The Mini Console Revolution, And Why Hackers Passed Them By

The Raspberry Pi was initially developed as an educational tool. With its bargain price and digital IO, it quickly became a hacker favorite. It also packed just enough power to serve as a compact emulation platform for anyone savvy enough to load up a few ROMs on an SD card.

Video game titans haven’t turned a blind eye to this, realising there’s still a market for classic titles. Combine that with the Internet’s love of anything small and cute, and the market was primed for the release of tiny retro consoles.

Often selling out quickly upon release, the devices have met with a mixed reception at times due to the quality of the experience and the games included in the box. With so many people turning the Pi into a retrogaming machine, these mini-consoles purpose built for the same should have been immediately loved by hardware hackers, right? So what happened?

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Projector And NES Mini Hide Out Inside The Real Thing

Taking a page out of the Xzibit Engineering Handbook, [Geeksmithing] recently decided that the gutted carcass of an original Nintendo Entertainment System would make a perfect home for…a smaller NES. Well, that and two wireless controllers. Plus a projector. Oh, and batteries so it can be used on the go. Because really, at that point, why not?

The video after the break starts with a cleverly edited version of a legitimate NES commercial from the gaming glory days of the 1980s, and segues into an rundown of all the modern hardware [Geeksmithing] crammed into the case of this legendary console. It helps that the official NES Classic used for the project is so much smaller than its more than thirty year old predecessor, leaving plenty of room inside to get creative. We particularly like the dual wireless controllers which are conveniently hiding inside the original cartridge slot.

Frankly, that alone would have made this project worthwhile in our book, but [Geeksmithing] didn’t stop there. He also added in a pico projector that’s normally covered up by the black facia on the rear of the console, complete with a “kickstand” to tip the system up to the appropriate angle. Continuing with the theme of enabling ad-hoc NES play sessions, he also packed in enough batteries to keep the system running for a respectable amount of time. There’s even put an inductive charging coil in the bottom of the system so he can top off the batteries just by dropping the system on a modified SNES mousepad.

Last time [Geeksmithing] checked in, he was embedding a Raspberry Pi into a Super Mario Thwomp that was made from real concrete. We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

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NES Classic Edition – Controller Mod

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.

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