MaximRecoil

No, you don't, and in all likelihood, you're about as old or older than I am.

Anyone who has used an NES emulator (which have been around for about 20 years) on a PC has already seen how "glorious" that looks. Blocky graphics look like crap on high-resolution dispays; flat, lifeless, pasty, and with razor-sharp pixels which make everything look like it was made from Lego blocks. There's a reason that so many people who have built emulation-based arcade-style cabinets have gone to great effort and expense to be able to connect their PC to a 15 kHz CRT display. In any case, I just found out about this Nintendo plug-and-play, and I was very surprised that Nintendo would do such a thing; it is very out-of-character for them. Unfortunately, they didn't do it right from my perspective, so I won't be buying one. Had I worked for Nintendo and been in charge of this project, it would have been like this: 1. It would use real hardware, not emulation. In theory, Nintendo should be able to build a perfect NoaC, because it is their hardware design to begin with, i.e., they don't have to reverse-engineer anything. 2. It would have an expansion port into which an official cartridge adapter could be plugged, allowing you to play the original cartridges. When the cartridge adapter has a game cartridge inserted, the machine would boot directly to it like a real NES does; otherwise it would boot to the menu showing the built-in games. 3. An official HDMI-to-A/V adapter would be made available, and it would produce the same picture quality as the composite output on an original USA front-loader NES. I highly doubt that any aftermarket HDMI-to-A/V adapter would give you the same picture quality as an original NES, which is the best I've ever seen on any console. It blows the composite picture quality of an original Sega Genesis out of the water, for example. On a good quality CRT TV in good condition, "glorious" actually is a fitting term here. It is practically on par with component/RGB, which is an amazing achievement for lowly composite video. If it were like that, I'd definitely buy one. Even if you discard #1 I'd still buy one, provided the emulation was transparent enough (which means it would have to be better than any currently-available emulator). It's funny that the emulator has a simulated CRT scanlines option (which is never even remotely convincing), yet no official way to connect it to a real 15 kHz CRT. But either way, I already have an original front-loader NES which works flawlessly, first time, every time (and I know how to keep it working flawlessly), and I have a pair of NOS OEM controllers for it, so I'm not actually missing out on anything aside from the bargain-priced built-in games, which consists almost entirely of games that I either already have in original cartridge form or don't want anyway. The day that I have any interest whatsoever in playing classic video games on a digital TV/monitor is the day that pigs fly ... at Mach 20.

I have one of these. The bottom half of the shell isn't actually a standard light sixer part, but rather, it is a unique hybrid design which technically could be used for either a 4- or 6-switch model, though I don't know if they were ever used for any 6-switch models. Here's a thread I made about it. If anyone wants to see if their light sixer has one of these weird 4/6 hybrid shell bottoms, just look for a hole in it which you won't find in a standard light sixer shell bottom, and to further confirm it, take it apart and look for the posts inside (I point out the hole and posts in one of the pictures I posted in the thread I linked to).

I have too, but always in terms of modifying the OEM NES controller shells. Making new shells didn't seem feasible until several days ago when my friend said he was building a CNC router. I drew a D-pad and buttons to add to the model so I could see it assembled (if these ever get made I'll be reusing the OEM D-pad and buttons though): I don't intend for them to be glossy like that (they'll just have the as-is finish of a block of black Delrin, like so), but that was the only material and lighting option I could find in the render software that looked somewhat realistic (I have zero expertise when it comes to rendering software).

It involves replacing the stock cord with an Atari 7800 controller cord (I believe you could also use a Sega Genesis controller cord; Atari 2600 controller cords are usually missing some needed wires for 7800 functionality), removing the IC and cutting some traces on the PCB, adding two resistors and a jumper, and soldering the new cord's wires into the holes where the IC once was. He makes use of the Start and Select buttons (for rapid fire functionality), the holes for which I've eliminated in my shell design (and I don't like "turbo buttons" anyway). Also, I wouldn't use aftermarket innards; I like my controllers being OEM where it where it counts.

