http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/14/12187 ... rice-gameshttp://nintendonews.com/news/general/mi ... mber-2016/Quote:
Nintendo is bringing back the NES — only a little smaller.
Today the company announced what it's calling the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition. It looks just like a NES, only a lot tinier, and it comes with 30 games built in. You can connect it to your TV via a HDMI cable, and it also includes a controller designed to work just like the iconic rectangular NES gamepad. (The new controller will also connect to a Wii Remote, so that you can use it to play Virtual Console games on a Wii or Wii U.)
In addition to HDMI support and a lack of cartridges, the new mini-console also features one useful modern convenience: multiple suspend points, so that you won't have to fumble around with passwords when you start playing a game again. The NES Classic Edition will be available on November 11th for $59.99.
Here's the complete list of games:
Balloon Fight
Bubble Bobble
Castlevania
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Double Dragon II: The Revenge
Dr. Mario
Excitebike
Final Fantasy
Galaga
Ghosts'N Goblins
Gradius
Ice Climber
Kid Icarus
Kirby's Adventure
Mario Bros.
Mega Man 2
Metroid
Ninja Gaiden
Pac-Man
Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
StarTropics
Super C
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Tecmo Bowl
The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Personally I'm not too excited by what is going to be just an emulation console with a fixed set of games. I'm personally more interested in the HDMI NES kit & RetroAVS. That said, the price point seems good and Wii(U) compatible controller is neat.
This isn't a prelude to a crackdown on PowerPak, is it? Because after
Super Mario Maker was released, Nintendo
sent a bunch of notices of claimed infringement to YouTube about videos of ROM hacks and TASes.
Actual product is up on at least one Nintendo official website:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Misc-/Ninten ... 24287.htmlIt's pretty obvious what the intention is here. I told people about this a long time ago (talking 5-10 years ago), so I'll just harp on it once again: Nintendo continually "gets involved with emulation or homebrew" in a weird way, trying to do something about their expiring patents + holding on to intellectual property with the goal of providing themselves legal recourse in cases of ROM piracy or devices that can "infringe upon whatever they feel like at the moment". "See, your honour, that Metroid.nes file hosted on that website being distributed is hurting our profit and cash flow margins, because as you can see we still actively have such games in the market... yes the game came out in 1986, but..."
I can't wait for someone actually EE-savvy (ex. kevtris) get one of these and do an actual RE teardown (but whoever does it will probably need to remain anonymous, because Nintendo will almost certainly come after them for it). I couldn't care less for "box openings" or "let's open it up with a screwdriver and see pretty little chips, ooh ahh, I can recite what's on the silkscreening, amazing!" type stuff.
It's certainly a SoC of some kind doing emulation. Be sure to note that all the games they list off are either NROM, MMC1, or MMC3. (I'm also chuckling that they've included Pac-Man -- that's the one game that Namco-Bandai is *super* aggressive about when it comes to IP of any sort, including in homebrew)
What they've done about people putting up YouTube videos of recent games is different, but the same "weird thought process" as above applies.
Enjoy these (warning, language in 2nd video). The bottom line is that Nintendo has no idea what they're doing presently. They really don't seem to have a game plan. And they certainly do not understand the Internet (as a "thing", or TCP/IP networking in general) -- they never have.
What could they do about a detailed description of the innards? Besides a stern lawyerly letter?
calima wrote:
What could they do about a detailed description of the innards? Besides a stern lawyerly letter?
"Stern lawerly letter" means effectively cease-and-desist which means ending up in court if you don't comply. Have you ever been through legal proceedings with either a large corporation or an equally sized behemoth (ex. state or federal government) in the United States? If not, let me educate you: it doesn't matter if you win the court case -- you'll be so financially damaged (not to mention destroyed from all the stress) that you'll wish you hadn't done it. And don't forget about what it does it does to your name/career as well. By the time you're 20% through it, you'll be going to bed every night wishing the entire thing was over and that you had taken the blue pill.
Nintendo does send these types of letters out, including ones that are a little more "soft". I don't know if they do the latter any more though. I know because I received one from them back in the 90s for my SNES documentation. It was wasn't harsh/threatening like what I've seen today, but it was very clear that if I didn't stop, there would be legal repercussions that were quite major. It was more along the lines of "so, our client doesn't like this, and you probably know that. They'd like you not to do this if you could stop, because otherwise we'll have to proceed with the next phase, followed by litigation, and that's time-consuming and expensive for everyone involved..." In a way, it almost felt more Japanese than it did American -- a kind of walking-on-eggshells feel vs. "stop or face litigation" style.
Companies will do whatever is within the realm of the law (that specifically includes bending whatever rules or using whatever loopholes possible) to ensure "details" of their stuff don't leak. This isn't new.
The tricky thing about reverse-engineering is that
while US federal court deemed it legal (good reference there BTW, especially since it's the Atari/Tengen vs. Nintendo case), there are lots of counterexamples to it in smaller courts. The DMCA a commonly-cited thing that brings counterclaims to a lot of this. The bottom line is that anyone (company or person) can go to court or sue for any reason -- and if they have the time and money (for attorneys), they can make whatever they want stick. It's sad but true.
Well yeah, legal intimidation for US persons is a thing. I was rather asking what case could they make, I can't think of any legal basis against a description of the board layout, etc.
Cute package, cool controller, not a bad selection of games.
The critical question in my mind is just: how to get more games on it?
Really hoping the answer to that isn't "you don't" (e.g. remember the
Atari Flashback?)
Anyone knows if this is targeted only to non Eastern Asian markets, or do they also have a Famicom classic Edition? (Or will this be a global product?)
I like that this exists, because if a non-technical friend wants to play some cool old Nintendo games and doesn't want to screw around with {homebrew on a console, a raspberry pi, configuration files} I can just tell them to buy this and it probably has most of the games they wanted to play. I trust Nintendo's defaults to be reasonable - the correct aspect ratio, vertical synchronization (no tearing), low to reasonable input latency, respectable scaling (no nasty hq*x stuff, or ultra-bilinear filtering going on), no free-running cheap scanlines. I don't trust any of the freebie emulation setups to come with reasonable defaults, and I wouldn't wish a Raspberry Pi on the average person.
What's more, I bet the controller ports will be able to detect who's player one and two by the port. Just about every USB controller is given a number on a whim, and modern controllers like the Xbox 360 indicate which player number via lights on the controller since the console really doesn't know otherwise.
I'll be excited for a tear-down. And I might buy a controller or two just because they're inexpensive and it looks like they use the same I²C port that's on the Wiimote.
lidnariq wrote:
...it looks like they use the same I²C port that's on the Wiimote.
They do. The controllers are to be usable with a Wii or Wii U by attaching to a Wiimote.
koitsu wrote:
It's certainly a SoC of some kind doing emulation. Be sure to note that all the games they list off are either NROM, MMC1, or MMC3. (I'm also chuckling that they've included Pac-Man -- that's the one game that Namco-Bandai is *super* aggressive about when it comes to IP of any sort, including in homebrew)
I was surprised at
StarTropics…which is MMC6, and US-only.
Punch Out!! is MMC2. 4/5 are not present, though.
It is a fairly large selection of licensed games from a lot of people. (CV/Gradius/SuperC: Konami. MM2/GnG: Capcom. DD2: Technos (who owns that now?) FF: Squaresoft, NG/TB: Tecmo BB: Taito).
edit: oops, Final Fantasy would be pretty dumb to not allow saving for.
Myask wrote:
I was surprised at StarTropics…which is MMC6, and US-only.
Does StarTropics use
MMC6-specific features (talking about the 1KB of PRG-RAM internal to the chip)? If not, then MMC3 is sufficient. They're basically the same mapper except for that.
rainwarrior wrote:
http://kotaku.com/the-mini-nes-wont-open-cant-connect-to-the-internet-1783693116
So, basically this lowers my interest to zero.
Mine as well.
Myask wrote:
I was surprised at StarTropics…which is MMC6, and US-only.
Not US-only.
koitsu wrote:
Myask wrote:
I was surprised at StarTropics…which is MMC6, and US-only.
Does StarTropics use
MMC6-specific features (talking about the 1KB of PRG-RAM internal to the chip)? If not, then MMC3 is sufficient. They're basically the same mapper except for that.
Of course it does, StarTropics 1 and 2 are the only games that use MMC6 after all. Probably Nintendo was trying to cut costs by not having to put a separate RAM chip on cart.
Both games on MMC6 (Startropics I/II) certainly use the PRG-RAM (to save).
But they don't truly rely on any of the differences. So it'll be interesting to see if they implemented the protect registers as in MMC6.
Quote:
Not US-only.
Oops. Misremembered the trivium about it (that it was never released in Japan).
