This YouTuber Hacked a Nintendo Switch To Work With an Old Sony Watchman

It’s kind of funky to see how far technology has come over the past few years. We remember back in the 80’s when we were content with getting a Nintendo Entertainment System to work on a black-and-white TV – and, yes, we went nuts the minute we learned we could pick up a TurboExpress handheld.

But if you really want an idea of just how old tech was so long ago, you can take a look at this new YouTube video from My Mate Vince. In it, the host has a rather interesting experiment, as he manages to hack a Nintendo Switch so that it works with…a Sony Watchman?

If you might recall, the Watchman came out years ago and provided users the opportunity to watch TV on the go. (Keep in mind this was long before having the convenience of watching Netflix on your favorite mobile device.) And, thanks to a little craftiness from this YouTuber, he’s able to get games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe working on it.

The set-up to get this working is a rather interesting one, as he basically had to connect the Switch through the HDMI port into a classic VCR (video cassette recorder – the only way to watch movies before the magic of DVD and Blu-Ray) and rabbit ears (an antenna enabling getting signal from older network channels). While the Watchman isn’t actually connected to the Switch hardware itself, it plays through some kind of signal, thanks to the help of the VCR and RF antenna.

It looks like the games perform pretty well, without any sort of lag (though visual clarity comes into question because, you know, black and white). But, of course, some of you may be asking the classic Jeff Goldblum question from Jurassic Park – you were so busy thinking about if you could that you needed to ask if you should. Because, really, probably watching a Watchman screen during a Mario Kart session could give some of you a headache after a few minutes.

Still, it’s a neat experiment, especially if you want to see how Switch games would’ve looked back in “the day”. Now let’s see if Vince is brave enough to try to hook it up to a classic GXTV. Look it up, it’s pretty neat.

The Nintendo Switch is available now.

(Hat tip to Polygon for the details)

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