If you haven't noticed, I have went back and renamed the previous posts to include that this build is indeed my take on the various NES PC builds around the net. I grew up with this machine as a mainstay of my catalog of games and would play it every waking hour of my young childhood. Around 2007, people around the interwebs began toying with the idea of cramming the entirety of a PC in to their old Nintendo consoles and ended up being very successful. These builds were mostly used as HTPCs to stream videos, music, and pictures through their home entertainment centers and on to their televisions. But as I see it, it is 2012: Five years after the NES HTPC crew began modding their classic consoles; processors have gotten quicker and components have gotten smaller, shouldn't we be able to make these NES consoles do more than just stream?
Darn tootin!
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| What I began with this go-around |
Ever since builds began back in 2007, I have wanted to build a PC out of an NES console. But until now, I haven't had the funds to support my ideas. I began with an NES that I had grabbed years ago at a Goodwill for only a few dollars and continued to gut the entire thing. Once gutted, my eyes were quickly drawn to the abundance of room that was once taken up by the 8-bit innards. The outer dimension at their widest at 10in x 8in x 3.5in, so even with the large amount of room I had to work with, many components would soon be choking the insides of the Nintendo as they once did with the aforementioned parts from 1986.
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| As you can see, I have already started some body work on the case |
After I gutted the case, I cut out where the power, coax, and a/v output was with my handy Dremel tool. I decided to do this since they protruded some in to the inside of the case and I figured, the more room in there the better. This saved about a half of on inch where this components used to lie. Not much room, but enough for the extra elbow grease it took.
Over the last few summers, I became very proficient at using Bondo to patch dents and holes in my pickup truck, and I figured that the same concept could be applied here as well. So I ran out to my garage, grabbed what was left of my Bondo and hardener and went after the task of patching up the large holes left from my Dremel blade. Overall, the results ended up looking awesome!
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| Don't you just love the smell of Bondo in the morn? |
The dull look of the finish is result of a couple of hours of sanding down the bottom portion of the Nintendo with 400 grit wet sandpaper to prep for a future touch up paint job. Surprisingly, I found an exact match for the paint at my local Ace Hardware store, so once I get all of the holes cut for the fans and components, it should be ready for a shot of primer and a couple of coats of store brand "Machinery Grey" paint. When it comes to piecing this build together, I will have to go into more depth on the process of getting it prepped for the components, but for now, this shall do. So far, here is how the build looks:
Intel i5 3550 ($189.99)
Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2x4GB) Memory Module ($42.49)
The NES Case, Hardware, and Paint (<$10)
Total Savings: $27.50
Total Price: $242.48
Wednesday's installment of the build will be a brief overview of the drive storage I will be using within the NES PC, the 120GB SATAIII Patriot Pyro SSD.
Until then, Disc07 Out.
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