Quote:
Just because people have been asking: safe to say it can’t play old cartridges, right? (Based on the image it looks like an NES cartridge would have around the same width as the entire console.) Does it open up at all?
I was surprised that the PR guy didn't use the same answer for a third time there.
Quote:
Probably Nintendo was trying to cut costs by not having to put a separate RAM chip on cart.
Problem with that idea is that Final Fantasy, Kirby's Adventure, Metroid, Startropics, The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link all save. oh wait you mean back in the day, not on this thing.
So who wants to guess whether iNES (or, as a longshot, NES 2.0) headers are going to be somewhere inside? (I would laugh for days if one had a DiskDude!…say, did that happen with any of the VC releases?)
hackfresh wrote:
rainwarrior wrote:
http://kotaku.com/the-mini-nes-wont-open-cant-connect-to-the-internet-1783693116
So, basically this lowers my interest to zero.
Mine as well.
So basically, it's no better than this POS:
Only Nintendo could get away with selling what is really just a Plug and Play console for $60. Damn it, Nintendo's biggest enemy is themselves. It's the higher up corporate people making all the dumb decisions that hurt the talented game developers underneath them. One of my favorite games from the last 5+ years (Splatoon) was made on their least successful console (Wii U), which was so because the businessmen that run the company thought that they'd try and chase after a market that existed with the Wii, but doesn't anymore. Based on the recent NX news, I think they're still stuck on the past. All they need is a console like the Gamecube or anything before it, plain and simple, but as powerful as the competition so 3rd party developers will be willing to make games for it. All this is coming from a person who actually really enjoyed the Gamepad controller, it's just that you shouldn't be forced to have it, like Microsoft was trying to do with the Kinect. Yeah, I know I don't know better than they do, but it saddens me to see a company I've liked so much kind of fall apart. Can we bring Hiroshi Yamauchi back to life?
Okay, I got really sidetracked. I'm just saying, I really doubt that this is some sort of super-accurate emulation, it's probably just an emulator on a chip like the Neo Geo X was, and we all know how that turned out.
koitsu wrote:
Actual product is up on at least one Nintendo official website:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Misc-/Ninten ... 24287.htmlIt's certainly a SoC of some kind doing emulation. Be sure to note that all the games they list off are either NROM, MMC1, or MMC3. (I'm also chuckling that they've included Pac-Man -- that's the one game that Namco-Bandai is *super* aggressive about when it comes to IP of any sort, including in homebrew)
In addition to Punch-Out and Startropics, Castlevania and Ghosts 'N Goblins are UNROM, Gradius is CNROM.
3rd Party games :
Namco-Bandai : Pac-Man, Galaga
Konami : Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Gradius, Super C
Square-Enix : Final Fantasy, Bubble Bobble (S-E owns Taito)
Koei-Tecmo : Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Bowl
Capcom : Ghosts 'N Goblins, Mega Man 2
Technos : Double Dragon II (through Arc System Works)
Interesting that 13 out of the 30 are from 3rd parties, and all are good games.
koitsu wrote:
Myask wrote:
I was surprised at StarTropics…which is MMC6, and US-only.
Does StarTropics use
MMC6-specific features (talking about the 1KB of PRG-RAM internal to the chip)? If not, then MMC3 is sufficient. They're basically the same mapper except for that.
Even if it wasn't, it's not like making a mapper that only has to be accurate enough to run 1 game is a particularly difficult thing to do.
I sincerely doubt that they gave much concern to the mappers involved, if any, when choosing games. My bet is that it's 95% about licensing and VC market data, and 5% about the favourite games of a particular executive member of the company.
Especially when Low G Man, the only game that really depends on correct MMC3 disable behavior, isn't part of the collection. (Its music engine has a bug causing it to rely on open bus at $6000-$7FFF.)
Espozo wrote:
Only Nintendo could get away with selling what is really just a Plug and Play console for $60.
Yeah, it's just a bloody
disposable NES.
Startropics 1 & 2 because Nintendo has to pay themselves for the privilege.
Dwedit wrote:
Startropics 1 & 2 because Nintendo has to pay themselves for the privilege.
Zoda's Revenge is absent.
rainwarrior wrote:
My bet is that it's 95% about licensing and VC market data, and 5% about the favourite games of a particular executive member of the company.
Ice Climber because
Smash Brothers. Hmm...16/30 games are Smash-charactered. I think Excitebike's got an assist trophy, too.
Sirs/Madams Not Appearing In That Series wrote:
Balloon Fight, Bubble Bobble, Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Excitebike, Final Fantasy, Galaga, Ghosts'N Goblins, Gradius, Ninja Gaiden, StarTropics, Super C, Tecmo Bowl
(And I can't imagine anyone complaining if Bub, Bob, Simon, Jimmy/Bimmy, FTR, THF, Bl.B, WhM, BlM, RedM, Arthur, Ryu, Mike, Contradude (...Lance and Bill?) showed up in Smash. Mega and Pacmen already did, after all.)
koitsu wrote:
It's pretty obvious what the intention is here. I told people about this a long time ago (talking 5-10 years ago), so I'll just harp on it once again: Nintendo continually "gets involved with emulation or homebrew" in a weird way, trying to do something about their expiring patents + holding on to intellectual property with the goal of providing themselves legal recourse in cases of ROM piracy or devices that can "infringe upon whatever they feel like at the moment". "See, your honour, that Metroid.nes file hosted on that website being distributed is hurting our profit and cash flow margins, because as you can see we still actively have such games in the market... yes the game came out in 1986, but..."
Many of NES games are also for sale / playable / on the Wii games online store. So, they ARE still being sold by Nintendo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_V ... sole_gamesI don't think Nintendo will make any money off this thing. Everyone either has a real NES, or uses emulators. Surprisingly, Nintendo is making a ton off Pokemon Go. Who would have guessed?
It's for non-techie hipsters.
93143 wrote:
compounded by the thing being upstaged by the PS4 and XBOne almost instantly.
That's what I was talking about, but the other two are also big factors.
93143 wrote:
The Gamepad driving the price up and keeping it there didn't help (although it's not totally unique in that regard - look what the Kinect 2 did to the XBOne).
And look what happened when they got rid of it for the Xbox one. Honestly though, I'd still get the gamepad, even if it wasn't mandatory because I think it's a comfortable controller, although I still wish they'd make an "updated" Gamecube controller with clickable joysticks, a ZL button, and a select and home button.
93143 wrote:
You know something's wrong with the industry when people condescendingly declare that Nintendo has to "get with the times" and bribe developers to make games for them like Sony and Microsoft do...
I've really never understood what's so great about either Sony or Microsoft's consoles, especially Sony's because it's twice as overrated when it's the same thing. All a PS2 to me is a GC or Xbox with 2 controller ports, worse graphics, and no Super Smash Bros or Halo. (but it's got Final Fantasy, ooh boy.) I know that pissed off droves of people, but I'm sick of lists that say the PS2 is the 3rd+ best console of all time (and these are the same kinds of lists that put the Atari 2600 in first place. It's got a lot of historical significance, but come on now) and then have the GameCube and Xbox, which I've talked about before, barely in the top 15. It's like whenever people talk about how the PS4 is "twice as powerful" as the Xbox One. Give me a break; I sure as hell can't see it. A good computer makes it all irrelevant anyway.
93143 wrote:
What recent NX news?
Just Reggie being awfully hesitant to brag on the hardware. "It's all about the games." Well, if 3rd party developers don't deem your hardware powerful enough, or, more likely, don't want to work around motion controls or a second screen or whatever, than you're not going to have all those games.
I know I sound like any snobby gaming journalist, but let me explain. I'm not the one crying over the hardware being "not powerful enough" or "too different" or whatever, because frankly, I find both to be irrelevant. (Modern games are optimized like shit. People were shocked that Doom 4 ran on the Xbox One and PS4 so well, when looking at the hardware, I see no reason it shouldn't. It's just that most of the time, it doesn't. Most 1st party Wii U games look just as good as what the Xbox or PS4 are offering, although they often don't target realism as much.) I will say though that both of these lead to the bigger problem that most people care the about, which is a lack of 3rd party games. Like the previous "problems", I don't care. 90% of games that I've gotten from the last 5 years have been developed from Nintendo, because I find most games from the big 3rd party companies (which is all Sony and Microsoft even have) to be pretty dull and just overall not fun, like a really long chore.
The problem is though, that the aforementioned problems deter a very large number of people from buying Nintendo consoles, which is actually a problem to me, because I'm not a big fan of seeing them struggle considering I'm a bad Nintendo fanboy.
