February 25, 2011

NES Computer (The Start)

Nintendo NES System - Video Game Console
As a nerdy PC user I sometimes find myself surfing the net for the latest and greatest PC parts as well as creative/crazy designs by other people. One day I came across PCs put into old video game console shells. One in particular that caught my eye was a Media Center PC put into a old Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).


I set upon making my own NES PC with a few goals in mind.
  • Keep the look like an original NES (at least from the front) and minimize external changes.
  • Make use of the original controllers and controller ports
  • Be able to play High Definition (HD) video
  • Run silent or fairly silent
The first thing I did was search the internet for others designs. A few things people were doing that I liked was making use of the original Power and Reset buttons, converting the controller ports to make real NES controllers function as USB controllers. I also came across various motherboards used and ways of silent mounting or "creative" mounting.

Eventually I settled on the Mini ITX Zotac Ionitx A-U 1.6ghz Dual Core Atom Combo.  My reasons for this motherboard were:
  • Mini ITX is a small enough form factor to fit the NES Case.
  • It is a combo motherboard, CPU, video card.
  • It supports HD video output
  • It has multiple connections. (HDMI, Optical Audio, USB, wired & wireless networking
  • Runs on an external power supply (brick)
  • Supports SATA connection for hard drives and optical drives
  • On-board Nvidia ION video card


 The other main parts needed were RAM and a hard drive. I settled on 2 2GB (4GB total) sticks of Corsair desktop DDR2 (PC2 6400). I also went with a Toshiba MK1059GSM 1TB Notebook hard drive. The reason for a notebook hard drive is its size makes it easier to place into the NES.

To Continue.....
Posted by bobinc at 8:03 PM
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2 comments:

  1. BillJune 18, 2012 at 8:33 PM

    The motherboard you used is no longer available on newegg.ca. Do you have any other suggestions to one that would be equivalent? Thanks.

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    1. bobincJune 23, 2012 at 12:04 PM

      I would think most of the current Mini ITX boards from Zotac could work. You want something that doesn't need a lot of work to keep cool and runs on an external power brick, because there is not a lot of extra room in the NES. You would drop the board lower if you want to but then you have to do like some mods I have seen and cut the bottom cross bar out which leaves a very big whole and kind of messes with the case stability.

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