Looking to put those dust-collecting tools of yours to use here on Independence Day? Then we've excellent news, you introvert you. Rather than grilling up some red meat (or chicken, or tofu, whatever) and handling highly volatile explosives, we have no doubt that modder "darkeru" is spending his day playing with his brand new toy: a Nintendo Entertainment System... crammed within an NES cartridge. We'll be honest, this one does feel a little incestuous for some odd reason, but we greatly appreciate the ingenuity. Hit up the read link for more pics.
If you're tired of waiting for ASUS to offer a touchscreen option for the Eee PC 900 (or you're the proud owner of an existing unit), jkkmobile is happy to show you their shortcut to touchy-feely nirvana. As we've seen on all those other Eees, installing the touch panel into the 900 doesn't seem to be extraordinarily difficult for those with a few mods under their belt and a reliable Chinese parts supplier. For those who'd prefer to simply watch from the sidelines, you can peek the video after the break and lots more photos in the read link.
As tnkgrl mentions at the outset of this hack, the MacBook Air SuperDrive is a nice little slice of hotness, retailing for a mere $99, and doing the whole external drive thing with Apple's sense of style. Unfortunately, it only works with the MacBook Air due to a proprietary IDE to USB bridge, as tnkgrl discovered. For a mere $9 she was able to find a replacement part, and after pushing some internals around she had her self a Mac mini and HP Mini-Note-friendly USB disc drive. We've all been laboring under the assumption that Apple needed more than the standard USB power draw, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that she was able to pull this off with a regular part, and we demand Apple start selling $108 SuperDrives-for-all immediately. Er, please?
Not like you really need another excuse to use your DS as a MIDI controller, but the hacking fiends over at Division 6 have just made available the aptly-titled Midify board. The tiny creation enables users to add a MIDI port to just about anything, but it specializes in Midifying Nintendo handhelds. It can be installed directly into a GBA, GBA-SP, DS or DS Lite, though it'll play nice with other electronics should you procure a few extra parts. We won't even bother mentioning what all you can do with this, but those already salivating at the thought shouldn't have too much trouble parting with $34.99.
Although the Wii Menu 3.3 update didn't undo the Twilight Hack for those who had already installed it, it did prevent new would-be homebrewers from getting their game on -- but like all attempts to outfox the hackers, it's fallen short, and in record time. According to hackmii, which figured out the workaround, the 3.3 update isn't exactly subtle in what it does to disable the hack -- quote the team, "We Are Not Impressed." No publicly-available patch is out yet, but give 'em time, they say they're working on it.
There's no stopping this guy, and now he's built himself an Atari 7800 portable just to make sure the kiddie hackers know who's the Heckendornest. Ben Heck built the 7800 portable with a 7-inch widescreen to accommodate that larger motherboard on the 7800 (compared to the 2600). Apparently large, complex motherboards just don't phase him anymore. The unit boasts rechargeable batteries, a combination driving / paddle controller, and an A/V output jack. Ben, you're a legend.
We've seen the viewfinder of a VHS camcorder hacked into a night-vision headset, but this just might be even more retro than that. For those old seasoned enough to remember Ronco's Mr. Microphone, you may recall just how boring it became after a few short minutes of use. If you somehow managed to not discard the thing over the years, we've found the perfect use for it: a discrete spying device. Essentially, DIYers can strip the innards out, re-solder a few pieces and shove the resulting tidbits into an unassuming air freshener. From there, just tune to whatever open frequency you can find and you've got yourself a wireless eavesdropping tool like no other. Video after the break.
Not willing to lay out the cash required to sneak the official Super Famicom Wii controller into the States? Don't feel like going through the insanity of making your own wireless NES and SNES controllers for the Wii? Raphaël's epic X2Wii project might just be your ticket to Virtual Console bliss. He's worked up an adapters for the NES, SNES and N64 controllers to plug straight into your Wii's GameCube port, and while they certainly aren't simple, it's all DIY magic.
It seems a bit of a crime against the PSP's aesthetics, but apparently some folks out there really, really want to do PS1 emulation right. Acid Modder "Electro" managed to finagle L2 and R2 buttons onto his PSP. He rates his hack a 4 out of 5 difficulty level, which basically means we aren't going near this one, but if you know you way around a soldiering iron, his tutorial is fairly detailed. You'll end up with some pretty tiny buttons up top, but it sure beats mapping those L2 and R2 to the analog stick or something even more convoluted.
While we of course rock oh-so-very-hard on Rock Band's drums, the pedal just never felt right under our weakling calves. The problem is naturally exacerbated for folks in wheelchairs, since there's no way to avoid the kick drum or re-route it to another button -- at least out of the box. Some folks at Kinetic Communications modded up a doorbell to work as the kick drum button and screwed it to a drum stick. Not the prettiest mod in the world, but it got their wheelchair-bound buddy drumming for about $20, and it shouldn't be hard to replicate their instructions.
It's not the first time we've seen a controller hackedfor use with the PSP, but this mod by Acidmods member Blizzrad takes things a bit further than most, with it relying entirely on hardware modifications in order to work, meaning it can be done on any PSP regardless of the firmware. It's also one of the cleanest-looking mods we've seen to date, with the only evidence of tampering on the PSP itself being a discreetly placed controller connector right above the power switch. Of course, that also means it's considerably more difficult for most of us to do ourselves, but we can at least get a glimpse of what's possible courtesy of the video after the break.
Best we can tell, the Corkboard Mac was constructed from critical parts of an older PowerBook and gets held up by a series of colorful push-pins. Legend has it that the actual casing was destroyed in an unfortunate cooking accident, but thankfully, all of the vitals -- LCD included -- were left intact. Peep one more shot in the read link, and pay your respects as you enter.
In Apple-loving households, there's a decent chance the Power Mac G4 Cube will never lose its luster. Case in point: one particular fanboy (yeah, we said it) took a gutted Cube housing and neatly fitted his Mac mini, Airport Extreme and "accessory HDD case" inside. Of course, he did have to exercise quite a bit of patience and showcase his cutting skills in order to make the optical drive accessible, but the end result is certainly something to be proud of. Hit the read link for the gallery of shots taking you from start to finish.
It seems like the multi-touch revolution that's happening right now is really bringing out the DIY'ers -- and this latest feat of hackery is right up there with the best of them. Christopher Jette has created a massive, 56-inch multi-touch display in his spare time using a box that resembles an old rear-projection TV, 168 infrared LEDs, and some serious elbow grease. The LEDs dot the perimeter of the screen and create a field of IR light which is scattered when touched, a webcam mounted at the back of the display picks up the movement and translates it to input. If you've got some time on your hands, there are instructions available for recreating the experiment, or you can just sit back and watch it in action in the video after the break.
Whatever the DS can do, Wii can do better, right? Apparently Dave agrees with said mantra, as he has converted a Wii Guitar Hero axe into a full-fledged MIDI controller. As in, there's a 5-pin jack down there and everything. In its current state, you can play two octaves of an eight note scale at time, alter the keys / octaves, change tonal modes, use the whammy bar to bend the pitch and blow the minds of electrical engineering buds you still see on a regular basis. Granted, this mod isn't exactly for the faint of heart, but feel free to hit the read link if you're hacker enough to handle it.
