Putting An Arcade Cabinet Inside Of An NES Controller

The arcade game shoehorned into an original Nintendo Entertainment System controller from [Taylor Burley] is certainly made slightly easier by its starting with one of those miniature cabinets that are all the rage now, but since he’s still achieved the feat of an entire arcade game in a controller we still stand by the assessment in our title.

In fact, he’s put not one but four arcade games into the controller. The board that [Taylor] liberated from the miniature game system can actually be switched between the onboard games by shorting out different pads on the PCB. Normally this would be done during manufacture with a zero-ohm resistor, but in this case, he’s wired the pads out to a strip of membrane keypad liberated from an LED remote control. By holding a different button while powering on the system, the user can select which of the games they want to boot into.

The original buttons and directional pad have been preserved, and in the video after the break, [Taylor] shows how he wires them into the arcade PCB. The Start and Select buttons had to go since that’s where the tiny color LCD goes now, but they wouldn’t have been used in any of these games anyway. With the addition of a small battery pack and charge controller, this build is a clever way to take several classic arcade titles with you on the go.

With the growing popularity of these tiny arcade cabinets, we’ve seen a number of hackers tearing into them. The work that [wrongbaud] has done in modifying them to run other ROMs is not to be missed if you’re looking at building a project using one of these little bundles of nostalgia.

23 thoughts on “Putting An Arcade Cabinet Inside Of An NES Controller

  1. So, let me get this straight:

    The standard for Hackaday is now taking an off-the-shelf machine apart, stuffing the guts inside a butchered NES controller that looks like it was cut with a hammer, then calling it good?

    OK…

    1. This site covers all levels of ‘hack’. We can’t all be producing projects with custom PCBs and original designs and all have access to state of the art manufacturing techniqyes. Have a bit of respect to the author and maybe wow us all with what have you made lately?

        1. It’s not the description: it’s the “let me get this straight” framing.

          You’re being disrespectful to (a) Taylor Burley and (b) the Hackaday editorial staff.

          fsck this “what’s a hack” purity test.

    2. Maybe, just maybe, if more geniuses like you submit the high quality hacks they produce you can stop complaining. Or you could just start writing for hackaday since you have a real good eye for content, I especially like the better examples of gaming projects you linked to.

        1. No because you’re skipping over the game selection hack using a unique part for the buttons. If you don’t like the articles on hackaday either submit your own articles or leave, no one wants to read your sad comments.

  2. nice idea, i might just do the same and make it a birthday present for one of my nephews. These Nintendo controllers are iconic, i even have them on a t-shirt,

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