Jul 22
This NES is a painstaking recreation of the real thing—and we reckon making it was perhaps even more fun than playing the old version of Final Fantasy you have lying around.
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Jul 15
Without Nintendo’s Famicom there would be no NES. And without the NES, chances are, the video game industry as we know it would never have existed. It’s hard to appreciate history while you’re living it, but thirty years ago today on July 15, 1983, Nintendo’s Japan-only Family Computer debuted and set off a domino effect that would make video games a global, billion-dollar industry and rank Nintendo as synonymous with gaming itself. Rather than look back with the rosy tint we have for the NES’ early days, Ars Technica‘s gone the informed route to celebrate the system’s anniversary. From a condensed account of the console’s origins (i.e., failed Atari distribution deal, revised prototypes, soft US launch in 1985) to a walkthrough of the silicon circuitry and hardware add-ons (like the Famicom Disk System and Modem) that only saw the light of day in Japan, the retrospective covers all the bases of gaming’s golden era. There’s a whole lot more Nintendo trivia packed into the retrospective (did you know the original Famicom’s controllers had inbuilt mics?), so be sure to check it out and pour one out for that famous grey box.
Lead Image: iFixit
Source: Ars Technica
Jul 01
Nintendo R.O.B. Robot: The Lamp
Posted in: Today's ChiliI always thought that Pixar’s original Luxo, Jr. had a whole lot of personality for a desk lamp. But imagine if your lamp had eyes and arms? That’s what you get when you buy the Nintendo Robotic Operating Buddy lamp.
It started out as one of those Nintendo robots from the 1980s, but has since been decommissioned and turned into a table lamp. Despite the fact that R.O.B. no longer functions as a NES peripheral, you can still rotate him 360 degrees, open and close his arms, raise and lower his arms and shoulders, and even grip things in his pincers.
The NES R.O.B. lamp is available over on Woody6Switch’s Etsy shop for $125(USD).
Jun 13
Jun 11
Hands-on with Hyperkin’s Retron 5: emulating nine classic consoles with help from Android
Posted in: Today's Chili
This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo might be all about the next generation of gaming hardware, but not in Hyperkin’s E3 booth: these guys are looking backwards. We dropped by to check out the Retron 5, the outfit’s latest machine to traverse the library of older gaming titles. All told, this iteration strolls through half a dozen hardware cycles, offering compatibility for a full nine video game systems. It’s more than a simple hardware emulator, however — this machine offers save states, cheats and visual filters too.
Filed under: Gaming
Jun 09
A couple of years ago we saw a pretty sweet Scion xB that was modded as an homage to 8-bit gaming. It would’ve been more awesome if it had this engine. It’s a Honda Civic B series engine made to look like a NES controller, complete with the Konami Code at the bottom.
What I really want to see is a car with a NES controller for a steering wheel – er, steering controller.
[via Reddit via InsanelyGaming]
May 31
May 30
The original Nintendo Entertainment System’s controller lends itself so well to geeky reinterpretations thanks to its simple, rectangular form. And now, here’s another cool use for the iconic controller – a night light.
This nifty night light was put together by DIYer lonesoulsurfer, and is basically an old NES controller outlined with LEDs, and set into a clear resin shell.
The circuit is triggered by tilting the controller, and tilting it multiple times can switch it into a blink mode too. And if you’re wondering how you change the batteries in this thing, you don’t. It’s powered by a solar panel.
It’s pretty nifty, and you can check out the full build instructions to make your own over on Instructables. Since the whole thing is cast in resin, I don’t see a reason why you couldn’t do this with other game controller either.
May 13
It may not be the best arcade cabinet ever, but Redditor mystery_smelly_feet’s arcade cabinet is no slouch either; especially since he made it with his own two hands. Unless of course he has six hands, in which case this sort of thing is to be expected. But I doubt it. If you’re more concerned about the logic behind a NES arcade machine, don’t worry, there’s actually a PC inside.
Mystery_smelly_feet’s gaming PC has a 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, 16 GB RAM, a 2GB GeForce GTX 660 GPU and a 2 TB hard drive. He wired the sticks and buttons to an Ipac 2, which he says mimics keyboard input. The monitor is a 32″ Viewsonic DE3201LED. He didn’t say what brand the speakers were, but a Redditor pointed out that they might be one of Logitech’s surround speakers.
Mystery_smelly_feet used MDF to build the cabinet, with the help of the instructions made by Arcade Controls forum member stevenpbhs as his guide. He also said the he ordered the joysticks and most of the buttons from Suzo-Happ. He got the player 1 and player 2 buttons from Paradise Arcade. Finally he based the sweet NES controller graphic on this design by deviantART member BLUEamnesiac.
As you may have guessed by now, mystery_smelly_feet uses emulators to run games from different consoles on his PC. All in all it took him a total of 2 months and close to $2,000 (USD) to finish his one of a kind gaming setup. Good job man! Now go do something about those smelly feet.
May 10
The Daily Roundup for 05.10.2013
Posted in: Today's Chili
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.