microchip life span + retro duo = crap

microchip life span + retro duo = crap
by GradualGames on 2009-08-15 (#49891)

This may seem a silly question, but I've been wondering how long will our toaster NES's last, despite our best efforts to maintain them? How long do microchips in general last? Assuming they continue to remain in a non hostile environment, temperature wise, etc.

I got a retro duo and I must say, I am very disappointed in the quality of the NES side. I thought I had heard several accounts of it being almost as good as the NES itself, and my god were they wrong. It's absolutely terrible (the sound, which is very important to me). Not only was the sound terrible, I had trouble getting the damn thing to boot. My toaster NES has less trouble than that, hardly any since I got the new 72 pin connector.

I was thinking that some day if it does stop working, I'll just have to stuff a PC or other computer hardware in the box and stick an nes emulator on it, to preserve the nostalgia =)

by Bregalad on 2009-08-15 (#49899)

The most sensible part of NES hardware is without a doubt its crappy connector. Then comes the controllers which can be damaged if one doesn't keep much care. Maybe the TV RF modulator would come next. I'm pretty sure the CPU and PPU and other 74 chips are really robust and won't break before say 100 years if you don't do anything bad to them. Electronics were just SO more robusts in the 80s than they are nowdays tiny SMD crap which breaks after 2 years.
Also electrolytic capacitors tends to dry out but they can be easily replaced.

And yeah that's basically one of the reasons why we have emulators, one day all NESes in the world won't work any longer, and we'd be glad to still play NES games.

by GradualGames on 2009-08-16 (#49910)

It would be cool if by then the hardware had been cloned 100% accurately. Either that or someone will have produced a board which is a more powerful modern computer totally dedicated to running an on-board copy of Nestopia or something like that. Seems like it might not be difficult to build a PC which boots linux and just enough software to run a NES emulator or something. Esp. when solid-state hard drives become more prevalent, then it might boot really quickly. Haha, well hopefully this won't be much of a concern since I'll probably be dead before the NES stops working completely. Fun to think about though.

by tepples on 2009-08-16 (#49913)

ZomCoder: The "more powerful modern computer" you speak of is called a "Wii console with Wii Shop Channel".

by Zepper on 2009-08-16 (#49915)

- deleted -

by GradualGames on 2009-08-16 (#49925)

Hahaha, I like the idea of hacked hobby machines though that we have total control over (like mame cabinets, or stuffing a PC inside a NES as in this post). A Wii is great and all but I wouldn't want to pay 10$ a pop for games I already own or can buy used for 2 or 5$.

by tepples on 2009-08-16 (#49927)

ZomCoder wrote:
A Wii is great and all but I wouldn't want to pay 10$ a pop for games I already own or can buy used for 2 or 5$.

Until the 2080s, there are two lawful options: re-buying or a 72-pin connector, and Bregalad has already ruled out the 72-pin connector as too sensitive.

Random English lesson: "Sensible" means that something makes sense, like the top-loader connector. "Sensitive" means delicate or touchy, like the front-loader connector. It appears that European languages use sensible (French or Spanish) or something similar (e.g. Portuguese sensível) to mean "sensitive".

by miau on 2009-08-16 (#49928)

I've thought about building a tiny emulator box as well. Not necessarily in an NES case, though. Shouldn't be that expensive. A small amount of ram, a relatively weak processor, TV out, USB ports... Instead of a mechanical HDD or an SSD I'd preferably let it boot off a CF card if that's possible. Cheaper and easily available in smaller sizes while still not too slow.

How long would booting a minimal linux system take if you disabled all unnecessary kernel options and skip services and programs you don't need? Not more than a few seconds I'd hope.

If not then you might consider using hibernation mode instead of completely shutting down/booting the OS each time. Should be fairly fast since you won't need to have a lot of ram anyway for a minimal OS that isn't really expected to do much multi-tasking and only run a few emulators.

Just brainstorming. I've been looking at tiny mainboards and weaker, low-power-consumption CPUs in the past, but I'm still missing a bit of essential information, so I better do some more research first.

by tepples on 2009-08-16 (#49929)

miau wrote:
I've thought about building a tiny emulator box as well. Not necessarily in an NES case, though. Shouldn't be that expensive. A small amount of ram, a relatively weak processor, TV out, USB ports

Something like the BeagleBoard or Pandora? But then the OMAP3 CPU on those is probably overkill if you aren't going to be emulating anything more powerful than a Super NES.

Quote:
Instead of a mechanical HDD or an SSD I'd preferably let it boot off a CF card if that's possible.

CF is an SSD. Adapters to plug a CF card into an ATA cable have been around for years.

Quote:
How long would booting a minimal linux system take if you disabled all unnecessary kernel options and skip services and programs you don't need?

A modified Fedora takes five seconds from the end of POST to a desktop session in XFCE ready for use.

by miau on 2009-08-17 (#49939)

tepples wrote:
Quote:
Instead of a mechanical HDD or an SSD I'd preferably let it boot off a CF card if that's possible.

CF is an SSD. Adapters to plug a CF card into an ATA cable have been around for years.

Didn't even think about that - makes things considerably easier.

tepples wrote:
miau wrote:
I've thought about building a tiny emulator box as well. Not necessarily in an NES case, though. Shouldn't be that expensive. A small amount of ram, a relatively weak processor, TV out, USB ports

Something like the BeagleBoard or Pandora? But then the OMAP3 CPU on those is probably overkill if you aren't going to be emulating anything more powerful than a Super NES.

Never hurts to be able to do a few more things. But then, too bad the BeagleBoard doesn't seem to have RJ45.
Anyway, you've pointed me in the right direction. I hadn't even considered going with an ARM-based system, but now it sounds tempting, I don't see any real drawbacks. After a bit of googling I found similar/less powerful boards.

Since accurate emulators such as Nestopia are quite CPU-hungry I feel I shouldn't go for a much weaker processor, though. After all I can't really be sure how well these emulators would perform on a system like this unless I've tried.

by GradualGames on 2009-08-17 (#49940)

That sounds like a fun project. I think I may attempt it some day. Since my toaster nes still works perfectly though I don't think I'll try it just yet. I think it'd be fun to try to make this emu system look as much like the NES as possible, but make it out of wood or something =).
*edit* It'd also be cool to wire it up that it could read cartridges, as well as ROMs that it may store on its solid-state hard drive.

Has Nestopia been ported to ARM?

by miau on 2009-08-17 (#49945)

ZomCoder wrote:
*edit* It'd also be cool to wire it up that it could read cartridges, as well as ROMs that it may store on its solid-state hard drive

And, mentioning it for completeness' sake, don't forget about the original controller ports.
Nintendo's peripherals seem to be very robust. Looks like they will still exist in a few million years.

ZomCoder wrote:
Has Nestopia been ported to ARM?

It's open source and compiles on Linux from what I can remember. Are parts of the code written in x86 ASM?