Beautiful wooden case for a portable NES

May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

After building a few portable gaming systems, [Parker] wanted to try something a little different than the usual sleek plastic builds. He decided to go with a nice wooden classic NES. He started by gutting a NOAC or Nintendo On A Chip. The NOAC has already done most of the miniaturization for him, so he was mainly focusing on the portability. While this wasn’t the most extreme mod, it wasn’t just a case swap either. He took great pictures of the process of modifying the screen to work and putting everything together. The final product is fantastic looking.

The first comment we thought was, why is the game facing backward? Due to the shape of the NOAC board, he would have had to either add more depth to the case, or extended and flipped the actual cartridge plug to make the game face forward, so we can understand why he left it alone.

Filed Under: nintendo hacks Tagged With: ,

Tiny N64 controller comes with hand-cramp guarantee

April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Just looking at this little thing makes our hands ache. But [Kirren] did do a great job of building an N64 controller inside a tiny project box. It’s not a mod, but a ground-up build based on a PIC 16F628 microcontroller.

It has most of the buttons found on a standard controller, and he assures us that you can play most games without missing the ones that didn’t make it into the design. You can just make out the analog stick to the left, but that silver ring on the right is actually a 4-direction tactile switch which stands in for the C buttons. He’s also included Start, A, B, R, and Z.

The link above goes to his Wiki, and there are more than enough details if you’re interested in doing this yourself or just understanding how everything works. Check out his writeup on the protocol, and  you can even get a copy of his code. There’s also a video demo after the break which shows [Kirren] playing some Bond with the controller. [Read more…]

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Miniaturized N64 controller fits the tiniest of hands

April 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

n64-controller-mod

The controllers that came with the Nintendo 64 don’t exactly measure up to the “Duke” of Xbox fame, but they’re not the smallest in the world either. Made by Bacteria forum member [Bungle] says that his girlfriend has incredibly tiny hands, so he thought he might try trimming some of the fat from an N64 controller by cramming its components into an N64 cartridge.

He tore down a 3rd-party N64 controller, tossing out the D-Pad, plug, and rumble motor, retaining all of the other buttons. After gutting the game cartridge, he heated the back side under a lamp and stretched the plastic over a roll of electrical tape to make room for the N64’s trademark “Z” button. Having only removed the rumble motor due to size constraints, he found a suitable replacement at Radio Shack, which fills in for the original nicely.

After a good amount of careful trimming, wiring, and mounting, he came up with the little gem you see above. We’re sure [Bungle’s] girlfriend is pleased with his work, and he seems happy with how it came out as well.

Continue reading to see a short video showing off [Bungle’s] latest creation.

[Thanks, Chris Downing]

[Read more…]

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A locking chest with a musical key

April 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

music-detecting-box

[Basil Shikin] was thinking about different types of locks, and was trying to come up with a locking solution that he had yet to see. It dawned on him that he had never come across a lock triggered by music, so he set off to construct one of his own.

He ordered a wooden chest online, then proceeded to piece together the electronics required for the locking mechanism as well as the music detecting logic. Using an Atmega328P paired with an electret mic, his system listens for a particular tune (the Prelude of Light from the Ocarina of Time) to be played , which triggers a tiny servo to undo the latch. To do this, he implemented a version of the Goertzel Algorithm on the Arduino, allowing him to accurately detect the magical tune by frequency, regardless of what instrument it is played on.

Be sure to check out the video below to see his musical lock in action.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: arduino hacks, musical hacks, news, nintendo hacks Tagged With: , , , , ,