I had been mulling for a few months about making a 'totally awesome' case mod and trying to make a SFF system similar to an Alienware Alpha or ASUS GR8 but I'm not going to be able to do that without mortgaging my soul. Thinking all was lost I realized I would only be using it for games far below the system specs I was targeting. Time continued and I realized that with the option of 3d printing and manufacturing services, things weren't going to be as bad as I thought.

Going from a Core i5 down to a Core i3 and then AMD APU's I realized I could go lower still and found that you can actually buy what pretty much amounts to cellphone components and use them for projects. Think about something marketed as being akin to a Raspberry Pi but with a lot more Juice. Realizing that I can run Playstation games on my phone with no latency issues I found a set of specs to target in order to run everything I want the system to run.

A big part of the inspiration is the now defunct Retrode USB cart reader. My goal is to make a multi cart / disc system that in the end will allow the play of NES/FC, SNES/SFC, N64, GBA/C and possibly GCN games as a 'Nintendo Edition' of the system

Given the fact that I'm going to be using a lot of open source resources, This system is more than likely going to be Open Source Hardware and Open Source Software.

I barely have a working prototype at this point. If you plus in an SNES cart it knows that you've connected an SNES cart. There is a hell of a lot to do before I reach that incredibly lofty end goal.

Where I am now;

Plug SNES cart into pin-out reader on a breadboard. Automatic checksum occurs, - I should add that this only occurs because I followed someone else's directions.

Where I aim to be by years end;

Prototype system in working case, with all pin out readers functional. You put a game in it's detail and some basic media appear on the screen (auto-play)

The prototype is going to be a jumble of nonsense at least twice the size of the finished product.

Once I move past that to a 'finalized' system. I hope to sell an 'all in one' pre-made system through an online store while providing documentation and software for people who want to make their own.

I've likely bitten off far more than I can chew. But even if I have a mass of breadboards and random crap soldered together and it works, I'll be happy.