93143 wrote:
everyone was moaning about Nintendo being "dead" and "irrelevant"
People have been doing that forever. I don't think they can be if Pokémon Go is the first suggestion on Google from just typing in "P". I think they're only getting about 20% of the profit from that game (Pokémon is jointly owned, and the game was developed by a company outside the Pokémon Company), but still.
Yeah, there's another giant rant. I probably made myself look even more ridiculous now.
Quote:
It's for non-techie hipsters.
It's for people named after the thing it's going to end up in.
Espozo wrote:
93143 wrote:
What recent NX news?
Just Reggie being awfully hesitant to brag on the hardware. "It's all about the games."
Reggie Fils-Aime is just a figurehead for the US division. When it comes to the hardware, design decisions, etc. the guy almost certainly has no say in it, other than "herpdederp I think our US developers would like giant snakes coming out of a cartridge slot with Black Sabbath music that plays from an onboard speaker!". Nintendo Co., Ltd. -- i.e. Nintendo of Japan -- is who makes these decisions. There's a fake/parody Shigeru MIYAMOTO account on Twitter that
even covered this (the device he's staring at is an Xbox One S), albeit a bit tongue-in-cheek.
Espozo wrote:
Yeah, there's another giant rant. I probably made myself look even more ridiculous now.
For the sake of posterity, here's the post I deleted while you were responding to it:
93143 wrote:
Espozo wrote:
the businessmen that run the company thought that they'd try and chase after a market that existed with the Wii, but doesn't anymore.
At the time, a game developer was running the company. Besides, it's not clear to me that the Wii U's poor sales weren't due in large part to incoherent advertising and a weak launch lineup, which was compounded by the thing being upstaged by the PS4 and XBOne almost instantly. The Gamepad driving the price up and keeping it there didn't help (although it's not totally unique in that regard - look what the Kinect 2 did to the XBOne).
Also, the third parties were awfully quick to jump ship... You know something's wrong with the industry when people condescendingly declare that Nintendo has to "get with the times" and bribe developers to make games for them like Sony and Microsoft do...
Quote:
Based on the recent NX news, I think they're still stuck on the past.
What recent NX news? Unless I've missed something big, we know almost nothing about NX at this point. All we know is that there's a new concept involved, and that Nintendo doesn't want to make a big deal of the raw specs before the system is revealed. We don't know what the new concept is. As far as I can tell, the most well-founded rumour about the NX is the one about it being cartridge-based, which is (a) positive - at least IMO - and (b) very far from being solid enough to qualify as "news"...
Before E3, everyone was moaning about Nintendo being "dead" and "irrelevant" because they were only showing one game. Why not wait and see what NX actually is before you decide it sucks?
Speaking of getting sidetracked... I've deleted multiple attempts at a much larger rant, in one case following a tangent out into politics and philosophy. I'm still not sure I shouldn't just delete this whole post...
Quote:
Just Reggie being awfully hesitant to brag on the hardware.
I suspect it's less powerful than Scorpio, and in the wake of that announcement Sony seems to have suddenly hushed up too. That doesn't mean it's weak. One reason I like the cartridge rumour is that it seems like it would allow the deletion of a fair bit of expensive hardware from the console, which could allow a higher power-to-price ratio than is typical. I guess we'll see...
Besides, he's right. It
is all about the games. If the developers like it (and so far they seem to), that should be enough.
Quote:
The problem is though, that the aforementioned problems deter a very large number of people from buying Nintendo consoles, which is actually a problem to me, because I'm not a big fan of seeing them struggle considering I'm a bad Nintendo fanboy.
I'm with you there.
Quote:
Pokémon Go is the first suggestion on Google from just typing in "P".
I've noticed that. Kinda exhilarating really, even though I have no interest in playing it myself (never played Pokemon, never owned a cell phone). I hope they don't drop the ball...
...
As for the subject of the thread, it seems like it might be an okay idea to me. My mind is not blown, but if it can produce good-quality low-latency judder-free video on an HDTV, it might be a good option for people who don't have a real NES and a CRT. In my experience NES emulation lags badly on a PC.
...oh wow. It had better be low-latency. Punch-Out!! is on there...
...I've been thinking about latency lately. It strikes me that things are getting worse as technology advances. The Atari 2600 could take control input, process it during VBlank, and display the result on the first full frame after the input was registered. The Famicom took control input, used the next frame to process the input, transferred the results to the PPU during VBlank, and displayed the result on the second frame after the input. The N64 (when running at 60 fps) took control input, used the next frame to process it, drew the results to a framebuffer during the frame after that and displayed the contents of the framebuffer on the third frame after the input. The Wii U takes control input, uses the next frame to process it, uses the frame after that to render to the framebuffer, sends the result to the TV's framebuffer, and even if the TV does nothing whatsoever to slow things down it ends up displaying the result on the
fourth frame after the input...
Have I misunderstood something? Can a framebuffer-based system do general processing and rendering in parallel during a single frame? Can an HDTV display an image live as it comes in rather than waiting until it's all there?
93143 wrote:
The Atari 2600 could take control input, process it during VBlank, and display the result on the first full frame after the input was registered. The Famicom took control input, used the next frame to process the input, transferred the results to the PPU during VBlank, and displayed the result on the second frame after the input.
That's actually the result of vblank being so short. If an NES game could extend vblank
cleanly, it could read the input, do some of the processing, and update VRAM before the next frame begins. But OAM refresh is so defective when used outside "normal" use cases that this becomes impractical. As far as I'm aware, the Super NES can extend vblank cleanly though.
93143 wrote:
Can a framebuffer-based system do general processing and rendering in parallel during a single frame?
Only so far as what is rendered depends on the output of the processing. If the player is always processed first, for example, a system with a Z buffer allows rendering objects in the background as soon as the camera coordinates are final. (And even then, scrolling the entire frame buffer can further hide latency, as recent VR systems have demonstrated.) For a system with no frame buffer, kevtris demonstrated that a processor receiving a 240p signal can upscale it to HDMI with less than 1 ms of latency.
93143 wrote:
Can an HDTV display an image live as it comes in rather than waiting until it's all there?
There's the rub. It might be possible for one of those newfangled "240 Hz" TVs to update, say, a quarter of the pixels during each refresh, reducing latency introduced by the TV to below 5 ms. But I don't know if any actually does. And it still won't necessarily be good enough for Zapper games, as I've been trying to explain to Slashdot users disappointed at the lack of
Duck Hunt.
It was already leaked that the NX has a Tegra. Now, it's still open if that's the home unit, the portable unit, or both; for a console it's slow and for a mobile thing it's fast.
IMHO, the WiiU was too expensive. The system has one good game, and I'm not paying 250-300 to play one game.
My Nexus 7 (2012) tablet has a Tegra, and it's been slow as ass since the "upgrade" from Android 4.4 "KitKat" to Android 5.1 "Lollipop". I'm told part of the problem is that ASUS cheaped out on its flash memory. The same problem wouldn't necessarily affect a Tegra-based handheld with buttons, would it?
Is we go back to the nes classic edition discussion, the only reason I can see that they made it that way is first to reduce piracy and second to redirect you to buy a wiiu or whatever else console if you want more retro games. If you look at their first offering for a mobile app made with dena (mii app), the only reason is to redirect you toward a wii/3ds. It's so obvious it stink.
They really lost an opportunity here. If they could have made some cart that would have look like the original one but smaller, that would have been great and I wouldn't have minded to buy a a lot of them (if the price is right). I'm not sure if they will ever release that in Japan though. My coworker already knew about it and seemed interested.
tepples wrote:
My Nexus 7 (2012) tablet has a Tegra, and it's been slow as ass since the "upgrade" from Android 4.4 "KitKat" to Android 5.1 "Lollipop". I'm told part of the problem is that ASUS cheaped out on its flash memory. The same problem wouldn't necessarily affect a Tegra-based handheld with buttons, would it?
No, that's just something with that device. Tegra is ARM cores + Nvidia GPU (I doubt Denver will be used by Nintendo), nothing special.
calima wrote:
IMHO, the WiiU was too expensive. The system has one good game, and I'm not paying 250-300 to play one game.
You realize this isn't November 2012 anymore, right?
I checked Toys "R" Us today, and a new Wii U console is still $299.
calima wrote:
The system has one good game, and I'm not paying 250-300 to play one game.
I did!
Well, at least I assume you're talking about this one:
Nintendo better be developing Spla2n as a launch title for their new system, because of the whole "not enough games" thing at the start of the Wii U's life and for the people who share calima's opinion.
