This project began simply enough but got very complicated in short order. Initially the goal was to get the GameCube keyboard controller integrated with the game Animal Crossing. The GameCube keyboard controller is a genuine part manufactured and sold by Nintendo but the game Animal Crossing isn’t compatible with this controller. Rather, Animal Crossing has an on-screen keyboard which players can use with a standard controller. [Hunter] found this frustrating to use so he created an adapter which would intercept the keyboard controller protocol and replace it with equivalent “keypresses” from an emulated standard controller.
If you’re a retro Nintendo fan you can of course carry a NES and a Game Boy around with you, but the former isn’t very portable. Never fear though, because here’s [Chad Burrow], who’s created a neat handheld console that emulates both.
It’s called the Acolyte Handheld, and it sports the slightly unusual choice for these parts of a PIC32 as its main processor. Unexpectedly it can use Sega Genesis controllers, but it has the usual buttons on board for portable use. It can drive either its own LCD or an external VGA monitor, and in a particularly nice touch, it switches between the two seamlessly. The NES emulator is his own work, while Game Boy support comes courtesy of Peanut-GB.
We like the design of the case, and particularly that of the buttons. Could it have been made smaller by forgoing some of the through-hole parts in favour of SMD ones? Quite likely, but though it’s chunky it’s certainly not outsized.
Portable Nintendo-inspired hardware is popular around here, as you can see with this previous handheld NES
The Switch 2 Pro controller’s battery is technically removable, if you can get to it. (Credit: VK’s Channel, YouTube)
For those of us who have worked on SNES and GameCube controllers, we know that these are pretty simple to get into and maintain. However, in the trend of making modern game controllers more complex and less maintainable, Nintendo’s new Switch 2 Pro controller is giving modern Xbox and PlayStation controllers a run for their money in terms of repair complexity. As shown in a teardown by [VK] on YouTube (starting at nine minutes in), the first step is a disappointing removal of the glued-on front plate. After that you are dealing with thin plastic, the typical flimsy ribbon cables and a lot of screws.
The main controller IC on the primary PCB is an ARM-based MediaTek MT3689BCA Bluetooth SoC, which is also used in the Switch 2’s Joy-Cons. The 3.87 V, 1070 mAh Li-ion battery is connected to the PCB with a connector, but getting to it during a battery replacement might be a bit of a chore.
A new console challenger has appeared, and it goes by the name Nintendo Switch 2. The company’s latest iteration of the home console portable hybrid initially showed promise by featuring a large 1080p display, though very little official footage of the handheld existed prior to the device’s global release last week. However, thanks to a teardown video from [TronicsFix], we’ve got a little more insight into the hardware.
The technical specifications of this new console have been speculated on for the last handful of years. We now know NVIDIA is again providing the main silicon in the form of a custom 8x ARM Cortex A78C processor. Keeping the system powered is a 5220 mAh lithium ion battery that according to [TronicsFix] is held in with some seriously strong adhesive.
On the plus side for repairability, the onboard microphone and headphone jack are each attached by their own ribbon cable to the motherboard. The magnetic controller interfaces are also modular in design as they may one day prove to be a point of failure from repeated detachment. Speaking of which, [TronicsFix] also took apart the new version of the Joy-Con controller that ships with the system.
Arguably the biggest pain point for owners of the original Nintendo Switch was the reliability of the analog sticks on the diminutive controllers. There were widespread reports of “stick drift” that caused players to lose control as onscreen avatars would lazily move in one direction without player input. For the Switch 2, the Joy-Con controllers feature roughly the same number of dome switch buttons as well as haptic feedback motors. The analog sticks are larger in size on the outside, but feature the same general wiper/resistor design of the original. Many will cry foul of the continued use of conventional analog stick design in favor of hall effect sensors, but only time will tell if the Nintendo Switch 2 will repeat history.
Back in the olden days, there existed physical game stores, which in addition to physical games would also have kiosks where you could try out the current game consoles and handhelds. Generally these kiosks held the console, a display and any controllers if needed. After a while these kiosks would get scrapped, with only a very few ending up being rescued and restored. One of the lucky ones is a Game Boy kiosk, which [The Retro Future] managed to snag after it was found in a construction site. Sadly the thing was in a very rough condition, with the particle board especially being mostly destroyed.
Display model Game Boy, safely secured into the demo kiosk. (Credit: The Retro Future, YouTube)
These Game Boy kiosks also featured a special Game Boy, which – despite being super rare – also was hunted down. This led to the restoration, which included recovering as much of the original particle board as possible, with a professional furniture restore ([Don]) lending his expertise. This provides a master class in how to patch up damaged particle board, as maligned as this wood-dust-and-glue material is.
The boards were then reassembled more securely than the wood screws used by the person who had found the destroyed kiosk, in a way that allows for easy disassembly if needed. Fortunately most of the plastic pieces were still intact, and the Game Boy grey paint was easily matched. Next was reproducing a missing piece of art work, with fortunately existing versions available as reference. For a few missing metal bits that held the special Game Boy in place another kiosk was used to provide measurements.
After all this, the kiosk was powered back on, and it was like 1990 was back once again, just in time for playing Tetris on a dim, green-and-black screen while hunched half into the kiosk at the game store.
Microsoft made gaming history when it developed Achievements and released them with the launch of the Xbox 360. They have since become a key component of gaming culture, which similar systems rolling out to the rest of the consoles and even many PC games. [odelot] has the honor of being the one to bring this functionality to an odd home—the original Nintendo Entertainment System!
It’s actually quite functional, and it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. What [odelot] created is the NES RetroAchievements (RA) Adapter. It contains a Raspberry Pi Pico which sits in between a cartridge and the console and communicates with the NES itself. The cartridge also contains an LCD screen, a buzzer, and an ESP32 which communicates with the Internet.
When a cartridge is loaded, the RA Adapter identifies the game and queries the RetroAchievements platform for relevant achievements for the title. It then monitors the console’s memory to determine if any of those achievements—such as score, progression, etc.—are met. If and when that happens, the TFT screen on the adapter displays the achievement, and a notification is sent to the RetroAchievements platform to record the event for posterity.
Let’s say you had a SNES with a busted CPU. What would you do? Your SNES would be through! That is, unless, you had a replacement based on an FPGA. [leonllr] has been developing just such a thing.
The project was spawned out of necessity. [leonllr] had purchased a SNES which was struck down with a dead CPU—in particular, a defective S-CPU revision A. A search for replacements only found expensive examples, and ones that were most likely stripped from working machines. A better solution was necessary.
Hence, a project to build a replacement version of the chip using the ICE40HX8K FPGA. Available for less than $20 USD, it’s affordable, available, and has enough logic cells to do the job. It’s not just a theoretical or paper build, either. [leonllr] has developed a practical installation method to hook the ICE40HX8K up to real hardware, which uses two flex PCBs to go from the FPGA mainboard to the SNES motherboard itself. As for the IP on the FPGA, the core of the CPU itself sprung from the SNESTANG project, which previously recreated the Super Nintendo on Sipeed Tang FPGA boards. As it stands, boards are routed, and production is the next step.
It’s nice to see classic hardware resurrected by any means necessary. Even if you can’t get a whole bare metal SNES, you might be able to use half of one with a little help from an FPGA. We’ve seen similar work on other platforms, too. Meanwhile, if you’re working to recreate Nintendo 64 graphics chips in your own basement, or something equally weird, don’t hesitate to let us know!
