The PC, Xbox, PS2, GameCube and 2600, Together at Last
The Screen Savers have a story on their website about the building of a single box 2600/PS2/GameCube/Xbox/PC/ NES player. But this is not a mame ? box. The builder, Yoshi, dismantled, cut,chopped and belt-sanded the consoles to make them all fit in the same Lian-76 case. I can only imagine how hot this case might get. There is a photo album here. It looks like you'd still need a video switcher to take advantage of this completely. A cool mod for this would be to pack in a wintv card for each console or something.
and then we'd be talking.
So what's the point of this contraption? Yes its cool, but isn't the whole point of having multiple consoles is that you can use them seperatly? Not sure about you, but having multiple TVs and multiple consoles sure does keep all my friends happy when they visit
this guy to make it portable.
Wow... so many things shoved in one box. Sounds like something you'd see on skinimax
I'm wondering where the DreamCast is located? Surely it wouldn't have been left out.
It won't do XBOX or PS2 natively, but you have every other emulator that you can think of.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things...
Saddam are you listening?
Saw a demo of this on The Screen Savers tonight. The video switcher is built in - it's a knob on the front panel - twist it, and it switches from one feed to another.
How exactly would one keep track of all the wires for controllers coming out of this? I have enough problems with four controllers coming out of a Gamecube and another four coming out of a PS2.
Unfortunately, you don't get great pictures of the final product, just pics of it during production. O well.
This is pretty cool though, and I assume if you could do all of this that you could add a Super NES, an N64 and other gaming platforms. Too bad I don't have the time to do this.
Also, doesn't this fit under Hardware rather than Games?
I just realized that there are pictures of the final system, but that they don't seem to show the controller ports for all the systems. I only count two sets of ports on the front (there is one side that I don't see).
Curious ... is there a list around of the Top 10 case mods?
This guy should definately be entered.
BTW, you could even run MAME on it, it has a 2100+ AMD with a 40G hd ...
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Where do some of these people get the free time to do this???
is if it comes with a modification to allow all those consoles to be viewed via a computer monitor or even better if you could fit a flexATX or one of those micro mainboards and put in a card with a video in line so you can play multiple games in a window via an overlay.
My main problem with these kind of mods are the potential for loss. If I had and 8 bit nintendo, and an atari 2600 that still worked, I would be too worried about breaking them to hack them into bits. Not to mention spending several hundred dollars on the modern consoles to squeeze in too.
Besides, If you have hacked your xbox like that you wouldn't get any more official M$ tech support (tee hee)
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
no guts no glory
They've had tutorials on how to build your own Teddy Borg, among other things. I do wish they'd give credit to the originators of the design on the show and the website, instead of just the site, though.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Make a beowulf cluster with them.
the goal of this project is to create the ultimate *gaming* machine.
_
Windows users CLICK HERE!
video games hit their peak on the SNES.....FF3, chrono trigger, lufia...............the list goes on............super mario world was great, and ontop of that, you had mario all stars, come on, 8 bit action with enhanced graphics and we all know we can play them on any number of SNES emulators on PC, so.....why not stick something useful in the board, like a brand new athlon xp a half gig of ram, and any rom you can find...............just make sure you own the game before downloading the rom ;)
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I'm glad that they are bundling the newest issues of 2600 into this mad leet new blue box! Free Kevin!!!!!!
I happened to view this when they aired at 7pm. The consoles are pretty much matched up to the front of the case. The Xbox and the Atari are the only that have the connectors in the front with a jumper to the unit. Anyway, if you look at the front, the bottom left corner is the PS2, the 5.25" Drive bays on top are the Gamecube, the Xbox and Atari controllers are in the front below the switches for power and reset and the nintendo is off to the top right. It was pretty impressive.
kc8apf
If Yoshi can fit all of this into "Yoshi's box", think of what he could fit into an island!
nuff said
This is a stolen sig.
