Retro Modern

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  <small>
    <a href="https://alienfile.org/slides/tinynes">alienfile.org/slides/tinynes</a>
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  <a href="https://mastodon.social/@plicease">@plicease@mastodon.social</a>
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  <a href="https://sched.co/1dGrX">The Perl Conference</a>
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  25 June 2024
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# *Retro Modern*
## TinyNES and Perl

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<div class="nx-header-title">🌻 Retro Modern</div>

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# Graham Ollis

* <img src="img/fastly.svg"   class="nx-icon"> Software Engineer at <span class="nx-red-link">[Fastly](https://fastly.com)</span>
* <img src="img/mastodon.svg" class="nx-icon"> [@plicease@mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/@plicease)
* <img src="img/github.svg"   class="nx-icon"> [github.com/plicease](https://github.com/plicease)
* <img src="img/perl.svg"     class="nx-icon"> cpan: [PLICEASE](https://metacpan.org/author/PLICEASE)
* <img src="img/irc.svg"      class="nx-icon"> [\#native](https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/#irc://irc.perl.org/#native?nick=mc-guest-?) on [irc.perl.org](http://irc.perl.org)

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Hello, my name is Graham Ollis

I’m a retro programmer.

Although to be clear, when I started my career as a programmer … (last century) … Perl wasn’t considered a retro programming language.

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# NES

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In my dwindling supply of free time I like to play retro video games.

Although to be clear, when I started playing these games … (last century) … they weren’t considered retro.

This is my favorite retro console, the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES.

A lot of retro gamers prefer the 16 bit Super NES as the greatest console ever made, but for my money the original 8 bit Nintendo plays the best games.

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# NES Problems

* Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) cartridge slot
* 10NES lockout chip

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Problem with the original NES is that it has this unreliable ZIF cartridge slot and a lockout chip both of which tend to glitch rendering the console unusable,
even with officially licensed Nintendo games.

Time for a quick PSA: don’t blow on the cartridge contacts.

Everyone “knows” that fixes it, but most likely ejecting the cartridge and re-inserting is what fixed it.

And blowing your spittle onto the contacts, in the long run, will likely make the problem worse.

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# NES Alternatives

* Emulation
* FPGA

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So I had just gotten myself a new-old stock CRT television for that accurate 1980s retro gaming vibe, and I was spending a lot of time cleaning cartridges …
(without the spittle mind you) … but it was still super unreliable and I was in the market for a NES alternative.

In 2024 the main  alternatives are a console that emulates a NES in software or uses an FPGA that does the moral equivalent in hardware.

These don’t offer 100% compatibility with the original NES though,

And unfortunately for my needs most of these modern retro consoles output to HDMI for compatibility with modern TVs.

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# What is the Tiny Nostalgia Evocation Square?

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Then I ran into this solution, the Tiny Nostalgia Evocation Square

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# TinyNES

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… or TinyNES.  Which is a pretty clever name in my opinion.  And if you pronounce it quickly it sounds like “tinyness”.

Anyway, what does this have to do with Perl?  Well nothing really.

… but like Perl it is open source, meaning you can in theory make one of these yourself.

… and like Perl it has a backronym to justify its name after the fact.

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# CPU + PPU

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… and like Perl it has retro and modern parts.

Here are the guts of the console,

where you can see a for real 6502 processor and the PPU that give the console nearly 100% reproduction of the original NES experience

… minus the blinking red light.

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# Composite Out

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… and crucially for me, it outputs composite that goes directly into my retro TV.

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# Details

* NOT Emulation, NOT an FPGA
* Small modern shell about the same size of a NES cartridge
* Works with Famicom carts with an adapter
* Supports Famicom expansion audio
* I haven't gotten it to work with the Famicom Disk System (FDS)

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So to review, this is not emulation or an FPGA,

It is contained in a small modern shell about the same size as a NES cartridge,

It works with Famicom games as well, so  if you, like me, want to import Japanese titles you can.

It even supports the Famicom expansion audio (and Castlevania 3 sounds amazing)

Although I haven’t gotten it to work with the Famicom Disk System

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# Buy One Today

* <img src="img/www.svg" class="nx-icon"> <a href="https://www.crowdsupply.com/tall-dog-electronics/tinynes">www.crowdsupply.com/tall-dog-electronics/tinynes</a>

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So yeah.

Buy one today!

I think they are still available on this website.

I don’t get any kickbacks or anything like that, I just really love this console.

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# Contact

* <img src="img/www.svg"      class="nx-icon"> <a href="https://alienfile.org/slides/tinynes">alienfile.org/slides/tinynes</a>
* <img src="img/irc.svg"      class="nx-icon"> [\#native](https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/#irc://irc.perl.org/#native?nick=mc-guest-?) on [irc.perl.org](http://irc.perl.org)
* <img src="img/mastodon.svg" class="nx-icon"> [@plicease@mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/@plicease)

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If you have any questions, track me down while I am here, or ping me on Mastadon.

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# <img src="img/fastly.svg" class="nx-icon"> We're Hiring!

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Oh and by the way, I work at Fastly and we are hiring.

In fact we are currently hiring for a slot on my elite team of Perl and Go developers

so if you enjoy working on interesting problems track me down while I am here.