DSC wrote:I would point out the obvious in that
as we move forward to 'everything on one chip' I see this process fading away fast. Once these chips are gone, they will be gone
forever. I don't see a resurgence going back to this technology any time soon.
What do you mean? The NES's hardware (CPU, PPU, etc?) or cartridges/mappers?
There are already clones, flashcarts, and reproductions of all that available for purchase today. Unless I don't understand what you're referring to, there's already been a resurgence...
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
infiniteneslives wrote:
What do you mean? The NES's hardware (CPU, PPU, etc?) or cartridges/mappers?
There are already clones, flashcarts, and reproductions of all that available for purchase today. Unless I don't understand what you're referring to, there's already been a resurgence...
Resurgence of the ORIGINAL technology! EPROMS are going away forever and will not return. It is already getting hard to find old/new stock of certain sizes. Like 8 track tapes, if you liked them, you better go get them now, going, going gone.....forever. I'm not crying about it, just stating a fact. And while I'm there Nintendo on a chip? 90% there is still 90% if you are a fan, you know and if you don't know now you know. Close counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, not audio. Sorry, pretty picky about that last one. My site btw... http://www.Ninstrument.com
They aren't going away. CMOS EPROMS are. But Flash is the new tech and I don't see them going OOP for a while. 2KB sizes and such, yeah, never again. 32KB+ you'll be fine.
I get that especially with the Audio, but there are hopes for 100% in the foreseeable future. Clone makers don't care that much, but that doesn't mean someone that did care couldn't to it.
EPROMs disappearing is arguably a good thing just based on bit-rot. Flash is cheaper and better anyways if you can shift way from 32pin DIPs.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
They aren't going away. CMOS EPROMS are. But Flash is the new tech and I don't see them going OOP for a while. 2KB sizes and such, yeah, never again. 32KB+ you'll be fine.
Socketed ROM days are numbered. The die plans of most Chinese manufacturers are all going surface mount. Will you be able to find them in 10 years, sure, but at what price. If recent years are any indicator, expect to pay. As the demand goes down for any component, you find the same thing. Look at prices for through hole RF chokes for instance. Ridiculous!
infiniteneslives wrote:I get that especially with the Audio, but there are hopes for 100% in the foreseeable future. Clone makers don't care that much, but that doesn't mean someone that did care couldn't to it.
To estimate how much one would have to care: How many hundred thousand dollars would it take to go from Verilog on an FPGA to an accurate NOAC ASIC?
infiniteneslives wrote:I get that especially with the Audio, but there are hopes for 100% in the foreseeable future. Clone makers don't care that much, but that doesn't mean someone that did care couldn't to it.
To estimate how much one would have to care: How many hundred thousand dollars would it take to go from Verilog on an FPGA to an accurate NOAC ASIC?
Doesn't really require much money aside from whatever tools are needed for development. Time is the biggest investment. You just need someone with the skills to be interested in developing it. The trick at that point is to take the necessary (often negelected) step of taking it to market. How does kevtris' APU stack up against the NES's? I'm sure it's next to flawless, or could be if he was motivated to make it so. The gap that's really missing is getting his NOAC to market which has it's own set of hurdles. I suppose that's where the biggest financial hurdle is, taking the little piggy to market. Hard to say what that cost would be exactly, depends greatly on how one were to do it.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
lidnariq wrote:Nestopia does not understand iNES byte 10. Because one of the last 6 bytes were set, it clears all of bytes 7-15, so the part where you're getting PRG-RAM is intrinsic.