SNES System In The Controller

December 22, 2009 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Want to take your SNES emulation to your friend’s house? [Chris] worked out a way to fit the important parts inside of an original Super Nintendo controller. He removed the case from a 4GB thumb drive as well as a USB hub. Using a RetroZone kit he gave the controller a USB interface. By soldering the thumb drive and RetroZone board directly to the hub he’s reduced the package down to just one cable. Everything fits inside the controller case and now when you plug it into the computer you can fire up the ROMs you copied from your original cartridges that are stored on the thumb drive.

Of course this isn’t limited to SNES emulation but the real question is can you boot from the thumb drive?

Simple Liquid Dispenser For Auto-cocktails

December 7, 2009 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Qdot] came up with a simple way to dosing out liquids to use in his Bartris project. As you can see above, flexible tubing is connected to some inverted bottles that house the liquid. A chopstick is attached to a board on one end, and via string to a servo on the other. When the servo turns it pulls the chopstick tight against the board, cutting off the flow of liquid through the tubing. This isn’t as elegant as the system the Bar2D2 uses but it’s a heck of a lot less expensive.

You can check out some of the build pictures in his Flickr pool. He’s included this concept in a project he calls Adult Mario. Watch the video after the break but the quick and dirty is that the more coins you score in Super Mario Brothers, the more beverage is rationed out into your cup. Ah, human lab rats, is there nothing they won’t do for booze?

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DS Based Reader For The Blind

November 30, 2009 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Epokh] has release some homebrew software that uses a Nintendo DS as a voice reader for documents. This is extremely useful for blind and visually impaired folks who normally use screen readers but can utilize this technology for reading books, documents, and email on the go. Future versions look to add an email client and implement OCR via the camera for reading documents on the go.

The flite package is utilized to provide the text to speech functionality. We’re familiar with this package and judging by the video after the break, it lost nothing in the port to the DS hardware. [Epokh] pointed out that similar readers can cost $1500 when a DS sells for around $130. We can’t wait to see the final version fleshed out!

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Xbox 360 Controller On NES

November 30, 2009 by Jake W 7 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzW0JAx2lFM]

Some may think that linking an Xbox 360 controller to an original NES console is overkill. [Francois] would not count him self among that group. When the robotics team at his school was done using the controller with one of their projects, [Francois] used a Cortex M3 processor to get it to run with one of Nintendo’s 8-bit consoles. Part of the code for using the controller with the robot and the NES is available. Now all that is left is being able to play Duck Hunt with a Sixaxis controller.

DS Goes Full Size – Pockets Everywhere Rally In Protest

November 26, 2009 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

It’s hard to believe we missed this one from a couple of years back but we’re thankful that reader [Christian] tipped us off about it. This a Nintendo DS with two tablet pc screens being used as an external display. He’s using an FPGA but not to emulate the processor. It is translating the video data from the DS board into usable signal for the larger LCD screens. In the video after the break you can see that pen input has been implemented, with the FPGA sending location data back to the DS.

[Neal], the creator, priced the project out at around $580. It’s worth a lot more considering the know-how needed to get the video scaling and pen input right using the FPGA. It won’t fit in your pocket, but it doesn’t have a case either so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

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Uzebox In An NES Controller

November 19, 2009 by James Munns 6 Comments

[David Cranor] has managed to fit a fully working Uzebox system into an old NES controller. Uzebox, an open source gaming platform based on the ATmega 644 and an AD725 NTSC encoder, is one of a couple systems that are becoming more and more widespread and accessible. There are a number of ready-to-go Uzebox kits available, but for the more hands-on types, [David] has been very generous with his schematics and step by step instructions. These schematics can all be readily reshaped, and would easily fit into controllers with less fun applications and sentimental value.

Gamecube To Go

November 8, 2009 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

gamecube-to-go

[Hailrazer] built a handheld GameCube so he could take his gaming with him. The final product is quite nice, providing a large display and about 3 hours of play time on the lithium polymer batteries.

Starting with the case from a Kidz Delight Datamax game, he used Bondo ABS cement and plastic bumper filler to alter the case but still provide a professional look. The display is a five-inch PlayStation One LCD Screen from which he also incorporated the speakers. At least four controllers were cannibalized for use as the buttons, sticks, triggers, and directional pad. Our favorite feature is the totally exposed optical head mounted on the back.

We’ve embedded video as well as a picture of the optical drive after the break. This goes so far beyond just making the GameCube an all-in-one system. If you like this build, check out the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast mods on [Hailrazer’s] YouTube channel.

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