- It's retro time!
(upbeat retro music)
And this is an NES.
North American Nintendo, if you will,
the Nintendo Entertainment System.
This is rather large for what you might consider
to be a rather old and not very powerful piece of hardware.
But this was expandable, that was the big thing.
Like you could use custom chips to make sure
that your games would run whatever you wanted them to run.
Basically it kind of reinvigorated the video game market
in the West so much so that if Atari hadn't died,
they would have licensed to this as the AVS.
But Nintendo came back and they gave us this.
Today, this is, well, I mean, you can tell
the shell has yellowed quite a bit.
(Anthony taps plastic)
Like that's real hollow, right?
And it's kind of pointless.
So there's this project called TinyNES,
and what that does is it just kind of condenses everything,
you know, makes it more, I mean compact.
Like the box for this is actually smaller physically
than the NES itself.
So let's put this to the side here and have a look at this.
We've got kind of a preview on the box here
as to how big the actual console is.
It's not the size of the box.
On the side here, we've got kind of, sort of, public domain.
It's not quite.
This is a fairly permissive license.
You can, I think, build this yourself.
It's not open source though.
Made by Tall Dog Electronics.
Which I think-is that a maned wolf?
Don't know.
TinyNES, TinyNES Genuine.
Okay, this is where we need to talk
about what the TinyNES is.
The TinyNES isn't a modern recreation of the console.
It's literally the guts from this shrunk down into this.
The way they're able to do that is by harvesting chips
out of those old consoles, or in the case of
the non-genuine version,
there are actually clone chips you can get
that are completely, I think they still make them?
Or at least they're still available.
They're not great in terms of compatibility, I think,
and some graphical glitches can happen,
but you can still build one of these
completely from scratch
without any official Nintendo components,
which is just great.
And on the back here, we get another preview
of what it looks like, this time in 3D.
Instruction manual of some kind.
So it's powered by a 5VDC which enters the USB-C Jack
on the rear of the console.
Okay, so I will need a USB-C power supply.
Okay, yep, they have a provided USB-C power adapter
and black and gold USB-C cable.
You know what?
I'm just gonna not read this any further
because it seems like something I could just find out
by unboxing it and that's a lot more interesting, isn't it?
Let's just pull this outta here and...
(explosion bangs)
Is this just actually an Apple USB-C adapter?
It's got an Apple model number on it.
Either that or it's a clone.
It doesn't feel like it's lightweight or anything
so it's probably legit,
or legit enough for our purposes anyway.
(laughs) That's pretty adorable.
So I guess this uses a TRRS connector here
to split off into the RCA outputs.
Yeah, this doesn't have HDMI or anything fancy like that.
It's just the original type of outputs
that you would've gotten on the NES itself.
Unless you were like me back in the day
and you used this, which is even worse.
Let's see, we've got a Tall Dog sticker and an Allen wrench.
I guess they intend you to open it up
which is great cuz I'm gonna do that.
And here is the console itself.
That actually looks really sharp and it's so tiny,
like okay, it's a little bit shorter
in this dimension than an NES cartridge.
Okay, a little bit wider and yeah,
a little bit thicker as well.
Games I suppose, just go in like that
with the label facing that way.
Oh that's interesting.
There's actually already RCA Jacks on the back of this.
So apparently this connector here that goes in here
splits out all of the individual audio channels.
So if you've got expansion audio
in your Japanese Famicom game,
then you can get that and mix it separately
from the built-in audio.
So I guess if your game is too loud on the expansion audio,
which is the thing that can happen,
you can kind of mix it separately
or you can just mix it the way you want to.
Interesting, I'm not sure why?
Also, apparently this can be configured for RGB output,
and I'm not sure how you would do that exactly.
Remember what I said the license for this thing
was pretty permissive.
Well, here's the block diagram of the whole console.
It's just right there.
Find all the components and you can put them together
in the same way that the console's put together,
which is pretty sick.
They even have the bill of materials here
and according to this, you can install
an RGB capable picture processing unit or PPU.
The original NES didn't actually have RGB output
in the traditional sense.
Its PPU basically just spat out
more or less composite video, which has been an issue
for a while, because if you've ever noticed
that like emulators and Wii Virtual Console
and everything else seems to have different colors.
That's why.
