SNES System In The Controller

Want to take your SNES emulation to your friend’s house? [Chris] worked out a way to fit the important parts inside of an original Super Nintendo controller. He removed the case from a 4GB thumb drive as well as a USB hub. Using a RetroZone kit he gave the controller a USB interface. By soldering the thumb drive and RetroZone board directly to the hub he’s reduced the package down to just one cable. Everything fits inside the controller case and now when you plug it into the computer you can fire up the ROMs you copied from your original cartridges that are stored on the thumb drive.

Of course this isn’t limited to SNES emulation but the real question is can you boot from the thumb drive?

16 thoughts on “SNES System In The Controller

  1. Aww, I thought he fit a whole SNES into the controller. Now I wonder, how hard will it be to fit a tiny computer that runs on batteries into that controller that can emulate every “weak” game console and handheld? All it will need for output is video.

  2. dash
    its called a psp
    it even includes a screen
    http://hackaday.com/category/psp-hacks/
    if you have a psp under version 5.03 you install a few images(see ChickHEN) and crash it(it may take ALOT of attempts) and after it crashes, you either a: run homebrew like a good little consumer
    or b: install custom firmware(m33-6 5.0) and do whatever you want with it, dont play isos of games you dont legally own and such http://pspupdates.qj.net and http://pspslimhacks.com/ for more information

  3. @Frogz
    Been there done that, the snes emu, snes9xtyl, isn’t perfect and some games still slow down a little. If you want something with less hassle that’ll play all the emulators a psp can, get a Dingoo.

    Otherwise, neat hack.
    My question is, does it have the appropriate emulators on it? snes9x or zsnes?
    What about cross-OS emulation?

  4. I did something very similar with my Genesis controller but i never submitted it since they covered it with the NES. still, gotta love the retro gaming hacks. keep em coming, all you need to be to pull these off is a gamer with some extra time and determination.

  5. I did put an NES on a Chip into an NES controller, as have quite a few others (see benheck.com forums)

    This is good, but don’t forget you can build your own “RetroUSB” adapter for the same cost as theirs with an Atmega8, a crystal and some resistors

    http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjhid.html

    It will support 2-4 controllers, and n64 psx sega etc, so you can add 2 player to the setup.

    I also have seen this where the guy put an optical mouse in there as well (which I was planning to do before I even saw his version).

    This is nice project for kids, all they need is a USB hub, memstick and a controller. (you can also get a USB gamepad and take the electronics from it to get the controller for USB, I have done that with a MS Sidewinder pad and a PSX original pad)

  6. The point of this was not a NOAC (I have done and seen that alot). The controller is usb with a thumb drive inside so that you can take the controller any where there is a computer and plug it in and play all of your roms using just the controller as a single package.

  7. I totally agree, it isn’t a NOAC, but I have seen this with an optical mouse built in as well, and I think an exposed USB port on the hub too.

    4-port hub:
    Controller
    Memory Stick
    Optical mouse (buttons tied to controller)
    Free USB port for additional device

    I wonder if I could find it again, it is so hard to find stuff you know exists on the net.

  8. Damnit! Why couldn’t this have been posted yesterday?

    I just got around to cutting up a spare floppy ribbon cable and the cord on my old SNES controller in order to connect the thing to the internal LPT header on my motherboard last night!

    The thing works, but had I known about simple kits to convert the whole thing to USB instead…

    Nice job hiding the usb storage with games / emus inside though – thats a “why didn’t we think of that” kind of idea :)

  9. I thought this was posted a long time ago… In fact, I did the same thing a couple years ago after I read about it. Maybe it was somewhere else?

    I actually made two. The first one had a keyboard’s encoder in there and the second had the Retrozone Kit. The RetroZone makes it ALOT easier.

  10. Nice project!

    I love the emulators, and building it all into the controller is a nice piece of work too.

    I’ve got enough old crap laying around that I might have to pursue something similar for myself.

  11. Well, I started getting parts together for my own, but my aftermarket SNES controller is way too crappy.
    I’m going to build one into a Logitech Precision and go for an 8GB “system in a controller” featuring not only emus but a full suite of portable applications for windows.

    kids, shmids, I like it too! :D

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