@@G4rg4m31_ he's too powerful as it is. If he was in more videos, Anthony would completely take over the Linus Media Group since no one else can compare.
@Vejo Sons Ouço Cores Jake is pretty knowledgeable. Internally, maybe they have someone they look to that isn't on camera, but Anthony is who I'd pick as most well learned, hehe.
Hm and Jake both, Anthony comes off as humble but well informed and an easy to understand way of explaining things where as I'd say Jake's more funny and loud rather than humble while still having the other two. Both perfect for the channel imo.
I just learned that the NES (the American version of the Famicom) has the internal push down cartridge slot design because they wanted to make it look more like a VCR, so adults would consider it a permanent fixture in their entertainment centers, and not just a toy that you sometimes get out and play on like the old Atari systems.
Hm, that's interesting. I never made the connection to a VCR. But I've been very young when we still used VCRs and they had autoloading mechanisms if I recall correctly. Weird that they styled the NES with this neat off-white and gray color scheme then, instead of making it a bland black or silver box like most VCRs I've seen 🤔
@alexojideagu1831 Probably because the Atari 5200 and the Atari 7800 were black, and the Colecovision was black and aluminum. Nintendo wanted to be as far away from those products as possible.
@@imnotbenavery9220 I just used it on NES because I didn't know any better. I believe I switched it up with the SNES to the better A/V out. But then that was also automatic/not thought out because the TV had the inputs and I put 2+2 together. Pretty sure the N64 came with the same or similar A/V out cables as the SNES.
I didn't know anything else existed for the longest time. I never got past an ATARI VCS and the NES's I did play were all RF hookups because nobody had "modern" CRT's with RCA
Throwback to the 80's... I remember quite a few electronics actually had the schematics included in the manual. Would've been cool if the cartridge had been parallel with the console to keep height in check. LOVED the degauss effect at 7:45. Props to whoever thought of that
*_DAMN young'un_* retro enthusiasts!......which I gather from the lack of degauss comments. Being interested in history without familiarity of EVERY NUANCE folks in that era grew up with!
Too bad about the typical gamer myopia on how business works. Famicom was in the production until 2003, while all the nerds are making noise about a handful of million sales in "up to date" proprietary harware, like they SHOULDN'T be still in production after 5 years. Nintendo had 20 years of NES, but now a bunch of enttiled gamers are raising hell every year Switch isn't discarded as obsolete, because they've been raised on iPhone logic, and on Apple paying its Foxconn taxes towards US wealth. Calling NES "retro" is part of the culture of fast fashion. OF COURSE it's still available adn there's "clone" chips, it's astounding how people often call nintendo anti-consumer, when they keep begging for planned obsolescence by their OWN volition.
Gotta be honest the lack of hdmi kinda broke my heart until I realized that wasn't what this project was. Many clones and alternatives with hdmi exist. I think this is super cool.
There is a mod available to allow for hdmi output on the stock NES. However it appears to be a pretty involved installation where you have to unsolder the CPU and PPU, then solder the mod into the the space where both were, then add the CPU and PPU back in. I did an RGB mod on mine where I only had to unsolder the PPU and that took me ages already.
@@DrNoBrazil what? This is a video by Anthony and not Linus! Anthony definitely has knowledge about retro gaming. I wish he would report more on retro PCs also..
I saw one of Anthony’s MacBook Pro videos last night and it was my first time on this channel. I immediately started binging this guys videos. I don’t know what it is about his delivery but it’s like both so funny and low key but also so insightful in a “I love this stuff and know it like the back of my hand” kind of way.
Some earlier NES games had Famicom adaptors right in them. Gyromite usually being one of the titles well known for including one. I imagine you could use one of them in the TinyNES.
On the shelf in the background. There is what looks to be a linus cutout wearing a mic? With the lighting like that, it kinda looks like a very infamous moustache.
I actually love that he's NOT recommending it. 229 $ + shipping is really steep for a small form factor NES. Thanks for the video and thanks for being always honest with your opinions Anthony :D
I mean it would be really hard to recommend this: You don't have space for a console (/console collection), but insist on playing on original hardware anyway and can afford to pay a good premium over an original NES? Maybe there's three people out there who need this exact solution, but for anyone else, I think the fact that it's neither cheaper than a fully original NES, nor offers any modern features the NES lacks, is kind of a deal breaker.
