Super Magic Drive Floppy Drive in a NES

My friend spoonman has a Super Magic Drive that he picked up on ebay. The Super Magic Drive is a game copier that will dump ROMs to a floppy drive or a PC connected via a parallel port. The one he got did not include the floppy drive so he asked me to make an adapter to connect a standard PC floppy to the Super Magic Drive. I put it in a NES case and used a blue LED to make it awesome.

I used the following information he had gotten from a forum years ago. I cannot credit the source:

Any PC 3.5 inch FDD
5V 1A power supply
Case

Making the cable
FFE D-sub 25 pin ------------FDD 34pin

1, 18-25-----------------------ALL ODD pin (GND)
2-------------------------------8 (Index)
3-------------------------------26(TR00)
4-------------------------------28(WP)
5-------------------------------30(RD)
6-------------------------------34(DC)
7-9----------------------------No Connection
10-----------------------------10(DS1)
11-----------------------------16(MOTOR ON 1)
12-----------------------------22(WD)
13-----------------------------24(WE)
14-----------------------------No Connection
15-----------------------------32(HS)
16-----------------------------18(DIR)
17-----------------------------20(STEP)

• Spoonman's Super Magic Drive
• Super Magic Drive - Sonic Retro

PSP with a SNES Dpad - Makes fighters playable!

Check this out, I modded my PSP by putting a SNES D-pad in it. I used a razor blade to cut the center piece out of the case. I first tested it on my original faceplate before cutting my "Smooth as Silk" PSP face plate. I also used the razor blade to cut down the D-pad. Good thing it is rubberized plastic, which made it easy. Once it fit I curved the base of the D-pad so that the diagonals work better. I also filled in the cracks in the bottom of the D-pad with polymer clay and scotched taped over the clay. Then I tweaked the pad with layers of scotch tape on the directions to get it fine tuned. My PSP went from having the worst D-pad ever to being the probably the best ever. Maybe as good as those awesome Saturn D-pads.

Anyway check out the pictures -- Shoryuken!

Capcom PSP D-pad Fix

Ever since I got my PSP there have been a few things that I have wanted to fix. First, I updated the face with a liquid platinum face plate I bought from Lik-Sang. Then I ordered Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max from Capcom and got a bonus D-pad fix. Finally, I added an Naki Analog stick replacement.

Capcom's Dpad fix is pretty simple, it is justa piece of plastic that has double stick tap that you use to attach on top of the PSP's junk d-pad. Once installed there is a noticable improvement, and Darkstalkers is playable! Too bad I would have to upgrade to 2.55 frimware to play it! I will be staying with 1.5 for now. Thank you Sony!

You almost had me Sony

Well, if you read this blog you will recall just the other day I was ranting on Sony on preventing me from being able to play Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max on the PSP with out upgrading the firmware to 2.5.

Thanks to my friend Spoonman if have discovered that UMDloader can run it with a special config.

Of course I fear to share this kind of stuff on this board, but I am sure it is not that hard to find.

Adding an analog stick to the Nintendo DS

When I first got my Nintendo DS (launch day) one of the first games I got for it was Super Mario 64 DS. I was really excited about being able to take thi excellent game anywhere I wanted!

I was disappointed though after trying to play this game using the limited user input of the DS, you can either use the dpad with really limited control, or use the touchscreen and get one monster of a handcramp!

First I found myself cursing the designers for not adding an analog stick to the DS, I know that they wanted to encourage something different, but geez!

But lately I have realized that it was a good idea, as the DS is not loaded with all the crap games that the GBA seems to have these days, you know what I am talking about, just stop by your local wal-mart and take a look at the $19.95 games bin. Excluding SM64 and Metroid Prime the games for the DS seem to truly embrace the difference to the DS, the percentage of good games is the highest of any game system I have even known. Well I think that the VirtualBoy didn't have one bad game (I have them all), but I am not sure many people would agree with me.

But that leaves the fact that playing SM64 on the is intollerable, and it hit that it would not be that difficult to add an analog stick the DS. You see the DS uses a standard touchscreen, and the way they work is there are two sheets of plastic separated by a gell, and when you press on the screen the plastic makes contact at that point and depending on how far it is from the edge of the screen you get a diffent resistance.

The touch screen connects to the DS via a small ribbon cable, which you can see in the photo below:

So I figure that one could make a analog stick from potentiometers as long as they are the same resistance is the screen as the DS, and make a plug it in between the touchscreen and the DS, I woul think that you would need a switch to change between analog stick and touch screen. But this way you could easily add a analog stick to the DS.

I may try to do this, but I don't think it is a high priority for me. But if you do try it and if you succeed or need help please contact me

Play any NES game character in any NES game...

Earlier this week I read on the internet about a patch that allowed you to play Mega Man in Super Mario Bros! I was soon disappointed to find out that it was just a skin for Mega Man one that made some of the levels look like Super Mario Bros worlds. Not to put down the work of the author -- who did a fine job, as most of these redresses pretty poor -- but I was expecting exactly what my teaser title said. I want to be able to play as any NES character in any NES game, which would be so awesome! I can imagine playing Super Mario Bros as Ryu from Ninja Gaiden, or Mega Man in Metroid, or Simon Belmont in Kirby! What would be even more awesome would be tag team where you can switch between characters on the fly and play throug levels of all the great classical games on the NES.

I believe that companies read these blogs and get ideas from them, and I am sure that Nintendo could stand to make a mint on an idea like this.

Easy Fix for the GP2X D-pad

If you own a GP2X, you know how bad the D-pad on it is. I have come up with a quick cheap and easy fix for it.

Things you will need

• Naki PSP Replacement Analog Stick
• Chunk of plastic

How to install on you GP2X

1. Remove original stick by pulling it off.
2. Cut a piece of the plastic so that it completely and tightly fills the rectangle shaped hole in the PSP analog stick replacement.
3. Insert onto PSP analog stick replacement.
4. Drill a small 1/16 inch hole directly in the center of the piece of plastic you inserted on the the stick. You may need to make the hole slightly larger, which you can do by wiggling the drill around in the hole, just be careful not to make too big.
5. Push the new stick on the D-pad stem of the GP2X.

There mission accomplished!

Well maybe not exactly, you might need to make the stem of the PSP stick slightly smaller if your hole is a little off center, as I did. I just took it off and squeezed ever so slightly it with a pair of pliers and put it back on. I checked the stick in the Setting, T-mode, of the GP2X menu. If all directions work then you are all set.

Not bad for $4.99? huh?