What colors you were supposed to get out of the NES
were not really set in stone.
They varied from console to console basically.
Back to the console itself, we do have our video.
We've got the reset button back here,
which is kind of an interesting place to put it
because some games kind of relied on the reset button.
On and off switch back here.
That works.
It's kind of sharp.
I would've preferred maybe a larger switch,
but it is powered with type C
On the front, we've got traditional NES controller ports,
so I can plug in my traditional controller,
my NES Advantage, or if I had a CRT
to plug this into, my Zapper.
I don't have one of those here today though.
And on the other side, there's nothing.
Oh, right, there is one more thing
and that's this little dial down here.
It's a potentiometer.
That is what you would use to adjust the levels,
like the balance of the the internal audio
and the expansion audio,
like I was explaining earlier,
in case you're only using the onboard output.
And that's basically it.
This thing is super basic.
Aside from that, we've got some, I guess, nice looking
but basic cables for audio, video.
That's literally all you get.
If you got your mono channel for audio,
and you've got your video.
And we've got this nice USB type C cable,
they're all braided, which is nice.
I'll get these outta here and we'll power it on.
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Now before we get into this, I've got a Game Genie here.
Yep, okay, sure.
That's not weird.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
That's a tight fit, uh-oh. (groans)
Okay, so one thing you might have noticed is
that took quite a bit of effort to get in and out.
In contrast, the original NES, a lot easier.
All right, let's power this thing up.
Have you got me a monitor?
I was just setting up to, well, set this up
when I realized that we have some more boxes.
Here, we have a cartridge latch, not sure what that's about.
Maybe that would've helped with this.
And a Famicom adapter which will let us use this
in this as well.
So if you're not familiar,
Famicom and NES slots differ fairly considerably.
Famicom is significantly shorter.
The cartridge itself inside of this
is actually probably the same size as the Famicom version.
They just made them this big so that they could slide
in and out of this much more easily.
Let's take a look at the Famicom adapter
and see how that works,
cuz as it stands, that's not really gonna work.
Hey, that's fairly robust.
Okay, is this 3D printed?
It's a pretty high quality print if so.
So I guess this would go something like this
and then we would slot the other way?
Huh?
Okay, the other way.
So I got it wrong the first time around.
It instead slots in like that.
This'll work on the actual NES as well,
but this particular adapter is not really suitable for that
because it won't give you the ability
to kind of reach in and kind of get it.
It'd be useful for a top loader, which is what this is.
Now the cartridge latch.
I have no idea what this is supposed to be,
what is this for?
I see, I think I see.
You ready for this?
- [David] Ah.
- That makes a lot easier to get your game out
rather than just like you can't just do this.
Anyway, how about we finally plug it in and turn it on,
power it on, see what comes up.
Is it gonna be stretched?
Is it gonna be weird?
No, it's "Super Mario Bros. 3".
What you are seeing right now is actually
a fairly good quality output.
Composite video isn't known for its sharpness,
but this isn't terrible.
I kind of expected worse.
The Koopas there are not doing so hot.
That's kind of what I was expecting.
But that means that the circuitry in this
is actually fairly robust in terms of cleaning and filtering
the output signal, making sure that there's no interference,
that kind of thing.
Okay, let's play.
Okay, input lag is, well I mean, it's original hardware,
input lag should be nothing.
I pre-compensated there for a jump
that I thought was going to take a little bit longer
to register, but it's instantaneous.
The D-pad feels a little bit slippery.
- [David] There's an 8BitDo controller.
- Yeah, maybe I'll switch out to the 8BitDo controller.
See if the controller port in the front here
has enough power to handle a Bluetooth transmitter.
All right, let's switch the controller out.
It's not quite original style.
It's fairly close, actually it looks like it's pre-yellowed.
It's like the same color as the other one.
Oh (laughs) right.
I think this is a thing that can happen
on real hardware too.
Well, I say real hardware, the original hardware.
If you plug in something that's power hungry
like the Bluetooth dongle here,
it'll reset the console.
The 8BitDo controller, this feels a lot stiffer.
Yeah, this feels really tight.
This D-pad's a lot better.
Well, it's a lot firmer, it's more defined.
The other controller's D-pad was worn in,
let's just put it that way.
After getting past, or I guess, through the first level,
the audio sounds pretty good.
