Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Coolest HTPC Ever

I've been doing a bit of surfing on the Mac Mini and considering it's uses as a HTPC or just as a source for displaying TV Shows now it has built in support for Front Row and Digital Audio out. However in all the searching I've been doing I stumbled across this on Joystiq. It's a HTPC built inside a NES console! Now that is a cool mod!

At ExtremeTech, John F. de Perczel has transformed an old NES console into a home theater PC using VIA's mini-ITX form factor EPIA motherboard and a 1GHz C3 processor. He says, "it streams music, surfs the Web, downloads movies, and runs NESticle like a champ. It won't, however, run iTunes visualizer in full-screen mode."

The page is dated 8/25/04, so we're willing to bet there are plenty of more powerful options available now if one were interested in updating the concept. How about shoving one of those new Mac minis into an NES?

I think casing a Mac Mini inside a NES Console as a HTPC has got to be one of the greatest and simplest ideas around... But would doing the same thing to an Xbox be the ultimate injustice?

2 comments:

Amaya said...

Thou art a nerd, oh yes.

And yes the inclusion of the remote and Front View has me firmly convinced of buying a MacMini after I get back from Europe.

Aj said...

On the subject of hacks, check out the "minitosh"

http://www.destruc.tv/minitosh.php