Eight Player GameCube Adapter Is Ready For Smash

November 2, 2018 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

With the release of Smash Ultimate fast approaching for the Nintendo Switch, [Patrick Hess] wanted to get ahead of the game and make sure his squad had the equipment they’d need. Namely, support for the GameCube controllers that serious Smash Bros players demand. But it wasn’t enough to have one or two of them hooked up, or even four. Not even six GameCube controllers could satiate his desire. No, he needed to have support for eight simultaneous GameCube controllers, and he wanted to look good doing it too.

Enter his meticulously designed eight player GameCube to USB adapter. Made out of dual official Nintendo GameCube to USB adapters (intended for the Wii U) merged together in a 3D printed case, the final result looks like something that could earn the coveted Nintendo Seal of Approval. Or at least, something that might pop up on the import sites in the next month or two for a few bucks.

[Patrick] started the project by recreating the official adapter PCBs and their housings in 3D using a pair of calipers. After a couple of test prints to make sure he had all the dimensions right, he could then move on to designing his final enclosure knowing he had accurate data to model around.

In addition to the two adapter boards, there’s also a four port USB hub inside the device’s case. Each adapter has two USB leads, here shortened to fit inside the case, which connect up to the hub. The integrated hub allows connecting all eight GameCube controllers through only a single USB connection. All controllers worked as expected during intense testing on the Wii U’s version of Smash Bros, though at this point [Patrick] can only assume it will work when the Switch version is released.

If there’s a downside to this project, it’s that the design for the 3D printed case is so intricate that [Patrick] was only able to print it on a machine that supported water-soluble PVA supports. A somewhat tall order for the average hacker; it would be interesting to see if somebody could make a second pass on the enclosure that is geared more towards printability than aesthetics.

While the design of the GameCube controller remains somewhat controversial after all these years, there’s no denying it retains an impressive following. Whether turning them into USB devices, shrinking them to preposterously small dimensions, or just finding increasingly creative ways to use them on Nintendo’s latest console, hackers are definitely in love with the gonzo little controller that’s now pushing 20 years old.

Slack On The SNES Via Satellite

October 23, 2018 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

We love seeing hardware and software from bygone eras getting a new lease on life through modern hacks, as longtime readers can surely attest to. Why leave this stuff to rot in a closet somewhere when it can be pushed into service today? Granted it might not always be the most efficient way to accomplish a task in the 21st century, but at least you’ll net some precious Internet Points for originality.

As a perfect example, take a look at this project which lets you read Slack messages through a Super Nintendo game. If your first thought was that such a thing would involve an unreasonable amount of effort and hoop jumping…then you would be correct. [Bertrand Fan] really had to think outside the box to make this one happen, and even admits a bit of imagination is required on the part of the end-user to use it. But it’s undeniably an original approach, so we hereby bestow the customary Internet Points unto him.

So how does this work, and where do the satellites come in? The key is in a fairly obscure Japanese SNES peripheral called the Satellaview, one of Nintendo’s early attempts at creating an online content delivery system for their consoles. Games designed with Satellaview support would be able to pull down new content from regular satellite broadcasts, not too bad for 1995. This means that if you have the hardware, and happen to own a satellite, you can push your own content into an unmodified SNES. No problem, right?

Alright, [Bertrand] didn’t really use a Satellaview modem plugged into an actual SNES. Plus we’re fairly sure he doesn’t have his own satellite network to broadcast Slack messages with anyway. But it turns out some SNES emulators have support for a virtual Satellaview modem, and there’s even software out there that will let you create new content “downloads” for the system’s included game: BS-X: The Story of The Town Whose Name Was Stolen. All he had to do was connect the dots.

[Bertrand] started by stripping the user interface out of SatellaWave, an open source tool for creating Satellaview content, so that it only need to be provided with an XML file of the content to be “downloaded” by the virtual satellite modem. Using the Slack API, he then came up with way to pull the last 10 messages from a server and push them into his modified version of SatellaWave. Each time somebody posts a new message his software kicks in to produce a new satellite download which automatically gets picked up by the SNES emulator and pops up in the game.

If this is still too practical for you, you can always go all in and run Slack on your Commodore 64.

