Right now, the billion-dollar video game industry is soaring, but for one gamer in Hampton, Connecticut, the action for him is more centered around the gaming console.
23-year-old Gunnar Turnquist is a game Modder, or a mod for short. That is someone who alters aspects of a video game, like how it looks or behaves.
"Well, building the world's smallest Nintendo 64 portable, it's kind of been a goal of Modders for a very long time since the start of the hobby," said Turnquist. "For me, building the world's smallest Nintendo 64 is kind of like the Holy Grail of mods."
His passion led him to do just that. The Guinness Book of World Records officially declared Turnquist had created the "world's smallest modified Nintendo 64 console." For those unfamiliar with the Nintendo 64, it was one of the original home gaming consoles; it was released in 1996 and was one of the last consoles to use cartridges as its primary storage.
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"The N64 came out the year I was born, but my grandparents would only get us consoles you could get at the thrift store, so that's what I had growing up," Turnquist said. "When I was around 12 or 13, I saw online people were building portable Nintendo 64s, and I thought it was really cool, so I picked up a spare one from the thrift store and built my first Nintendo 64".
If you ever had an N64, you know they are a lot different from today's gaming consoles -- they were bulky. So you can imagine making the device smaller, more compact, and more usable took some strategy.
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Here's where Turnquist said he started: "To get the motherboard to fit inside, the first step was to map out the connections of the motherboard -- which circuits were most important and which ones could be left out."
But that wasn't the only challenge he faced. Turnquist used a 3D printer and custom circuity to decrease the size of circuit management so he could make everything compact. Then for design, he used a 3.5 LCD screen and used joysticks from a Nintendo Switch.
The Guinness Book of World Records said he accomplished maneuvering all of the pieces to a record-breaking size of 8.4 by 11.8 by 4.50 centimeters. For perspective, that is slightly larger than an N64 cartridge.
Turnquist said he was primarily self-taught and learned by looking at others' work and practicing. If you want to know precisely how Turnquist pulled this feat off, check out his YouTube page, GmanModz.
