hello, i'm a newbie here, but i was hoping you might be able to help me with a project i'm working on.

i've searched the forums but couldnt find anything relating to what i'm after, so thought i'd ask. :D

i'm working on a project, which is a circuit bent nes(whic is finished, infact this is my 5th deck i've built for someone) and need to find a way to control two nes decks with one controller for an interactive art installation for someone. i've tried a number ofg things, but so far they've all failed.

i want to play the same game, mario for example, on both nes decks, one of which is circuit bent and hooked up to a projector, the other being hooked up to a tv, so you can play it as normal, and project the bent visuals from the ohter deck for the crowd to see.... (crazy i know)

does any one have any tips? i'm about to connect one controller with two cables, and disconnect the ground and 5volt supply from one consol, but i thought i'd see if anyone else has managed this and has got anything to say on the mater, apart from the fact its maddness. :wink:


cheers in advance,


bod.

maybe didnt explain that very well... sorry.

the first deck will be circuit bent, and when activating the bends/switches/patch bay on this deck, it renders the game unplayable, due to the fact the glitches on the screen are so intense its a jumbled mess of 8bit maddness with mario running arround.... because of this you can't play the game, and in the past i have used the play back scripts on a pc to play a movie of the game by sending prerecorded control pad signals to the nes decks via a link cable from the pc to the game pad port, while palying arround with the bends.

with the project i'm doing, the guy wants people to be able to play the game normally, yet in order to do this, i need to have two decks, one bent, one not, but i need to have the same game being bent at the same time to a different out put. so in effect, one player playing two consoles simutaniously.

so i need to have one normal nes hooked up to a tv to be played as normal, and the same control movements from that being duplicated on the bent nes deck, running the same game.... is that better? sorry for the confusion. :oops:

hi luke, cheers for the advice, thats what i thought as well about leaving the 5v pin out, i'll give it a go this after noon.


circuit bending is basically taking old electronics and short circuiting them to create something different. normally its done with old drum machines and speak and spells, but i found a way of shorting the game chips in the cartridges to use for visuals for night club events and art instalations.

here's a few screen shots from some one else, i dont have a capture card for my computer yet.







these images dont really do it justice though.... :D

also this guys site provides an insite to the kinda thing i can create.

http://audiovideo.sevcom.com/rom.html


cheers for the help guys, i'll let you know how i get on.


bod. :D

amazingly no different!!! :lol: the sound chip is inside the nes from what i can tell, and the cartidge sends the signal to it, but thats in the chip i dont touch as it starts crashing the game.

Congrats bod! If you have any other projects, make sure and let us know. You're the first to have something like that. :shock: I think it's pretty funny, the thing that most people try to avoid on the NES (glitchiness etc.), you try to invoke :lol:

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http://robertlbryant.com

Actually, there might be a certain style factor in using a Super Nintendo Super Scope ;)

no, this all started with muy lust for something a bit differnet.... and geekyness as well i suppose! this project is for a club event, but in a gallery, so its an installation of sorts.

Actually, I had a thought. What would happen if you replaced the CHR chip from, say, Mario with one from, for example Duck Hunt? Of course, the replacement CHR would have to be about the same size, but you'd get one whacked out display.

It might also be interesting if you could figure out a way to "overlay" the circuit bent graphics on top of the "pure" output, and possibly include further , different, Circuit Bent NES overlays.

Easiest way to try it out would be to use an emulator as "proof of concept". Split a NES file into it's component chip images, then recombine it with part of another one, or even a raw binary image of the right size pulled from another file (not nessicarily a NES image).

In theory it should work: it's not that dissimilar to what graphic hacks do.

if youre running two nes's with the same game, youll have to make sure theyre exactly the same revision of nes and of the game, otherwise you could get a delay on one of them, meaning they wouldnt be perfectly synced.
also, i dont think connecting both +v lines would hurt it, putting power sources in parallel doesnt increase the voltage, but still.. if it works now, dont change it:P

i'm actually really suprised the controller works on both systems, doing that means it's getting two clock signals, which should mess things around quite alot, unless one nes is syncing to the other one somehow..