So I was cruising around at my favorite local thrift store looking for untold treasures, and there it was. A old SEGA Master System controller. Out of nostalgia I bought it. Out of boredom... I mod it. Enter in the Apple Front Row Remote. I use it everyday to control iTunes on my music server in my office. Now I've seen lots of mods for Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES) but never anything for a Master System. At first I thought this would work out perfectly; there are 6 buttons on both the Apple Remote and Master System controller. Without a lot of detail, here is the break down of my process.
The Master System and Apple remotes side by side.
Cracking open the controller.
It's extremely simple on the inside. It was necessary to remove some of the inside structure of the bottom half. Nothing was compromised, it was just very cramped for space and room needed to be made to fit the Apple remote components
Even more simple are the parts inside. This is a good thing. Because there are only wires and pressure pads it makes everything just a simple rewire at the terminal ends.
By comparison you can see the complexity of the Apple remote.
The IR LED is going to be moved to the hole where the original cable came out. The metal leads for the battery are also going to be removed.
And this is what I have left to work with.
I de-soldered the terminals and wires leaving the PCB boards completely flat.
These are the new wire leads for the LED, battery, and buttons
A very straight forward rewire later, and you can see where I repositioned the battery and IR LED.
It's beautiful. Very clean, very simple. My kind of mod. Oh and it works like a champ!
Until next time. ^_^ Laters.