Quote:
Toys "R" Us
You mean at Toys 'R' Overpriced. I'm still waiting for the price of SNES to drop. $50 for a 25 year old console, and it doesn't come with SMW. No, thanks.
dougeff wrote:
You mean at Toys 'R' Overpriced. I'm still waiting for the price of SNES to drop. $50 for a 25 year old console, and it doesn't come with SMW. No, thanks.
lol
TBH, it is ridiculous for a 4-year old console to not have had a price drop. Even the used WiiUs go for ridiculous prices.
calima wrote:
It was already leaked that the NX has a Tegra.
Yeah, there have been a lot of "leaks". I'm not believing anything until it's actually unveiled.
93143 wrote:
Yeah, there have been a lot of "leaks". I'm not believing anything until it's actually unveiled.
The NX leak was from SemiAccurate. They're very reliable with things like this, Charlie has earned my trust.
Well, if Nintendo really belives that it's all about the games, why they don't do the same as Sega and stop building hardware, focusing on doing cool games for all the other plataforms??
Don't they learned something with WiiU, N64 and GameCube?
Not that these were bad consoles, but with no third party support the competition becomes very difficult!!
...And look where Sega is now. No thanks.
Agree!!
Sega now is not even a shadow of what it was before.
Many old time softhouses are slowing becoming like this... too bad!!
jmr wrote:
Super Mario Bros. 3
Well, there are two ACE tricks in SMB3 that were well-publicized recently. I wonder if they'll fix them/how long before someone uses this to load new things into the system (or, at least, into RAM.)
Myask wrote:
Well, there are two ACE tricks in SMB3 that were well-publicized recently. I wonder if they'll fix them/how long before someone uses this to load new things into the system (or, at least, into RAM.)
LOL, would give tepples an excuse to have an 8k compo. (All games would have to use the SMB3 CHR too.)
That trick depends on being able to poll the controller multiple times per frame, which a lot of emulators won't do, though. I'd say there's a high chance the NES mini wouldn't.
The beat-in-2-seconds one does, sure. But I said
two tricks. The (usu. 7-4)
pipe wrong-warp does not require fast controller input to execute.
And it would only need to use the SMB3 CHR if they can't write outerbank, and it's using true bankswitch instead of something else.
Of course, that then requires another ACE exploit…
Quote:
8k
10k, though it comes out of RAM.
Hmm. I wonder how many games rely on RAM being mirrored over $0800-1FFF.
Myask wrote:
The beat-in-2-seconds one does, sure. But I said
two tricks. The (usu. 7-4)
pipe wrong-warp does not require fast controller input to execute.
Ah, I'd forgotten that one.
Myask wrote:
And it would only need to use the SMB3 CHR if they can't write outerbank, and it's using true bankswitch instead of something else.
I don't understand what that means. SMB3 is CHR-ROM with MMC3, is it not? Do I misunderstand the mapper's capabilities? What's the "outerbank"?
Outer bank as in like a multicart, though I suppose doing it that way would be more work than just having an emulator run different ROMs.
I think there's about a 0 % chance that Nintendo is using some kind of "supermapper" on this thing.
The new miniature NES is not a repro console and should not be titled as such in the thread title.
I wish they'd just make actual reproductions of the console and carts instead. I do understand however that there is a sizable initial fee to setup the infrastructure to mass produce a custom chip (friend of mine once had to get some custom chips made). Not that Nintendo couldn't take the hit especially with the aforementioned Pokemon Go success.
A lot of the Pokémon GO money goes to Niantic, Creatures, and Game Freak.
Nintendo does what maximizes its own profit, and as of right now, it thinks a console with built-in games will bridge the revenue gap between the Wii U and the NX. If you want a famiclone, you know where to find it.
tepples wrote:
A lot of the Pokémon GO money goes to Niantic, Creatures, and Game Freak.
I heard Nintendo only gets about 15-20% of the profit. Even if this game is very popular, who even knows how much money it makes, as it seems it doesn't have adds, only micro transactions that don't really seem necessary. (Of course, I've never played the game, so correct me if I'm wrong.)
tepples wrote:
it thinks a console with built-in games will bridge the revenue gap between the Wii U and the NX.
I'm not sure it knows what it's doing at this point...
tepples wrote:
If you want a famiclone, you know where to find it.
The question is, who wants one?
Nintendo seems to be really focused on filling this "gap", when I think they should just suck it up and take losses. I'm talking about the NX, that will inevitably do the same thing wrong that the Wii U did: come out considerably earlier than the competition and look really outdated in comparison to the competitor's hardware, and come out with no games, most likely due to its early release. I have a feeling that this odd release date was them trying to separate themselves from the pack which worked for the Wii, but the Wii's success was really based on luck. I don't know how Nintendo didn't take notice that people stopped playing their Wiis within a year.
If Nintendo wants the NX to succeed, it's got to have Spla2n as a launch title.
tepples wrote:
Nintendo does what maximizes its own profit, and as of right now, it thinks a console with built-in games will bridge the revenue gap between the Wii U and the NX.
I understand the economic argument; they do have a duty to their shareholders first and foremost.
tepples wrote:
If you want a famiclone, you know where to find it.
On a related side note; is there anyone manufacturing new PPU's and 2A03's?
There was never a source for 2A03s and 2C02s other than pulls. (Nintendo and Ricoh didn't leave much slop at the time).
You can apparently get "new old stock" discrete famiclone ICs (e.g. UA6527+UA6528; UA6527P+UA6538).
And you can fairly easily still get new NES-on-a-Chips (try searching alibaba/aliexpress for "famicom"), but they're much harder to use as anything but an NES/Famicom.
There's been number of "FPGA NES" projects in recent years. I suspect sooner or later somebody's going to release an open source one of decent quality, or even start selling a proprietary one, if this hasn't happened already.
rainwarrior wrote:
There's been number of "FPGA NES" projects in recent years. I suspect sooner or later somebody's going to release an open source one of decent quality, or even start selling a proprietary one, if this hasn't happened already.
On that note, I'm surprised this isn't a public community NESDev project yet.
rainwarrior wrote:
There's been number of "FPGA NES" projects in recent years. I suspect sooner or later somebody's going to release an open source one of decent quality, or even start selling a proprietary one, if this hasn't happened already.
Bunnyboy over at NintendoAge
has done just that
rainwarrior wrote:
There's been number of "FPGA NES" projects in recent years. I suspect sooner or later somebody's going to release an open source one of decent quality, or even start selling a proprietary one, if this hasn't happened already.
I suspect the same.
Also while I'm here: I haven't been adamant about updating the
Emulators wiki page (specifically the "Under development" section) with FPGA projects. So if anyone is actively developing one and they're not on the list, please put them there!
Light-Dark wrote:
On a related side note; is there anyone manufacturing new PPU's and 2A03's?
Not sure if they're new, and they're certainly not authentic (they've got swapped duty cycles on the square wave channels IIRC), but you can find RP2A03e clones on ebay regularly.
For the 2C02, no, no one makes them new, but there is a clone maker on some chinese site (I think it was AliExpress?) that sells clones that use discrete UMC PPUs and CPUs.
Personally, I'm guessing the NES 'mini' is going to be Wii hardware being recycled in a last-ditch effort by Nintendo to dump inventory not sold in Wii Minis (RVL-201's).
Speaking of which, I wonder what they'll make the model name for the NES thing. NES-201? RVL-301? HVC-201?
I'm not really planning to buy one, but if I see one cheap enough I might just to tear it down. Nothing can replace my Famicom for me.
(click image for full size)
But if this can be exploited to boot wii or gamecube games, it could be a really cool toy for hackers (though we'd have to find a way to exploit the Wii Mini before we have much hope of similar on the 'NES mini' if this is what it is underneath).
If they're using Wii Mini hardware, they must have changed it a little, as the Wii Mini supported composite video only.
So the Wii Mini actually has different ICs than the original Wii and the RVL-101? It's not just pins left unconnected?
The original Wii did not have HDMI.
Nintendo's habit more recently has been to coin new model number prefixes for revised systems.
Game Boy is DMG, but
Game Boy Pocket is MGB.
Game Boy Advance is AGB, but Game Boy Advance SP is AGS, and Game Boy Micro is OXY.
Nintendo DS is NTR, but Nintendo DS Lite is USG.
I seriously doubt this is using Wii hardware.
ultrageranium wrote:
Anyone knows if this is targeted only to non Eastern Asian markets, or do they also have a Famicom classic Edition? (Or will this be a global product?)
Answering my own question
https://topics.nintendo.co.jp/c/article ... 45a6d.html
And does that have no detachable controllers?
Yes, it's like the real famicom.
This is really weird, because the NES version comes with normal sized controllers, which allows for a more authentic experience. Those tiny controllers in the Famicom version will probably feel pretty awkward.
Some store have already received some mock to show how it will looks like. Softmap in Akihaba seems to have one.