I have a pair of NES controllers that I converted for use with the Atari 2600 (and 7800). They work perfectly, but they still look like stock NES controllers, so I started working on it: Until a couple of days ago, I'd never done any 3D modeling, nor had I used AutoCAD before. However, I've done plenty of work in vector programs, particularly Abobe Illustrator, so I did all of the 2D drawing in Illustrator (getting all of my measurements from an OEM NES controller shell) and exported it to .DWG, and did the 3D work in AutoCAD. I made quite a few changes to the design of the OEM shell, mostly internal, because I was making it specifically for converted-to-Atari innards (the external dimensions and D-pad and buttons locations are the same as OEM though). Also, since the plan is for this to be machined from a solid block of material rather than injection molded like the originals, I decided to retain as much plastic as possible. In an additive process like injection molding, thicker walls cost more, but in a subtractive process such as machining, you've already paid for the block of material, so why waste it by going with thin walls? I plan to use black Delrin, which machines beautifully, and which is particularly dense for plastic (1.42 g/cm3, vs. 1.14 g/cm3 for the some-flavor-of-nylon used for the OEM shells), and that high density combined with very thick walls, means these controllers will have a very substantial feel; they will weigh about 7½ oz. each including the cord, vs. 4½ oz. including the cord for an NES-to-Atari controller in the OEM shell, and 6½ oz. for a standard Atari CX-40 joystick with cord. There's no guarantee that this will ever see the light of day, but my friend just sent me a picture of the pile of parts on the floor that arrived today; parts for building a CNC router, so that's a good sign.

At best it matches the FW900 in some ways. It is OLED so it generates its own light, which puts it on par with a CRT in that respect (generating its own light is the key to true blacks / high contrast ratios and no color shifts when the viewing angle changes), and beats LCD. However, the FW900 is capable of higher resolution (2304 x 1440 vs. 1920 x 1080), not that it matters at that screen size for e.g., watching movies, but it could come in handy for various computer applications. But more importantly, the FW900 can natively sync to a wide range of resolutions, and look perfect doing so, which is an advantage that CRTs will always inherently have over any and all digital displays, which by nature have a single fixed resolution, and the only way to make other resolutions fill the screen is through scaling, which is ugly. With the FW900 you can watch 480p, 720p, 1080p, or 2K video content, all in native sync, zero scaling required. On top of that, OLED doesn't have the durability of a CRT. Newer CRT monitors can run for 8 hours a day, for 10 years or more, with no noticeable degradation. OLED has a real problem with longevity, and since the wear of the colors is uneven (blue wears the fastest), not only is longevity a problem, but the colors are soon out of balance as well. Between the two, I'd take the FW900 without even thinking twice. I'd take it over any display in that size range, for that matter.

Yes, and for reassembly purposes, keep track of which screws go where. You don't need to put each screw back in exactly the same hole it came out of, but you want to put the same type of screw back in. If I remember right, there are 3 types of screws (maybe more): the type that holds the two half of the outer plastic case together, the type that holds the RF shielding in place, and two silver-colored ones (the rest are goldish colored) that are longer than the rest, which are among the screws which hold the cartridge tray in place. Just keep like grouped with like, and remember or write down where they go. Getting the cartridge tray back in place correctly can be slightly tricky, because there is a tab in front, on the bottom of it, which has to go under something, and it's easy to get it wrong and still have it go back together, sort of. It is hard to describe (plus it has been a few years since I took one apart). Just pay attention to how the cartridge tray is in there before taking it apart (or better yet, take pictures).

Why not just try the good cleaning yourself? With a 100% stock front-loader NES (including the original 72-pin connector), I've never seen a proper cleaning (plus disabling the 10NES lockout chip, plus properly cleaning all of your cartridge contacts) fail to make one work first time, every time. Of course, if you use it regularly, you'll have to clean it again eventually, probably after a few years. Get a toothbrush and a $2 can of Bar Keepers Friend powder (it is a metal cleaner which uses oxalic acid as the active ingredient; it removes oxidation and tarnish quickly and easily; unlike rubbing alcohol, which has little-to-no effect on those things). Take the NES apart, remove the 72-pin connector, scrub all of its metal pins with a toothbrush dipped in a roughly half-and-half mixture of BKF and water, rinse off the BKF residue with water, scrub again with a clean toothbrush dipped in alcohol (just to be extra sure you get rid of all the BKF residue), and let dry. Then cut or lift the #4 leg of the 10NES lockout chip (Google will bring up plenty of pictures/instructions for doing this), and reassemble your NES. Your cartridge contacts need to be clean as well, and to do that, disassemble the cartridge (you'll need the smaller of the two common sizes of "gamebit" security bits [3.8mm] to do so, except for early "5-screw" cartridges, for which you can use a normal flat-blade screwdriver), and clean the same way you cleaned the 72-pin connector. If you try to clean the cartridge contacts with BKF without taking the cartridge apart, you'll probably get water and BKF residue seeping into places you don't want it to go.

Maybe these have been mentioned already, but two little-known and surprisingly fun arcade games that were never ported to a home console (that I know of) are Chicken Shift (Bally/Sente 1984) and Demolition Derby (Bally Midway 1984).

