

On a lighter note, thanks to everyone who made it to the Midwest Gaming Classic, and especially those who came to see my presentation thing. Now if only they’d let me do karaoke…

Happy Holidays! (even without new portables)

Well it looks as if I won’t be finishing the next 2 projects until after Christmas. Oh well, other people have worse hardware problems than me…

Technically this headline would be from, say, 2007 ;)

Enjoy your presents, egg nog, family get-togethers, tacky sweaters and New Year’s parties everyone!

Special note: Thanks to Jeremy Kellogg, who hooked me up with his old copy of AutoCAD. Obviously this is right up my alley – now all I have to do is learn it! 😉

Obligatory Update about stuff

Just want to keep everyone posted on the progress of things…

1) Two new portables are being worked on, systems I’ve never done before. One should be… quite interesting should I get the power supply to work. It will shock the world! The other’s more classic.

2) The music for Port Washington is well underway, though it may be delayed til January. Oh well, what’s another month after 4 years?

3) Hopefully I’ll get to help with a documentary involving a haunted ghost town this spring, for a Halloween 2006 release. This is the kind of project I’ve been wanting to do for years, so I’m quite excited. The plan is to shop it around for a possible cable station release – more details to come!

4) I am also working on ideas for a mass-produced version of my NES Micro (but with a different name)

Alright, so stay tuned and hop around the forums if you care to chew the fat with other videogame enthusiasts.

Latest “Future of Videogaming” Article now up!

Mystically like clockwork I write up a “Future of Videogaming” article every 2 years around December. So now the time has come again! What’s even better is for this installment we’ve actually got a crop of next generation systems on the way and the XBox 360 is already here. Plus I’m handing out some candid “awards” for all the new systems, just for fun.

Click here to read the full, somewhat unbiased article. Enjoy!

Game consoles that could have used an “XBox 360” style name

Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted an article on anything. About time, I’d say. So I thought, you know, the “XBox 360” is quite the… interesting choice for a console name. And what about that weird pricing strategy? Bizarre!

At this point normally a person would write about that, but I like to do things differently. Think different, if you will. So I came up with a list of past consoles that have failed (or done poorly) and how they could have benefited from an XBox 360 style name and strategy. It’s quite compelling and I’m sure upon seeing it marketing executives will promptly build time machines to go back into the past and cash in on my brilliant ideas.

So if you’ve got a lunch hour to waste why not click here to have a look at it?

Besides this nonsense I am also building the new super portable, which I hope to have done within a week. That’s an actual meaty update, so stay tuned!

5 year anniversary of this site plus a snazzy new design!

As you can obviously see I have updated the look of my site. I was getting tired of the old one and I felt it required too much “digging” for a person to find everything. You see, I think it’s quite important for people to spend entire lunch hours (or work hours, I don’t really care which) reading through all the stuff I’ve ever written on here. Therefore it’s my duty to make this as easy and painless as possible, kind of like web-enabled Novocain. Plus the site looks, um, SO professional now if your boss walks by they’ll obviously think you’re just downloading printer drivers or something.

  In other news… Break out the cake mix and candles leftover in the cupboard – it’s the 5 year anniversary of this site being online! (Well, accurate to within about a week or two) It actually seems like it’s been a lot longer than that since I started doing this stuff, but oh well. I’m still doing it and that’s the important thing! Now back to this site re-design… 

What has changed / Impromptu Tour:

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The side frames are gone, but top header frame still linger… It takes up less screen space and uses icons (just like above) for quick navigation and coming back here to the homepage.

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White text on a dark background has been been 86’d, torpedoed and sent to Davy Jones’s locker. Now it’s black on white text, just like a book or something!

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Better-looking “Quick Link” buttons are now found at the top right of the page. Granted you can get to the same features from the sidebars (more on those in a moment) but it’s always good to have colorful, iconic links somewhere on your page. Here’s what they do:

Pac-Man vomits binary - Film at 11This Pac-Man looking dude spewing binary is the link to the benheck.com Forums. This is becoming an ever-increasingly popular section so now there’s a quick way to get in there and have your videogame discussion fix.

Yellow jaundiced envelope strikes the Heartland!

  Get this – clicking the envelope lets you send me email! (Please do not ask if your Game Gear can be used for anything other than a doorstop – it can’t) Also check the “What’s For Sale” section (on the sidebar to the lower left) before emailing me about buying stuff. If it’s not on that list it’s not for sale. (This list can and will change however)

The website for my book


Wow this icon looks like my book cover! (Remember don’t purchase books without covers) Click this icon to visit my book’s website.

I make movies too - check 'em out!

  I also have the insane hobby of making independent films. You can click this camera icon (which of course looks nothing like the actual cameras I use) to read about the films, downloads trailers and even order them on DVD if you are so inclined.

Goto the Videogames section

  A bit redundant, I’ll admit. Clicking this icon brings up a page of all the portable game systems I’ve worked on thus far. (Pretty much the same as the sidebar)

When you go anywhere on this site you’ll see this icon at the top. Clicking it returns you here, to the homepage. Press it once you’re done reading or bored with an article so you can come back here for more!

Other changes:

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Check out the side bars! (On the sides 😉 They won’t provide you with a gin and tonic but it does have links to every article, movie information page and videogame project on this entire site. Note how it has fake blue transparency, pretty futuristic, eh?

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Site Search link added to top of right-hand sidebar. Sure my old site design had a “search” feature but this one has a magnifying glass icon as well! You simply cannot get any more high-tech than that.

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Paragraph indents and left justification will now be used on pages instead of the “center justified 1994-era nOOb web” crap. My high-school English teacher would be proud (I’m sure she checks this site every day) On that same note it’s now black text on light backgrounds instead of vice-versa.

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One day I woke up and realized not everyone runs their monitor at 1600×1200 like me. So I modified the site to look the same in all resolutions (It must be an OK practice, Yahoo does it… right?) If you DO run higher-res you’ll doubtlessly have empty space on the sides. Think of it as extra Post-It note room!

  Alright, well I hope this new layout is agreeable on everyone’s stomachs. Let me know what you think! Have fun…

-Ben (Site Director / Guy Who Does all this Stuff)