7 ms·

NES Classic Mini boot image dump method via UART and USB

90 points by johansch 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
david-given 10y ago
English translation via Google Translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ns-koubou.com%2Fblog%2F2016%2F11%2F11%2Fnes_classic%2F&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev... It seems that while the u-boot is missing most commands, you can connect sunxi-tools to it by hooking up the USB while holding the reset button down, and then use AllWinner's debug protocol to poke it. I wonder --- if the SoC has no customisations, could run the ROM on another similar device?
- pault 10y ago
  I wonder if it will ever be possible to machine translate Japanese into legible English. Some of these translations are so strange they're humorous: > (Hereinafter, abbreviated as Famicom Mini guy of GBA attention because it is not) > By those who exploded before launch was in and out
  - userbinator 10y ago
    Google is mostly relying on machine learning and can translate between many languages due to it, but better results can be obtained using one of the translators developed by the Japanese themselves which attempt to do actual parsing. There are also various other apps (largely developed by the anime/visual novel community) that might work better at extracting meaning, although that's more in the direction of quick dictionary lookups.
- makomk 10y ago
  Usual technique for working with Allwinner hardware, basically - there should be similar instructions on the English-language linux-sunxi wiki. I'm not aware of any other device with an R16 chip and the image is usually customised for the specific hardware, but it might be possile to modify it.
jimmies 10y ago
The fact that the NES Classic Mini runs Android means that sooner or later someone on XDA will port the emulator to everything that runs Android. Not that there wasn't any emulator on Android before, but having one more good choice doesn't hurt.
- rubyfan 10y ago
  That is if anyone can get there hands on one.
  - johansch 10y ago
    I did a non-committing pre-order at a local retailer (Webhallen, Sweden - I love this feature of theirs, I think it is quite unique) the day it was announced because.. why not. They didn't have an idea what the price would be but later adjusted it down to the eventual local MSRP level. Picked it up yesterday figuring that I could likely sell it (with a profit) in case I didn't end up enjoying it. But I think I'll hang on to it - or maybe turn it into a christmas gift for someone. It's a really neat little thing. The software has obviously been crafted with a loving attention to detail. And the games themselves have more depth that I thought - having only experienced them briefly in various desktop OS emulators before, with lots of annoying small issues (like not having an ideal controller, sound issues, no easy/natural way to play them on the TV with nearly instant bootup time, etc). Also, those ROMs I've heard (ahem) are floating around on the net tend not to come with these fantastic user manuals: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/index.html https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/index.html (I just wish they would have included them in some neat Nintendo-ish way in the main menu UX.)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
johansch 10y ago
My favorite modification to its software would be some controller button combination shortcut to the reset button. Having to reach to the actual device to switch games is so annoying. Surely Nintendo could have come up with a combination that was not used in any of the included 30 games? For a company that was so focused on user experience early on, they really dropped the ball with that button design, btw. Start, Select and a primary action button ("A")? Anyway, that mishap meant there was room for a rescue now in 2016, to use some unused combination of those peculiar buttons to do the reset. But alas, no. Other nice things to have that would hopefully be doable: - putting the game manuals on the actual device for viewing on the TV - the audio is a bit harsh; it sounds like it needs some filtering, maybe just some dead simple high-pass (edit: err, low-pass) filter would do it
- grapeshot 10y ago
  If you plug in a Wii Classic Controller, you can use the home button on it to get back to the menu without having to get up.
  - johansch 10y ago
    Call me evil, but I don't want to reward them for a failure on their part :).
- metaphor 10y ago
