Tearing Down The Wii U

November 19, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 14 Comments

With the release of the Wii U last weekend we knew it wouldn’t be long before we saw those glorious gut shots on the Internet. The folks at iFixit have torn down a Wii U, and the insides look somewhat promising for a potential hack to take control of the Wii U Game Pad.

The components in the Wii U console aren’t terribly surprising; a few wireless controllers, HDMI adapters, Flash memory chips, and the IBM Power CPU make up most of the interesting components. The insides of the GamePad, though, look pretty interesting. It appears the Wii U GamePad is powered by an ARM Cortex microcontroller built by STMicroelectronics, but the part numbers for the major ICs on the GamePad board are impervious to Googling.

Of course there’s still the question of how video is transmitted wirelessly from the Wii U console to the GamePad. iFixit found a Broadcom BCM4319XKUBG Wireless module that operates on normal WiFi frequencies. This module has been used in a few other pieces of video gear, most notably the Boxee Box, so there is some possibility of intercepting the video signal transmitted to the GamePad and figuring out the protocol.

The long and short of iFixit’s teardown, at least from the hacker perspective, is that all the interesting parts use hardware similar to what you’d find on any other eminently hackable device. Here’s to hoping we get an open Wii U GamePad before the year is out.

The Smallest NES Controller Ever

November 3, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 24 Comments

A few months ago, [Ben] saw a video of the world’s largest NES controller. “I bet I could make the smallest,” he thought in a strange game of one-upmanship. Now [Ben] has the smallest fully functional NES compatible controller, a feat of engineering that can only end in very, very sore thumbs.

The old NES controller is a very simple device: eight buttons are connected directly to a 4021 shift register. Every time the NES is looking for a change in input, it reads out the data in the shift register and gets the status of all the buttons.

After finding the smallest footprint 4021 shift register he thought he could solder, [Ben] found some very small SMD push buttons and a very tiny resistor network for the pull ups. The result is tiny, and thanks to the sacrifices of a few NES controller extension cables he found on Amazon, 100% compatible with his old NES.

You can grab all the schematics over on [Ben]’s git. Tip ‘o the hat to [Troy] for sending this one in.

Making A Game Boy Color Louder

October 13, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

When [Anton] picked up an old translucent purple Game Boy Color, he noticed a nearly complete lack of sound coming from the speaker. This simply would not do, so [Anton] replaced the speaker and soldered in a 2 Watt amp, making his Game Boy very loud indeed.

After cracking open his Game Boy, [Anton] noticed the speaker was rusted. He replaced it by soldering in a speaker from a Motorola cell phone, fixing the most immediate problem. After plugging in a few batteries, he still noticed a nearly complete lack of sound.

Turning to his electronics junk drawer, [Anton] pulled out a TI TPA2000D1 Class D amplifier. This tiny amplifier is able to provide 2 Watts to a speaker and is very power efficient given it’s Class D pedigree.

After making a PCB and wiring up his amp to the Game Boy’s circuit board, [Anton] spent a little time tracking down the source of some high-frequency hissing. As it turns out, the power regulators and converters on a 15-year old Game Boy aren’t of the highest quality, but after adding a few capacitors [Anton] got everything under control.

Now [Anton]’s Game Boy has very loud, crystal-clear sound. Considering the lengths chiptune artists take modifying old ‘brick’ style game boys for use with Little Sound DJ or nanoloop, [Anton]’s build could become a worthwhile modification for musicians looking for a little more oomph to their performance.

Adding Famicom Audio Channles To An NES Without Messing Up The Console

September 22, 2012 by Jesse Congdon 25 Comments

[Callan Brown] wrote in to show us a really interesting NES audio hack. [Callen] decided that he wanted the full Castlevania III audio experience, which (without modifications) can only be had through the original Japanese Famicom console. [Callen] weighed a few adapter options, and instead decided to come up with his own.

The issue is that the Japanese Famicom and the American NES actually have a different cartridge connector. The change in hardware from a 60 pin to a 72 pin connector added “features” like the 10 pins connected directly to the expansion port (used for stuff like the teleplay modem, who knew). The other two additional pins are used by the annoying 10NES lockout chip. While they were at it, Nintendo decided to route the audio path through the expansion connector instead of the cartridge.

This means that the Japanese cartridges can’t pipe sound to the NES audio channel with just a pin adapter. Good news though, after sourcing a pin adapter hidden inside certain NES games (Stack Up, Gyromite), audio can easily just be pulled from the adapter PCB. This requires the more expensive Famicom Castlevania III cartridge (Akumajou Densetsu). To cleanly route the new audio cable out of his front loading NES [Callan] reuses the sacrificial adapter game’s cart to make some kind of unholy hybrid. To round it off [Callan] also goes over steps to flash a translated ROM to the Japanese game.

What difference could an extra two squares and a sawtooth make? Check out the sound comparison video after the jump! Thanks [Callan].

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NES Light Gun Gets A Burning Laser Upgrade

September 21, 2012 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

The Nintendo Light Gun makes a perfect burning laser. Of course it’s been gutted to make this happen. Nonetheless, the retro look can’t be beat, and the gun form factor is just what you need in a laser weapon.

This will literally burn your eye out of your head, so [Justin] and his buddies over a North Street Labs are all wearing protective goggles designed for this laser’s wavelength. But they also built a safety into the zapper itself. At the beginning of the video clip (embedded after the break) you will see there’s a key lock mounted in the butt. This lock completes the circuit between the battery and driver board. The 2W output is achieved by a 445nm M140 diode. A lot went into the heat sink and mounting cylinder to make sure the diode doesn’t just burn up after a few seconds of use.

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Turning A DS Into A Game Boy Advance

August 22, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 15 Comments

The venerable Game Boy is dead – and has been for a long time – after being replaced by the DS, DSi, DSi XL, and the 3DS. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value to the old Game Boy catalog; Pokemon Red/Blue is still as much fun as it was 15 years ago, and the game play of Advance Wars is still superb.

[Maarten] over at Bureau voor Gamers decided to put a modern twist on our old friend by taking a first-gen DS and converting it to a proper single screen Game Boy (Dutch, Google translation).

The donor machine was a broken first gen DS with a broken top screen. [Maarten] removed the top screen, did a tiny bit of Bondoing, moved the speaker, and gave his new toy a bright orange paint job.

Now [Maarten] has a modern version of the best portable system ever created, packed full of more powerful hardware and a much more capacious battery. Sure, it’s not a build that requires rewiring everything, but it’s still an awesome build for GBA aficionados.

N64 In An N64 Controller

June 21, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

We’ve seen portable N64s before, but none were at the level of [Bungle]’s oversized N64 controller casemod.

Instead of the usual ‘sanding Bondo and gluing styrene’ method we’ve seen in other casemods, [Bungle] decided to make a silicone mold with a positive master. Not only did [Bungle] end up with a case indistinguishable from something produced in a factory, but the molding process left him with more internal room and the ability to make identical duplicates of his over sized controller.

The electronics are the standard fare – a slightly modified N64 with a PSone LCD screen. Because the rumble and memory packs are built in to the body of the gigantic controller, [Bungle] added a multifunction pak to provide ports for power, brightness controls, a/v, and a second controller.

This is an amazing build that really steps up the game for console modders. You can check out [Bungle]’s demo video after the break.

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