Gutting/Hacking an NES??

[mkdevo]

hello all..

sorry if this is in the wrong forum.. really didn't know where else to put it... anyways..

looking at this thread:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=6192

i was thinking of how cool it would be to gut an NES, drop one of those tiny mobo's in there, with a tiny hard drive, with pretty much nothing but an NES emulator with all the roms, hack the controllers for pc input, and have a standalone NES/PC emulator with all the games...

it doesn't seem like it'd be all too hard to do, with the exception of the controllers. how would i go about hacking the controllers for pc input?? keyboard hack? pc gamepad hack? ipac? i'd love to be able to keep the original NES controller plugs, making it as close to the real thing as possible..

another major important thing for me would be to have the controller/emulator interaction ('action') be as tight as possible... for example, my buddy can't play NES Tetris on his Dreamcast, because the game doesn't react to the controller the way the original does..

has anyone done this? examples?? sounds like it'd be a lot of fun, and not too much stress.. is there a good enough dos nes emulator out there to not even have to load windows at all??

thanks in advance..

[IceCold]

The best part is, you probably wouldn't have to have much more than a 50mhz either...   .  Much cheaper than a computer for MAME.

I thought about doing something like this for Atari 2600 emulation, except not putting it in a console case, but I still would have had hacked controllers for it(just like you're doing).  I thought it would be pretty cool, but then I got a gutted cabinet for MAME and I haven't exactly had time for my other projects that I've thought of  

There are people who sell pc's in NES cases though(or at least there used to be, not sure anymore), so it should be possible...

I don't know how to interface the controllers though, sorry   .  I would think gamepad hack would be best, but if you want to keep the plugs, that could be a problem.

[seaner]

For a 2600, you could pick up a piece of flash, drop it in a cartridge and hook the high-order address pins up to a set of dip switches.
For NES, you could probably stuff a Sandisk or a microdrive into a cartridge form factor with a bit of logic to interface to the port.

[shmokes]

How would you control the PC?  Would it simply load a frontend automatically that could be controlled with the NES controllers or would you have keyboard/mouse ports hidden somewhere on it?

[Beley]

check out this page, about 3/5ths of the way down there is a NES progect

http://www.mini-itx.com/projects.asp

As for the controllers you could wire the orignal controller ports into the parallel port and use Directpad Pro

[AlanS17]

That project in the projects area of www.minitx.com should have everything you need to know. I think it even has the proper pinout for using the original controllers. The guy that did it really seems to know what he's talking about.

I wanna eventually build my own console, but I wanna use a mini-itx case. And I want it to play EVERY old console. (Hey if you're gonna do something you might as well do it right.)

[SirPeale]

Ah, man!  Don't gut the NES!  Use a small case, or build something instead.  NES are becoming increasingly more difficult to find.

[anthony691]

Man that looks cool! I think I will do mine with the MAMEWAH FE and TV out for sure... oh damn there gos a few months and a few hundred dollars (and my old NES)

[Hoe]

What's a good DOS based NES emulator? What was probly the most break through NES emulator ever- Nesticle!

[anthony691]

Ah, man!  Don't gut the NES!  Use a small case, or build something instead.  NES are becoming increasingly more difficult to find.

I am going to use a broken NES with the pins worn out (cheaper anyway)

[Silverwind]

Ah, man!  Don't gut the NES!  Use a small case, or build something instead.  NES are becoming increasingly more difficult to find.

I picked one up at a yard sale for fifty cents!! hehe

came with the super mario/duck hunt still in the slot..  no controllers or power cable though..  but for fifty cents I couldn't say no