Playstation Portable

[AlphaWolf]

Well, considering most video pirates like to take DVDs, re-encode them to one of the various MP4 formats, and generaly fit them on a single CD with relatively decent quality, I think a mini DVD should be able to hold a respectable quantity of MP4 video.

damn. alpha im impressed with your way of thought. didnt expect to hear that conclusion

Unfortunately, thats just the way it is. But fortunately, companies that do this too excessively end up falling when their customers get tired of it, e.g. nintendo's current situation. This is just one example of how bad monopolies are.

 

[alexa999]

However it has been said that movies could be put on these discs and they would be slightly less expensive then the standard DVD of today.

I meant something like that. lain:

 

[Tagrineth]

AlphaWolf, I said "Where would you put that" (the screwhole). There isn't any space elsewhere in the system for that screw. Would you compromise the stability of the casing for a fucking headphone port you can get an adapter for anyway?

And you didn't address the clamp gap for the GCN link cable.

And finally, a machine which mass-adds a port is much more expensive than just adding one by hand. I've re-soldered a stereo headphone-out port before myself, I know it isn't hard or expensive, but do remember that for the SP, Nintendo would need a machine which could complete the procedure at extreme speed continuously, with no chance for error (a miss on the solder point could mean a destroyed SP, and probably also several more mistakes before it's re-aligned).

 

[AlphaWolf]

AlphaWolf, I said "Where would you put that" (the screwhole). There isn't any space elsewhere in the system for that screw. Would you compromise the stability of the casing for a fucking headphone port you can get an adapter for anyway?

If you moved that screw hole down a whole whopping milimeter, it wouldn't compromise anything, and you could fit another port there! But you know, they wouldn't have to bother with that if they designed it right to begin with.

And you didn't address the clamp gap for the GCN link cable.

Yeah I did, I said to move the damn thing!

And finally, a machine which mass-adds a port is much more expensive than just adding one by hand. I've re-soldered a stereo headphone-out port before myself, I know it isn't hard or expensive, but do remember that for the SP, Nintendo would need a machine which could complete the procedure at extreme speed continuously, with no chance for error (a miss on the solder point could mean a destroyed SP, and probably also several more mistakes before it's re-aligned).

Right, and that is expensive just to set it all up, but when you average that cost over several hundred thousand units, the cost gets reduced to the penny range. But, lets just assume for your sake that the laws of mass production suddenly changed so that it costs an extra $20 just to add an internal port, if this were the case, then how much extra do you think it would cost to set up a whole new assembly line just to make the adapter cable, which needs a lot more material and machinery to assemble than a simple stereo receptacle? If an extra port costed another $20, I guarentee you that this adapter would cost a lot more than $5.

 

[Tagrineth]

AlphaWolf, you can't move the GCN link clamp gap. If you move it, you can't support any of the old cables that worked with the original GBA and there would have to be another line of link cables.

And if you moved the screwhole down a millimeter it'd hit traces. There are probably at least five layers on that circuit board, and the screwhole is already very close to that chip. If you moved it any closer it'd definitely be in the place of several connections... and you'd need the room that it used to occupy for the new port.

 

[AlphaWolf]

So was this thing designed by monkeys then? Your telling me that nintendo did/does not have the ability to improvise a solution? If you look at the other side, the traces could easily be moved down. And what are you talking about 5 layers for, 5 layers of what? And how would moving the receptacle change anything about the form factor?

 

[blizz]

you're telling me you're one of those sad fuckers who actually plays his GBA with headphones?

 

[zerocopy]

just wonna add some tidbits, ff7-2 is rumored to be the psp's killer app. Before any argument and how aeris could be revive get over it shes dead

source:egm magazine

 

[Tagrineth]

So was this thing designed by monkeys then? Your telling me that nintendo did/does not have the ability to improvise a solution? If you look at the other side, the traces could easily be moved down. And what are you talking about 5 layers for, 5 layers of what? And how would moving the receptacle change anything about the form factor?

The CIRCUIT BOARD probably has more layers than just the 'top and bottom'. NV3x (GeForce FX)-based cards have 10 layer circuit boards, for example.

Each layer can support 1 'tier' of traces (or maybe it was 2, can't remember for sure).

So in other words there are a LOT of traces there that you can't see.