Cool idea, but for around the same price you can get an FPGA/HDMI NES console with the Retro USB AVS system, though you will have to wait until the summer do to shipping issues over this past year.
I may be wrong, but I think the TRRS splitter let's you split the two internal analog audio channels, not internal and cart audio. I think only the bottom pot does that. PS: For the unaware, the NES is meant to have mono audio, but has two separate sets of audio outputs that get mixed together as mono before it gets to the audio jack on the back. It's just coincidence that the audio channels get split into two outputs. It's not Stereo.
Fun fact about the Game Genie is that the PCB is actually thicker than a standard cartridge. This was to take up the gap in the original 72 pin connector that would otherwise be there because when the Game Genie is used you can't push down that internal mechanism. Pushing the cartridge down angles the game PCB in the connector and makes the connection tighter. This also caused the pins of the connector to be bent back over time and cause the flashing red light you typically get on an original NES. Anyway, that is why it was so hard to take out. There actually exists a special top loader version of the Game Genie with a thinner PCB but they are quite rare and I haven't been able to find one.
10:43 It looks like Anthony may of hit the reset button his hand was close to the back of it as he was pushing in the dongle, you may accidentally hit the reset switch
12:42 cartridge version didnt have expansion audio, but the Famicom Disk System release had expansion audio (since the floppy could hold a lot more data)
This is one of those things that's right there in front of you, but just feels so... distant. It's like looking in a mirror but your face isn't yours. It's like looking at a photo of you from 5 years ago. You thought you always looked like that, but you changed so much. Just the speed at which you change makes it feel the same. Like watching a plant grow, it's always getting slightly bigger, but you only notice it when you're not trying to see it grow. You have hundreds of thousands of memories, even millions, that have been lost or distorted over time. You think that's how it was, but it's changed in your mind. I recently saw a picture of me in our old home, and it looked so different than i remember it. The door was dirtier, the mirror was plain with no special design, the floor was covered in toys and had some scratches/marks here and there. The only thing I could recognize fully was the dining room table set, and that's only because I'm looking at it right here where I sit in the house we live in now. I don't know if I remember my cat or two dogs as I think I do. I just feel like there are so many memories I thought "I'm going to remember this for life, this is awesome" and merely months later so many details were lost. Was that light always so yellow? Did the pavement really look so bright? Why is that pot brown now? That's how it was, it just warped in my mind. Watching this video, it made me realize that though I don't have anything wrong with my memory like dementia, we all have roughly the same effect, just slower and less powerful. My great grandmother is slowly losing her memory. Every day her son (my grandpa) goes over to visit her (she lives just a few minutes of walking away, the car drive is literally no seat belt needed) and take care of her. Half the time she doesn't even remember his name, sometimes not even who he is. She fell and went unconscious and had to go to the hospital, and the next day she almost successfully walked out because she thought she was there for a pill or some kind of minor injury like a scratch aeven though she damaged her leg pretty heavily. It's scary that we will all eventually forget everything we've ever known. This very comment, I may think about for a while, eventually I will find it again and NOTHING from this I'll remember typing. I may never think about this again. I remember walking to kindergarten with my mom one day, and passing an iron-bar fence of another kindergarten the sun/shade flashed through the bars and kind of blinded me every time I walked past a bar. That memory stuck with me for years, every single day I would think about it and try to remember it. Slowly I realized I only thought about it every couple weeks. Then it completely slipped out of my mind for at least a few months before I was on a call with my grandma (not great grandma, just grandma who is still healthy) and she talked about how that place was changing into a playground. I will NEVER get to go back there and recreate the memory. I will forget about something I thought about for so long like it never existed. That's what is scary about this video. You forget everything you've ever loved slowly slowly until it doesn't exist. Your dog, your friends, the doors, the details of the house, you forget EVERYTHING. I remember a few days before we moved out I looked at 2 of the paintings and went "this is something I will keep with me forever"... yeah I don't remember a single detail of the painting, not the color of the frame, not where it is on the wall, nothing about it. I just know the general thing and that's it, just like the player in this video only ever remembering the house, which is the most memorable thing they have. Sorry if this comment was long. I just needed to express my thoughts about memory loss. Treasure EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING you have INCLUDING the random things like a flower pot or a cup, because it's going to be one of the only things you could remember. If you have a pet, or a friend, or family member, be with them. They won't last forever and you would hate if you forgot them. My golden doggo laying on the floor next to me sleeping is something I think is cute now but I wish I would remember it when she's gone. Treasure. Everything.
