Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech

SEATTLE—Terry and Dan Diebold's rise to nerd fame hinges on a single piece of hardware, but when the kit is this good, that's all you need. The father and son are proud owners of the only known Nintendo PlayStation console, a hybrid Super Famicom and disc-drive system that was co-developed by Nintendo and Sony in 1991.

Thanks to Internet posts, we've seen the system's original, warehouse-related discovery, and we've seen a mighty impressive teardown thanks to hacker extraordinaire Ben Heck. But nothing compares to seeing the "SNES-CD" hardware up close, which Ars got to do at the latest installment of the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo.

Father and son Diebold said this was the latest stop in their nationwide tour of various nerd events to show off their drool-worthy discovery. They're plenty aware of public interest in the system, and to prove that, they also had a laptop running an emulated version of Super Boss Gaiden. That homebrew game was very recently designed with hopes of it one day running on the Nintendo PlayStation (meaning, it's designed for the weird system's specs). Still, to clarify: the game was not running on the Nintendo PlayStation.

The Ben Heck Show's incredible video answers a ton of questions about the hardware, and I recommend reading Kyle Orland's wrap-up about that video if you haven't yet read it. However, Heck failed to mention one key, missing piece of the puzzle: a more powerful laser diode. Dan Diebold confirmed to Ars that the Nintendo PlayStation's diode is currently too weak to read any data from a compact disc, so that's the next step in their quest to see if it can actually recognize and play disc media.

"We didn't have enough time to stay" at Heck's studio, the Diebolds told Ars, and that discovery didn't come until after they'd left the production. Now, they're looking for capable hands to help them with a possible diode replacement and see if that does the trick. Here's to hoping it doesn't take them long.

After chatting with the Diebolds, I played a quick game of the only Super Famicom game they had handy, Street Fighter II Turbo, and then asked for a demonstration of the system-failure state when attempting to run a CD-ROM game. The latter is shown in the gallery above, complete with a small hint of the Super Famicom's iconic four-color spread on the error screen. I also totally manhandled the controller after shamelessly begging to selfie with it. If the Diebolds come to your city, and they're currently traversing the USA with Nintendo PlayStation in hand, I suggest you try to do the same.

Listing image by Sam Machkovech