There simply isn't enough space in the system for a stereo headphone jack, period, end of story. Nintendo DID improvise a solution - the charger-port adapter. :\

 

[AlphaWolf]

You can do that with a die, but you can't do that with a PCB. (well, I guess you could, but it would probably be more trouble than its worth, nobody does it this way. With surface mount technology, the chips don't take as much room so PCB layouts are compact enough anyways, no point in doing it realy.)

Even if they did do the GBA SP this way, show me one trace that leads to a layer that isn't outside. If they did do that, then you would be able to tell easily.

Just face it, your beloved nintendo are just a bunch of greedy corporate assholes like the rest of them :happy:

 

[pj64er]

You can do that with a die, but you can't do that with a PCB. (well, I guess you could, but it would probably be more trouble than its worth, nobody does it this way. With surface mount technology, the chips don't take as much room so PCB layouts are compact enough anyways, no point in doing it realy.)

Even if they did do the GBA SP this way, show me one trace that leads to a layer that isn't outside. If they did do that, then you would be able to tell easily.

Just face it, your beloved nintendo are just a bunch of greedy corporate assholes like the rest of them :happy:

I know someone who makes PCBs, and yes its very possible to make many layers (upper end is at 20 something, I believe), and yes its not unlikely that the GBA SP would have layers in between.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Hmm...I take shit apart all the time and haven't seen that before. But anyways, I looked at the PCB, every trace that submerges has a connecting trace on the other side. Doesn't look like they layered it to me.

 

[Tagrineth]

Hmm...I take shit apart all the time and haven't seen that before. But anyways, I looked at the PCB, every trace that submerges has a connecting trace on the other side. Doesn't look like they layered it to me.

You don't want to know how rare a single layer PCB is these days. There are probably a number of additional connections you can't even see (for example, some of the visible ones might have added connections - audio data, for example, would go to both the speaker and the power/headphone port).

Or there might be entire trace lines you can't see.

EDIT: Oh, and wolfie... multi-layer PCB's aren't exactly something you just 'see'. Generally all PCB's are the same thickness no matter how many layers, or the thickness variance is very, very small. Take a look at your video card, for example - I can almost guarantee it has between 5 and 10 layers. Even some of the very earliest video cards had 3-5 layers.

And I can prove that the circuit board is NOT a single layer. Look at the microchips' packages. Do their feet go THROUGH the board and out the other side? If they don't, there is at least one additional layer on the inside.

 

[AlphaWolf]

And I can prove that the circuit board is NOT a single layer. Look at the microchips' packages. Do their feet go THROUGH the board and out the other side? If they don't, there is at least one additional layer on the inside.

Nope, when the legs don't go through the PCB, thats called surface mount. Surface mount allows things to be more compact because you don't need as much solder to hold it on there. Surface mount chips are generaly much much smaller. If you want an example, use google to look up the difference between an at90s2313-10PC and an at90s2313-10SI, both of which do the exact same thing and have the exact same pinout.

Even if they did use a multi layered PCB, how does that prevent them from doing this if they realy wanted to? In fact, if it were multi layered, then they would have even more room to move the traces, so that just increases from the probability that they didn't add it simply because they didn't want to.

 

[Tagrineth]

AlphaWolf... if it has multiple layers, it's probably USING all the layers it can. And besides, look how close the screw hole already is to the chip there.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Its not multi-layered though, at least not in that particular area, you can tell because the traces right there end with through holes. Even if it was, that doesn't mean they used the whole thing.

 

[Tagrineth]

That still isn't really proof that it is or isn't multi-layered - as I said, they could use an intermediate layer at least to split the trace or something. Besides, with that screw hole there, there simply isn't enough space. You'd have to move it down too close to the chip, and then you'd have no space to route traces to the port above it.

 

[URAMetroid]

Why the hell are you people bitching about the lack of a headphone jack?
If you want one, STOP BEING CHEAP AND BUY THE FRICKING ADAPTER!

 

[AlphaWolf]

That still isn't really proof that it is or isn't multi-layered

But it is. There would be no point in running a trace under that, unless it was a trace that lead to nowhere

Why the hell are you people bitching about the lack of a headphone jack?
If you want one, STOP BEING CHEAP AND BUY THE FRICKING ADAPTER!

Please actualy read the entire thread to see why thats a pointless argument.

 

[Tagrineth]

AlphaWolf, as I said, they might split some traces. An obvious case of that would be that audio out would go to both the power/"headphone" port AND the system's speaker.