"Initially conceived in the late summer of 2012, this titanic brute
was been gradually worked on from July to December and finally completed
towards the end of 2012. Various obstacles, such as work-related and/or
financial problems halted its production, but nonetheless I managed to
complete this giant controller, in both its LEGO structure as well as
electrical functionality.
Resting atop a large folding table in my attic workshop, the
controller is built of light-grey LEGO brick walls with large removable
tiled plates for the ceiling. Like previous works, I’ve used custom
glossy stickers for the labels originally, but in 2015 I modified it
slightly by removing the labels and using LEGO pieces to create the
text. The innards are mainly hollowed with some trusses and support for
the buttons; the buttons are spring-loaded modules using LEGO Technic
pieces to make the large buttons reciprocate when pressed. Below the
large LEGO buttons are small momentary pushbuttons soldered to the
actual circuitry board of an original NES controller, which is then
linked to a USB converter to play Nintendo ROMs on my computer. When the
large LEGO buttons are pressed, the bottoms make contact with the
pushbuttons, which then send the electrical signal back to the
controller’s circuit “brain”; the LEGO Technic spring suspension system
prevents the large buttons from getting stuck in place. For the record, I
do in fact own hard copies of each ROM that I used, and the controller
can also work with an actual NES. After this creation was published and
posted amongst numerous websites, I was personally contacted by Nintendo of America to create a store display for Nintendo World Store’s release party of LEGO: City Undercover in spring 2013. Currently I’m looking forward to showcasing this mighty monument at some video game conventions."
"Built in 2012 and released in 2013, this is the revised design for my gargantuan LEGO creation! I've rebuilt the outsides to be more ascetically pleasing, and above all, I removed the inner circuits and constructed a grid of wires connected to an Arduino Micro. Thus, this new edition is much sturdier, but can only play computer games, and not original NES like the the Mk.I edition."
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