It isn't inferior. Digital "flat panel" displays caught on because they are more compact for a given screen size, they are more energy efficient, they are practical to build in larger screen sizes, and they are cheaper to manufacture. In terms of performance, they have always been playing catch-up to the best CRTs. For example, if a new 24" flat panel PC monitor came out tomorrow which perfectly replicated every visual/performance characteristic of the Sony GDM-FW900 CRT monitor, it would be hailed as the greatest monitor ever. The ideal display device would combine the performance advantages of a CRT with the practical advantages of a flat panel display. "SED" was intended to do exactly that, but aside from a working prototype, it turned out to be vaporware.

Normal viewing distances are a lot closer on an arcade machine than on a console hooked to a TV, and there are a lot of things going on in the image unique to a CRT, especially when you look closely at what's going on in the shadow mask (which only applies to color CRTs; monochrome CRTs would be easier to simulate). And yes, the spherical tube and thick glass are both visual elements that would have to be simulated as well. On top of that, you have to simulate the natural effect of a coarse phosphor dot pitch, along with a coarse shadow mask, which results in the world's most natural looking anti-aliasing device; it is why the e.g., the Pac-Man sprite looks closer to round on a real arcade machine than looking like it is made of Lego blocks. There is no current anti-aliasing filter/algorithm which even comes close to simulating this effect which is inherent to standard resolution CRTs. Here's an example of the effect compared to raw output as it appears on a high-resolution display: You'd also need a type of display which generates its own light (as opposed to LCD, which uses backlighting); ideally this type of display would use phosphors like a CRT, making one less thing you'd have to simulate. So the easiest (but far from easy) thing to simulate would be monochrome vector, not only because of its lack of a shadow mask, but also because high resolution actually works in your favor here, as-is (as opposed to with low-resolution raster graphics, which naturally look like lego blocks on high resolution displays). The way to test it is: use the best video camera you can find and take a video of a game being played on a standard resolution CRT. Then, play back that video on the best HD display you can find. Would it fool anyone into thinking that they were watching an actual SD CRT?

You're right; the resolution settings in MAME for Asteroids were on "auto", and it was rendering it at 640 x 480 and then upscaling it to the screen resolution of 1920 x 1440. Here's a correct screenshot, which is much better: Of course, Asteroids doesn't actually have a resolution, because it isn't a raster game, but with a NES game for example, the game's graphics code only contains 256 x 240 pixels, so obviously it can't be rendered at anything higher than that without upscaling. Not any time soon. It will have to be good enough to be indistinguishable from reality (like if an outdoor video was playing, you couldn't tell the difference between it and looking out your open window) before it could actually fool someone with a CRT simulation.

An FPGA implementation is emulation; it is just hardware-based emulation rather than software-based. I think the best FPGA approach, if accuracy is a top priority, is to mix an FPGA with original hardware, like Jrok did with his highly-regarded Multi-Williams arcade board, which uses an original CPU. Unfortunately, a lot of consoles used proprietary custom chips (like the NES' PPU and CPU), so that approach isn't feasible without cannibalizing original consoles for the custom chips. Perfect emulation, whether hardware- or software-based, is theoretically possible, but I don't know if it has ever been achieved with a relatively complex platform or not. There are many cases of emulation being good enough for most people (including myself) though.

It looks alright, but it definitely doesn't look like a real vector monitor, which has completely solid, straight lines regardless of their angle on the screen, and an intense phosphor glow. Here is a screenshot of MAME running Asteroids, anti-aliased, at 1920 x 1440 (click on it for full size):

I've been using BKF as a contact cleaner (among other things) for about 10 years. In cases where it is practical to use (such as when you have good access to the contacts for both scrubbing with a toothbrush and rinsing off the residue without getting water or residue in places you don't want them to go), it is perfect; I see no need for any other cleaning product/method. It is perfect for the NES in particular, because its 72-pin connector is easily removable, and the cartridges easily come apart without damaging the labels. So to recap, you got your non-functional (blinking) front-loader NES working against by cleaning the 72-pin connector and cartridge contacts with BKF, and disabling the 10NES chip? That's exactly what I did with the "blinking" NES that was given to me many years ago, and it still works the first time, every time (though I don't use it all that often; with regular usage I would expect to have to reclean the 72-pin connector every few years, which is about how long it takes a brand new front-loader NES to start blinking with regular usage). I maintain that replacing the OEM 72-pin connector is rarely, if ever, necessary, assuming it hasn't been physically damaged. I've yet to see a proper cleaning (along with disabling the 10NES chip) fail to make them work perfectly. I have 3 front-loaders myself, and I've fixed several for other people over the years. Earlier you said you had already cleaned one of the cartridges and it still didn't work. What method did you use? The typical alcohol/Q-tip method?

