The nostalgia effect is powerful. If you’re still clinging to your old-school Nintendo Entertainment System (however you pronounce it) there’s no reason to let it collect dust in a closet or a forgotten corner of your home entertainment system. Your older gaming consoles will still work with your fancy new television, or even your sort-of new television; they just need a little TLC.
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So you missed out on pre-ordering a Nintendo Classic Mini NES. Most people did; EB Games' website crashed two days in a row under the sheer volume of gamers trying to buy the console online. The games retailer has sold out of the console yet again. If you still desperately want to get one, here are a few options you can resort to.
If you want the nostalgia of an old-school NES with the quality and ease of an HDTV, an emulator can take you far. If you want a perfect NES experience, you'll want to go with the Nestopia UE core in RetroArch.
Sick of office workers taking up your valuable time? This retro-inspired (and not entirely serious) hack will put them on notice with classic video game tunes -- or any music of your choice.
If you've turned your media centre into a video game console but the new school controllers just don't invoke the same feeling of nostalgia, you can easily turn an old NES controller into a USB gamepad with an Arduino.
Even if you haven't turned your NES into a DVD player, you probably still have that one game you'll never play again. With just a screwdriver and a bit of soldering, you can mod its cartridge into a wireless router with personality.
How-to web site Instructables has a step-by-step guide detailing how to repurpose your classic (but broken) NES as a lunchbox. All you've got to do is gut your Nintendo's innards and add hinges (though a handle would be nice). You'll also need a Sasquatch action figure if the guide is to be believed, but I'm guessing you can get away without it.
Feeling sentimental for your classic NES? In Google Reader, hit the Konami Code key sequence: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A to get a shrugging ninja in your sidebar. For more squee-worthy easter eggs in applications you love, check out our top 10 software easter eggs.
Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The FireNes Firefox extension integrates over 2000 old-school NES games with your favourite browser. Once you install FireNes and fire it up (either through the Tools menu or the optional toolbar button), you can browse the enormous library of games in your Firefox sidebar and play any one of your 8-bit favourites at the click of your mouse.
