Restoring Yellowed Computer Plastics

March 2, 2009 by Eliot 39 Comments

retr0brite1

Many of our cherished computers and consoles from the past have not stood up well over time. It’s not the hardware as much as the color. From Commodores, Apples, to Super Nintendos, the machines have slowly drifted towards a sickly yellow and even brown. The culprit appears to be the fire retardant chemicals used in the plastics. Amiga enthusiasts have spent the last year perfecting a technique that restores the plastic of these machines to its original splendor. Dubbed ‘Retr0brite‘ it’s a gel made from hydrogen peroxide, xanthan gum, glycerine, and ‘Oxy’ style laundry booster. The results are really impressive. If you do start restoring your own machines, caution should be used since it requires strong concentrations of hydrogen peroxide typically employed in bleaching hair.

[via Waxy]

PS3 Ubuntu Install For Emulation

January 31, 2009 by Eliot 15 Comments

snes9x

Gizmodo has done us all a favor by wading through many forum posts and condensing them into a handy guide to installing Ubuntu on your Playstation 3. It covers some of the caveats of going this route. You have to backup all of your game data before starting since the system repartitions the drive. Ubuntu installs without any problem, but because the cell processor is a PowerPC architecture it means not everything has been ported to it. There are a few things you need to install to get the Sixaxis controller to be recognized as a joystick. Super Nintendo emulator SNES9X is available and works, mostly. It doesn’t support fullscreen and cries if you reconfigure the buttons.

Supporting developers through alternate operating systems isn’t new to Sony. With the original Playstation, they released Net Yaroze, a consumer grade dev kit. The Playstation 2 was the first time they officially supported Linux on a game console (our first Linux machine). The ground breaking thing about the Playstation 3 was bundling in Linux support with every single console; no specialized hardware needed. Unfortunately they’re not near as open with the PSP.

SNES Cartridge Wallet

December 31, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

nes_wallet

[gamemaster87] put together this SNES wallet. It isn’t just a wallet, it also has internal lighting and theme music. He harvested LEDs from Christmas lights, switches and battery compartments from an old all in one joystick, and the sounds from a holiday card. There’s a Plexiglas window to show off his ID and a belt clip, because you wouldn’t want this thing in your back pocket. Match this up with the SNES clock, NES bike tail light, and the NES security system and you’ll be the king of the nintendorks.

Fuzebox, Open Source Gaming

November 25, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

fuzebox

Adafruit has just put their Uzebox based console into production. The Fuzebox is an 8bit game console based around the ATmega644-20PU microcontroller. Full 256 color 240×224 resolution video output is provide by either a composite connection or svideo. There is an SD card slot on board for future expansion. The chip takes care of all the I/O, so you just need to write your game code in C on top of it.

The kit looks easy to assemble. Almost all of the components are through-hole. The video chip is SMD and comes presoldered to the board. The kit has two SNES controller ports included, but you can use NES ports too. There are three ways you can load your program onto the board: 6pin FTDI, ICSP10, and ICSP6.

PSP SNES Controller Mod

October 29, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 27 Comments

[foo] sent in this amazingly well done mod to add an SNES controller to a PSP. He was contacted with a request to mod a PSP for someone who had limited use of one hand. The PSP controls were too difficult for her, but miraculously, she could play an SNES controller well. The quality of the mod is very nice. [foo] has added a port on the back that the controller plugs into. Other than the port on the back, the PSP looks completely stock and functions fine. When plugged in, the cable and plug act as a stand for the PSP too. Check out the video after the break for more.

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X2Wii, NES/SNES/N64 To Wii Adapter

June 14, 2008 by Eliot 3 Comments

If you poke around [Raphaël]’s site, the creator of today’s featured hack, you’ll find a lot of interesting projects. X2Wii is an ongoing project to adapt controllers from earlier console generations so they work with the Wii’s GameCube ports. He adapted his Multiuse tiny1 which uses an ATmega8. The code is all assembly so the microcontroller can keep up with the protocol. Definitely check out [Raphaël]’s other project pages.

IControlpad, IPhone Gamepad

May 24, 2008 by Sean Percival 7 Comments

[CraigX] has been dabbling in iPhone accessories lately by adding a gamepad. Called the iControlpad it surrounds the iPhone making it look very PSP like. As anyone who has jailbroken and installed emulators probably knows, without feedback the touch screen based buttons are less than great.

The unit is currently a prototype however there are plans to produce and sell the units. They have received support from Zodttd, an organization that has created iPhone apps like snes4iphone and genesis4iphone. The developers also state they’ll provide source and SDK support. The sparse development blog announces their success using a hacked up SNES controller over the docks serial connector, but they provide absolutely no details.

[via Engadget]