Very cool way to up-cycle original Nintendo chips, but the price point is waaaayy too expensive. I agree that a Raspberry Pi is a better option, especially if you already have one.
CC BY-SA actually is an open source/free culture license, it's just more applicable to hardware than the GPL. Functionally it's the same as the GPL, just useful for more than software/code. Of course the CPU and PPU are still proprietary but the design of the TinyNES itself is as close to "open source" as is possible when there's no source. Also that cartridge latch is meant to be attached to the screws on the top of the console, which is what they provided the Allen wrench for.
Kinda sad they didn't make it the exact same form factor as a game cartridge, so you plug your cartridge into a cartridge, and then the cartridge into the TV.
@@destructodisk9074 I know, usually as one-off projects. Would have been cool for a commercially available one or even as a kit, for a cartridge console
RaspberryPi + RetroPie has been a fantastic piece of kit so far, in a custom NES case....My son who is really in Retro gaming recently, really loves it. 80's/90's gaming for the win!
Anthony is the type of guy you'd invite over for a night of pizza and retro games, have a blast, not sleep, and then have to stop the game at 8 the next morning for work.
it doesnt really have competition because it uses the original chips. everything like it isnt being made anymore. the only comparable console is the original analogue nt because that was also a nes with a new circuit board but it was discontinued years ago
@@masterninjahh It's generally accepted that FPGA systems are functionally identical to real hardware. And with the HDMI it's going to look better than anything than an NT or HiDefNES modded system, niether of which you can get anymore.
@@ridingnerdy6406 the only way to get 100% compatibility with HDMI is the hi def nes. No fpga implementation is 100% but they are close. I've been using fpga consoles from when they first came around and stay up to date on the hobby. That being said I play on the nt mini noir because it has interpolation unlike the hi def nes, it just has some bugs that need fixing
It's a cool kit but I really dont like the systems that gut real hardware, especially with the other options now. I'd agree with Anthony, get a Mister from Terasic or even start with a raspberry Pi, if they aren't still scalped. Theres tons of ways to play NES now with hdmi or rgb easily.
why do you care if you play on mister. the nes is one of the best selling consoles of all time. 1000 getting gutted out of the millions made wont even make a dent in the number still in the wild
I know a guy who used one of those 40 pin atmega microcontrollers to read and intepret data from NES cards, for his internship project in embedded systems. I don't know how far he got with it, but I know he was able to pull some of the sprites and level textures. Same guy built a retro pi for the school, with two arduinos as usb controllers.
I appreciate that you give an honest answer about whether you recommend people should buy it. On some of the other sponsored items, the messaging can be (understandably)... confusing, when compared to the quality and usefulness of the product.
I feel like for that kind of money you're much better off importing an AV Famicom from Japan and getting an adapter for NES games you can easily get a full AV Famicom setup for well under $200 right now and it's honestly one of the best official 8-bit consoles Nintendo released during the initial run of the Famicom and NES
The NES is a classic master piece and a testiment to how they used to build them to last at 40 years old gotta love it. in the UK there are Nes minis and its just not the same.
I'll be honest and say I don't really understand who this is for. When it comes to playing NES games today, there's definitely a bit of a debate between the quality of life features like hdmi and better colors that can be added by aftermarket consoles and emulation and the authenticity you get playing "the game as it was intended" or how you'd remember it on an original console with a crt screen. I don't think this works for either of those groups - it doesn't really have any of those nice qol features that couldn't be added to an original NES besides portability (and, given the size of NES cartridges, that's questionable) but, at the same time, I also can't imagine that anyone who cares about authenticity or the console's history enough to want to play the games on original hardware would also be cool with completely getting rid of the iconic shell if it means harvesting and discarding an existing, working NES.
@@charlesdodimead5658 Yes but it offers no better quality or any better in flat screens than the original hardware. So why not just have an actual NES system. That has zero input lag as well. The only thing it does is shrink the original hardware and nothing else. It doesn't offer anything more than what you get by having the original console.
