You’ll Flip for This GameCube Mod

Nearly everything looks better through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. Memories of long summer nights playing Prince of Persia or Montezuma's Revenge on a Commodore 64 many years ago never seem to include any trace of the incredibly long load times of a 1541 disk drive. These computers were a blast at the time, to be sure, but how would you like to try to accomplish anything useful on those 40 column, 16 color displays today?

We do love our retro computing and gaming hardware all the same though, and no modern equipment could ever take its place. But that certainly does not mean that we cannot sneak just a teensy bit of modern hardware into our retro setups. In the case of the Commodore 64, for example, we use disk emulators to get away from the slow, and often unreliable, drives that were available at the time. And now, a similar solution is available for the Nintendo GameCube.

A Crowd Supply campaign by Team OffBroadway is nearly ready to launch. They are offering up what they call the FlippyDrive, which is an optical drive emulator for the GameCube. Where the FlippyDrive really separates itself from the pack is in its installation process. It neatly installs inside the case with no modifications or soldering required. And it also leaves the original optical drive fully functional, so you can still fumble around with discs when the mood strikes you.

The device is equipped with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller to handle the drive emulation. It also has an ESP32 chip to handle Wi-Fi communication. The installation process is as simple as plugging in a flat flexible ribbon cable, and it is fully reversible if you want to return to a stock console.

After preparing an SD card, which is inserted into the FlippyDrive, it will configure itself on the first boot and present the user with a menu that allows them to select a game. Games can be loaded on the SD card itself, or loaded wirelessly via Wi-Fi. There is also a planned Ethernet module that will enable faster, and more reliable, loading of games via a network. And if you want to play a game on a disc, it is as easy as holding down a button on the controller when powering up the system.

After manufacturing begins, Team OffBroadway intends to fully open-source both the hardware design and firmware. Their hope is that this will help build up a community that is interested in creating add-ons and custom firmware modifications that will benefit everyone using the FlippyDrive. There is no word yet on when you can get in on this crowdfunding effort, or when the FlippyDrives are expected to be ready to ship, but if you want to upgrade that old GameCube of yours, you will want to keep an eye on the project page.