{"id":13566,"date":"2023-12-24T10:19:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T17:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=13566"},"modified":"2023-12-24T10:21:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T17:21:51","slug":"steam-deck-schmeme-deck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=13566","title":{"rendered":"Steam Deck, Schmeme Deck!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want a portable gaming system with a large screen and full Windows compatibility?\u00a0 Don’t have several hundreds of dollars to spend on the Steam Deck or one of its knock-offs?<\/p>\n

Get a used netbook!<\/p>\n

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That right there is the venerable HP Mini Note 2133.\u00a0 I bought that back in 2008 when it came out.\u00a0 It has a 9 inch screen, a Via C7-M processor, and a really, really nice keyboard.\u00a0 I remember back when I bought this thing, the awesome keyboard and big screen were its selling features among more diminutive netbooks.<\/p>\n

I used this thing – surprise surprise – for playing games on it.\u00a0 My version was the one that originally came with a tiny 4GB SSD and SUSE Linux pre-installed.\u00a0 There was also an alternate, and probably more popular version that came with a larger hard drive and Windows Vista Starter Edition (remember that nonsense?) pre-installed.<\/p>\n

I soon found the 2008 version of SUSE Linux to be way too restrictive to do anything, so I went about installing Windows XP on it.\u00a0 HP never officially supported that with drivers, but I found suitable drivers for every single aspect of this thing’s hardware, including the webcam.<\/p>\n

And since I had installed Windows XP on my netbook, I could then fully load it up with games and emulators.\u00a0 This is where I ran into the limitations of the hardware.<\/p>\n

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This computer is (and was) the slowest and weakest Windows XP machine I’ve ever owned.\u00a0 Even my vintage 2004 Compaq laptop with a Pentium 4 runs circles around it.\u00a0 But I was able to run plenty of older games and some emulators on it.\u00a0 More about that coming up.<\/p>\n

I used this thing on and off, and eventually packed it away when the original battery died.\u00a0 With these particular netbooks, if the battery is completely dead, they won’t even turn on any more.\u00a0 But with the desire to sit in a more comfortable chair while I do some gaming, I pulled this thing out again.\u00a0 I bought a replacement battery which is twice as big as the original, and now it works like new again.<\/p>\n

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Here now is a run-down of the emulated game systems which I can run on this little thing, and the emulators which I use.<\/p>\n