Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Super N*tendo – a Mini PC build with L1T”.
What’S special about this, it’s a Super Nintendo on the desk and what’s that noise, and then it gets weirder and weirder the longer you look at it. Doesn’T it wait? Wait? A second. Is he playing cyber Punk on a Super Nintendo, so the hardware platform that gets this done AMD and minis Forum Min Forum machine just like this one with built-in rdna, 3 Graphics, buil-in USB 4? Yes, you could run an external egpu enclosure for this or an external USB 4 network card, or whatever this basically repackaged into a hollow. Super Nintendo, but the buttons have been modified and everything interfaces. The original interface USB to original Super Nintendo controller yeah.
That’S in there there’s also an at Mega 324. U, that is a microcontroller that interfaces some of the original Hardware, so that when you hit the power button, it acts just like an ATX power button and the reset button will actually reset and clear the BIOS. This is actually Giga sters project. For the last couple of months he uh took one of my mini Forum machines and was like hey: let’s modify it into a Super Nintendo, and so we have at the rear.
We’Ve got two HDMI One USB type-c. That is a USB 4 connection and our 2 and2 gig ethernet, and it’s in the original Super Nintendo connection. Now it’s still got the external power brick. So it’s got the giant mini for power brick, but this is a mini for a machine crammed into a Super Nintendo. This is not a super difficult project to do either you can get the models for this uh amber, put together some of the 3D printable models for this. We were originally going to try to put a screen here. So there’s a really nice 3D printable model for a taller version of a Super Nintendo cartridge.
So you could have a little screen here or something like that, but but had some mishaps, so the screen didn’t work out, but bottom line. Yes, this is eight cores. 32 GB of upgradeable ddr5 memory and rdna 3 in a tiny package and yeah, because it’s a PC, you can run Steam games. You can run Super Nintendo games. You can run whatever you want. This is a real Super Metroid cartridge that has real bits of ROM. It is a real owned physical piece of media that can be enjoyed on our ship of thesis console here. You know the patent on the Super Nintendo shell expired is only. Patents are only good for 20 years, like the shell can be made by anybody.
At this point, because the patent has expired, we have this crazy world where copyrights last forever. Basically, but patents are only 20 years like how crazy is that that you know the music of Miley Cyrus will be in copyright long after I’m dead, but if someone were to invent something as useful as a flush toilet well that patent only good for 20 years. We’Re also getting into this weird world, where, like you, could copyright the design of something and that’ll outlive the actual design of something which is really sort of untested Legally, but that is the uh tomb that we find ourselves uh being encased in, as someone is applying Us with a Monaro and uh talking about how amazing our family is and before we know it we’re trapped in the catacombs and there’s nothing.
We can do it’s already like that with copyright. Thanks Sunny Bono, it is sort of an interesting question if you start with a console and you just keep repairing it and replacing Parts with modern equivalents, and you end up with a modern PC. That’S a that’s a little bit ship of thesis, but does that cross? Some sort of line like does this have any special rights if you started and you upgraded and you replaced and you upgraded and you replaced and you upgraded and you replaced – and this is what remains All That Remains of the original is a couple of transistors and Some plugs and you know, does this still constitute a Super Nintendo? Would you you know, can you play Super Nintendo games on it? Oh you can you, can? I don’t know if it’s okay, but you can.
You can play a lot more thanks to the built-in mobile discret Graphics, yeah 8 GB of dedicated vram in this, so you can game at 120 FPS. In fact, you can check out the full review that I did of the mini form machine on which this is based. It’S just been repackaged into this with some different IO connectors hot glue on the motherboard. Definitely wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it does have an integrated, Logitech unifying receiver, and you can see that a small auxiliary cooling fan has been added, which is where most of our noise comes from. The ddr5 Memory Remains easily accessible, as does the m.2, and then everything else is just Port extensions, flexible flat cables for the HDMI extensions and a special USB 4 right angle, extension to wrap around and just an Ethernet extension from the back Port here.
If we really wanted to do this right, we probably D and resolder but uh for the purposes of this – it’s totally fine. This also gives us some about how we could do the cooling a little better. If we were willing to sacrifice some Aesthetics, it actually would cool a lot better. If we opened up the sides um, the sides do have a small gap which allows some air flow, but it really would be a lot better if we just open the sides up completely, maybe replace the side with a a similar 3D printed gray, tinted plastic. That sort of matches, but is actually an air vent at that point – it’ be pretty obvious that wait a minute. That’S not a Super Nintendo at all, but even from just a few feet way, you’d be hardpressed to notice that there’s anything unusual about this Super Nintendo. Unless you look directly at the back and you look at the ports for the buttons and the eject lever, add 3D printed accessories.
The 3D printer really does the heavy lifting. Here you can just get creative with the 3D printer and it really just solves a lot of problems. How does the Super Nintendo controller show up on a PC and make it usable? Fortunately, that’s a tail as old as time. There are tons of uh different adapters out there that will convert the signal pattern that the Super Nintendo uses into just good old standard hid USB, so USB has a standard in it for joysticks and so there’s a little microcontroller that will take the proprietary Super Nintendo Signaling and convert that into a USB joystick signaling, and that’s that’s really the magic and yeah it’s two port and it uses the original connector PCB.
So it’s pretty easy to modify. There’S a lot of projects out there that do that. In this case, this was about a $ 4 conversion kit and some soldering and wires and some other stuff that you get into never underestimate the power of someone with unlimited free time and also a 3D printer, and also lots and lots and lots of Hardware laying Around lots of Hardware so much hardware, and this this is what the level one Community is all about: mods and building and making things and having the agency to think for yourself and enjoy the things that you’ve paid. For because that’s your right and you should and it’s exciting and it’s a lot of fun.
So if you have a project like this or you decide to pick pick up a Mini’s Forum machine because gosh darn it it just looks, looks like a super amount of fun, come to the level one forum and hang out it’s kind of a lot of fun And also you can show pictures of your projects and see what’s going on and see a lot more of the the process that went into this and you know gigaba can answer your questions too. I don’t have time for that, but he can it’ll be good if you’re thinking about doing this with a modern version of this well, I would encourage you to take a look at the mini Forum. Hx100 G. This is the updated version of this that’s available now and we’ve got a full review of this as well.
So you can take a look at this and physically, it’s the same case, same design, same Min Forum, thoughtfulness, absolute Madness, that’s how we do it at level. One I’m W this is level one I’m signing out. You can find me and Giga Buster in the level one forums, good job, nice job on the project. There’S there’s some rough edges. There’S still some work left to do here. Maybe we can revisit that screen.
All right I’m signing out – and I will see you later – .