Totally agree. I posted a comment trying to explain why there was so much space inside the console, but I steered clear of taking them to task for chucking a perfectly good NES case, 'cause, I thought, "wrong audience." I mean, it's called retrobright. It's not expensive! :D That said, I do see a small niche market for this: people whose chassis was damaged beyond repair (driven over, what have you). Myself, I would rather have a reproduction case, like the new Amiga 500 cases released a while back, but having any chassis to hold my NES's guts would be better than none. :)
Yes, NES carts are annoyingly big. But you typically only need one FPGA flash cart, like the Everdrive N8 Pro and you can run almost any software you want. There's little point in using original carts with this thing. I'm probably in a niche-within-a-niche audience, but this is item is just perfect for me. I write code for the NES from time to time, and like to explore new graphics tricks for the system that go beyond what original games did. Emulators are still not accurate enough here. The NESRGB and HiDef-NES mods also have known compatibility problems, and some of the graphics tricks I've developed (mainly mid-frame palette changes) completely break their behaviour. But so far, the TinyNES has behaved identically to a real NES in every regard. Which is just what I hoped for, given it uses the original CPU / PPU chips. With a USB composite capture card, it completes the set. I don't even need a TV for testing - just my laptop. So I can actually pack a "real" NES into my laptop bag if I go travelling and still want to do some NES development away from home. That's a big quality-of-life improvement no other system has been able to deliver :)
Very cool, for around 100$...maybe. At the current price you can get an fpga Analogue Super NT or Mega SG which are nearly the same size, works with all carts (usa/Japan) no adapter, have HDMI, perfect RGB, jailbreak for other cores etc...
I have been visiting this site off and on for 3 years NOT because I'm interested in the products but to see Anthony and observe his health (or lack of it).
Still have my original and wont swap out the pins either, i fell the ppl that swap out there original 72 pin connectors lost the value of the console. Keep the original pins ppl! You will thank me 20 years from now
I was going to ask why do they have an image of Hitler in the background shelf? That hair, that mustache. I realized it is a Linus mask with the mouth cut out. 😂
Looks kinda neat. I have an AV Famicom toploader from Japan though, so I'm set. You should always use original hardware when possible. NES composite is actually super clean to me as well
This thing is a bit silly i think, shrinking it down makes little sense when it makes you lose the ability to put in an NESRGB or Hi-DEF Nes to get it connect and look good on a modern TV, cannibalizing rare hardware like a Playchoice 10 to get it's RGB PPU was something that was finally something of the past with all these new mods. These mods also don't take up much space at all in the console, it would probably fit in this shell, so it's sad they didn't incorporate support for it. Having to still use composite mostly also means you probably need a CRT to make it look ok, and at that point... is a normal NES or Top loader really that big? I don't see how this is a better alternative to getting an RGB modded one of those. Even people that don't mind composite are gonna have a tough time getting this hooked up to a modern TV.. I think this could be super cool if they prebuilt it with NESRGB or Hi-DEF NES so it would be an easy and minimalistic thing for people to buy that don't wanna deal with installing it themselves.
I think the biggest draw for this little box would be if it could be used to give a NES with massive board damage a second life, if the CPU and PPU survived but large parts of the rest aren't salvageable. But otherwise it really mostly seems like a passion project that took form because it's a neat little curiosity.
@@RAHelllord There’s complete redesigns of the board like the OpenTendo and the NEScessity that do exactly that whilst still fitting in an original case and having the option for any mods you could ever wanna do. This kind of just takes working chips and locks them into being composite only which I think is a little silly.
I'm so old I used to play on a Atari 2600 Console and loved the game Pitfall but this brings back memories also. Now I play on two different beast gaming rigs OMG how things have changed
Long live Anthony! You just KNOW it's gonna be a good video when you see his lovely face in the thumbnail! Great video as always, very interesting project.
The glorious return of Retro Time, just in time for the new year. That aside, it’s always mystified me as a kid why they have entirely separate cartridge formats for different regions.
I think the story goes that gaming wasnt doing well in US, so ninty made the NES extra chonky and front load to try to emulate the look / feel of a VHS player
Japanese cartridges are different because they don't have the lockout chip that Nintendo used to combat piracy, and because Nintendo were pretty confident that they were going to release the floppy disk adapter in the US, which was the only product at the time to use expansion audio, they moved the audio input to the little port on the bottom of the NES.
