Joel’s Lap-Top Time Machine Combines the Switch 2 and CRT Screen Into One

Joel Creates spent his childhood staring at Nintendo 64 game displays, believing that the luminous box led to another world completely. Thirty years later, he was able to distill that universe into a handheld gadget that is a true trip back in time: a portable game system with a color CRT screen and a Nintendo Switch 2 that slides straight into the front, much like a tape does into a VCR. The end result is a beast that weighs more than a laptop, lasts approximately an hour on a single charge, and looks like it came directly from the 1996 assembly line (which most likely never existed).

He begins with a Sony Watchman FD-285, a palm-sized color television from the early 1990s that would have left a major dent in your pocketbook if you’d been foolish enough to purchase one new; it cost a small fortune back then. Inside, you’ll find three circuit boards stacked at right angles, a glass tube about the length of a hot dog, and enough high voltage to make your hair stand on end if you poke about inside. Joel disassembled the boards, extended the connections with ribbon cables, and ensured the picture still worked. That one little test demonstrated to him that he could perform the impossible, which boosted his confidence.

Modern handhelds are all based on flat panels that are thinner than a credit card, making space a real limitation – but a CRT tube requires depth, so Joel had to learn 3D design software and churn out one design after another until he had the tube at a 45-degree angle. He designed controllers that are essentially lunchbox handles, allowing you to rest your fingers naturally while keeping your eyes on the screen. Every extra inch added to the design caused him to start over, which pushed him to give up a little more comfort.


Even the controls themselves were a riddle. There was only one analog stick and one circuit board on the original N64 pad, so Joel had to disassemble a pair of GameCube-style Joy-Cons, solder new wires to the broken traces, and then position the two parts on curved ramps to fit the case. The buttons still click as they did in 2001. The shoulder triggers are basic limit switches twisted beneath the printed pads. To make things even more old-school, there is no wireless in there; everything is routed through a short enough cable to fit.


Power comes via a lithium charging kit, which consists of two boards wired in parallel, one for charging and the other for powering the Switch 2 docking station. Joel, being the modder he is, forgot to verify the voltage dip switches on a shared USB board. The result was a 12V spike when only 5V was required. The next thing you know, smoke rises, plastic melts, and three components have purchased the property. He orders replacements the following day and continues to print.


The Switch 2 delivers its output via HDMI, while the CRT accepts composite. Between the two are three little converters: HDMI to VGA, VGA to composite, and some unique audio gear Joel put together. He also attached some right-angle cables and used aluminum tape to reduce interference. As a result, latency is low enough that even vintage F-Zero GX works well, with the exception of a half-frame delay from the wireless Joy-Cons, which may irritate dedicated players.


Sound comes from the vintage iMac G3 speakers he found at a junk store a few years ago. He just ordered some fresh old stock replacements and printed a completely new set of enclosures to match the case. They can now produce bass that is significantly deeper than the Switch 2’s built-in speakers, as well as clean treble. You can literally hear the coins in Mario from any room, and the entire house can hear the beat drop.

The gaming experience on this device differs from that of most handheld consoles for one apparent reason: the screen is just 12 inches away from your face. That’s large enough to share with a friend yet small enough to keep you interested. The colors simply burst off the screen, exactly as they did on the little old bedroom TV in 1998. And at 60fps, the motion blur vanishes into thin air. You can rest the gadget on your lap or on a table, and it truly gets you sitting up straight, unlike any Game Boy ever could.