  > - the audio is a bit harsh; it sounds like it needs some filtering, maybe just some dead simple high-pass filter would do it Could you clarify what was meant by harsh? The HDMI PHY[1] differentially encodes either I2S or S/PDIF (from SoC). This is a lossless digital-to-digital translation, which suggests that audio being a bit harsh is either a consequence of precise emulation of the NES APU[2] or something wonky with the speakers you're using. I made the assumption that by harsh you meant dissonant sounds of a relatively high audio frequency, which would make sense given how the 2A03 APU synthesizes audio, but wouldn't make sense if you're suggesting that a dead simple high-pass filter would resolve the issue. [1] http://www.epmi.com.tw/sayapro03.php?id=78 http://www.epmi.com.tw/sayapro03.php?id=78 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricoh_2A03 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricoh_2A03
metaphor 10y ago
Hardware is definitely SNES throwback ready. Based on data from [1], the 30 included NES ROMs amount to < 5.3 MiB total. Increase that by roughly an order of magnitude to account for complexity, and it shouldn't take much to tuck 30 SNES ROMs + emulator + OS into that NAND. [1] http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/nesmapper.txt http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/nesmapper.txt
- vlunkr 10y ago
  I certainly hope that's the next move. I suppose they wouldn't want to release that first or this one wouldn't sell so well.
- derefr 10y ago
  I don't think they'll do this. Not because it's technically infeasible, but because of their alternatives. The Classic NES makes sense as a business strategy, because NES Virtual Console games don't really sell well: people don't think individual NES games on the Virtual Console are worth the money Nintendo wants to charge for them (~$5). So the Classic NES—a fancy, "value-added" shovel-ware package—is the best way Nintendo have to make money from that old IP. If people aren't willing to buy the games themselves, they'll still pay for a cheap bit of hardware with those same games on it. (Consumer psychology is weird sometimes.) A "Classic SNES" doesn't make as much sense: SNES titles on the Virtual Console do sell, often for much higher prices. There's no business reason to turn them into a shovelware package.
  - johansch 10y ago
    How do you know that SNES titles sell well on VC? I can't imagine Nintendo are publishing sales data on these things?
    - derefr 10y ago
      On the Wii U eShop, at least (don't know about the Wii or 3DS shops), you can sort titles by "most downloaded." Many SNES (and GBA) games rank highly—often as highly as Nintendo's new releases. Virtually none of the NES titles do, even when discounted.
Matt3o12_ 10y ago
I wonder if the boot image contains any GPLv3 software. Could this this allow us to make Nintendo release the OS in a way that allows us to upload custom ROMs (I've heard that there is a home brew community) as well as custom roms (so that we are not limited to 30 games).
- johansch 10y ago
  It does. They published this: http://data.nintendo.co.jp/oss/NintendoEntertainmentSystemNESClassicEdition_OSS.zip http://data.nintendo.co.jp/oss/NintendoEntertainmentSystemNE... Containing: http://pastebin.com/9SzB2ZFp http://pastebin.com/9SzB2ZFp
  - dezgeg 10y ago
    Which one of those is GPLv3 and not GPLv2?
- makomk 10y ago
  GPLv2 vs GPLv3 probably doesn't matter here; Allwinner-based platforms don't tend to be locked down and this seems to be no exception based on the information available so far.
joshbaptiste 10y ago
I really wish Nintendo or Sega would come out with an official retro WiFi appliance that allows one to buy classic games from an "App Store" and play multiplayer player games over the network. They have the extensive catalog of retro games to make money (NES/SNES/N64 or Master system/Genesis) and it wouldn't take that much hardware to do it.
- zokier 10y ago
  Isn't that what Wii with Virtual Console is?
  - joshbaptiste 10y ago
    Yea but it involves finding and purchasing a (most likely) used Wii. I'm a casual gamer and never heard of virtual console. A dedicated retro console would fare better and be cheaper IMO, just like this one (without any such features) which sold out in seconds on Amazon.
    - coredog64 10y ago
      To add to that, you've got to buy a sketchy 3rd party HDMI adapter to plug your used Wii into a modern TV.
      - comex 10y ago
        The Wii U and 3DS both support Virtual Console for a variety of old Nintendo consoles (more for the Wii U), and the Switch presumably will too. Though, Nintendo being Nintendo, transferring purchases between consoles is rarely possible.
        joshbaptiste 10y ago
        As a casual gamer who likes playing the games of my childhood. I'd prefer a dedicated retro rig that (due to minimal requirements) could be the same form factor as an Amazon FireTv stick without dealing with the "hacky" nature of the emu scene or purchasing a full blown console.
johansch 10y ago
For anyone wishing to follow this topic over time the subreddit format works great: https://www.reddit.com/r/nesclassicmods/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nesclassicmods/
revelation 10y ago
The u-boot here doesn't seem to match what Nintendo released as OSS: r16-uboot-fc3061df4dbd4153819b2d2f141d82b88fea51cf.tar.gz Notice the commit hash.