Here's the link of the article:
http://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/wakiba/find/1023294.htmlAttached images from the articles (resized) that shows the cables connected behind
Attachment:
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and the size of the controller.
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Seems quite small, similar to the micro gameboy thing.
Why the hell are they keeping the hardwired controllers? I mean, authenticity with the controllers has already been thrown out the window.
Espozo wrote:
Why the hell are they keeping the hardwired controllers? I mean, authenticity with the controllers has already been thrown out the window.
Because people right now will pay for nostalgia.
Apparently, someone at GameSpot already got to play it and made a review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa_qLXeoggUOf course you can create save states. I will say though, I like the feature where you can either play the games in 4:3 or the NES's native aspect ratio. But yeah, if you have an NES, you have no reason to buy one. I think these games look best on an old CRT to be honest.
It was funny though, the person talks about how $60 is not that expensive for what you're getting, and I was about to make a big argument about that until I remembered each title on the system goes for $30 now.
Teardown details are now available (strongly suggest 2nd link, though it's all in Japanese, and is for the Famicom version, but likely share the same key/major internals):
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/1 ... iny_systemhttp://mazu-bunkai.com/bunkai-wp/review/4313/Summarised details:
* HDMI:
Explore Microelectronics Inc. EP952* CPU/GPU SoC:
AllwinnerTech R16 -- ARM Cortex A7 4-core CPU, Mail400 dual-core GPU
* RAM:
Hynix H5TQ2G63GFR -- 256MB DDR3 SDRAM
* Storage:
Macronix MX30LF4G18AC -- 512MB SLC NAND flash
* Power management:
X-Powers AXP223* Famicom controller IC: no one's sure yet, but the silkscreening reads WCP 405 1634EM409
I don't see anything that resembles JTAG header solder points on either side of the PCB, so flash dumping would likely require chip desoldering.
I'm curious if the controllers are technically compatible with the original Famicom/NES. I mention this because one of the biggest issues going for speedrun people right now (who use real hardware) is that their joypads are wearing out -- rubber contact pads are starting to crack, etc., so everyone just goes around buying up other used controllers hoping they can create a working controller a la Frankenstein's monster.
lidnariq will likely appreciate the high resolution photos.
Edit: The AXP223 isn't for audio, it's for power management. Another badly-designed website resulting in confusion.
512mb flash seems a wee bit overlarge.
koitsu wrote:
I'm curious if the controllers are technically compatible with the original Famicom/NES. I mention this because one of the biggest issues going for speedrun people right now (who use real hardware) is that their joypads are wearing out -- rubber contact pads are starting to crack, etc., so everyone just goes around buying up other used controllers hoping they can create a working controller a la Frankenstein's monster.
I don't think they are electrically compatible, but I hope the pads, button, and shell can be used to refurbish an old controller. A new driver PCB could be created so no vintage parts are used in creating a Frankenstein's monster.
This page seems to indicate that you can solder a UART to the board,
http://linux-sunxi.org/Nintendo_NES_Classic_Edition. This gives one hope that you can use the debugger to reflash the chip.
The NES Classic Edition is similar to the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. Perhaps RetroPie can be ported to the device and the Nestopia emulator included therein can give much more accurate emulation that Nintendo's own software.
Great Hierophant wrote:
This page seems to indicate that you can solder a UART to the board,
http://linux-sunxi.org/Nintendo_NES_Classic_Edition. This gives one hope that you can use the debugger to reflash the chip.
This is crappiest Wiki page I think I have ever seen in my life. Good grief. Absolutely worthless, other than "hidden gems" you can find: like how once wiring up the serial interface, pressing
s toggles some particular debug output mode. Hilariously, no serial port parameters (speed, stop bits, parity) are disclosed there. I've used devices like this in enterprise environments (really!) before, where single-character commands on a serial port can literally make-or-break the device. My reaction every time:
holy shit. Dangerous as hell.
The images depicting the GND, Tx, and Rx pins (love that there's no flow control too!) mentioned a website called
http://emuonpsp.net/ , so I went there. It's a Japanese website for all sorts of weird modding. However, there's a blog-esque entry under 2016/11/10 (there are no links or id tags etc. which I can link to -- awesome) which describes all the necessary serial port details. There's also some command used to dump some part of the flash, but it's a bit vague/weird (I'd need to understand the Japanese).
mikejmoffitt wrote:
I don't think they are electrically compatible, but I hope the pads, button, and shell can be used to refurbish an old controller. A new driver PCB could be created so no vintage parts are used in creating a Frankenstein's monster.
Courtesy of Carey85 from Digital Press:
https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/15003299_10206888671406580_8408959777565897946_o.jpghttps://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/15039569_10206888671366579_6781069187562823744_o.jpg(I linked these rather than embedded because they are large)
It /looks/ like the plastic buttons/d-pad and rubber pieces are vaguely compatible with the original NES controller housings, if not exactly the same.
@koitsu
my translation will be very raw but here it goes:
Quote:
■クラシックミニ ファミコンのU-bootログを見てみる
Looking at classic mini famicom U-boot logs
Quote:
というわけで本日11/10に発売になったクラシックミニファミコンを予定通りゲットしました。分解記事等々は
その他のページでやっているので、ツイッターで話題となっていたPCとシリアル通信するのをやってみることにしました。
So here it is on the 10 of November the classic mini famicom went on sale and I got the one I reserved.
Since on other pages (doesn't say which one) they are talking about dissasembly, we decided to check
how to communicate with serial from a PC after talking about that topic on twitter.
Quote:
●用意したもの
(1)マルツUSBシリアルモジュール MPL2303SA
(2)クラシックミニファミコン
(3)PC
(4)TeraTerm(ソフトはなんでもOK)
* Things that were prepared
1) Multi-usb serial module MPL2303SA
2) Classic mini famicom
3) PC
4) TeraTerm(any software is fine)
Quote:
●繋げてみる
海外サイトによると、UARTがそのまま出ている様子。@nvsoftsさんがTXのみを接続してログ見えたとのことで
早速やってみることにしてみました。
* Trying to connect
From an oversea site (meant not from japan), the UART appears to be out (I don't understand context in that case).
@nvsofts said with only connecting TX he saw the logs so right away I tried to check.
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Quote:
接続は左からGND/TX/RX、となっているのでUSB-シリアル変換モジュールにそのまま入れます
(ファミコン側TXはRXへ、ファミコン側RXはTXへ接続)。
The connection from the left is GND/TX/RX, sp the serial-usb conversion module is inserted as is
(On the side of the famicom TX to RX, famicom side RX to TX connect)
Note: the part in the parentheses is not clear for me, I suck at particles ^^;;;
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Quote:
接続の全体図はこんな感じ。一応コントローラx2、電源ON/リセット用基板は接続します。
The overall connections looks like this. There is 2 controllers, the power on/reset are connected on the board.
Quote:
●通信してみる
通信設定は下記のような感じです。
ボーレート:115200baud
データ:8bit
パリティ:none
ストップ:1bit
フロー:無し
(1)PCとUSBシリアルモジュールを接続する
(2)ミニファミコンへ電源を供給する。すると、下記ログが表示されるはず
U-Boot 2011.09-rc1 (Aug 30 2016 - 12:07:36) Allwinner Technology
[ 0.218]version: 1.1.0
[ 0.220]uboot commit : 2f04d11e4dfd9d5022e33833412462859727bdcc
ready
no battery, limit to dc
no key input
dram_para_set start
dram_para_set end
Using default environment
In: Out: Err:
(3)コンソールに戻り、「S」キーを押しっぱなしにして、ミニファミコンの電源をONする
(4)するとオートブートを止めることが出来る
~省略~
cant find rcvy value
cant find fstbt value
no misc partition is found
to be run cmd=sunxi_flash phy_read 43800000 30 20;boota 43800000
WORK_MODE_BOOT
board_status_probe
[ 0.583]key trigger
[ 0.585]Hit any key to stop autoboot: 3 0
clover#
(5)あとはコマンドを入れてみる
* Try to connect
Here's are the communication settings:
baud rate:115200 baud
data :8bit
parity:none
stop :1bit
flow :none
1) connect PC to serial module
2) Power on the min famicom. The following logs should be shown:
U-Boot 2011.09-rc1 (Aug 30 2016 - 12:07:36) Allwinner Technology
[ 0.218]version: 1.1.0
[ 0.220]uboot commit : 2f04d11e4dfd9d5022e33833412462859727bdcc
ready
no battery, limit to dc
no key input
dram_para_set start
dram_para_set end
Using default environment
In: Out: Err:
3) Return to the console, press S as much as you can and turn on the mini famicom
4) You can now stop the auto-boot
- you can skip - (this part I'm not sure, it translate literally as "to omit")
cant find rcvy value
cant find fstbt value
no misc partition is found
to be run cmd=sunxi_flash phy_read 43800000 30 20;boota 43800000
WORK_MODE_BOOT
board_status_probe
[ 0.583]key trigger
[ 0.585]Hit any key to stop autoboot: 3 0
clover#
5) You can try to insert commands after
Quote:
●受け付けるコマンド
今のところubootで受け付けるコマンドは、下記のような感じです。ソース見てないのでアレですが、もっと
あるかも。
shutdown/reset/printenv/version/sunxi_flash/boota
通常のOSを起動させたいときは、下記コマンドを叩くと起動できました(通常起動と同様)
clover# sunxi_flash phy_read 43800000 30 20;boota 43800000
* Executed(?)/accepted commands
Here's are the commands that are currently possible. The source has not been check and was like "what?!" but
there should be more commands.
shutdown/reset/printenv/version/sunxi_flash/boota
When you want to execute the official OS, it was possible by writing the following command (same as official boot)
clover# sunxi_flash phy_read 43800000 30 20;boota 43800000
Quote:
●その他
リセットボタンを押しながら起動で、色々と出来るっぽいです。あとで試してみたいですね。
* Other
It is executed while pressing the reset button, a lot of things seems to be possible. I want to experiment later!