Continue reading “Slack On The SNES Via Satellite” →

That Time Atari Cracked The Nintendo Entertainment System

October 22, 2018 by Drew Littrell 45 Comments

It was darkest hour for the video game industry following the holiday shopping season of 1982. The torrent of third party developed titles had flooded the home video game console market to the point of saturation. It incited a price war amongst retailers where new releases were dropped to 85% off MSRP after less than a month on the shelves. Mountains of warehouse inventory went unsold leaving a company like Atari choosing to dump the merchandise into the Chihuahuan desert rather than face the looming tax bill. As a result, the whole home video game industry receded seemingly overnight.

One company single-handedly revived video games to mainstream prominence. That company was Nintendo. They’re ostensibly seen as the “savior” of the video games industry, despite the fact that microcomputer games were still thriving (history tends to be written by the victors). Nevertheless their Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was an innovative console featuring games with scrolling screens, arcade-like sprites. But the tactic they used to avoid repeating the 1983 collapse was to tightly control their market using the Nintendo Seal of Quality.

From the third party developer perspective, Nintendo’s Seal of Quality represented more than just another logo to throw on the box art. It represented what you could and couldn’t do with your business. Those third party licensing agreements dictated the types of games that could be made, the way the games were manufactured, the schedule on which the games shipped to retail, and even the number of games your company could make. From the customer side of things that seal stood for confidence in the product, and Nintendo would go to great lengths to ensure it did just that.

This is the story of how an Atari subsidiary company cracked the hardware security of the original Nintendo and started putting it into their unofficial cartridges.

Continue reading “That Time Atari Cracked The Nintendo Entertainment System” →

Listen To A Song Made From Custom Nintendo LABO Waveform Cards

October 14, 2018 by Donald Papp 2 Comments

[Hunter Irving] has been busy with the Nintendo LABO’s piano for the Nintendo Switch. In particular he’s been very busy creating his own custom waveform cards, which greatly expands the capabilities of the hackable cardboard contraption. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we covered his original method of creating 3D printed waveform cards that are compatible with the piano, but he’s taken his work further since then. Not only has he created new and more complex cards by sampling instruments from Super Nintendo games, he’s even experimented with cards based on vowel sounds in an effort to see just how far things can go. By layering the right vowel sounds just so, he was able to make the (barely identifiable) phrases I-LIKE-YOU, YOU-LIKE-ME, and LET’S-A-GO.

Those three phrases make up the (vaguely recognizable) lyrics of a song he composed using his custom waveform cards for the Nintendo LABO’s piano, appropriately titled I Like You. The song is at the 6:26 mark in the video embedded below, but the whole video is worth a watch to catch up on [Hunter]’s work. The song is also hosted on soundcloud.

Continue reading “Listen To A Song Made From Custom Nintendo LABO Waveform Cards” →

Mike Tyson’s Punchout Patch Gives HDTV Lag A K.O.

October 12, 2018 by Drew Littrell 12 Comments

They just don’t make them like they used to. Digital televisions have rendered so many of the videogames designed in the days where CRTs ruled the earth virtually unplayable due to display lag. Games that were already difficult thanks to tight reaction time windows can become rage inducing experiences when button presses don’t reflect what’s happening onscreen. A game that would fall into the aforementioned category is Mike Tyson’s Punchout for the NES. However, NES homebrew developer [nesdoug] created a patch for the 31 year old classic that seeks to give players playing on modern displays a fighting chance.

The lag fix patch for Mike Tyson’s Punchout seeks to alleviate some of the display lag inherent in digital displays by adjusting the gameplay speed. Some of the early stages aren’t altered very much, but the later fights incur more significant slowdown to compensate for modern display lag. It’s evident that [nesdoug] is a longtime fan of the game as he also uploaded a remix patch that mixes up the stages and color palettes.

The patch itself comes in the form of an IPS file. To apply the lag fix patch you’ll need an IPS patching tool, like Lunar IPS, along with your own personal backup ROM of Mike Tyson’s Punchout. A checksum value is provided on the lag fix patch download site to ensure you have a usable ROM file. Do note that the ROM file is overwritten in the process of applying the patch, so make sure to put the original file in a safe place. After patching is complete the fun can be had using your favorite NES emulator, or using a flashcart if you’re seeking to play on original hardware.

