Benjamin Heckendorn

Benjamin J. Heckendorn

Benjamin Heckendorn at Midwest Gaming Classic 2007
Born October 19, 1975 (1975-10-19) (age 36)
Richland Center, Wisconsin
Residence Verona, Wisconsin, U.S.
Website
BenHeck.com

Benjamin J. Heckendorn (born on October 19, 1975) is a console modder and Internet Celebrity. He is better known as "Ben Heck" on the Internet. Heckendorn is also an independent film maker.

He has two podcasts, one which he runs with the help of a friend, Jason Jones,[1] and the other on Warpath TV with George Force, Mike Zucker, and Anthony Carboni.[2]

Most of Heckendorn's mods are done by taking apart old video game consoles such as the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System. He then reconfigures internal printed circuit board (PCB) into a smaller form factor. The newly configured circuit board is enclosed within a custom case (done by a CNC machine) and any peripherals are assembled.

His creations have been featured in such publications as Wired, Popular Science, and Maxim, and on television shows such as TechTV, The Screen Savers, Attack of the Show! and X-Play. His mods are also commonly presented on high popularity blogs such as Engadget.[3]

Contents

Systems

Atari

Heckendorn has created a line of portable Atari systems, almost always using some form of Atari 2600 board cut up into a smaller PCB. The only exception is the Atari Jaguar "64-Bit" Portable he made. (and the Atari 800 laptops)

Microsoft

Nintendo

Heckendorn has created five (3 NESp's) Nintendo portables:

PlayStation 3

PC

Sega

SNK

Sony

Heckendorn has made three Sony portables:

Apple

Commodore

Combo systems

Heckendorn has made two combo system to date.

Hacking video game consoles

In February 2005, Heckendorn released his book Hacking Video Game Consoles, published by Wiley Publishing Inc. and printed under their ExtremeTech line. It contains step by step instructions for creating two Atari 2600 portables, two NES portables, two SNES portables, and two PlayStation portables, each in hand-built and CNC-cut designs.

Podcast website

On December 13, 2006, Heckendorn started benheckpodcast.com, a website for storing all of his podcasts, and all he is going to make.

Heckendorn's other podcast is called Sonic Boom, and is available at warpath.tv.

Movies

Heckendorn is also an amateur film maker. He has completed 6 Films since 1995, including his comedic love story, Port Washington, released in 2006. His most recent movie, released on October 31, 2008 was entitled Possumus Woman, and is the sequel to his 1995 film, Possumus Man.

Films
Year Film
1995 Possumus Man
1996 Adventure!
1999 The Adventurous
2000 The Lizard of Death
2006 Port Washington
2008 Possumus Woman

The Ben Heck Show

As of recently, Ben Heck has gained an online TV show. Episodes of this show occur bi-weekly available at Revision3, the host, and sponsored by Element 14.

References

  1. ^ http://www.benheckpodcast.com
  2. ^ http://www.sonicboompodcast.com
  3. ^ http://www.engadget.com/tag/BenHeck/
  4. ^ http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/23/how-to-make-a-wii-laptop-part-1/
  5. ^ http://benheck.com/02-07-2011/ben-heck-show-episode-11-sega-cdx
  6. ^ http://benheck.com/classic/PSp/PSp1.htm
  7. ^ http://benheck.com/04-05-2009/commodore-64-original-hardware-laptop

External links