This NES HTPC Mod is Awesome

By Jane McEntegart
published

A Finnish enthusiast going only by Ana-5000 recently decided to try his hand at modding and figured a NES HTPC would be the perfect project for a person with a limited amount of workspace and few tools.

He picked up a broken NES at a thrift store, gutted it and filled it with an an Asus AT3IONT-I Deluxe motherboard with an Intel Atom 330 dual-core processor, 4GB or RAM and an NVIDIA Ion GPU. The machine also boasts a 120GB hard drive, support for HDMI and VGA, six USB ports, optical and RCA audio connections, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Gigabit ethernet, and Bluetooth. A 50mm fan takes care of cooling and the white paint job is sprayed on with spray-paint.

Oh and for the die-hard NES fans: Ana bought a pair of RetroPort adapters from Retrozone so that he could still connect the controllers to their ports. He can still play NES games through an emulator using the original pad as a mouse along with the appropriate driver software and a fold-away bluetooth keyboard.

Check out Ana-5000’s blog for the full mod process!

Jane McEntegart
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dco
    pimp
    Reply
  • joytech22
    He chose a Atom system over AMD's APU?

    Still a neat mod, gives me some ideas on what I should mod my original xbox into, perhaps I'll pull out it's motherboard and turn it into a fully-featured PC!

    Make the power button/led the Xbox's originals.
    Reply
  • hardcore_gamer
    I've seen better retro mods
    Reply
  • t2couger
    that is cool as crap
    Reply
  • dorin_nicolaescu
    > He chose a Atom system over AMD's APU?

    Maybe he chose DC on board over an ATX power suply...
    Reply
  • HansVonOhain
    joytech22He chose a Atom system over AMD's APU?Still a neat mod, gives me some ideas on what I should mod my original xbox into, perhaps I'll pull out it's motherboard and turn it into a fully-featured PC!Make the power button/led the Xbox's originals.
    That is because this mod was done about a year ago.
    Reply
  • christop
    Very cool mod.
    Reply
  • megamanx00
    Should have used fusion instead :p
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    i am pretty sure they had a story like this more than a year ago too. just sayin
    Reply
  • zerocoolx
    Mods involving the NES are over-rated. I'm sick to my stomach with what happened to geek-dom over the past 5 years or so.
    Reply