14 DAY TRIAL // Most of you reading this probably know Seagate's FreeAgent DockStar as just a docking solution for your USB enabled storage drive, but one hacker saw things differently and transformed Seagate's Internet-connected device into a pretty powerful gaming console.
Although I am sure that Seagate never though of using the FreeAgent DockStar as a gaming console when it designed it, the company nonetheless decided to use a pretty powerful hardware configuration in this thing, allowing hackers all over the world to try their best at modding Seagate's device.
Speaking of hardware, ubergizmo reports the DockStar comes with a 1,2GHz Marvell processor (ARM based), 128MB of RAM and a 256MB of ROM.
On the connectivity side of things we get an Ethernet port and two USB connectors.
Unfortunately, this doesn't come with an display port so, in order to be ready for console duty, the hacker had to go for a DisplayLink USB-to-VGA in order to connect this to a computer monitor.
Furthermore, adding sound meant that an USB sound adapter had also to be purchased, upping the conversion costs a bit, although not above that $99.99 that Seagate asks for the DockStar.
Finally, Debian GNU/Linux was installed together with all the necessary drivers and game emulation software, in the end the DockStar being capable of running a wide number of games including Quake 3 (OpenArena to be more exact).
Some of the games that can be run on the DockStar-console can be viewed in the enclosed video, the author of this mod believing that SNES or even Mame and Playstation games can be run with a little bit of extra work.
End of it all this is one of the coolest projects that I have seen in a long time, giving the OnLive gaming service a run for its money, especially if you shop around for the DockStar as this can be bought for as low as $25 if you know where to look.