An MSX With A Nintendo Controller

Console owners inhabit their own individual tribes depending upon their manufacturer of choice, and so often never the twain shall meet. But sometimes there are those what-if moments, could Mario have saved the princess more quickly through PlayStation buttons, or how would Sonic the Hedgehog have been with a Nintendo …read more

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Arcade Asteroids, Now In Colour

Asteroids is one of the classic games of the early arcade era. Launched in 1979 by Atari, it relied upon using an XY vector monitor to deliver crisp graphics for its space-based gameplay. One of the limitations of the original arcade games was that the game was only rendered in a single colour, white. Over 30 years later, [Arcade Jason] decided to see what it would take to build a color Asteroids machine.

The hack relies on the fact that the original game used a four-bit resistor ladder DAC to draw vectors in different intensity levels. Through some ingeniously simple …read more

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Thumbs Up for This Custom Atari 5200 Controller

It may be nearly 40 years old, but the Atari 5200 still inspires legions of fans to relive the 8-bit glory days of their youth. There was much to love about the game console, but the joystick-and-keypad controllers were not among its many charms. The joystick didn’t auto-center, the buttons were mushy, and the ergonomics were nonexistent.

Retro-aficionados need not suffer in silence, though, thanks to this replacement controller for the Atari 5200. [Scott Baker] didn’t want to settle for one of the commercial replacements or, horrors, an adapter for the old PC-style joystick, so he rolled his own. Working …read more

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Super Mario World Jailbreak Requires no External Hardware

[SethBling] has released a Super Mario World jailbreak that allows players to install a hex editor, then write, install and run their own game mods. What’s more is this all works on unmodified cartridges and SNES hardware. No hardware hacks required.

[Seth] is quick to say he didn’t do all this alone. This mod came to be thanks to help from [Cooper Harasyn] who discovered a save file corruption glitch, [MrCheese] who optimized the hex editor, and [p4plus2] who wrote some awesome mods.

While no soldering and programming of parts are required, installing this mod still requires quite a bit …read more

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Nintoaster: The Next Generation

The original Nintendo Entertainment System is affectionately called “the toaster” due to the way the cartridge is inserted. [MrBananaHump] decided to take things a bit literally and installed a NES inside an actual toaster. This isn’t [MrBananaHump’s] design, the Nintoaster comes to us from [vomitsaw], who also built the SuperNintoaster. Since [vomitsaw] was kind enough to document his original build, [MrBananaHump] was able to build upon it.

The target toaster for this build was a plastic Sunbeam model found at a thrift store for $5. [MrBananaHump] gutted the toaster and cleaned out years of toast crumbs. The Nintendo mainboard would …read more

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Hackenings: Retro Gaming and Computing

[Strages] contacted us via IRC on the #Hackerspaces channel to let us know that Makers Local 256, his hackerspace in Huntsville Alabama, is having their annual Retro Gaming and Computing Night this week: November 12th from 4pm to 11pm.

Nothing makes us feel old like seeing Starcraft tossed in with the “retro” games category, but if they set up a LAN for three-way Zerg-Terran-Protoss action, we’ll abide. If you’re anywhere near Huntsville, you should head on down and show off your hard-earned skills.

Hackenings

“Hackenings” is our weekly roundup of what’s going on in hackerspaces around the world. If you’ve …read more

Continue reading Hackenings: Retro Gaming and Computing

Hackenings: Retro Gaming and Computing

[Strages] contacted us via IRC on the #Hackerspaces channel to let us know that Makers Local 256, his hackerspace in Huntsville Alabama, is having their annual Retro Gaming and Computing Night this week: November 12th from 4pm to 11pm.

Nothing makes us feel old like seeing Starcraft tossed in with the “retro” games category, but if they set up a LAN for three-way Zerg-Terran-Protoss action, we’ll abide. If you’re anywhere near Huntsville, you should head on down and show off your hard-earned skills.

Hackenings

“Hackenings” is our weekly roundup of what’s going on in hackerspaces around the world. If you’ve …read more

Continue reading Hackenings: Retro Gaming and Computing

Hacklet 119 – Retrogaming Console Hacks

If you haven’t heard, retrogaming is a thing. 40-somethings are playing the games of their youth alongside millennials who are just discovering these classic games. There are even folks developing new homebrew games for consoles as far back as the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Atari 2600. This week on the Hacklet, we’re highlighting some of the best retrogaming console hardware hacks on Hackaday.io. Note that I did say hardware hacks. The focus this week is on games played on the original hardware. Don’t worry though, I’ll give emulated projects some love in a future Hacklet.

We start with [danjovic] …read more

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