I was casually reading articles on the net about cheap “Plug and Play” toys, like the Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter pads that you can hook up to any tv and play w/o a console.
Amazon.com: Plug It In & Play Mortal Kombat Game: Toys & Games
Then I was thinking how cool it’d be to pick one up for like, five bucks, take out the pcb and throw it into a joystick. Expanding on this idea, maybe even gut an old netbook or something with just enough power to run Mame, and put the insides into a stick? I think X-Arcade already does that (…or maybe just provide the install cd for your computer?) but it’d be so handy to have the console INSIDE the stick for when you’re traveling to a friend’s house.
I’ve seen some pretty half baked ideas in the forums, like the guy that wanted to build his stick in the shape of a Gundam w/ legs, but would this be feasible? I don’t own a netbook so I’m not sure of the internals, whether there’s fans and such. I have an iPad and nothing ever heats up at all, and it could easily run Mame.