Hack N Mod - Amazingly Cool Hacks, Mods, and DIY Projects » NES & Atari

Retro Humor: The Origin of Classic NES Games

Joe L — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:00:17 +0000

Ever wonder how your favorite NES games came to be Who the hell came up with an Italian plumber and a giant dot eating circle Well, the secrets of the universe have been answered my friends. A secretive 1979 board meeting has been leaked! (gasp) Afterall, the insane premises of classic video games could have only come from one place. Enjoy!

Dr. Frankenstein Arcade Cabinet = Epic Steampunk Gaming

Saikat — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:45:16 +0000

The Dr. Frankenstein MAME cabinet is a retro gaming rig that takes inspiration from the monster novel. The steampunk cabinet is almost gothic in its design. Our previous post on DIY Arcade Rigs was about building an old styled arcade cabinet from the ground up. This Frankenstein build is just about giving the game rig a classically inspired touch.

These pictures above illustrate the building phases starting with the first woodwork. Every little touch adds to the antiquated appeal like the vintage panel meters on the control panel. Awesome detail!

The steampunk, mixed with the retro switches and gagues, and finally the rusted paintjob give it an astonishing vintage effect. It took the builder about 60-80 hours of loving labor on the arcade rig. Not bad at all when you stand back and applaud a work of art.

Our other top arcade projects:

Incredible R2D2 Hack has 8 Consoles + Projector

Joe L — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:46:45 +0000

Here’s an outstanding project for all you Star Wars fans. This guy took an R2D2 cooler and turned it into a retro gaming machine! Inside are eight consoles and a even a projector mounted in the head just like R2D2. Perfect! Now you can have a personal gaming robot to follow you around and fulfill all your nostalgic gaming desires. Unfortunately, these are all the pics and info we have about the project right now.

Don’t miss: DIY Retro Gaming Projects

R2D2 Innards:

We can take a look at the guts of the system (minus the projector) and see the wild mess of cables, fans, and retro consoles. It’s definitely a fantastic feat of engineering to get all of them to fit in such a small space and then have an R2D2 head-mount projector and built in sound system to work on top of it all. Take a look at some of our related Star Wars projects:

Play 20 Years of Free Retro Games

Saikat — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:54:02 +0000

Retro games are not only about nostalgia. Thanks to some web services like RemainInPlay, they are also about playing titles which you couldn’t afford the first time around. The website is the home for old games from the last 20 years. The selection for free download cuts across categories – featuring classic games like Quake III and Grand Theft Auto. There are also the DOS oldies like Doom.

The common base is that these are all commercial games that have been released as freeware games by their copyright owners. No abandonware games or original freewares here. These are games which would have required you to sacrifice two months of allowance. Now, it’s a free download courtesy RemainInPlay.

The site itself has an outdated look about it. The landing page lists the newest ones that have entered the catalog. The easiest way to go back in time for the game of choice is by using the search engine. The site search engine comes with a lot of filters like OS, genre, rating score, date of release etc.

The Games message board is for chit chat on anything close to gaming. Another way to catch the latest is with the section on Games News. Stumbling through the site is a good idea. Or you could check out the screenshots before selecting the one to play. The quickest way to grab the best though would be to start with the Top 10 Games list.

The site may pose as the graveyard for old games but it gives a great free way to dig up the past.

If you want to have a blast from the past, head back to our emulator hacks. Make sure you check out our vast list of the best emulators that allow you to play games meant for the older platforms such as NES, Ps2, Xbox, GBA, etc. And if you want to just play the best of NES within a browser bookmark – 100 Online NES Games – No Emulators.

via Lifehacker

DIY Retro Gaming Fun with Your Own Arcade Rig

Saikat — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:13:16 +0000

Classic arcade games is a staple memory of anyone who remembers the good old days. Today, we have online versions and offline clones playable on PSPs and PCs but the coin operated feel of playing a round of Pacman is gone. If can’t keep nostalgia at bay then this DIY from MaximumPC is the one for you.

Nope, you don’t have to hijack one from the local museum. You can start from scratch with a MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). MAME is a software application which replicates the gaming look and feel of a vintage arcade game. Here’s what the official MAME site says –

When used in conjunction with images of the original arcade game’s ROM and disk data, MAME attempts to reproduce that game as faithfully as possible on a more modern general-purpose computer. MAME can currently emulate several thousand different classic arcade video games from the late 1970s through the modern era.

