Posted 10/12/09 at 08:08:09 AM by Paul Lilly

We've seen modded NES systems before, but BenHeck.com forum member "airz" earned some serious geek cred on Thursday by cramming all kinds of goodies into an NES cartridge.

Airz took a foreign-made portable media player and hacked an NES controller to replace the player's buttons, then stuffed the whole assembly into a Super Mario / Duck Hunt combo cartridge. He then cut out an opening for the 2.8-inch LCD screen and the end result is a handheld NES cartridge capable of playing a complete library of NES games using the original buttons, while also serving as an MP3 player, FM radio, picture viewer, audio recorder, and more.

After going through 3 game cases, 2 controllers, and 2 media players to make the mod work, Airz said he's selling his awesome mod to recoup his losses.

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Posted 08/07/08 at 10:09:10 AM by Chris Moody

If the $100 laptop wasn’t enough a team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is working on building a computer for $12, targeting families in Third World countries. They are basing their design on the old Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES used a MOS 6502 processor similar to the Apple IIe and Atari 2600 although it was a customized version for the NES.

The 6502 was designed in 1975. It is an 8-bit processor with a 16-bit address bus and clock speeds around 1 or 2 MHz. It is sure to smoke my digital watch.

Just how far the project will go is uncertain. Nintendo still holds the copyrights to the NES.

It sounds like a truly worthy project! You can check it out here.

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