Benjamin Heckendorn
Benjamin J. Heckendorn (born October 19, 1975) is an American console modder and Computer engineer. He is better known as Ben Heck on the Internet. Heckendorn is also an independent filmmaker and he was the star of element14's The Ben Heck Show, a popular online series, until leaving the show in late 2018. He has two podcasts, one which he runs with the help of a friend, Jason Jones, and the other on Warpath.TV with George Force, Mike Zucker, and Anthony Carboni. Most of Heckendorn's mods are done by taking apart old video game consoles such as the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System. He then reconfigures internal printed circuit board (PCB) into a smaller form factor. The newly configured circuit board is enclosed within a custom case (done by a CNC machine) and any peripherals are assembled by Heckendorn. His creations have been featured in such publications as Wired, Popular Science, and Maxim, and on television shows such as The Screen Savers, Attack of the Show!, and X-Play. His mods are also commonly presented on popular blogs such as Engadget. History He had an interest in electronic and video games as a child, as a young man in film-making and in later life while working as a graphic artist he made a GeoCities site covering his project to make a portable Atari 2600, this led to an appearance in 2004 on The Screen Savers (following the temporary injury of the normal maker Yoshi) and then to a book deal and requests for custom electronics creations to YouTube videos in 2010. In 2015 he restored the only known surviving Sony/Nintendo Play Station prototype console, the Super NES CD-ROM. Systems Atari Heckendorn has created a line of portable Atari systems, almost always using some form of Atari 2600 board cut up into a smaller PCB. The only exception is the Atari Jaguar "64-Bit" Portable and the Atari 800 laptop. He has also turned two Atari 800 computers into laptops. Xbox 360 An Xbox 360 was modded so as to have a form factor similar to that of a portable laptop computer. Ben had been very used to modest popularity on the internet until the Xbox 360 laptop was revealed, bringing him to further prominence. A one-handed Xbox 360 controller was built for a serviceman injured in Iraq. He has revised the Xbox Laptop five times, his fifth revision being a modified Xbox Slim. He made an Xbox 360 controller out of a Standard Xbox Controller. He has made another one-handed Access Controller with modular ministicks and buttons. Originally designed for PC, PS2 and PS3, it will now work with Xbox 360 through an adapter. Xbox One Heckendorn has modified an Xbox One console into a portable. Nintendo Heckendorn has created five (3 NESp's) Nintendo portables: PC The MGDp: a fully functional PC built into an antique MGD beer case(18 pack). Sega Heckendorn has made a Sega Genesis portable called the Sega Exodus. It started life as a Radica Genesis collection DTV