MAME is the heart but an arcade game wouldn’t be one without the other elements like the cabinet, monitor, buttons ‘n joysticks and the control panel. The DIY tutorial looks at the host of options you can use – from the style of cabinets to the choice between LCD and CRT for the monitors. Controllers can come as joysticks, buttons or trackballs and spinners. The control panel is where you have to put it together.

The look is important but it’s the hardware specs that will do the game playing. A second hand computer with the proper specs will do fine. The MAME arcade console though requires an ArcadeVGA card and a specialized keyboard encoder.

Mounting the components is where you will need a pair of skilled hands and some finesse.

It’s back to geekdom with the task of software integration. Hardware, motherboard and video drivers are given a run through. MAME and its front end, MaLa (which displays the Arcade ROMs) requires installation and configuration.

It’s going to take time and painstaking work. But when you through the first switch, you would have just brought back the good ol’ days.

If nostalgia still bites, then check out our list of DIY arcade style projects -

Nintendo Meets Xbox 360 with the SNES Emulator

Saikat — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:36:02 +0000

Super Nintendo (SNES) still has fans worldwide – Who doesn’t love the retro consoles? Thanks to SNES emulators, the Super Nintendo is still alive and kicking in some corners of the game world.

Emulation of the SNES is now available for a number of console platforms. Snes9x for example is a portable, freeware SNES emulator. Snes9x is coded in C++ for Linux and Windows. Many ports of Snes9x are easily available. SNES 9xGX specially, is a Super Nintendo emulator for the Wii based on the SNES9x.

But this hack could be the very first homebrew emulation for the Xbox360. The innovative project used the SNES9X GX emulator ported to the Xbox360. OS dependence was bypassed by using Libxenon (which is a library for writing programs for the Xbox 360). The end result, as the video shows is a success. The GUI may not be eye pleasing but you sure can get those old games back into action on your Xbox360.

Go back in time with some of our retro-hacking emulation projects –

How to Build a DIY Nintendo Arcade

Joe L — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:00:47 +0000

Don’t we all love the classic Nintendo and it’s 8 bit glory? This main built his own tabletop arcade setup for the NES which allows him to emulate NES games on Windows. The system can also serve as a regular PC by hooking up a keyboard and mouse. If you’re interested in build your own arcade, you can buy the joystick and buttons pretty cheap on eBay. Heck you could even make an illuminated joystick if you want.

Don’t miss all of our arcade style NES and Atari Hacks:

X-Ray Photography of Gaming Controllers, Consoles

Saikat — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:03:41 +0000

This gaming hobbyist has shown that there is more than one way to take a photograph. He has found a unique way to get something more out of his work as an x-ray technician.

His “camera” of choice is an X-Ray machine of course:

Using his spare hours, he has stacked up quite a collection of X-Ray photographs of gaming consoles. From Wii-motes to a PSP and even X-rays of cartridges, he has captured them all in black and white.

The hobby is uncommon and almost weird. The effects though are extraordinary. The X-Ray photographs look like detailed blueprints. Take a look at his collection of photographs on Flickr and you will surely appreciate his work. Â� They would definately make for some cool wallpapers too.

If taking unique snapshots is your game, then look through our collection of photography hacks.

All-in-One Wii, Xbox 360 and Ps3 Arcade Cabinet

JJMelo — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:30:09 +0000

If you’ve ever wanted to play virtually any game from any console all on one machine, this hack is for you. It illustrates step-by-step, one man’s ambition to stuff a full-fledged gaming PC, an Xbox 360, a PS3 and a Wii into a custom arcade cabinet. Everything from power consumption to the display, to the custom video-switching mechanism is explained. The end result is what some might describe as the ultimate gaming machine.

If you liked this, you’ll also enjoy:

Physical Punch-Out Interface for the NES

JJMelo — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:59:27 +0000

People are getting extremely creative with innovative ways to physically interact with game consoles. These hackers combined one of the greatest NES titles, Punch-Out with a boxing dummy to add interaction to the old classic. This hack involves adding arcade buttons to a boxing dummy and interfacing it with a hacked NES controller. The tutorial details the various buttons placed on the dummy to control dodging and punches to the head and body.

You may also enjoy our other human-computer interaction projects: