Hacking Classic Video Game Systems

ThinSkin writes "ExtremeTech has been running a series of articles on hacking your old video game systems. The madness began when they tore open an old Super Nintendo and fashioned it into a portable gaming rig. Now, more recently, they've hacked a PSOne screen, which they will use for another type of portable gaming system."

Upgrading old systems

[ZephyrXero]

This is eerie.... my buddy was just telling me not two minutes ago about how he had been planning on modding an old NES with new PC parts. It would be the ultimate emulator machine.

Also strange...I just noticed that old NES is not much smaller than the Xbox...but no one ever complained about its size ;)

Re:Upgrading old systems

[ZephyrXero]

okay...if I had fully RTFA...I would have seen that this was talking about taking an old SNES and making it portable, not quite the same...

Re:Upgrading old systems

[-kertrats-]

Yes, and no one complained that ENIAC took up an entire warehouse, either...

Technology gets smaller.

Re:Upgrading old systems

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

PC parts in a NES? What about NES Parts in a PC? [geocities.com]

Re:Upgrading old systems

[Jagasian]

The original NES is about 1/2 the size of an Xbox and a small fraction of its weight. So, no, I am sorry, but the Xbox is a fat and heavy console.

Re:Upgrading old systems

[ZephyrXero]

Not taking weight into account... Put an Xbox and an NES next to each other and tell me that again...lol.

Re:Upgrading old systems

[ElleyKitten]

Xbox:(in inches) 10 X 12 x 3
NES: 8 x 10 x 3

Also, if you set the NES on top of the XBox, you'll see it's a little over half the size.

Re:Upgrading old systems

[ZephyrXero]

thank you

Re:Upgrading old systems

[root-kun]

Both the US NES and the original Famicom are quite a bit smaller and lighter than an xbox...

Re:Upgrading old systems

[MyDixieWrecked]

Do you mean something like this? [mini-itx.com]

I've actually begun a project like this, too. I've got 3 NESs that I just dug up and have taken one apart to start. I began writing a front/backend to a sweet-ass multi-emulator program in Python/GTK.

My current plan is to fashion the front ports into USB ports, have the box run a highly customized install of Gentoo, and use the nice mini-itx Pentium4 board they now have available. I say "plan" since I don't know if I'll be able to do certain things and time/money constraints may change certain things. A 2.4ghz box may be overkill for such a project, but I have fears that the
1ghz VIA board may not have enough graphics power.

I also plan on having the machine act as a video player (and connect over NFS or similar technology to my server) as well as play CDs and DVDs in addition to GB/GBA/GBC/DS/NES/SNES/MAME/Genesis/Sega/GameGear/ TG16/etc/etc/etc emulators.

I've done something similar

[BlastM]

I hacked an N64 down to it's bare essentials, and put it in my PC [overclockers.com.au].

It's powered by the PC's power supply and the video and audio cables are run through my digital TV tuner card so I can play it in all it's deinterlaced glory using tvtime [sf.net], although it can be plugged into a large TV or a projector and a loud stereo.

It's great at LAN parties. Nobody can resist the attraction of a GoldenEye deathmatch. >:D

Re:I've done something similar

[zombie-m]

This is a little off-topic, but what kind of case is that?

Re:I've done something similar

[BlastM]

An Amacrox "G5" Venticase [amacrox.com].

It came with a Super Powerful 350W Good For You Power Supply! Amazing value!

The N64's power draw is really small and the cheapo PSU runs it fine. Luckily it had an old-fashioned AT power connector so I could cut the 3.3V (orange) wire off that to feed into the N64. The alternative would be splicing into the ATX motherboard power connector, which I was nervous about doing. 3.3V isn't used very much in PCs anymore.

It seemed really interesting..

[wheany]

The article seemed interesting, and I read around seven pages. Then I got tired of clicking a link every two sentences. The ads took like four times the space that the text did on each page. And I filter all

Continues...

Tiny, tiny article parts

[cbiffle]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this trend of splitting an article into tiny parts is getting worse.

One of the 'pages' in TFA contains a paragraph. About eight to ten lines. Then you click Next and wait for it to load.

Perhaps this is to increase ad impressions, I don't know. But it got annoying enough that I simply stopped reading.

In a few years, I'll hate to see how far we've come.

In
*click*
this
*click*
article
*click*

Good Site for the Topic

[telstar]

If you're into hacking old machines into something new and portable, check out this site [benheck.com].

Re:Good Site for the Topic

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

Saw this site on /. a number of times in the last few years - I still can't get over the broad range of systems this guy works on. Much better read than TFA - spend your time getting info and enjoying ancedotes from an experienced hacker - not clicking "Next" over and over.

*Sigh* I love and hate reading these stories.

[geminidomino]

It's so awesome how this guy does it, and usually gives enough info to do the rewiring on your own. The hard part (for me, at least) is making the damn cases. I wouldn't know where to start, or how to use the tools, or what... It's depressing, too. I'd love to play Suikoden or 7th Saga on a plane...

Re:*Sigh* I love and hate reading these stories.

[Filmwatcher888]

It's easy to play old SNES games on a plane. Get yourself a Gamepark GP32 [gp32.de]. It looks like a GBA, but has tons of freeware apps and emulators [gp32x.com]. I picked mine up on Ebay, dirt cheap.

Re:*Sigh* I love and hate reading these stories.

[geminidomino]

Doesn't have that sweet warm glow that you get from a nice DIY project tho...