Original Post
I've recently been on a console purchasing binge. I've got three SNESes lying around, and a couple of Sega Genesis's. I'm also acquiring a PS one and an N64. Now, I had this crazy idea: making these consoles into a rackmount system. My plan, for the SNES and Genesis, at least, was to just put the mainboards into steel chasis, and cut a hole in the plate at the front for cartridges and controllers. the toughest thing will be making something for the cartridges to plug into, desoldering the cartridge plugin and wiring it to the faceplate would be a ton of work, so I was thinking more if I could make some sort of snake to run from the cartridge to the faceplate. Another issues is the RFU converters, and making them switchable. The RFUs should possibly be all put in their own seperate unit; this could be either switchable or just have all the RFUs in sequence, with an output on the back - adapted to S-Video is probably the best option. The PS one presents a challenge, as it will have to hold a CD drive; I might give up on this one, as I have no clever idea as to how to load CDs in via the faceplate. For controllers, I'm considering doing another seperate rack unit, and having controller snakes run from out the back of the rackmounted consoles, into the back of a seperate controller rack, with all of various controllers plugged into the front of it. That would be a ton of work, but it would be the most elegant solution. The only solution for power I can see is to use a switch, and a universal game adapter, or just connect each individual adapter to a power bar, or Furman power conditioner (oooh! lights!) - this will be a cabling nightmare, as all the various transformers are huge. Any thoughts or suggestions?