The Nintendo Classic Mini took the world by storm this year — finally, an NES in a cute, tiny package that isn’t 3D printed and running off a Raspberry Pi! It’s resoundingly popular and the nostalgic set are loving it. But what do you do when you’re two hours deep into a hardcore Metroid session and you realize you need to reboot and reload. Get off the couch? Never!
[gyromatical] had already bought an Emio Edge gamepad for his NES Mini. A little poking around inside revealed some unused pads on the PCB. Further investigation revealed that one pad can be used to wire up a reset button, and two others can be used to create a home switch. Combine this with the turbo features already present on the Emio Edge, and you’ve got a pretty solid upgrade over the stock NES Mini pad. Oftentimes, there’s extra functionality lurking inside products that manufacturers have left inactive for the sake of saving a few dollars on switches & connectors. It’s always worth taking a look inside.
Now, back in 2006, the coolest hack was running Linux on everything — and somebody’s already trying to get Linux on the NES Mini.
I have a limited amount of electronics experience and am self taught so far. I was wondering what technique/s were used to figure this out? Any resources you could point me to would be much appreciated as well.
Step one, look for differences in essentially same product, Step two, Understand how BOMs work (bill or materials) realizing companies are actually cheap. Step three, Profit.
I appreciate the advice, I’m more curious just because lol. I’m am not looking for any profit, just fun.
The fun “is!” your profit. :)
STOKE THAT CURIOSITY FIRE WITH A GOOD SET OF SCREW DRIVERS AND A TRASH DAY ELECTRONICS PICK N GRAB.
WELCOME TO THE BEST HOBBY YOULL EVER HAVE!!
Watch YouTube teardowns on mikeselectricstuff, eevblog, and bigclivedotcom. These guys do a great job of reverse engineering hardware and pointing out reasons for some of the design decisions, and lab bench techniques for reverse engineering.
I thought the appeal of the NES Classic Edition was to get a controller that resembles the original without it actually being a giant heap of trash.
it was already trash when nintendo made the cable only 4 feet long
True, but I can extend some wires. Injection molding for plastic and conductive silicone? A little out of reach for now. :)
Get a longer HDMI cable. Problem solved. No hacking or 3d printing needed.
I’m using HORI Battle Pad. It’s better than the original NES Classic pad and it has HOME button.
HORI Battle Pad has NES Classic mini controller port.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_89_0?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ahori+battle+pad%2Cp_85%3A2470955011%2Cp_89%3AHori&keywords=hori+battle+pad&ie=UTF8&qid=1486861503&rnid=2528832011
or just use a wired wii controller