90 points by johansch 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

English translation via Google Translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ns-koubou.com%2Fblog%2F2016%2F11%2F11%2Fnes_classic%2F&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev... It seems that while the u-boot is missing most commands, you can connect sunxi-tools to it by hooking up the USB while holding the reset button down, and then use AllWinner's debug protocol to poke it. I wonder --- if the SoC has no customisations, could run the ROM on another similar device?

pault 10y ago
I wonder if it will ever be possible to machine translate Japanese into legible English. Some of these translations are so strange they're humorous: > (Hereinafter, abbreviated as Famicom Mini guy of GBA attention because it is not) > By those who exploded before launch was in and out
- userbinator 10y ago
  Google is mostly relying on machine learning and can translate between many languages due to it, but better results can be obtained using one of the translators developed by the Japanese themselves which attempt to do actual parsing. There are also various other apps (largely developed by the anime/visual novel community) that might work better at extracting meaning, although that's more in the direction of quick dictionary lookups.
makomk 10y ago
Usual technique for working with Allwinner hardware, basically - there should be similar instructions on the English-language linux-sunxi wiki. I'm not aware of any other device with an R16 chip and the image is usually customised for the specific hardware, but it might be possile to modify it.

jimmies 10y ago

The fact that the NES Classic Mini runs Android means that sooner or later someone on XDA will port the emulator to everything that runs Android. Not that there wasn't any emulator on Android before, but having one more good choice doesn't hurt.

rubyfan 10y ago
That is if anyone can get there hands on one.
- johansch 10y ago
  I did a non-committing pre-order at a local retailer (Webhallen, Sweden - I love this feature of theirs, I think it is quite unique) the day it was announced because.. why not. They didn't have an idea what the price would be but later adjusted it down to the eventual local MSRP level. Picked it up yesterday figuring that I could likely sell it (with a profit) in case I didn't end up enjoying it. But I think I'll hang on to it - or maybe turn it into a christmas gift for someone. It's a really neat little thing. The software has obviously been crafted with a loving attention to detail. And the games themselves have more depth that I thought - having only experienced them briefly in various desktop OS emulators before, with lots of annoying small issues (like not having an ideal controller, sound issues, no easy/natural way to play them on the TV with nearly instant bootup time, etc). Also, those ROMs I've heard (ahem) are floating around on the net tend not to come with these fantastic user manuals: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/index.html https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/index.html (I just wish they would have included them in some neat Nintendo-ish way in the main menu UX.)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

johansch 10y ago

My favorite modification to its software would be some controller button combination shortcut to the reset button. Having to reach to the actual device to switch games is so annoying. Surely Nintendo could have come up with a combination that was not used in any of the included 30 games? For a company that was so focused on user experience early on, they really dropped the ball with that button design, btw. Start, Select and a primary action button ("A")? Anyway, that mishap meant there was room for a rescue now in 2016, to use some unused combination of those peculiar buttons to do the reset. But alas, no. Other nice things to have that would hopefully be doable: - putting the game manuals on the actual device for viewing on the TV - the audio is a bit harsh; it sounds like it needs some filtering, maybe just some dead simple high-pass (edit: err, low-pass) filter would do it

grapeshot 10y ago
If you plug in a Wii Classic Controller, you can use the home button on it to get back to the menu without having to get up.
- johansch 10y ago
  Call me evil, but I don't want to reward them for a failure on their part :).
metaphor 10y ago
> - the audio is a bit harsh; it sounds like it needs some filtering, maybe just some dead simple high-pass filter would do it Could you clarify what was meant by harsh? The HDMI PHY[1] differentially encodes either I2S or S/PDIF (from SoC). This is a lossless digital-to-digital translation, which suggests that audio being a bit harsh is either a consequence of precise emulation of the NES APU[2] or something wonky with the speakers you're using. I made the assumption that by harsh you meant dissonant sounds of a relatively high audio frequency, which would make sense given how the 2A03 APU synthesizes audio, but wouldn't make sense if you're suggesting that a dead simple high-pass filter would resolve the issue. [1] http://www.epmi.com.tw/sayapro03.php?id=78 http://www.epmi.com.tw/sayapro03.php?id=78 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricoh_2A03 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricoh_2A03

