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Have your ever seen any of "Ben Hecks" portable console builds? Well if you haven't, he often uses these Chinese Famicom clone consoles. These cloned consoles are often times refered to as NOAC's, meaning NES On A Chip. They are called this because they are a fully functional Nintendo Entertainment System literally on one chip. The best part about the NOAC is that they include a 60 pin famicom game port, which in our case can easily be converted over to a 72 pin NES game port.
I originally got this idea from Kotomi (link below), and figured i would try to do the same thing. My plan was to use the original NES controllers, instead of the cheap super joy ones, which is what i believe Kotomi used. Kotomi's system also incorporated the original Famicom connector instead of the NES connector. In order to use the NES controllers, I would have to convert the NES controller's shift register data into the NOAC's controller chips. So... what better way to do it than with an Arduino!!!!
http://kotomiblog.blogspot.com/
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One of the toughest things to find is the Chinese Power player unit (or Super joy thingy), which ever system you find, they all should work about the same. I was lucky enough to find mine at good will for 6 bucks... can't beat that. Any ways, if you can't find one locally then check on ebay. The only problem is that if you buy one off ebay then it will run you around 20 bucks. All the rest of the stuff you can get either from Radioshack, or once again on ebay. In my case I bought the 72 pin connector and the ports separate, however you would probably be better off just buying a broken NES. My only problem was that I was kinda pressed for time, and couldn't find one FOR CHEAP!!!!
1. Power Player Unit (or similar)
2. NES 72 pin connector
3. 2 NES controller ports
4. An NES game that will serve as the case
5. An atmega168 (arduino chip)
6. Texas Instrument TLC5940 (you can get these as samples from their site... their free)
7. Some basic parts such as switches, leds, along with a 7805 voltage regulator
8. PCB making stuff (I used the toner transfer method)
9. Basic knowledge of soldering and electronics
10. And most definitely a dremel tool with some bits and cut off discs
11. A multimeter is probably a good idea as well, because you will need it for troubleshooting
1. Power Player Unit (or similar)
2. NES 72 pin connector
3. 2 NES controller ports
4. An NES game that will serve as the case
5. An atmega168 (arduino chip)
6. Texas Instrument TLC5940 (you can get these as samples from their site... their free)
7. Some basic parts such as switches, leds, along with a 7805 voltage regulator
8. PCB making stuff (I used the toner transfer method)
9. Basic knowledge of soldering and electronics
10. And most definitely a dremel tool with some bits and cut off discs
11. A multimeter is probably a good idea as well, because you will need it for troubleshooting
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What I'm unsure of is whether you really need much electronics knowledge to pull it off. Many NOACs (you can find them easily enough on Amazon, eBay, or similar) already have US controller ports and a 72-pin connector. So while you might need some creativity to do something with the controller ports, everything else shouldn't require much work to get inside.
Of course, you might want to replace the connector they use anyways, since they are infamous for being impossible to insert/remove games without damaging the plastic.
Still though, I'd love one of these. Next step: a SNES inside a SNES cartridge...
-TheWaddleWaaddle
The top-loader NES was released near the end of the console's life, and it uses almost the exact same connector as this one does here--and it works better than any OG NES ever.
I suspect that having access to the terminals will make cleaning easier.
OH THE IRONYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder exactly how small one of these Nintendo Card systems could get?
that looks sooooo weird
Oh look, it's an NES game clone with a SEGA Dreamcast Controller! I hear these things are illegal because they steal Copyrighted Nintendo Games.
Yep, people have gone to jail for selling them.
Buying them from a second hand store?
Sure, nintendo doesn''t like it... but it's a better use for them than the landfill.
And until nintendo does something like what we got with the Atari flashback...
we'll just have to keep using the NOAC clones.
Of course that would probably cut into their Wii digital download income, so not likely to happen.
While this one's a little fishy since it might infringe on the Dreamcast's patents, many of them are perfectly fine. Quick research suggests that even those with "NES" on the box generally fall under the Fair Use exception since they are using it to describe what games it plays.
Wonderful job!
Thanks for the instructable!