nes

204 Articles

NES Controller Is A Slick Way To Carry Around Your Portable OS

November 13, 2011 by 14 Comments

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[Oliver] had an old NES controller laying around, and without any other use for it, he decided to repurpose it as a portable storage device.

He gutted most of the controller, removing the plastic standoffs, leaving the D-pad and remaining buttons intact. He crammed a 32 GB flash drive inside, along with the guts from an SD card reader. Using a Dremel he cut several openings into the controller, one for the flash drive and SD card reader’s USB ports, as well as for the SD card itself. When the physical modifications were finished, he installed a small Linux distro on the flash drive, which can be run by any PC that supports booting from USB.

While some might argue, we think it’s a neat way to reuse an old gaming peripheral that he might have otherwise thrown out. The portable OS is something that would certainly come in handy, though we can’t wait until the Raspberry Pi is finished – it would be awesome to have a complete computer packed in there too.

Nintenduo Stuffs An NES And SNES In The Same Case

October 26, 2011 by 26 Comments

[lovablechevy] loves her Retro Duo console, especially since it takes up less space than the NES and SNES it has replaced. There’s a small problem though: the Retro Duo isn’t 100% compatible with her old Nintendo cartridges. Battletoads is a deal breaker for her, so she built Nintenduo, an NES/SNES console that uses all original Nintendo hardware.

The Queen of Bondo began her project with a top-loading NES and the smaller revision of the SNES. There’s a Photobucket gallery showing the innards lovingly placed in their new plastic home.

Not only can [lovablechevy] play classics like Paperboy, Donkey Kong Country, and the Super Mario RPG that are incompatable with the Retro Duo, all the accessories like the Zapper and Power Pad now work.

The finished build is very small; not much bigger than an SNES 2, and is nearly dwarfed by the gigantic NES cartridges. She posted a video of herself trying not to shoot the stupid Duck Hunt dog with her Nintenduo. Check it out after the break.

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Using Classic Game Controllers With A Wii

September 19, 2011 by 9 Comments

[Bruno]’s Wii RetroPad Adapter was sent into the tip line, and we’re loving the possibility of using Playstation 2, Genesis, NES and SNES controllers with our Wii.

While there are commercial solutions that connect an NES or SNES controller to a Wii, everything connects to the GameCube port and there is no adapter for Sega or Playstation controllers. For his build, [Bruno] used an ATmega168 to read data from the classic controllers and translate that to the Wiimote I2C bus. Think of it as a new classic controller with the same form factor your 8-year-old self knew and loved.

The schematic for the build is very simple and [Bruno] has all the software out in the open. Even the PCB is single sided and looks like it would be a great candidate for a homebrew PCB. There’s no indication [Bruno] is trying to monetize his creation, so he’s either doing right, or so very wrong. Check out the Dualshock 2/Mario 3 demo of this board after the break.

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Hacking Your NES/Famicom Console For Better Video And Audio

July 18, 2011 by 20 Comments

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[Dominic] wrote in to share a pretty neat Famicom console mod that improves both the video and audio output of the system. While some of you may be familiar with the PlayChoice 10, we’re guessing that many of you are not. The PlayChoice 10 was an arcade-style machine that allowed you to play up to 10 different NES games. The system’s hardware was quite similar to the Famicom/NES consoles, but the graphics and sound performance was superior to either console.

[Dominic] decided to tweak his Famicom system, and ended up replacing its native Picture Processing Unit (PPU) with one from a PlayChoice 10. This allows the console to output RGB video natively, resulting in a crisper picture with brighter coloring. He didn’t stop there however. His Famicom system also sports an upgraded audio circuit that boasts psuedo-stereo sound as well as increased bass response and better overall audio clarity.

The console looks nearly stock, and performs quite well according to [Dominic]. Be sure to check out the video comparison embedded below to see how the modifications improved his system’s performance.

