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Sega Nomad was the Nintendo Switch of 1995 — and now a modder has given it USB power

Sega Nomad was the Nintendo Switch of 1995 — and now a modder has given it USB power

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A chance to play the Nomad without a bag of AAA batteries

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Think of the Sega Nomad as the Nintendo Switch of 1995. The hardware was conceptually audacious, a chunky portable that played the cartridges of Sega’s home console, the Sega Genesis. And with its AV output, the Sega Nomad could quickly and easily connect to a television.

However, unlike the Switch, the Nomad never found its audience. Blame the battery life: a trio of AAAs promised, at most, three hours of play. Twenty-two years later, modder Catch 22 on NeoGAF has remedied this problem.

Catch 22 added USB charging to a Sega Nomad, allowing it to draw power from the many power sources that keep our smartphones alive. A considerable upgrade, the mod makes the portable more, well, portable. The video above, via Engadget, shows the final result.

This isn’t the first mod to Catch 22’s specialized Nomad, dubbed the SEGA Holic. Earlier this month, he documented the process of replacing the screen with a modern LCD display.

At NeoGAF, Catch 22 is already considering future upgrades to the Sega Holic, and putting together a how-to video. If you like technical discussions about batteries, power sources, and USB, the thread delivers. As for us, we’ll be waiting for Catch 22’s guidance for converting a Nomad from a 1995 novelty to a 2017 gadget crush.