This guy sounds like a sadist. Hopefully he grafted a ctrl-alt-delete key on the joysticks.
Oh, and the next guy to even THINK about mentioning a beowulf cluster of these things should die a slow, painful death.
...couldn't figure out a logical reason for why the hell you would do such a thing.
Even though that Lian Li case is aluminum, I imagine that we're talking about an insane amount of heat that must be dissipated in that cramped little space. How long will this thing last before one of the components dies?
...Xbox, PS2, GameCube and 2600...
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just dosn't belong.
Would this... uhh, void my warranty?
Built by afrotech. Take a look here
Maybe he can help too. ;o)
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I have an XBox and I'll be buying a GC to but there's no way I'm gonna risk voiding my warranty so I can have a little fun with the boxes. I can't afford it. I don't like Nintendo's graphics, but they do have some good games.
I currently own 8 NES units, and 6 2600's, all picked up for basically nothing (got them at garage sales as a bundle with some games for the most part). They all work. In fact, I have yet to find a completely dead console unit (we won't talk about the controllers, mind you).
Just for fun I took out the mainboard from one of each, and hung them on the wall. Also from my spare Sega Master System and Intellivision. Kinda keeps me humble to remember the roots of the whole thing, ya know? It's actually scary just how well the old units are built. Other than the power switch etc, all solid state. Pretty damn hard to break one. Post-PSX... the cd drives are typically the first things to go on a modern console, and I can't imagine what you'd do if the hard drive fails and it's some proprietary standard.
Of course, hacking apart a new $300 unit is something else entirely...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It would be great if there was also an amiga toaster in there too. i'd rather have that in their than an X-BOX. or better yet, a BeBox or one of the cube macs. yes, i know they lack games, but you can still play pong or GLpong on them. =)
bah. start over
no conglomerate piece of electronics is complete without a clock radio!
doesnt this kid read /. - that case should be black & with neon lights and a window so I can see all the innards
1. Very good job was done putting all the machines in one.
2. Tech tv should be showing more about linux.
3. So far they have pretty good shows but they are windows oriented. How about starting to educating people, not only about linux but also about the GPL and open source in general.
4. The show that i liked the most, Silicon Spin, they moved it somehow in some weird hours and i can not watch it anymore. Hey TECH TV PEOPLE: I want Silicon Spin back at 9:30pm or 10:00 pm and make it longer than 30 minutes.
Normally this guy only copies what others have done on slashdot (ala the flourinert CPU submerging), this time he is on slashdot for something he did. Interesting switch.
Whats the fucking point of all this? does this create a console that is hacked enough to play any game format inserted into it? if not, who gives a shit how people can rearrange thier wasted money. What would really be worth a try would be modding a console to read other console's CDs. Something like lindows for the gaming world.
Granted, this is a somewhat interesting story, with the SlashDot staff promotion omitted. But, is't this something any /.'er half a brian and some PC assembly under our belt could have done as good or better with a nice rackmount case, the hardware, some wire, and some time?
All your consoles are belong to us.
Wow, what a great way to wreck many great consoles at once.
I doubt that monstrosity will last long without breaking somehow.
Trolls, it must be cool to be that bored.
If you take a controller apart and scrape the metal clean under the pads it will work again. The 2600's controller switches are a bit different, though
I keep thinking how similar those two shows are, and how ironic it is that a show called Spin and a show that claims to have no spin could be so similar.
If I could have sex with one case mod in the world.... this would be it
TechTV is losing money cuz their building crap like this instead of figuring out how to turn a profit.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
There is no doubt there was a great deal of good engineering going on here.. but in the end, it's just taking a bunch of off the shelf components and putting it into a box.
This would be much, much cooler if the guy had figured out how to use the onboard computer to A: do the video switching, and B: taking one controller, and re-directing the wires to the proper consol unit from one single controller. Then we'd have something to write home about.
The Internet is generally stupid
What the hell is wrong with just normal links?