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Hackaday Links: Monday, May 30th

May 30, 2011 by 5 Comments

Huge, fully functional NES game pad replica

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Students at Dutch TU Delft university recently built a huge replica of the original NES controller (Google Translation), which is fully functional and can be used to play games on a large display screen they also installed. How big is it, you ask? It’s about 6 meters wide – over 30 times the size of the original NES game pad and requires participants to jump on the buttons to play.


Convert any image to G-code

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Members of [Forskningsavdelningen], a Swedish hackerspace, are working on software that will allow users to vectorize bitmap images in order to convert them to G-code files for CNC milling. A good portion of the project is complete, but there is still a bit of work to do, so you won’t see it in action for a while. When it’s ready, we’ll be sure to let you know.


Convert your lame Dead Space plasma cutter into a bonafide laser weapon

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If you forked out big bucks for the special edition of Dead Space 2, you know how lame the included plasma cutter replica is. Check out this video, that shows you how to convert your LED toy to a dual laser, fire starting, laser pistol. The process is pretty simple, so what are you waiting for?


Synchronized, LED-lit juggling balls

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[Jonathan] wrote in to share a project he and some friends have just finished. He’s not sharing a ton of details at the moment, but he has put up a video showing off their wireless LED juggling balls. All we know is that they use bright RGB LEDS, Zigbees for communication, and that they are awesome. We can’t wait to hear more about them!


Water cooled PS3 Laptop

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[Pirate] recently unveiled his latest work, a water-cooled Playstation 3 laptop. It looks pretty sharp, and can undoubtedly rival some of Ben Heck’s work, even if it does have an external PSU. Obviously having a separate power component isn’t necessarily ideal, but when you are cramming all of that water cooling goodness into such a small package, something has to give!

Nintendo Hacked To Fit Inside An NES Cartridge

March 28, 2011 by 22 Comments

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Instructables user [dany32412] recently built what is arguably one of the smallest NES consoles we have seen to date. Using a Nintendo on a Chip (NOAC) board, he has fabricated an NES system that fits inside a hollowed out NES cartridge.

He purchased a NOAC system at a local resale shop and got to work disassembling it. As most of these devices typically consist of a game system built into the controller with a Famicom game slot added for good measure, he knew he had a lot of work ahead of him if he was going to convert it to work properly with actual NES games and controllers.

He hacked apart most of the NOAC’s board, leaving just the CPU and the controller interface chip. He then built a custom controller interface board in order to properly map his NES controller’s buttons to the pads on the NOAC. He wired in a 72-pin NES cartridge slot, then added a pair of controller ports and a power switch. Once he had everything connected and tested, it was all secured in a Super Mario Brothers NES cartridge.

Check out the video below of his mini NES in action.

If you can’t get enough Nintendo hacks, be sure to take a look at this portable NES as well as this emulator-based NES in a cartridge.

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Portable NES Console Gets It Oh So Right

March 24, 2011 by 16 Comments

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[Doug] over at the moddedbybacteria forums has been working hard on a fantastic looking portable NES console and wrote in to let us know it was complete.

The console started as a simple idea to use a Nintendo on a chip (NOAC) board in order to create a portable console that played original NES cartridges. Once a plastic case and some batteries were sourced, along with the NOAC board, the project was well on its way.

[Doug] eventually decided that he would rather use a real Nintendo motherboard in the project, so the NOAC was scrapped…temporarily. He accidentally fried the Nintendo board, so it was back to the NOAC, but with upgraded wiring to take care of some interference problems he was having earlier in the build. An original NES controller was disassembled for use in the console, which gives the portable an authentic feel. Getting the case to look just right was a long process, but we think he did a great job with it.

If you want to take a look at his entire build log, be aware that it is 23 pages long. If you’re impatient and want to jump straight to the unveiling, that happens on page 22.

Keep reading to see a pair of videos [Doug] put together both during the production and after his build was completed.

If you are interested in seeing some other portable NES consoles we have featured in the past, look no further than here, here, and here.

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