The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Discuss emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom.

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zeroone
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The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by zeroone »

Here are 2 spreads from Nintendo Power issue #22 that reveal the secret internals of the NES and Game Boy:

https://i.imgur.com/TzvRPjN.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Lm4Ucdl.jpg
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Dwedit
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by Dwedit »

Surprisingly detailed.
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koitsu
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by koitsu »

You want volume 20 as well. Trust me.
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zeroone
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by zeroone »

koitsu wrote:You want volume 20 as well. Trust me.
Yep. We already discussed that one on a different thread, but here's a link:

https://imgur.com/a/tWGf8
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tokumaru
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by tokumaru »

Are you talking about the "Why Your Game Paks Never Forget" article? That one is more widely known I think, and has been mentioned in the forums a few times. The one about the insides of the NES is new to me, and I found it particularly interesting because it even talks a little about programming topics, such as scrolling. I thought Nintendo had no interest in making that kind of information public.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by NewRisingSun »

It also lies (it's from Nintendo, after all) in claiming that Castlevania III uses the extended attribute functionality of the MMC5, which it does not.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by tokumaru »

Are these available in higher resolution on a PC? The version I see on my phone is hardly readable, and I couldn't get a version with better resolution to open.
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zeroone
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by zeroone »

tokumaru wrote:Are these available in higher resolution on a PC? The version I see on my phone is hardly readable, and I couldn't get a version with better resolution to open.
The links in this thread are high rez.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by Dwedit »

NewRisingSun wrote:It also lies (it's from Nintendo, after all) in claiming that Castlevania III uses the extended attribute functionality of the MMC5, which it does not.
I think it uses it as a third nametable in one level?
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koitsu
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by koitsu »

NewRisingSun wrote:It also lies (it's from Nintendo, after all) in claiming that Castlevania III uses the extended attribute functionality of the MMC5, which it does not.
This got me so spun up I decided to sue Nintendo of America.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by tokumaru »

zeroone wrote:The links in this thread are high rez.
Not on my phone. I just tried the "desktop site" checkbox in Android Chrome and that gave me the high-res version though. Annoying how they couldn't link to the full pic in the mobile site.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by rainwarrior »

I think Castlevania III uses some form of 3-screen mirroring constantly, though I think that's only functionally important in the rising water level, AFAIK.
Image

I dunno if/when it uses extended attributes, but TBQH I think whomever wrote the article was doing a pretty good job to get as close as they could to accurate with that example. Yes, the colourful looking stained glass tower is just regular attributes, but so what? Whomever wrote it didn't have the tools to check up on it. Neither did anyone reading it, for another 10 years.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by tokumaru »

What the hell is that about RGB video having two signals indicating the horizontal and vertical position of each pixel?

Anyway, my favorite part is when they explain scrolling. Every other explanation is extremely superficial (if not downright misleading), but this is surprisingly accurate and more than the average player needs to know. That little bit of information there could even be considered relevant to beginner NES programmers today, who sometimes struggle with scrolling.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by NewRisingSun »

koitsu wrote:This got me so spun up I decided to sue Nintendo of America.
If only.
tokumaru wrote:What the hell is that about RGB video having two signals indicating the horizontal and vertical position of each pixel?
Some RGB video connectors, such as the CGA video connector, have two separate pins for horizontal and vertical sync. Not most arcade connectors, though, which are described as having one pin for composite sync.
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Re: The Inside Story of NES [Nintendo Power 22]

Post by NovaSquirrel »

The part (making an attempt at, but not doing a very good job at) describing interrupts made me laugh a bit because it almost sounds like it's trying to describe the beginner mistake of polling the controller during vblank, though I know it's probably more trying to describe the "everything in NMI" style.
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