Do these javascript-whores think that by removing the address-bar (or by "capturing" right mouse clicks, which is another matter) they can somehow stop people from saving pictures on their harddrive...
View Photo Album
You don't have a Photo Album.
Get Photo Album
Taken.
View Photo Album
There are photos of the Slashdot crew you don't want to see.
View Photo Album
You really don't want to see this kind of debauchery.
View Photo Album.
This kind of stuff is not intended for the average viewer.
View Photo Album!
You were eaten by a grue.
Well the title is pretty much all I wanted to say. Really. Stop reading this! What the hell is wrong with you? There's nothing else here! 3:39am.. signing off.. bleah
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
PC + NES + X-Box + PS2 + NGC + old Atari thing = a lot of boxes cluttering things up & a mess of double adaptors, powercables, powersupply briquettes & video cables.
Sticking it all in one box & working out some sort of switching setup so all devices can share the same power imput & video output queues clutter effect.
Did anyone else notice the blatant Star Wars ad displayed with every image window popup?
Is this a new form of advertising? Spend $1,000 on some game consoles, do something funky with'em, and sell advertising rights on the resultant slashdotted site?
LOL... well, I'll give it an 'A' for creativity.
-=:Begin magic /. incantation:=-
/. incantation:=-
;-)
I'll probably be modded down for this...
-=:End magic
Am I the only one that thinks this mod is just butt-ugly because of the PC case? I mean, if this was in an old, unworking arcade console it would be snazzy and something you would want in your living room. How many of us living in places other than a dorm room would really want a PC case next to their TV?
Utility is useful, no doubt about that, but let's have some more style please.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
I still think the best idea is to make a 3rd party emulator on the X-Box. Heck, the thing is basically a PC, so anything around a Ps2 or lower shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. A Saturn/PS1/PS2 player, and if you can secure rights to the archives of older games and make them into ROMs, (most already have been anyway) N64, SNES, Genesis, NES and MAME games.
Of course, Sony and Sega might have a fit, but hey....
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I so had this idea WAY before he did!! back before the xbox and gamecube even came out! I even sent a letter to commander taco telling him how cool of an idea it is.
-- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Jean Jacques Rousseau
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Stop saying that!
IMO, it really ruins the aesthetics, having that big NES cart shaped hole in the side.
It would have been more interesting, IMO, if he had it all be insertable into the front. Cannibalizing cartridge slots off of another NES and 2600, mounting those to the front of the case and connecting those to the slots on the motherboard...would that work? Also, he should have used the second, smaller (snes-like) NES.
-G
Sapere Aude - Homer
b) Far as I can see he really didn't "make" anything, it's the same old boards, ports, controllers, etc, just superglued in a PC case.
now this deserves props, HE actually MADE something ORIGINAL, not just pop open his consoles and superglue them in a PC case!
I have a feeling TechTV is just trying to appeal to the geek crowd by passing this off as a "hack". Sorry but I don't buy it, it's just several consoles with the cases removed shoved in a PC case. That's not a hack or "work of art" as the arrogant Yoshi called it.
Aesthetic my ass! Sure it looks fine at the moment but what about when you have 600 cords hanging out the front!?
Does this make my brain look big?
I have a pet theory that someone who takes the time to do all this probably won't have much time to really play games :)
I admit this box is devilishly cool, but something tells me putting 1600$ worth of gear in a box is asking for trouble. What happens when that stupid Enermax power supply goes *POOF* and sends the whole cramped contraption to a fiery death ? It would bring any geek to tears!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
i want my account back
--anonymous cowrad
Why put in an Atari 2600? I don't recall any compelling games on that console. I mean come on nostalgia isn't that important. I'd rather invest the space with a Dreamcast or something at least NES age and up. If you really want 2600 there are the emulators. The games are tiny (200k) so it isn't going to take significant HD space.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Last Post! Also, seeing if hitting 50 karma gets me out of posting at 0.