James Channel reached into a pile of spare parts and pulled out a dusty PlayStation 2 Slim that had sat unused for years. The console carried an intact warranty seal yet refused to read discs. Fans had imagined portable PS2 play since the early 2000s, but official hardware never arrived in that form. Channel decided to finish the job himself in a Frankenstein-like manner.
He began by bringing the disc drive back to working order. A CMOS battery inside measured only 0.4 volts and had clearly failed. Replacing it was an obvious next step. To alter the laser settings for the CD and DVD drives, which were the source of the problem, he attached a USB UART converter and launched the PMap calibration program. To his relief, the drive restarted after that. Following that, loading games and movies was simple.
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A small LCD screen from an inexpensive reversing camera unit supplied the display. Signal traveled through the original AV port while power and ground connections tied into a regulator board. He hot-glued the analog sticks and face buttons to the Mad Catz Dual Force 2 mainboard, which he had gutted. The wiring required a minor detour to reach the shoulder buttons, but that was all.
He utilized an old 10,000 mAh battery bank and had to modify the internal board to acquire the correct voltage for the Slim variant. It now recharges via USB-C. The audio was routed from the AV port through a small amplifier board and a little speaker he threw in for good measure. He sawed off all of the original’s pieces that he didn’t need, starting with Ethernet and optical audio.
He hot-glued the disc drive in place, inserted a cotton bud or two for stability, and created a small switch for swapping discs. He used a piece of cardboard to create a flappy paddle for the power switch. Duct tape all over the place, some stickers for the power and charge points, and that was about it.
When he finished building the handheld, he named it the JamesStation 2. Everything continued to work as usual. Memory cards were still working properly, USB ports were still taking accessories, and games loaded up and functioned normally, as did the controls now that he had remapped them. Testing revealed a pleasant surprise: after nearly an hour of playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, the battery level went from 92% to 71%-76%. At that pace, you can expect 5 hours of gameplay.
[Source]
