MAME PC in and NES Case

[tbeeghly]

My roommate and I wanna give it a try and see if we can do it. He's built a MAME box before, but now we wanna do one small scale inside the original NES case. Have any of you guys seen it done, done it yourself? I know someone's done it before, I just can't seem to find it anywhere. Any information you guys could steer me towards would be appreciated as always.

[Ziggy]

I've definitely seen PC's shoved into an NES or SNES case before, for the purpose of running an emulator for the respected system. That's really the same thing as MAME, just a different emulator.

Were you hoping to use the NES pads to control MAME, or something else?

[SpaceBooger]

Were you hoping to use the NES pads to control MAME, or something else?

Good question. I would think putting USB ports where the current NES controller ports are would be better since you could swap out controllers for different games since many MAME games need more than 2 buttons.

Here are some links to other mods:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a ... do-NES-PC/
http://www.lofi-gaming.org.uk/nespc/

[puke_face]

I think spacebooger hit the nail on the head with that one, but browsing the same site, I found this one:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to- ... do-arcade/

Personally like this much better, simply because of the arcade style.

[fastbilly1]

Do you plan on having a dvd drive? And what games do you want to play? Ballpark a year/copyright protection system if you can.

If it is no to the first and early 90s for the second, this is easy.

[tbeeghly]

Thanks for the help guys. We want to be able to play pretty much everything important up to the N64. Maybe saturn if the PC can handle SSF. We're going to use the Microsoft XBOX 360 wireless controller adapter for controllers, along with mounting 4 USB ports where the original controller ports are. We'll probably use a micro ATX board for the form factor, and a laptop drive also. I dont think well need a DVD drive. Wouldnt hurth tho, have it eject from the door slot on the case. Ill post pics as soon as we get started.

[AmishSamurai]

I posted a link of a PC-in-NES that was about two years old in this section a while back. This particular guy used it for Atari 2600, NES, SNES, SMS, Genesis and it's attachments, and N64, though he had some issues with the latter. I think nowadays you could probably get the N64 and PS1 to work fine, maybe Saturn.

[Ziggy]

You might want to consider not including a CD/DVD drive, as it'll just take up more space. You could use one to load your OS onto the hard drive, but then detach it. You can than use a USB stick to load any ROMs or emulators, or anything else. Some boards have built in WiFi that would be useful for this purpose too, but I'm not sure how many micro ATX boards have it. Or you could use a cat5 cable connected to another PC as another means to dump software onto it. Just a suggestion.

[gravitone]

A micro-atx board will not fit into a NES case due to the obviously way too large dimensions. A mini-itx board is really the only way to go atm. An atom 330 based board with nvidia ION chipset is the best way to go atm. Zotac has a model with external powersupply that would be perfect. Also has build in wifi. Just add a 2.5hdd or compact flash adapter+card if you want a quiet system. A dremel is an essential tool in this kind of mod as there is quite a bit of plastic in the nes case that has to be cut out. A slimline DVD drive is doable if you want an optical drive, but I'd leave it out. You can wire up the original nes buttons for power and reset, as well as the original controler ports if you buy one of those nes->usb chips and wire it up to an internal USB header on the mini-itx board. Of course you cannot get away with all this decently without any soldering skills.

[fastbilly1]

gravitone sent you where I was going to:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Buy that and youll be set. Itll run up to N64 and PSX fairly well, Saturn will be hit or miss. You may even be able to get it to play SF4 on very low settings.

Though if you only wanted to play up to Snes/Genesis/TG16 you could get by with a pico itx board. Its about the size of a deck of cards.