So this is my quick and dirty translation. Hope it will be useful. If we could find which site he was referencing to, we could have the explanation in something else than Japanese I guess.
Banshaku wrote:
The connection from the left is GND/TX/RX, sp the serial-usb conversion module is inserted as is
(On the side of the famicom TX to RX, famicom side RX to TX connect)
Note: the part in the parentheses is not clear for me, I suck at particles ^^;;;
An educated guess: it's probably saying to connect the Famicom's TX to the RX of the other side, and vice versa (i.e. not TX to TX and RX to RX).
Could someone please confirm something for me? My sister ordered me an NES Classic but it's coming via mail and won't be here for a couple more days. Does the NES Classic have the Macronix MX30LF4G18AC NAND flash chip or does it have a Spansion NAND flash chip? Here and on a Youtube tear down video, I see the flash listed as Macronix MX30LF4G18AC. But on other sites (including other Youtube tear down videos), I see it listed simply as a Spansion SLC NAND flash chip.
Historically, hasn't Macronix provided the flash based chips to Nintendo? Any ideas why so many websites report the NES Classic as having a Spansion SLC NAND flash chip instead of the Macronix?
Thanks.
Spork Schivago wrote:
Could someone please confirm something for me? My sister ordered me an NES Classic but it's coming via mail and won't be here for a couple more days. Does the NES Classic have the Macronix MX30LF4G18AC NAND flash chip or does it have a Spansion NAND flash chip?
Nintendo is going to use whichever vendor/manufacturer of flash chips that they can get at that moment in time. It's based on 1) availability, and 2) price. Pretty much every company does this in every product. It's common with DRAM, flash, and anything else that's "generic". There's nothing abnormal or "weird" about this; in other words, both reviewers are telling the truth.
So, why does the brand of flash chip matter to you?
koitsu wrote:
Spork Schivago wrote:
Could someone please confirm something for me? My sister ordered me an NES Classic but it's coming via mail and won't be here for a couple more days. Does the NES Classic have the Macronix MX30LF4G18AC NAND flash chip or does it have a Spansion NAND flash chip?
Nintendo is going to use whichever vendor/manufacturer of flash chips that they can get at that moment in time. It's based on 1) availability, and 2) price. Pretty much every company does this in every product. It's common with DRAM, flash, and anything else that's "generic". There's nothing abnormal or "weird" about this; in other words, both reviewers are telling the truth.
So, why does the brand of flash chip matter to you?
I was looking for a datasheet for the NAND. Every post that mentions the Macronix gives me the chip number, but every post that mentions the Spansion doesn't. I've asked people that had the posts that mention the Spansion for a chip number but they haven't been able to give me one yet. The ones with the Macronix, the pictures I've seen, are actually of the Japanese version. I was wondering if maybe the Japanese version had different flash chips.
Different NANDs have different pinouts and everything, right? I'd imagine they're not too compatible. I'd imagine the PCB would have to change a little for the different brands of NAND. Or am I wrong in that? If one NES Classic has a Spansion NAND chip and another has a Macronix, can a person just swap them? I would have thought they couldn't. I know with the PS3's, if you're going to switch NANDs, you need the same chip. There's a few different NAND chips for the PS3s but they're not compatible with the various boards.
It doesn't matter too much now anyways. Once my NES Classic comes (tomorrow or maybe the next day), I was going to maybe pull the NAND and try dumping it but it seems we can just dump it while it's still in the NES. We can also write to it while it's still in the NES as well, so there's no need for me to pull the chip.
Thanks for answering my question.
Spork Schivago wrote:
Different NANDs have different pinouts and everything, right? I'd imagine they're not too compatible.
"It depends". I would put my money on that the Spansion and Macronix are pin-compatible with each other. Otherwise this would require multiple PCB revisions designed by Nintendo and manufactured -- this costs more money. So, I would say it's more likely they're identical. The only way to know for sure is to review datasheets for both, assuming one can even find such. You may have to contact the chip manufacturers. If this is really something you're considering doing, then I strongly recommend you start that conversation with them now. Just ask politely for the datasheet for the specific model of chip used.
Spork Schivago wrote:
It doesn't matter too much now anyways. Once my NES Classic comes (tomorrow or maybe the next day), I was going to maybe pull the NAND and try dumping it but it seems we can just dump it while it's still in the NES. We can also write to it while it's still in the NES as well, so there's no need for me to pull the chip.
As far as I can tell, the flash chip used is
OTP, i.e. you won't be able to write to anything. Go right ahead and dump the thing using the serial/UART method -- I won't be surprised if a portion of it is encrypted.
Is there a second flash memory used for the save state feature? If not, then the main flash cannot be OTP, though if it's like the DS firmware flash, perhaps only a certain number of sectors are writable.
koitsu wrote:
As far as I can tell, the flash chip used is
OTP, i.e. you won't be able to write to anything. Go right ahead and dump the thing using the serial/UART method -- I won't be surprised if a portion of it is encrypted.
A user on #nesdev confirmed the other night that it's encrypted, but that same user also managed to decrypt it too.
So if the flash cannot be rewritten except for a small portion needed for save states and configuration data, say 4MB of 512MB, then to really hack more than the save states, you would need to replace the flash chip on the mainboard. I bet someone will have succeeded in running some unauthorized code by this method by the new year.
koitsu wrote:
Spork Schivago wrote:
Different NANDs have different pinouts and everything, right? I'd imagine they're not too compatible.
"It depends". I would put my money on that the Spansion and Macronix are pin-compatible with each other. Otherwise this would require multiple PCB revisions designed by Nintendo and manufactured -- this costs more money. So, I would say it's more likely they're identical. The only way to know for sure is to review datasheets for both, assuming one can even find such. You may have to contact the chip manufacturers. If this is really something you're considering doing, then I strongly recommend you start that conversation with them now. Just ask politely for the datasheet for the specific model of chip used.
I believe the datasheet for the Macronix isn't that hard to find. The Spansion though, because no one actually gave me a part number, I can't begin looking for one. Good news though, I got my NES Classic today!!! Once I get back from my appointment, I'll begin working on it.
I was thinking that perhaps the Famicom Classic (or whatever they're calling it over in Japan / China) might use one chip and have a little bit different of a design and then the version sold in America might be using the other chip, having a little bit different of a design.
Spork Schivago wrote:
It doesn't matter too much now anyways. Once my NES Classic comes (tomorrow or maybe the next day), I was going to maybe pull the NAND and try dumping it but it seems we can just dump it while it's still in the NES. We can also write to it while it's still in the NES as well, so there's no need for me to pull the chip.
As far as I can tell, the flash chip used is
OTP, i.e. you won't be able to write to anything. Go right ahead and dump the thing using the serial/UART method -- I won't be surprised if a portion of it is encrypted.
I think you're right here on part of the NAND being encrypted. I remember reading someone who said the same, and implying they dumped it as well. I was reading how the key to decrypt it might be stored in the initrd image.
I'm not too certain about the NAND being read-only memory. I'll read your links when I get back. If I'm understanding everything correctly, once I boot into the proper FEL mode, I can dump the NAND using sunxi-fel and the read command. I'm thinking once I boot into the proper mode, I can just use sunxi-fel and the write command to write the NAND back.
