posted May 22nd 2011 7:20am by
Jesse Congdon
filed under:
home hacks,
how-to

[JJ Hendricks] wrote in to tell us about his SNES cartridge urinal. The fully functional urinal is constructed with 40 SNES cartridges and sealed up with polyurethane. The base of the whole operation is actually not a puddle of festering urine, but instead poured polyurethane that ensures proper flow through the drain. You heard right, this urinal actually flushes! As a bit of consolation [Hendricks] plainly states in the directions: “No good games were damaged in the making of this video. All the video games used in this urinal were already broken or worthless sports games”. We have featured some SNES cartridge readers before, so now you have something to do with all the leftover hardware! Gross.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted May 17th 2011 2:01pm by
Mike Nathan
filed under:
android hacks,
arduino hacks

[Rich] needed to come up with a senior design project and decided to combine two things he loved: his Android phone and Super Nintendo.
While touchscreen phones are great, he felt that nothing beats the tactile feedback of a physical controller when it comes to gaming. He figured out how the controller’s signaling works, then wired it up to an Arduino Pro Mini 328. The Arduino interprets the SNES controller’s signals, sending them to his Android phone via a BlueSMiRF Bluetooth module.
He originally had all of the components crammed in a cardboard box, but much like we pointed out yesterday, he realized that a project really comes together when housed in a proper enclosure. He managed to squeeze all of his components into the SNES controller’s shell aside from the battery pack he used to power the remote. After a little bit of Bondo and a few coats of paint were applied, the controller is looking quite sharp.
Stick around to see a quick demo video of his controller in action, and check out this tutorial he put together explaining some of the principles he used to construct it.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted Apr 11th 2011 8:01am by
Gerrit Coetzee
filed under:
nintendo hacks

We’ve been following the Retrode since it was an obscure video on YouTube that we swore was an elaborate hoax. Now, [Matthias] tell us it’s getting its third major upgrade, and it is really starting to resemble a commercial project. The video features the new prototype case for the Retrode II, which has been 3d printed. The fact that such advanced protyping facilities are availavble to the common hacker is just incredible. The new Retrode II will have ports built in so SEGA and SNES controllers can be plugged in. Since its launch the community has been collaborating to build plug-in boards allowing people to play Virtual Boy, Atari 2600, GBx, Turbografix-16, Neo Geo Pocket, and even N-64 cartridges directly from the cartridge on their computers. Very Cool.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted Mar 30th 2011 5:03am by
Kevin Dady
filed under:
nintendo hacks

The Nintendo Entertainment System is by far the most popular 8 bit post crash video game system. Therefore, the NES gets all sorts of mods and hacks done with it, but there is not a whole bunch of noise for its bigger badder 16 bit brother the Super Nintendo. Have no fear though [Vigo the Carpathian] (I did not know it was the season of evil!) helps to correct that in his first Instructable, turning a SNES into an all in one classic video game player.
Using the shell of a Super Nintendo the bottom half includes ZOTAC IONITX-C-U mini ITX motherboard, and a dual SNES controller port to USB that fits in the original openings to use the real deal controllers. A USB port is also mounted for some wireless dual shock action.
On the top half, the eject button, and cartridge slot flaps have been removed and speaker grill cloth was added to provide venting. Near the back of the unit, SD-card to SATA adapter provides storage, which we think is a good idea for cheap SSD storage. Micro switches are also rigged up so that the original power and reset buttons control the same computer functions.
Clean looks, small form factor, join us after the break for a quick video.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted Feb 14th 2011 8:01am by
Mike Nathan
filed under:
musical hacks,
nintendo hacks

[Andrew] recently offered to help out a friend who was looking to get her husband a SNES controller belt buckle. Rather than simply slap one together, he decided that it would be far cooler if the belt buckle played audio as well. He gutted a broken SNES controller, removing most everything inside, leaving just the buttons and a few wires.
To allow for the belt buckle to record sounds, he pulled apart a recordable balloon that would play a 10-second audio clip when shaken. He moved around a few wires, allowing for the audio board to be triggered by a button press rather than motion. Once that was done, he went about fitting it into the SNES controller, drilling speaker and microphone holes in the process. With the electronics components all set, he reassembled the controller shell and mounted it to an old belt buckle he had sitting around.
The final product looks extremely fun, and would make any die hard Nintendo fan’s day.
posted Nov 4th 2010 11:40am by
Mike Szczys
filed under:
android hacks

The Dell Streak is an Android tablet. [Collin Meyer] wanted to use an original SNES controller to play emulated games on the device. What he came up with is a controller that is a dock for he handheld.
Several things have to come together to make this happen. The Streak uses a standard PDMI dock that connects to a computer via a USB connection. [Collin] repurposed a sync cable by connecting a couple of pins on the dock connector which forces the device to use USB host mode. From there he used a Teensy microcontroller to convert the SNES controller into a USB device (very similar to this hack). The Teensy and shortened sync cable find a new home inside the SNES controller body and, in the video after the break, it looks like he used something like sugru to add a bit of support for the Streak.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted Aug 2nd 2010 3:24pm by
Mike Szczys
filed under:
handhelds hacks,
nintendo hacks

[Lovable Chevy] finished her portable build, ending up with
a handheld that takes both SNES and NES cartridges. We’ve got to say congratulations on reaching the finish line as her first
build log post was in March of ’08. But it was worth the wait. The little device, which is a mash-up of the hardware from a
Retro Duo along with a PSone screen and 4250 mAh battery, looks quite nice thanks to her skill and patience when building the case. Take a look at the obligatory demo video after the break.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted Jul 20th 2010 7:47am by
Mike Szczys
filed under:
nintendo hacks

[Mr.X] added support for four controllers to his Super Nintendo (Google translated) by internalizing the multi-player adapter. In the video after the break you’ll notice that he also added some bling to the case by positioning the power LED beneath the logo and adding a two-digit display. There is a switch on the back that allows him to choose PAL or NTSC standards with the current setting shown on that display. While most people are going with emulators, [Mr.X] ended up with a custom piece of hardware with a clean finish.
Read the rest of this entry »