calima wrote:
Clearly we need a text-only rendering of the forums so you can browse on a NES. (maybe I misunderstood and that's what you meant, instead of a new system?)
I do mean a new system. A forum viewer on NES would be awesome though, I can think of 2 ways it'd be done.
1) A full-blown web browser. There is Contiki, the first release version was able to be built for NES but I don't think anyone actually was able to really test it on NES (this was way back when CC65's NES I/O library (CONIO specifically) was too broken to work on the real system), but I know it's worked for C64 and other systems. I don't have enough time to even start digging into that, unfortunately. Contiki still exists, but I think later versions had moved well beyond compatibility with 6502-based systems. In the end, phpBB would probably look like crap, though! But the whole web would be there, the "classical" web at least, without javascript and flash.. and images.
2) Converting the database into something the NES could easily display and navigate. This doesn't sound too hard if it's kept simple. Like not even trying to write data back into the actual forum database, no logging in, posting, PMs, etc, since that's practically re-implementing phpBB from scratch, rather just an entirely separate reader with it's own DB generated/converted from the forum DB.. Even still I imagine there must be something about it that would be harder than it sounds. But I know next to nothing about using databases.
Anyways, if someone was crazy enough to take one of those challenges, I'd definitely be willing to help out where I can, which would be moving data between the NES<->PC<->Internet.
Actually since I brought it up anyways, I might as well lay out what I've got. It's currently an extremely simple proof-of-concept type thing, but my NES (through my PC) can connect to an FTP server and download an NES ROM onto my GTROM board. First application will be for downloading updates for the GTROM bootloader. And the obvious next step is to make a file selector/browser, so you can see some text descriptions and pick a file. It's entirely possible for the NES to upload data to FTP as well, just haven't needed to try that part yet. Online NES multiplayer, at least for turn-based games, is within reach.
I'm sure I could easily use telnet the same way I'm using FTP.
thefox wrote:
I always thought it would be funny to have a remote controllable NES. Upload a ROM, watch the video stream and control it in the browser.
I've also always thought that would be really cool. Actually now with kevtris' hdmi mod, it might be possible to return some really clean video and audio..! Though that's definitely not as funny as seeing it running on someone's TV. I wouldn't know how to set up the video streaming or controller input (or web interface for those), but what I've got already is pretty close to being able to do the NES part, at least. Other than my NES needing to be manually reset. I can imagine some hacky ways to do it:
1) NES bootloader hijacks NMI routine so it can check FTP server periodically to see if there's a newer file uploaded
or
2) instead of hijacking NMI (and messing up the code being tested), a dumb timer circuit resets the NES and the bootloader checks the FTP server and reloads if there's something newer. This method is safer if the NES program crashes (or doesn't use NMI to begin with).
I never thought about it before, but I suppose with some of the weird unemulated mappers I've come up with, this would be a way for someone to take them for a test drive.
