Some of you fine people might remember when I made a thread a fair while back asking if anyone would be willing to either cheaply sell or donate an NES to me for a project: restoring or modifying it for a resident I take care of at my work. DragonShard responded the call almost immediately, so a big shout out to you, hoss. I couldn't have done this without ya. As a stopgap solution I tried out one of those $20 Chinese nes replica consoles with... Varying success.
Due to some things in my personal life, mild depression, exhaustion, and lack of motivation due to being overworked for the past year and a half (110+ hour work weeks, but I put my foot down and am doing no more than 45 hour weeks nkw), it has taken a while to actually get off the ground.
So what'd I actually do? To put it simply, I turned the NES into a Raspberry Pi - a small computer the size of a credit card. These projects are commonly referred to as a NESpi. I salvaged as much of the console as I could, although I did have to use a file and trim some of the openings for modern connectors. I can safely say this project is all about finesse - I mean, I'm making this thing for someone who is developmentally disabled, not for my own use. It's going to look like a factory nes as much as possible. The bulk of the project is done, a friend and I are just putting the final details in order.
If you're interested in making your own, here are the tools and things I used:
A retro console of your chose
Philips screwdriver
Raspberry Pi (I used an rpi2 although the rpi3 is out now, is the same price, but has superior specs)
A micro SD card at least 4gb in size (I used a 16gb card Samsung Evo, pricey but worth it)
A cellphone charger capable of providing At least 2 amps of continuous power
HDMI cable or hdmi to rca cable for a minitor
A USB keyboard
A USB game pad of your choice
A USB flash drive
Access to a computer and internet
Latest retropie os release
I'm not going to make a walk through for this, as there are many detailed guides on how to do this if you research Google for ten seconds.
Anyhow, here is the progress so far. If the pictures make your browser window all wonky or something, let me know, and I'll link to the album instead of displaying them here.
HIGH QUALITY IMAGES HERE, BELOW IS 56K FRIENDLY
Things I still want to do:
* Tidy it up a bit, like block off the open holes left by factory connectors that are no longer there (like original audio port, channel switcher, etx) with paint matched plastic
* Load the entire library of nes, snes, and Genesis games onto it. Just... All of em. It has some games, a friend of mine is testing it as we load games into it for smoothness, playability, and simplicity. Everything is going great!
* Use extension connectors/cords to make it so there are no cords going into it. Just have connections you con hook into the case and be good to go.
* Also going to wire in the power and reset buttons
* Idiot proof it for other staff members where I work so they can easily use it
* Possibly write a shutdown script for the main menu. If anyone knows Linux, get in touch with me. Hardware is my forte, software is not.
* Possibly load some N64 games on it, but I don't know if my NESpi has quite the horsepower to cope with that. We will see!
In conclusion, thanks for sticking out this massive wall of text and pictures. The guy I take care of and did this for is someone I care about a lot, and the whole reason for doing this was to improve his quality of life. ... Playing some two player Mario games with him will be a plus too
...
Due to some things in my personal life, mild depression, exhaustion, and lack of motivation due to being overworked for the past year and a half (110+ hour work weeks, but I put my foot down and am doing no more than 45 hour weeks nkw), it has taken a while to actually get off the ground.
So what'd I actually do? To put it simply, I turned the NES into a Raspberry Pi - a small computer the size of a credit card. These projects are commonly referred to as a NESpi. I salvaged as much of the console as I could, although I did have to use a file and trim some of the openings for modern connectors. I can safely say this project is all about finesse - I mean, I'm making this thing for someone who is developmentally disabled, not for my own use. It's going to look like a factory nes as much as possible. The bulk of the project is done, a friend and I are just putting the final details in order.
If you're interested in making your own, here are the tools and things I used:
A retro console of your chose
Philips screwdriver
Raspberry Pi (I used an rpi2 although the rpi3 is out now, is the same price, but has superior specs)
A micro SD card at least 4gb in size (I used a 16gb card Samsung Evo, pricey but worth it)
A cellphone charger capable of providing At least 2 amps of continuous power
HDMI cable or hdmi to rca cable for a minitor
A USB keyboard
A USB game pad of your choice
A USB flash drive
Access to a computer and internet
Latest retropie os release
I'm not going to make a walk through for this, as there are many detailed guides on how to do this if you research Google for ten seconds.
Anyhow, here is the progress so far. If the pictures make your browser window all wonky or something, let me know, and I'll link to the album instead of displaying them here.
HIGH QUALITY IMAGES HERE, BELOW IS 56K FRIENDLY
Things I still want to do:
* Tidy it up a bit, like block off the open holes left by factory connectors that are no longer there (like original audio port, channel switcher, etx) with paint matched plastic
* Load the entire library of nes, snes, and Genesis games onto it. Just... All of em. It has some games, a friend of mine is testing it as we load games into it for smoothness, playability, and simplicity. Everything is going great!
* Use extension connectors/cords to make it so there are no cords going into it. Just have connections you con hook into the case and be good to go.
* Also going to wire in the power and reset buttons
* Idiot proof it for other staff members where I work so they can easily use it
* Possibly write a shutdown script for the main menu. If anyone knows Linux, get in touch with me. Hardware is my forte, software is not.
* Possibly load some N64 games on it, but I don't know if my NESpi has quite the horsepower to cope with that. We will see!
In conclusion, thanks for sticking out this massive wall of text and pictures. The guy I take care of and did this for is someone I care about a lot, and the whole reason for doing this was to improve his quality of life. ... Playing some two player Mario games with him will be a plus too
...
That is so sweet of you, Bones! And I honestly didn't think this could be a thing! Does it work with almost any console, say.... A GameCube, or a PS2? *is curious and needs something productively nerdy to do with my life*
I just used the Nintendo as a case for the raspberry pi. A raspberry pi is a very small - about the size of a credit card - computer. It has everything that it needs except storage built in, you use a micro SD card for that. It isn't that powerful but works well as a gaming station for old games. People play n64 and ps1 games on em all the time. I may try out ODROID, a more powerful competitor to the pi soon as a ps2/xbox/GameCube replacement.
Raspberry pi (or rpi for short) has a TOOON of support because it's cheap, reliable, and easy to work on. To put that in perspective, this entire project cost me maybe $80usd ($35 for an rpi2, 25usd for a good Samsung micro SD card, 20 in misc items and a USB snes controller, and let's say 15ish for the shipping from Amazon). It requires a little bit of computer know how and diy ingenuity to mount up and get going but there are a ton of beginner friendly tutorials. This was my very first rpi project, and it was a blast!
You can learn all about the raspberry pi here
Raspberry pi (or rpi for short) has a TOOON of support because it's cheap, reliable, and easy to work on. To put that in perspective, this entire project cost me maybe $80usd ($35 for an rpi2, 25usd for a good Samsung micro SD card, 20 in misc items and a USB snes controller, and let's say 15ish for the shipping from Amazon). It requires a little bit of computer know how and diy ingenuity to mount up and get going but there are a ton of beginner friendly tutorials. This was my very first rpi project, and it was a blast!
You can learn all about the raspberry pi here
This is amazing!
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