I can't turn it up unfortunately.
This monitor doesn't have a volume control
for some reason.
But it sounds pretty good.
I don't hear any like buzzing or anything like that.
No, there's not even any levels coming through right now
on this pause screen, which is something that would
never be the case on my RF NES.
Now composite video on its own is gonna have some problems.
This is probably the best case scenario
for like upscaling it with the RetroTINK-5X Pro here,
which itself could probably do for another review
because this thing has been updated significantly.
Honestly, this is a really clean composite output.
If this were plugged into a CRT,
I don't think you would really notice
any composite artifacts at all.
Like the floor there, not quite where the status area is,
that glitching is actually normal,
but you can see there's a little bit of like fuzz
going on down there, but it's not as bad as I would expect.
You know what was bad though, back in the day,
to my recollection was Mega Man.
So let's throw that on and see what (exhales)
- [David] That sound!
- Whoa, look at that, just comes right on.
So yeah, you can see the kind of fringing
between the the white and the red on the III there.
And also in the logo up there,
there's a little bit of like fuzzy flickering.
That flickering is also normal for this game.
The robot masters look pretty good here.
I remember a lot more fringing
around the the Stage Select, like the borders there.
Yeah, I mean it sounds great.
I mean obviously it's original hardware so it's going to.
I don't know if Super Mario USA has expansion audio or not,
but I'll throw that in real quick just to kind of test it,
and then we'll take it apart.
Is it just me or is like the composite artifacts
way worse on this?
I usually don't play Mario in this game.
How about I take it apart?
They thankfully include a nice little Allen wrench
and I think, yeah, they have points here
that tell you how to get it open.
It's the right size.
All right, cool, that's it.
This right here is the original NES
picture processing unit.
This right here is the original NES CPU.
Yeah, they're both socketed.
So if I wanted to, I could pry up
the picture processing unit and replace it with an RGV one.
And I think you can also get a replacement rear module here
that gives you RGB output.
So if that was a thing you wanted, if you didn't want all
of those composite artifacts I was talking about,
then you can do that.
And more of that white plastic in here.
I dunno if you can see that,
but there's little tabs in here that are kind of,
you can push them inside so it kind of grips
the cartridges a little bit better.
Yeah, they get pushed out.
Otherwise the cartridges just kind of like plop on there
and kind of do that.
And yeah, on the PCB, it's got cart blank side,
and cart label side.
What are these switches for?
Are these overclocking switches?
Yeah, NTSC and PAL.
So I could switch it over to the European standard
for video, think I would need a different PPU
for that though?
Now I mentioned these chips are socketed.
On an original console, they probably wouldn't be.
I don't think they would be at all.
And the reason being,
they were specific usually to each region
or console production run,
but they wouldn't have been interchangeable
because the actual board layout would've changed slightly
to support that other processing unit.
So in this case, that's what those switches are for.
So if I were to pop out, there we go,
that there is an Nintendo CPU.
Well that was a lot easier to take apart
than it was to put that together.
If you wanted to go with clone hardware,
so not an original NES,
then you're looking at $209 USD, which is steep.
For the proper hardware, you're looking at 229
and that's for the unit you're looking at right here.
With that in mind, would I recommend it?
I think as a kit, like a hobbyist kit,
it might be a lot of fun for somebody who wants to,
you know, get their hands dirty with, you know,
soldering and socketing chips and that kind of thing.
For like intermediate users,
that might be a value-add.
In terms of just playing your games,
I don't think this is really the best way to do it.
Granted, it is very small
and it's very convenient like to put on your shelf
compared to like-the NES is gone,
we didn't have a place to put it.
The NES is on the floor.
All the components except for the CPU and PPU,
if at least for the original ones, those will be brand new
and it's powered with USB type C, which is super great,
especially considering the NES uses 9 volt AC.
Just ridiculous.
For all but the most hardcore
like Nintendo retro enthusiasts.
I don't think I would recommend it for that much money,
especially when you can get a Raspberry Pi
if you really wanted to, or like you can get
a fairly baseline MiSTer set up for that.
And I guess that's really it.
Honestly, really nice looking,
but I don't think I could recommend it
for any practical purpose.
But I can recommend "Short Circuit" for you.
We have plenty more like this one
and unlike it as well.
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