I've been looking around to see if anyone has documented the internals of the GP2X. I know what's inside from reading the wiki, but I was curious if anyone has already taken the plunge and opened up the unit.

Many people have cracked that one open (myself included).
Check Radeks replacement joystick thread for some shots.

EvilDragon did this some time ago

Thanks for the quick replies! I'll check those out.

Yeah, it was the first thing I needed to do when I got the unit way back in November.
I couldn't just resist opening it

So I was second?

Think theres enough room to add a one inch or sub-one inch drive inside?

hmm, should, theres plenty of room.

Nah I think plenty of people have had to open it up. I am sure there are others that have taken photos.

I'm surprised that there are GP2X owners who didn't open their system
My pics

I think SatanClaus probably opened his GP2X first, what with having the prototypes.

Cool! I plan to open mine up - just as soon as it arrives

What I wanted to see was whether GPH had wired up all 4 of video out lines from the CX25874 graphics encoder chip, so that you could hack HDTV and/or VGA (both of which the CX25874 supports). Doesn't look like it, though.

I don't know - I opened it somewhat early November.

Perhaps, but SatanClaus has the white prototype and a lesser known Blue prototype. I don't know if they actually have any circuitry in them (the blue has the start button missing) I need to try and find the pictures he showed.

EDIT: Must close brackets.

How the LCD is driven, digitally? If so its input could be intercepted and converted using a FPGA. There is socket for LCD's tape so it wouldn't be invasive. You could also add overlay to the original GP2x's video output that way. For what? Possibilities are so vast so it could be everything.

Another option is to tap device to the sdram pins but it'd need be very delicate. Then you could do many other things like a memory expansion, adding coprocesors... basically whatever.

There some metalized holes in the GP2x's mainboard. I was thinking about wiretapping them for all button control so I could made an socket for external controller without worring about using Ext port and software compatibility. For now I just wiretapped the stick's pins and it was easy.

Imho another thing worth pursuing is a battery mod. There is plenty of free space in the backside of GP2x's mainboard (my converter fits there and it's using DIP chips).

Look here:
http://www.gpbatteries.com.hk/html/product...le_hydride.html

Using four Prisms would give 2900mAh and reduce case size. Using 6 of them (and making GP2x somewhat bigger) would give 4350mAh. Fitting extra pair of AAA plus standard 2xAA will result in 3570mAh without any case modification!
(and there is possibility for 6 AAA so potentially we could have 5510mAh!

Then there are chips capable of recharging the NiMH - the MAX712 is such one. So GP2x could have a recharger built in and just connect some DC source.

Modding possibilities are endless for GP2x.

You do some of that stuff you just mentioned Radek, and I will love you for ever. (Don't get dissuaded by that).

I don't open this prototypes, I just had a picture of them on my harddrive. They were posted somewhere here on this board in september or october, I think. I'm not sure, but maybe craigix took them on his trip to korea.
ED was the first to post pictures of a opened unit on the internet. This was even before I recieved mine.

???

Did you read his post?

He mentioned that the CX25874 supports VGA output natively, no need for a FPGA

Just 3 (at the maximum) wires need to be tapped on a surface mount CX25874 chip.

If you are adverse to soldering, there ARE taps available to get the pins on that kind of chip.

On Topic:

Yes, it has been opened, and no it was not necessary to open it, the Pre-release Devs got their units with no case, no buttons, and even no battery clips, but they got the serial boards, so it all worked for them.

I have a batch of those pics made way before the release, High res so you can see that all of the wires needed for VGA or Composite HDTV out are not connected, at least not that can be seen.

If you were reading my post more closely you would know that such mod (intercepting the LCD output) would allow much more than just adding VGA output.

And YES - I'm very adverse to soldering anything on the GP2x's mainboard. And I'm against tapping to such small pins like in CX25874 too. It's because in my very opinion even hardware mods should be available for everyone to install whenever possible.

There is socket for LCD tape on the GP2x's mainboard already. Connecting to it will be easy enough for everyone.

And FPGA could be used for much more than just VGA display support.

These thing are quite long in a time thought. But I'm thinking about them now and will try them even just for my own amusument. Is something wrong with that even if VGA output could be added more easily? Nothing I think.

Oh well, I'm making assumptions based on the pictures I saw.

So what do you own SatanClaus, I'd been led to believe that you owned nearly everything, but maybe you just own pictures of everything?