Back in 1994, some of the creators of the Atari Jaguar founded VM Labs (which should partially explain the appearance of a certain shaggy Welsh psychedelic programmer later in this story!). They set up partnerships with major third-party DVD/consumer electronics manufacturers to license what the official FAQ for the now defunct Nuon web page explains is:

VM Labs originally, quite seriously, billed the Nuon as a Mario killer. Early adverts showed Mario’s cap in a puddle of blood next to an X, because the original name of the chip was Project X. So, although a few enhanced DVDs took advantage of the extra processor power of the Nuon, and DVD players including Nuon had advanced features such as super-high-quality zoom, the Nuon really turned out to be a single-chip media processor that could play 3D games on a DVD player.

After an extended delay, Samsung finally released a Nuon-compatible DVD player in July 2000. Ultimately, some 10 commercial games saw the light of day. Unfortunately, even though Samsung, Toshiba, and RCA all released Nuon DVD players, and Motorola experimented with Nuon tech in some of its set-top boxes, the technology was not a success. It fizzled out in 2001 and 2002, although a couple of RCA players without easily accessible Nuon features or gameports did debut later in 2003.

VM Labs unfortunately lapsed into bankruptcy in 2002. A company called Genesis, completely unrelated to Sega’s classic 16-bit system, purchased the company. They were actually interested in Nuon for its MPEG decoding capabilities.

Before hacking a Nuon, you need the hardware, so you’ll need to decide which model you actually want. If you’re in the United States, there are really only three DVD players with Nuon functionality worth considering:

You should be able to find this player in online shopping stores or on eBay for between $75 and $125, although it is getting a little trickier nowadays.

This model has 100 VLM effects, but you can’t apply them in real time, unlike the N-501 version. At the time of writing, only one store offered the N-2000 on Froogle, for $129.

For European readers, the insanely rare Samsung N-504 is the machine to buy, because it’s very similar to the American N-501, complete with controller ports. If you can’t find that (and it’s very likely you can’t), you will have to settle for an N-505, which, tragically, has no controller ports.

Believe it or not, an enterprising European has hacked the N-505 to add controller ports, which are simply missing external linkage; the circuit board inside has the controller port connector. There’s more info about this hack on the Nuon Dome site (http://www.nuon-dome.com/n505hack/n505hack.html), but, unfortunately, this version needs an extra set of Nuon controller ports to work. You’ll need to scavenge them from a broken American N-501 or similar model.

For the very hardware-savvy, Vid Kid has gone one step further, hacking in mini-DIN connectors to the open game port on the N-505. See his web page for more (http://www.debaser.force9.co.uk/n505hack/). It requires significant soldering skill; you’ll need to open up a Nuon controller and wire mini-DINs onto that as well. For gamepad connector-starved Europeans, it’s definitely an option.

After you’ve picked up your Nuon and have a working controller, which commercial games should you consider?

Here’s a short list of the games worth looking at: Tempest 3000. See, I told you it was a short list. Jeff Minter’s crazed update of the classic arcade game is the only essential title on the Nuon, degenerating into psychedelic mayhem in about three seconds flat. If you enjoy burning your eyes out by gazing intently at the bright, bright screen and flailing spasmodically at the joypad, then you’ve picked the right console and the right title.

Fortunately, there’s also the homebrew scene. VM Labs released the Nuon SDK just before going into liquidation. You can find the SDK in multiple places, including Nuon Dome. This fact, as well as the help of some ex-VM Labs engineers, meant people were soon able to run self-made titles, even overcoming the 4.5-MB limit for the open SDK. The games are incredibly easy to burn: just take the files included in the ZIPs and burn them to the root of a CD-R, using one CD-R per title.

Again, Nuon Dome is the web site with the best file collection and review of what’s out there (http://www.nuon-dome.com/download.html), so I’ll describe what you might want to check out there.

Figure 5-2. Nuon homebrew title, Decaying Orbit

In early 2004, one of the most important breakthroughs in the Nuon scene occurred: the Nuon Boot Loader, created by Scott “Skah_T” Cartier, who once worked for VM Labs. According to the Boot Loader site (http://www.dragonshadow.com/-/bootload/):

Much like similar utilities for the Dreamcast, this makes it infinitely easier to try out multiple small utilities or games without having to burn a new CD-R for each. You can even customize a menu for each individual utility or game, with colored text and JPG pictures of your choice.

Here are some tips for using the Boot Loader: