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CPU and GPU architectures used to wildly change from one generation to the next. Backwards compatibility wasn't always practical or feasible. Now we've arrived
by echelon 2y ago
CPU and GPU architectures used to wildly change from one generation to the next. Backwards compatibility wasn't always practical or feasible.
Now we've arrived at a fairly locked in set of architectures.
- toast0 2y agoThe SNES architecture looks pretty similar to the NES architecture in a lot of ways. It might have been possible to make it work, if it was a design goal. The PPUs are similar, the CPU has a compatability mode for the NES CPU, the controller bus is the same with a different connector. Sega does what Nintendon't, and their 16-bit system was backwards compatible with (one of their) 8-bit systems, if you got the adapter that adapts the slot and includes a boot rom. Apple also did it; the 16-bit Apple IIgs used more or less the same CPU as the SNES, and used the CPU compat mode to run regular Apple II software. Sega