Hasta La Gadget!

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Unless the book’s cover has the logo of the Nintendo 64 on it, along with a power switch and a cartridge slot. Also when the book wasn’t actually a book to begin with. I therefore judge the Nintendomicon to be guilty of third degree awesomeness.

The Nintendomicon was made by Redditor JHood_. He carved holes out of a wood and leather box that looks like a book. He intends to give it to his brother as a classy yet geeky send off gift. The Nintendomicon is JHood_’s first mod, so understandably it’s far from perfect. For one, it has no air vent, although it does have a fan. He also bungled its name, calling it “Nintendomnicrom” when he actually meant to spell “Nintendonomicon.” In the end he accepted the renaming suggestion of a fellow Redditor.

The missing reset button though? That was intentional. JHood_ said he hates the button.

[via Imgur & Reddit via Obvious Winner]

Technabob contributing author Conner Flynn has a hidden talent – and I’m not talking about walking and chewing gum at the same time. The man knows his way around an Atari 2600 like it’s nobody’s business. Now it’s been a while since he built his epic Atari 2600 guitar, but his latest mod looks like it was worth the wait… I give you Atar-E…

Conner found this Wall-E Learning Laptop at a thrift shop, but he didn’t see a laptop at all (neither do I). Instead, he saw the home for his next portable Atari 2600 mod. Inspired by the modding prowess of Ben Heck and Bacteria, he tore apart the Wall-E toy and gutted it.

His design incorporates an actual Atari 2600 circuit board, along with authentic Atari woodgrain pieces. He went off the board with the controller and used an NES D-Pad instead of a traditional Atari joystick. Isn’t that sacrilege? Dogs and Cats sleeping together!

The controller replaced the original keyboard found on the toy, and he even rigged it so the controller section can still fold shut when there’s no cartridge in place. One thing Conner struggled with was where to put a battery pack for the system, so he gave Wall-E a little backpack. Isn’t that cute?

Games are displayed on a tiny color LCD screen, mounted where the monochrome display on the original toy was located. On the one hand, you’ll have to squint a bit to play on this thing, on the other hand, the pixelated 8-bit graphics look so much better when they’re shrunk down like this.

While it would probably take you a ton of work to try and build one of these for yourself, Conner says he may soon list it for sale over on his online toy store over at Botropolis, so keep your eyes peeled. On second thought, peeled eyes sound like a really bad idea.

[via Botropolis]

The very talented case modder Javier Riquelme customized several PlayStation 3 consoles for Sony, who in turn gave them as gifts to its partner developers and publishers. With the exception of what seems to be Javier’s trademark flourish, each console looks radically different and suited to its theme. This dude is for real.

As I said, each casemod is unique; if someone told me that the Borderlands-themed PS3 was made by someone from Gearbox Software while the Metal Gear Rising one was made by a cyborg ninja from Kojima’s lair I would have believed that. But Javier does like adding thick letters with LEDs that contrast nicely with the rest of the sweet art on the surface of the console.

All of these look awesome, but I want to shake Javier’s hand just for the Assassin’s Creed casemod. I don’t even like that franchise and I want the console. You can see more shots of Javier’s work on his Imgur gallery, on his Twitter page and on his Facebook page.

[via Reddit]

I’ve been waiting a very long time for somebody to build a single game system which could play all of today’s console games. Well that day is today – courtesy of master modder Ben Heck. For his latest project, Ben has created a single mutant machine that combines a PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U.

Heck’s wood-cased Ultimate Combo System may not be the sleekest and most modern looking thing, but it’s still an impressive build, having combined these three current-gen consoles in a single box. We don’t know too much about the final build other than the picture shown above. However, Ben and element14 have teamed to release a 3-part series chronicling this epic build. Here’s Part 1 for your enjoyment – skip to about 1:25 to get to the meat of the mattter.

Surprisingly, this is the first time that Heck has disassembled a Wii U or the new PS3 super slim, but he digs right in and starts ripping things apart right away, giving us all a glance inside the two most recent consoles. Parts 2 and 3 of the build video will be released on element14 on March 15th and March 23rd, respectively, and will reveal the construction of the case and assembly of all of the components. From what I can tell, the final build will include HDMI switching to a single output, and I’m betting it’ll have a power strip built in so you can plug it in with a single cable – but that’s just conjecture on my part. Personally, I can’t wait to see exactly how the finished thing works.

While I’d assume Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will never collaborate on such a console, you can still get your hands on this one. Those of you interested in the build can enter to win it over on element14 now.

If you have certain interior design tastes, some types of PC case mods may not quite suit your decor. That’s where Jeffrey Stephenson comes in, this time with a fanless home theater PC featuring an art-deco style Mahogany shell that slides right over the aluminum chassis. Inside, there’s an Intel Core i3-3225 processor running Windows 8 with 8GB RAM, an Intel Cherryville SSD, 150W Pico PSU and Silverstone HE02 passive heatsink. While able to handily perform most media chores (and generate a little heat!), it stays in keeping with his other tasteful, retro designs for those of you who eschew Thermaltake Level 10-type PC cases. Or, almost all of you, anyway.

Filed under: Desktops, Home Entertainment, Intel

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Via: Fanless Tech

Source: Jeffrey Stephenson