If you’re looking to dump your own NES cartridges without the plug and play convenience of devices like the Retrode, there is a tutorial in the video below the break:

Continue reading “Mike Tyson’s Punchout Patch Gives HDTV Lag A K.O.” →

Adding Bluetooth To Original SNES Controllers

October 10, 2018 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

There’s a bunch of companies selling wireless Super Nintendo style controllers out there. You can go on Amazon and get any number of modern pads that at least kinda-sorta look like what came with Nintendo’s legendary 1990’s game console. They’ve got all kinds of bells and whistles, Bluetooth, USB-C, analog sticks, etc. But none of them are legitimate SNES controllers, and for some people that’s just not good enough.

[sjm4306] is one of those people. He wanted to add Bluetooth and some other modern niceties to a legitimate first-party SNES controller, so he picked up a broken one off of eBay and got to work grafting in his custom hardware. The final result works with Nintendo’s “Classic Edition” consoles, but the concept could also work with the original consoles as well as the computer if you prefer your classic games emulated.

A custom ATMEGA328P-powered board polls the controller’s SPI serial shift register in much the same way the original SNES would have. It then takes those button states and sends them out over UART with a HC-05 Bluetooth module. The controller is powered by a 330 mAh 3.7V battery, and a charging circuit allows for easily topping the controller off with a standard USB cable.

A particularly nice touch on the controller is the use of custom light pipes for the status LEDs. [sjm4306] made them by taking pieces of transparent PLA 3D printer filament, heating and flattening the end, and then sanding it smooth. This provides a diffusing effect on the light, and we’ve got to say it looks very good. Definitely a tip to file away for the future.

On the receiving side, this project was inspired by a custom NES Classic Edition Advantage controller we featured last year, and borrows the work creator [bbtinkerer] did to get his receiver hardware talking to the Classic console over I2C.

We’ve seen a number of projects which have added wireless functionality to the classic Super Nintendo controller, but most tend to be more invasive than this one. We like the idea of reading the controller’s original hardware rather than completely gutting it.

Continue reading “Adding Bluetooth To Original SNES Controllers” →

A New Take On Building A Portable N64

October 2, 2018 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

When home consoles go mobile, whether in the form of modded original hardware or emulation, they usually take a pretty standard shape. A screen in the middle, with buttons either on the sides or below it. Basically the same layout Nintendo popularized with born-handheld systems such as the Game & Watch series and original Game Boy. Like the saying goes, if it ain’t broke…

But [Le Nerdarto] had a different idea. He came across a broken N64 and wanted to turn it into a portable console, but not necessarily a handheld one. Noticing the cartridge was about the perfect size to contain a small LCD and in an ideal position, he set out to make what is arguably the most literal interpretation of “portable N64” we’ve ever seen. It might not be the most practical iteration of this concept, but it definitely gets extra points for style.

After he stripped the N64 of its original hardware, he installed a Raspberry Pi 3 and an RC battery eliminator circuit (BEC) to get 5V out of the internal 6200 mAh 7.4V battery. [Le Nerdarto] says this provides power for the Pi, the LCD, and the various lighting systems for up to 10 hours. He’s also added USB ports in the front of the system for controllers, and an HDMI port on the back so he can still connect the system up to a TV when not on the move.

The 3.5 inch LCD in the cartridge is arguably the centerpiece of the build, and while it might be on the small side, we can’t deny it’s a clever idea. [Le Nerdarto] had the good sense to tilt the it back a few degrees to put the display at a more comfortable angle, but otherwise it looks stock since he was able to fit everything in without cutting the back of his donor cartridge out. For those who might be wondering, the “cartridge” can’t be removed, but we’ll admit that would have been a killer feature to add especially with the HDMI port on the back.

Of course, since it’s running emulators on a Raspberry Pi, this isn’t only a portable N64. The front mounted USB ports allow him to plug in all sorts of controllers and emulate classics from pretty much any console that’s older than the N64 itself. Ironically the Raspberry Pi 3 isn’t exactly an ideal choice for N64 emulation, but a good chunk of titles are at least playable.

If you’re more of a purist and want a true portable N64, we’ve covered plenty of those over the years to get you inspired.

Continue reading “A New Take On Building A Portable N64” →