Cheapest portable hackable NOAC /w serial flash (HKB-502)

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sergeymkl
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Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2018 9:24 am

Cheapest portable hackable NOAC /w serial flash (HKB-502)

Post by sergeymkl »

I just bought from Aliexpress the cheapest NOAC-based LCD handheld so far.
~ 5 EUR shipped is a new low - but they increased prices now. Still it is < 10 EUR

Pros:
- Buttons actually work good enaugh to make this playable
- At least around 15-20 unmodified quality games included (SMB1, City Connection, Donkey Kong, Galaxian, Galaga ...)
- The NOAC uses a serial flash making it very easy to hack

Cons:
- A and B buttons are swapped making games like SMB hard to play , but scratching traces,
a solder blob for one location with adjescent traces and a jumper wire for the other location fixes this.
Please use thin wires and secure them with glue, it is really easy to rip out traces
- Sound is missing one channel (i think)
- The LCD is lower resolution than the NES and the scaling simply omits lines.
This makes text look funny, but does not impact gameplay.
- PCB is paper-based and it is VERY easy to rip-off traces. The best is to program the chip in-situ and do not attempt to remove it.
- Many "Chinese originals", i.e. shitty games

What annoys me is the "Chinese/English" selection menu, so I think I'm gonna patch that one out soon ;)

So why I am posting this in NESDEV? Because this NOAC handheld is the cheapest so far and has serial flash, making it very easy to hack. Many NOAC handhelds use parallel flash that is hard to desolder and requires special adapters to program. If you are good with soldering, you could unsolder that serial flash without lifting traces and solder a DIP8 socket for development.

To find it, just search for "268 handheld" on the usual Chinese sites like Aliexpress, Banggood...

I can't now make photos as I have closed up my handheld already, but here is a teardown of a similar unit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYG0EjG-vyU
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qbradq
Posts: 972
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:50 am

Re: Cheapest portable hackable NOAC /w serial flash (HKB-502

Post by qbradq »

Thank you for the tip! I've wanting a hand-held noac to hack on.
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