metaphor 10y ago

Hardware is definitely SNES throwback ready. Based on data from [1], the 30 included NES ROMs amount to < 5.3 MiB total. Increase that by roughly an order of magnitude to account for complexity, and it shouldn't take much to tuck 30 SNES ROMs + emulator + OS into that NAND. [1] http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/nesmapper.txt http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/nesmapper.txt

vlunkr 10y ago
I certainly hope that's the next move. I suppose they wouldn't want to release that first or this one wouldn't sell so well.
derefr 10y ago
I don't think they'll do this. Not because it's technically infeasible, but because of their alternatives. The Classic NES makes sense as a business strategy, because NES Virtual Console games don't really sell well: people don't think individual NES games on the Virtual Console are worth the money Nintendo wants to charge for them (~$5). So the Classic NES—a fancy, "value-added" shovel-ware package—is the best way Nintendo have to make money from that old IP. If people aren't willing to buy the games themselves, they'll still pay for a cheap bit of hardware with those same games on it. (Consumer psychology is weird sometimes.) A "Classic SNES" doesn't make as much sense: SNES titles on the Virtual Console do sell, often for much higher prices. There's no business reason to turn them into a shovelware package.
- johansch 10y ago
  How do you know that SNES titles sell well on VC? I can't imagine Nintendo are publishing sales data on these things?
  - derefr 10y ago
    On the Wii U eShop, at least (don't know about the Wii or 3DS shops), you can sort titles by "most downloaded." Many SNES (and GBA) games rank highly—often as highly as Nintendo's new releases. Virtually none of the NES titles do, even when discounted.

Matt3o12_ 10y ago

I wonder if the boot image contains any GPLv3 software. Could this this allow us to make Nintendo release the OS in a way that allows us to upload custom ROMs (I've heard that there is a home brew community) as well as custom roms (so that we are not limited to 30 games).

johansch 10y ago
It does. They published this: http://data.nintendo.co.jp/oss/NintendoEntertainmentSystemNESClassicEdition_OSS.zip http://data.nintendo.co.jp/oss/NintendoEntertainmentSystemNE... Containing: http://pastebin.com/9SzB2ZFp http://pastebin.com/9SzB2ZFp
- dezgeg 10y ago
  Which one of those is GPLv3 and not GPLv2?
makomk 10y ago
GPLv2 vs GPLv3 probably doesn't matter here; Allwinner-based platforms don't tend to be locked down and this seems to be no exception based on the information available so far.

joshbaptiste 10y ago

I really wish Nintendo or Sega would come out with an official retro WiFi appliance that allows one to buy classic games from an "App Store" and play multiplayer player games over the network. They have the extensive catalog of retro games to make money (NES/SNES/N64 or Master system/Genesis) and it wouldn't take that much hardware to do it.

zokier 10y ago
Isn't that what Wii with Virtual Console is?
- joshbaptiste 10y ago
  Yea but it involves finding and purchasing a (most likely) used Wii. I'm a casual gamer and never heard of virtual console. A dedicated retro console would fare better and be cheaper IMO, just like this one (without any such features) which sold out in seconds on Amazon.
  - coredog64 10y ago
    To add to that, you've got to buy a sketchy 3rd party HDMI adapter to plug your used Wii into a modern TV.
    - comex 10y ago
      The Wii U and 3DS both support Virtual Console for a variety of old Nintendo consoles (more for the Wii U), and the Switch presumably will too. Though, Nintendo being Nintendo, transferring purchases between consoles is rarely possible.
      - joshbaptiste 10y ago
        As a casual gamer who likes playing the games of my childhood. I'd prefer a dedicated retro rig that (due to minimal requirements) could be the same form factor as an Amazon FireTv stick without dealing with the "hacky" nature of the emu scene or purchasing a full blown console.

johansch 10y ago

For anyone wishing to follow this topic over time the subreddit format works great: https://www.reddit.com/r/nesclassicmods/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nesclassicmods/

revelation 10y ago

The u-boot here doesn't seem to match what Nintendo released as OSS: r16-uboot-fc3061df4dbd4153819b2d2f141d82b88fea51cf.tar.gz Notice the commit hash.