Circuit Bending Videogame Consoles as a kind of Applied Media Studies
Last summer time, I circuit bent a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) videogame console as an approach to a brand new applied media study. Instead of analyzing videogames exclusively at the amount of software, graphics, and seem, this method permitted me to know the way the material procedure for electricity flowing through circuits pertains to the audio and video aspects of games and ties these to histories of work. Circuit bending is really a practice that includes exposing a circuit board and taking advantage of wires or any other conductive instruments to the touch different points around the board together to create “glitches” or any other effects that aren’t usually intended behaviours for that device. Both your hands-on prodding from the circuit board results in a much deeper knowledge of the fabric elements that comprise the board. For example, when i labored about this project, the NES’s video ram (VRAM) nick broke. Getting already commenced soldering new connections permanently to the board, I switched to the web to locate a substitute nick. Although I found the chip’s model no . and knowledge sheet, as well as managed to locate a distributor, I had been simply not able to buy a substitute. These parts were only offered to commercial producers, not individual consumers. Rather of replacing the main one damaged element around the circuit board, I needed to switch the entire board. Within the finish, I experienced three circuit boards to be able to produce what, throughout this note, I call a “glitch console,” which exposes and experiments using the materiality and work at the office in videogames and also the videogame industry.
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