Hackaday · Maken

NES Radar Tracks Flights at 9600 Baud

A new open-source project, NES Radar, allows the original Nintendo Entertainment System to visualize current-day air traffic. Despite its name, the project does not involve radio direction finding but utilizes a standard NES cartridge and a custom cable.

The NES Radar project, developed by [k6lcm] and available on GitHub under the GPL, uses a standard ROM cartridge for its software, without any hidden microcontrollers. The system visualizes air traffic when an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) code is entered, though it is limited to displaying 8 sprites, which can be restrictive for busy airports like KATL.

The core innovation lies in the custom cable that repurposes the NES's second controller port as a serial port to receive data. A Python script running on a nearby computer fetches the actual aircraft positions. This approach is inspired by a similar project, c64u-radar, which uses a Commodore 64's LAN port for data retrieval.

This method of using controller ports for data input on the NES is not entirely new, as a similar technique was previously employed for satellite tracking. The project leverages the availability of ADS-B data and free APIs, making airplane tracking more accessible.

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