NES PC

[sidrick]

After skimming over a couple of how-to's online (http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Nintendo-NES-PC/ & http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Nintendo-NES-PC/ ) I decided I quite fancied one for myself. Since I'm a bit of a nerd and have too much time on my hands, I'll use this as my little project thread.

 

Today I:

 

Removed the 6 philips head screw and took the lid off:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/HPIM2949.jpg

 

Unscrewed and removed heat sheild above cartidge slot and mainboard:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/HPIM2948.jpg

 

This left the board connected via plugs to the 2 joypad ports and the power switches:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/HPIM2950.jpg

 

Better pic:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/HPIM2951.jpg

 

The unclipped easily leaving me with a nice, near enough empty, case:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/HPIM2952.jpg

 

 

And ordered: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152176/show_product_reviews which is a bloody bargain in my opinion. Onboard dual-core Atom processor, VGA capable of 720p playback and 6.1 audio. Fantastic stuff for a low-power mini-media server to link into my xbox and TV (if I ever get rid of my CRT )

 

Should be a modest system with 2gb RAM, laptop dvd drive suspended from the top of the case and 80gb SATA hard drive to start off with.

 

Next step will be to properly read the guides to see what they recommend I do with the power button which on the NES is either on or off - I suspect if I just hooked the motherboard power to the NES reset button the power LED wouldn't light up, which is no use. And decide what I'm doing with the controller ports. I'd like to retain them and wire up some sort of usb PC control > NES d-pad controller, but that'll take a bit of planning.

 

More updated when the motherboard arrives.

[Stu]

You've butchered a NES!!!

 

 

 

This was one of the originals..

 

http://mini-itx.com/projects/nespc/

[sidrick]

You've butchered a NES!!!

 

This was one of the originals..

 

http://mini-itx.com/projects/nespc/

 

I have two

 

I looked at that before but didn't realise it had a diagram for the NES controller > Parallel. Should come in very handy

[LiamGTR]

So it's basically a PC controlled by the NES controller? Why go through all the hassle with you can just download a emulator & ROM's ?

[sidrick]

So it's basically a PC controlled by the NES controller? Why go through all the hassle with you can just download a emulator & ROM's ?

 

It'll be a media PC/server for sharing/hosting media files between other PCs, xbox, TV, surround sound, all while looking like a NES. It'd be controlled with a keyboard and mouse like any other PC.

 

Getting the NES controller to work with it would be for the purpose of playing NES games, via an emulator and ROMs, if I wanted.

[LiamGTR]

Ahhh, I read it wrong, I thought it was ALL going to be controlled by a NES controller

[eetaylog]

Nice work. I got into this sort of thing quite heavily a few years back. Admittedly mines not as interesting as the one youre attempting but I ended up building a media centre/server at home and dont know how i ever did without it...

 

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/complete...on-panel-55442/

 

also check out this guys media centre. absolutely nuts...http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/completed-htpc-projects-61/project-pyramid-htpc-build-69338/

 

while youre on the mediaportal site, check out the software on there, its what i run my media centre on and it could be just what youre after as it has an emulator plugin.

[sidrick]

Nice one, and good work. Quite different to mine (my only real aims are silence and the abilty to fit in a NES box, haha) but similar in the tasks it'll be carrying out.

 

Thanks for the link, I'll certainly check it out.

[eetaylog]

getting a the unit silent is going to be your biggest headache, i chucked a massive heatsink in mine and used two 120mm fans, which are damn near silent. alternatively you could go balls deep and use water cooling

[sidrick]

getting a the unit silent is going to be your biggest headache, i chucked a massive heatsink in mine and used two 120mm fans, which are damn near silent. alternatively you could go balls deep and use water cooling

 

Lol, the board is fanless and the PSU will be an external laptop jobby. I'd like a case fan though, so will research this area a bit more.

 

Haha, watercooling in a NES box. No chance.

[sidrick]

My mistake, it's the single core that was fanless. I'll look into uprating the fan if it's too loud.

[Craig855S]

This may help with creating a controller mate...Click

 

Will make a great little media server

[sidrick]

This may help with creating a controller mate...Click

 

Will make a great little media server

 

Aye scoop, that's just the thing I need. Not sure on the drivers as I think I'll try Windows 7 on this machine, so we'll see how the XP drivers work out. Hopefully they'll be fine.

[sidrick]

Motherboard arrived the other day and I'm really pleased with the size of it. The heatsinks from the mainboard are no higher than the back panel connectors

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/nespc001.jpg

 

Today I removed and modified the power switch to that it's on/off rather than stuck on as the NES requires (obviously with ATX PCs this would turn them off 3-4 seconds after turning it on, lol). I say modified, but I really just pulled off the metal clip on top of the power button (circled):

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p89/adolftitler/nespc004.jpg

 

Rather than solder and tape wires myself for the NES power > PC power cables I'm going to wait until my brother gets back from offshore and ask him to make the necessary electrical connections since he's an electrical engineer. Last time he saw my work soldering 12 wires to connect a new fruit machine reel he said I was lucky not to have burned the house down I certainly don't want to burn my NES PC down!!

 

I've got pretty much everything I need to get it going, bar a few cables and a suitable power solution. Update in a few days.

Edited December 5, 2009 by sidrick

[eetaylog]

cool. are you gonna use a seperate gfx card? any pci cards that you use will have to be low profile, or you can buy them with 90 degree connections so they lay flat against the mobo.

 

out of interest, how many pci slots have you got on that board? im guessing 1 but if youve got more then id recommend you get yourself a tv card as well.