If I can successfully dump the NAND using the UART method (which I'll try later), I'll just try writing it back. I see someone over in Japan got his own version of Linux running on the Famicom version. He dumped the NAND and was able to extract the initrd image, among other things. Then he was able to boot into his own version of Linux. With u-boot, I believe you
can load everything into RAM and boot that way, although it's not officially supported and from what I've read, isn't the easiest thing to do.
http://www.denx.de/wiki/view/DULG/CanUB ... artedInRAMThere's a link to what I was talking about with the u-boot and starting it from RAM.
It would make sense, from a security point of view, if it was read-only though. It'd make it a bit harder to hack. I don't know a lot about NAND, but I do have some experience with PICs (Programmable Interrupt Controllers) and I know some of the PICs I've played with have configuration bits that I can set, that say stuff like don't allow reading of the chip, don't allow writing, etc.
Although people (and possibly Nintendo themselves) have said this system isn't upgradable, it very well might be, via USB. If the NAND chips have the ability to be put in some sort of read-only mode, maybe Nintendo didn't set it, so in the future, if they wanted to, they could release other games or system updates. The USB port can be used for more than just charging. If I understand everything correctly, I should be able to boot into FEL mode without using the UART at all and just hook the NES Classic up to my Linux box's USB port.
Also, it seems people have figured out a way to hook other controllers up to the NES Classic, like the Nintendo Wii controller, for example. I believe someone even managed to hook an SNES controller up to it. If you're interested, I can share the link. One of the "issues" people were writing about was to pick another game, they had to restart the NES Classic. Someone suggested that if they could hook a Wii controller up, they could just hit some button to go back to the main menu. It'd be interesting to see if this is true.
Thanks.
Last I heard, the Wii Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro worked officially.
Spork Schivago wrote:
One of the "issues" people were writing about was to pick another game, they had to restart the NES Classic.
Ah, but to be fair, the reset button should be at arm's length already due to the tiny cables. ;P
tepples wrote:
Is there a second flash memory used for the save state feature? If not, then the main flash cannot be OTP, though if it's like the DS firmware flash, perhaps only a certain number of sectors are writable.
Tepples,
I forgot about the save states. To my knowledge, there is not a second flash, therefore, I think we can assume the flash (at least parts of it) is not read-only.
I remember reading something about someone saying when they booted into Linux on the NES Classic (the stock Linux, not a custom version), one of the partitions was mounted as read-only. Perhaps this is where the confusion was coming from. In Linux, you can set a file system to be mounted as read-only or read / writeable. Just because a filesystem is set as read-only, doesn't necessarily mean the device cannot be written to. It just needs to be remounted with rw, instead of read-only.
rainwarrior wrote:
Spork Schivago wrote:
One of the "issues" people were writing about was to pick another game, they had to restart the NES Classic.
Ah, but to be fair, the reset button should be at arm's length already due to the tiny cables. ;P
Ahh hahahahahahahahaha. That's funny.
tepples wrote:
Last I heard, the Wii Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro worked officially.
Maybe these aren't Wii Classic Controllers or Classic Controller Pro's or maybe the Famicom version of the NES Classic isn't fully compatible? Here's the page I found:
http://kako.com/blog/?p=22058It's in Japanese but you can google, "Japanese to English translator" or have your web browser automatically translate the page, however, I found the Japanese to English Translator that google.com provides does a better translation than Google Chrome.
It looks as though the person spliced the wires from the original controller that came with his Famicom Mini (or whatever they're calling it) and hooked some sort of adapter, probably from a different console...to hook various controllers up to it. I didn't actually read anything, I just looked at the pictures. It even looks like he hooked some sort of Super NES (Super Famicom over there I believe) controller up to it.
I got my NES Classic today. We have a Nintendo Wii (but not a Wii U). We also have an SNES, Gamecube, PS3, PS4, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox 1, Gameboy, DS, 3DS, original NES (a few of them), Yobo, SNES (a few of them), original Sega Genesis (a few of them), and one of those cheap Sega Genesis's that play original Genesis games but come with 80 games built in. I thought the controllers for the Wii where wireless. I only play the old school consoles, like the NES, Sega, SNES (and sometimes I'm emulate those consoles on the 3DS / DS and very rarely, I'll actually play a 3DS / DS game on the handhelds), but I can try seeing if any of the controllers actually hook to the Classic without needing any adapters.
I also just saw a link that says there's some sort of official adapter that allows you hook your original NES controllers to the NES Classic, but I didn't actually click it, so it might be fake. If we can hook original controllers up to the Classic with this adapter, I wonder if we can hook up the Zapper.
What do you guys think?
koitsu wrote:
"It depends". I would put my money on that the Spansion and Macronix are pin-compatible with each other. Otherwise this would require multiple PCB revisions designed by Nintendo and manufactured -- this costs more money. So, I would say it's more likely they're identical. The only way to know for sure is to review datasheets for both, assuming one can even find such. You may have to contact the chip manufacturers. If this is really something you're considering doing, then I strongly recommend you start that conversation with them now. Just ask politely for the datasheet for the specific model of chip used.
You can just go to Macronix's website and type that part number into their search, and it'll take you to a page with information, datasheet, etc:
http://www.macronix.com/en-us/products/ ... 30LF4G18ACIt even has documentation comparing it to two particular Spansion chips, which I think it is meant to be a compatible replacement for.
(There was also a datasheet on the digikey page koitsu linked about the chip in
this post.)
If the Classic Controller works, an adapter to plug an original NES or Super NES controller into the far end of a Wii Remote should also work. These include the
Mayflash adapter and the
Raphnet adapter.
The Zapper will not work. The NES Classic Edition's video output is HDMI, and TVs that display HDMI don't output scanlines at the 15.7 kHz frequency that the Zapper's decoder IC expects.
tepples wrote:
If the Classic Controller works, an adapter to plug an original NES or Super NES controller into the far end of a Wii Remote should also work. These include the
Mayflash adapter and the
Raphnet adapter.
The Zapper will not work. The NES Classic Edition's video output is HDMI, and TVs that display HDMI don't output scanlines at the 15.7 kHz frequency that the Zapper's decoder IC expects.
Thank you. Are you sure about the scanline part? From what I've read, it's more of a timing issue. The Zapper looks for the white squares ~16MS after pulling the trigger, modern day TVs will show it maybe ~70MS after pulling the trigger...
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/16/resurrecting-duckhunt/
The reason I was asking was if I understand the problem correctly, maybe we can somehow slow down when the photo sensing diode in the zapper looks for the white square, I mean if lag is really the issue here. I wonder if that'd be possible.
I don't fully understand how the zapper works, I got the jist of it, maybe I need to read more about it.
The following applies to any emulator-based system with input-to-video lag, such as PC, Raspberry Pi, or possibly a hacked NES Classic Edition:
Games that only use the white square sequentially on each sprite will have to be hacked to wait for the display lag. Games that use time between top of frame and photodiode activation (Operation Wolf, Zap Ruder, Action 53 menu) won't work at all.
Spork Schivago wrote:
tepples wrote:
If the Classic Controller works, an adapter to plug an original NES or Super NES controller into the far end of a Wii Remote should also work. These include the
Mayflash adapter and the
Raphnet adapter.
The Zapper will not work. The NES Classic Edition's video output is HDMI, and TVs that display HDMI don't output scanlines at the 15.7 kHz frequency that the Zapper's decoder IC expects.
Thank you. Are you sure about the scanline part? From what I've read, it's more of a timing issue. The Zapper looks for the white squares ~16MS after pulling the trigger, modern day TVs will show it maybe ~70MS after pulling the trigger...
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/16/resurrecting-duckhunt/There's been a bunch of threads on this. Here's a recent one:
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14626You have to solve
two issues to get Duck Hunt to work. The timing delay is one issue. Getting the zapper to detect your light source is a second issue.
Basically it doesn't respond to a light source that isn't turning on and off 15,000 times a second. Your human eye can't really tell the difference between a CRT's very brief and very bright flash across a scanline, and your LCD's much longer held, much dimmer pixels, but the zapper's sensor is designed to do exactly that. (They didn't want false positives from lightbulbs, white walls, or other low frequency light sources.) You need a CRT to use the zapper.
The delay is a separate issue that you
could reprogram Duck Hunt or other software to work with. If you somehow solved the light sensor issue, you can make Duck Hunt detect a few frames longer, or calibrate it to the exact delay of your monitor, etc.
Instead of that link you provided that only asks questions, here's someone who actually solved both problems by completely bypassing the light sensor and reading the composite video signal directly:
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/30/tricking ... tv-as-crt/This isn't at all relevant to trying to get it to work with the mini NES though. To do that you'd really just have to reprogram the emulator it uses (and again, the Zapper light sensor is useless, so you'd really need to use a wiimote or something else instead).
Linked, the site that give access to the OSS files used in the NES classic edition.