Bar Keepers Friend is ~no more abrasive than talcum powder. Pretty much everything is abrasive to one degree or another, even your fingers, which is why textured plastic on e.g., your mouse or keyboard becomes polished/shiny with extensive use. It is nothing like e.g. Comet or Ajax, which rely on harsh abrasives for cleaning. And it is not a "household cleaner"; it is specifically a metal cleaner. BKF's active ingredient is oxalic acid. Isopropyl alcohol isn't an acid, it is a solvent, and as such, it is not very effective on tarnish or oxidation. It is good for cleaning contacts contaminated with dust and/or oil/grease that are otherwise clean, and not much else. DeOxit is okay, but it is far more expensive and harder to find than BKF, and it is not more effective at cleaning metal (it is typically less effective in fact). The oxalic acid in BKF quickly gets metal clean, in the most literal sense of the word clean, and you can't get cleaner than clean. You can think of oxalic acid as acetic acid (the acid found in vinegar) on steroids: "Oxalic acid is an organic compound with the formula H₂C₂O₄. It is a colorless crystalline solid that forms a colorless solution in water. It is classified as a dicarboxylic acid. Its acid strength is much greater than that of acetic acid."

Retailers don't determine the "official" price of anything; it is determined by the manufacturer, i.e., the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). It can safely be assumed that the trade magazine from January 1978 has it right ($199.95). They wouldn't have called Sears, or JCPenny, or any other retailer for their information; they would have contacted Atari, Inc.

That's only if the FPGA is programmed 100% correctly. It is the same thing as an "X-on-a-chip" (the only difference is that an FPGA is programmed after manufacturing instead of being "hardwired" during manufacturing), such as an NES-on-a-chip, and as far as I know, none of those have been designed 100% correctly. The "2600-on-a-chip" in the Atari Flashback 2, designed by Curt Vendel, wasn't designed 100% correctly either, resulting in some incompatibilities with 2600 software. Does full documentation even exist (publicly) for the NES CPU and PPU? They were both custom chips, rather than off-the-shelf. I'm skeptical that perfect hardware-based emulation for the NES will happen any time soon. Software-based emulation for the NES has been in development since at least the late 1990s, and it isn't perfect yet. In fact, I don't know of a perfect emulator of any sort, though there are plenty examples of "good enough", at least from my perspective.

If your Everdrive is working fine, then I'd expect your other cartridges to work as well, unless they are broken (which is unusual) or the cartridges' contacts aren't truly clean (not unusual at all). The best way to clean them is with BKF or an equivalent acid-based metal cleaner, but you should take the cartridges apart first so you can rinse all of the BKF residue off and thoroughly dry the PCB.

Useful effects notwithstanding, it's the overall blurriness of the Genesis' composite video that I don't like. The NES' and SNES' composite video is much sharper. For that matter, even their RF video is better than the Genesis' composite video, because they send a very clean RF signal (little-to-no perceptible EMI patterns in the picture) which is close in quality to their composite output.

Yeah, I would disable the lockout chip before ordering anything, because it might fix the problem by itself.

That's a good example of how crappy the Genesis' composite video is. A good composite signal is close in quality to S-video (with my SNES I have to look very closely to tell the difference between composite and S-video; they are both excellent), whereas with the Genesis, you can see a drastic difference between the two, and the difference is not just in the glass tube effect.

Have you cleaned the cartridge(s) you're trying? Also, is the 72-pin connector an original one that no one has ever messed with before, such as by bending the pins out for a tighter grip? If it is an original one, when you slide the cartridge all the way in, does it at least have some grip? It should have a small amount of grip; if it has none at all, then the pins may have been bent down beyond their limits such as by someone using a Game Genie (which has an extra thick PCB). If that's the case, the only possible sort-of-a-fix for that particular 72-pin connector is to bend each pin outward slightly so that it has a light grip on the cartridge when you insert it. Only do that if it has no grip whatsoever on the cartridge, and be very careful to only bend the pins out slightly. Another thing which is commonly done to improve reliability is disabling the lockout chip (10NES chip) by cutting its pin #4. A Google search will bring up plenty of tutorials for doing that. This will definitely stop the blinking, and will eliminate some of the cartridge pins which need to make contact in order for the game to boot properly. It won't necessarily make the game boot properly, but it will improve your chances. Assuming there's nothing wrong with the hardware itself, as a last resort, you can buy a new 72-pin connector. An aftermarket one with a tight grip will make it work the first time, most of the time, and they usually work better if you don't push the cartridge down after inserting it. It would be better to find an original one that is undamaged and only needs a proper cleaning though.

Has anyone ever examined the NES front-loader circuitry to figure out why its RF output is so clean? I don't know enough about electrical engineering to figure something like that out. It would be nice if there were a way to modify a 2600 to have the same clean RF output that an NES has.