4:30 I wish every company did this. I'm not going to rebuild a replica of the console, I just want to see how it works and maybe fix something that might break when the company isn't able to provide support
I honestly thought the whole point of having physical hardware instead of just emulating was to... Keep the old hardware. I don't like that shrunk down, modern look. If I'm gonna have an NES, I want an NES, not the board in a smaller; minimalist box.
@@Jaibuuuu 180$ for the base Device Order from terrastic(the makers of the FPGA its the DE10 Nano Board) themselves and the ram is 128MB I have seen them for about 50$
The PAL / NTSC difference in the original console were no problem at all. There was a simple mod, a tiny chip and switch to sodder on the console and it could run both PAL / NTSC Games. It was actually that easy that I did this mod back in the days myself when I was only 12 years old. The bigger challenge was, that the NA cartridges were just stupidly big, so you had to widen the slot in the console with a saw. (The EU PAL Version was a top loader like the JP SF)
Nail it to the table? Alternatively you could get a wireless controller for it. I bet that thing can handle that 8bitdo N30 controller, both the bluetooth and 2.4g versions.
Is it just me or is Anthony way taller than I realized The original NES looks pretty tiny in his hands and I remember it being a pretty good size. Then again I haven't held one in decades
The fact that they're scavenging chips out of the original machines i think it's insane and horrible, I hope not many people do that, in the interest of preservation. Thank goodness there's a possibility to build them without those original NES chips
You can use chips from an original Famicom--which is of limited usefulness since it only outputs RF on Japanese channels 1 and 2, and thus can only be used with a Japanese TV or a Cable-ready US TV. It also has pretty terrible video quality compared to the NES. They made at least 10 million of them and they're dirt cheap to import. Many are nearly completely destroyed but still have usable chips.
It's easy for people who were born far afterward to look back at the original NES and wonder about its size. Most of its "hollow" nature resulted from the need to accommodate cartridges inside the machine. The cartridges themselves were far larger than the circuit boards they held so they could fit inside as they did. Both of these were *deliberate* marketing decisions when Nintendo brought the console to the States. Interest in game consoles was extremely low in the US following a spate of poor quality Atari 2600 games flooding the market. People at Nintendo wanted their console to be seen as something new, rooted in something familiar and popular. So they marketed it as an "Entertainment System" rather than a game console, and they designed it so people fed it cartridges in much the same way they fed tapes to VCRs. Looking back, VCRs seem pretty hollow too, but I guess it's easier to see why?
Surprisingly, 9-volt AC was *very* common amongst consoles and home computers back in the '80s. I'm honestly not sure why, but a *bunch* of consoles and computers back then used it. Maybe in combination with other voltages, too, but 9VAC was very common.
It's not often that I have to correct Anthony about something factual, but it's actually a myth that there was a video game crash "in the west", unless "the west" is only the US and Canada. Europe was largely gaming on 8-bit home computers like the C64 (among others) at that time, Atari imploding didn't hurt the market all that much. That's also the reason why, regarding consoles, the Sega Master System did about as well as the NES. Therefore 16bit consoles butting heads was just round 2 in many European countries. And the PS1 hit much harder because there wasn't as much of a brand loyalty.
AT first I thought it was a cartridge that went into the NES. For a second I was kind of excited. Not sure why I would want a shrunk down console because any PC can do this just as good. Sad when a 3ds from cart would cost less and do more for the fans.
Pro Tip - USB-C 5V typically is NOT a USB-C power supply. More times than not only a USB-A to USB-C cable will work. So if your device comes with that cable, don't assume a C to C cable will also work.
This is an amazing concept! I just wish the price were a little lower. But to have the OG chips? It's kind of cool that way. Maaaaaybe worth it ... err ... if I still had my big ol' box of NES carts, which, sadly, I do not.
The separate audio channels is great for chiptune musicians, who want to mix the audio in post or live, to drop out certain channels while transitioning between songs. It can also be used to create some fake "stereo" effects.
You guys should start doing cable test results with the included cables. I know it might not actually matter in real world usage, but it still matters. Calling companies out like this might push them to be honest more.