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/support/oss/#otherIt seems someone ran linux on it.
rainwarrior wrote:
Spork Schivago wrote:
tepples wrote:
If the Classic Controller works, an adapter to plug an original NES or Super NES controller into the far end of a Wii Remote should also work. These include the
Mayflash adapter and the
Raphnet adapter.
The Zapper will not work. The NES Classic Edition's video output is HDMI, and TVs that display HDMI don't output scanlines at the 15.7 kHz frequency that the Zapper's decoder IC expects.
Thank you. Are you sure about the scanline part? From what I've read, it's more of a timing issue. The Zapper looks for the white squares ~16MS after pulling the trigger, modern day TVs will show it maybe ~70MS after pulling the trigger...
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/16/resurrecting-duckhunt/...Basically it doesn't respond to a light source that isn't turning on and off 15,000 times a second. Your human eye can't really tell the difference between a CRT's very brief and very bright flash across a scanline, and your LCD's much longer held, much dimmer pixels, but the zapper's sensor is designed to do exactly that. (They didn't want false positives from lightbulbs, white walls, or other low frequency light sources.) You need a CRT to use the zapper...
So it's just not a timing issue then. I was hoping we could just slow down when the diode looks for the white square, without having to modifying the NES or the ROMs at all, but that sounds like it won't work. Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me.
rainwarrior wrote:
...someone who actually solved both problems by completely bypassing the light sensor and reading the composite video signal directly:
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/30/tricking ... tv-as-crt/...
Thanks! I didn't look too hard, because I'm working on other things right now. I want to try and extract at least one ROM from my NES Classic. Then, maybe I'll work on trying to replace that ROM with another ROM. I've got the RS232 to TTL adapter soldered to my NES Classic, I got my RS232 to USB adapter hooked to the RS232 to TTL shifter...I haven't turned on my Linux box since we bought the house and moved in. My wife had a baby back on October 15th, 2016 and you'd be surprised how little free time a person has once they have a newborn to look after. Because I have to have my box hooked to the internet, I want to fully update it first, before I begin downloading the u-boot stuff and messing around.
I'll dump the RAM first and go from there I guess. If you want, I can keep you posted on my progress here.
Does the original NES controller PCB fit with into the new NES Classic controller mold, anyone tested this yet?
I bought the Yok brand controller:
http://www.gamestop.com/nes/accessories ... ler/138482Being third party, I had my doubts about its functionality. But after playing with it, I have no problems with how it feels.
However, for some reason it doesn't work on the Legend of Zelda (Virtual Console - NES) at all. The Wii Classic Controller works fine, and the Yok controller works on Sonic the Hedgehog (Virtual Console - SMS) and on Mega Man 9, which is the main reason I bought this controller.
I tried switching out the Classic Controller for the Yok one while Zelda is on and still get this problem--it just doesn't work. I can switch the Classic Controller back in and that works fine. I don't get it.
Has anyone else had any issues with any other gamepads? Or is this just Zelda or something? Does the official NES Classic gamepad have this issue?
maseter wrote:
Does the original NES controller PCB fit with into the new NES Classic controller mold, anyone tested this yet?
I was told that it does. I could try this with the Yok gamepad if you'd like to know...
They really love to piss their customers off for no reason, it seems. Why?
I ordered mine months ago, way before release. I still haven't got one.
I finally folded after all this time when the news broke. I got an overpriced mini on ebay... Scalpers win.
Unfortunatelly, even liking Nintendo, I have to agree with this writter here:
http://www.polygon.com/2016/11/11/13597 ... n-shortage
Only a month after the switch launch, the classic gets canned...
To me it seems like the NES classic was just a PR drive for Nintendo prior to switch launch. They never really cared about the NES classic as a product. If they cared about making money off the classic they would have ramped supplies better, and created a means to sell games digitally with it. And they certainly wouldn't trash a hot selling product 6 months after release. They only cared about gaining media spot light and getting people to start talking about Nintendo again prior to their next console launch. My most measures they succeeded. Thats the only thing that really makes sense of why the NES classic was never intended to be a long term product in my mind.
to play Devil's Advocate…
Alternately, people discovering how to load other games on it meant it lowered the price bar for VC piracy…and, by their own design, could not update to close such holes.
Alternately, Disney Movie Vault Strategy.
Alternately, like with the "Classic NES series" for e-Reader and later standalone GBA, a bellwether.
(Expect a SNES Classic Edition in a few years.)
Alternately Alternately Out of Left Field, they're going to release a NES-101 Classic Edition.
If I were one of the Nintendo's shareholders I would be pissed off!!
Specially if what the Pat the NES punk says on his
video about it is real.
In his calculations he says the big N could get around 1 billion dollars in about a year with the NES Calssic.
Well, I guess it's for good, since you can get a Raspberry Pi on a nice case for about half of the price.
And AFAIK the Raspberry is very easy to add extra functionality.
The effort they put in to disappoint their customers is absurd..
Rumors of SNES classic this year.The rumor sounds a little more legit than the "wouldn't it be awesome if they made a SNES classic," when the NES Classic was announced.
Gotta love the logic used in that article:
Quote:
the SNES arguably boasts the better software line-up, and a catalogue of classics far more advanced than their NES forebears. Compare The Legend of Zelda on NES to A Link to the Past, for example, or Donkey Kong to Donkey Kong Country.
This basically says that ceasing production of the NES mini is a good thing, because we're getting the SNES mini instead, defending the notion that "newer is better", which totally goes against the very nature of these products. If you think newer is better, go play the Switch and stop writing bullshit.
The NES mini sold well because people like the games, regardless of what came after. SNES games are pretty cool too, but they aren't always objectively better and they don't automatically eliminate the enjoyment of everything that came before.
If it has Mario RPG and a few other good titles, I'd get one.
I've already got my
GBA mini. It even will open and hold a GBA cart!
Totally agree with Tokumaru's point!
If newer is better, there wouldn't be many sales on Atari flashback, many retro consoles or even the anouncement of the new MegaDrive!
Sites like NesDev, Sega16 and many others dedicated to discuss retrogames wouldn't exist either.
Also, the WiiU, while considerably better than the Wii, was a comercial failure.
I managed to snag a Famicom Mini, the Japanese version of the NES Classic Edition.
Like the original HVC001, it's controllers are hardwired to the console, connected via a JST 1.5mm 6 pin connector although only 4 wires are connected.
The main problem is the controllers are only 3 feet long. On the NES version, you can simply buy extention cables and problem solved.
I'd like to cut the stock 3 foot cable and replace it with a 6 or perhaps even a 10 foot cable using a donor USB cable. That has four wires, so it should work, should it not?
I also wonder about the possibility of adding a Wiimote expansion port from an extention cable to the mock expansion port located on the mini. Do JST Y connector cables exist? Is it okay to split controller signals in series like that, so that the signal could go to both the player 1 stock controller and a Wii Classic Controller if connected?
The protocol on the wire is I²C, which is comparatively tolerant of bad routing, including forks in the path. It is asking for trouble, though.
I don't think a pre-existing {Wii nunchuk} to {JST} adapter exists, but there's no reason you couldn't build your own.
I'm of course talking about soldering my own JST to Wii Classic adapter like this guy did.
http://i.imgur.com/3HyK0Qc.jpgBut having the connection fork to the stock controller as well.
When you say it is comparatively tolerant of bad routing and asking for trouble, what do you mean? If it's not going to work correctly, then I don't see the point in doing the mod.
Basically, the amount of branching wire you can get away depends on the lengths of the branches and the frequencies involved. A very short Y such as perhaps 6 inches, when used at the 400kHz frequency that's used by the Nunchuk, will be assuredly functional.
On the other hand, two 10 foot long tails after the branch ... that's asking for it to be unreliable.
Hey all,
I am new here and I created an account just to see if anyone would be wiling to help me.
I have successfully soldered a carrier in place of the Flash chip on the nes classic and I can swap chips in and out. I have a chip that is 4x the size of the original (Same die, just more storage) and I am trying to figure out how to copy the original information on the chip over to the new one.
I have UART, and everything ready but using it and the commands is far above anything I have done before. Is there anyone in here that might be able to help me finish this project up?
Thanks,
Wow, I'd like to see some images of what you did.
These are picture of the carrier open. I can swap the new chip and the original chip in and out. It still works and runs just fine with the original chip and it will load the kernel from hakchi just fine on the new one but it won't boot. Cluster told me I need to load the Nand and Uboot on the new one so I need to figure out how to get that done and then I can flash additional chips for people to get soldered on.
I know Uboot is in the source files from nintendo and I also know that the NAND has been decrypted by someone but doing all of that over the UART connection is way above my head. I need some guidance to help me get through it. I am not a Linux guy.