Extra Future

Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.

Blog Archives

Tag: nes

  • Build Your Own Breadboard NES

    Extremely cool. You can find the code and instructions on GitHub. I would love to build something like this sometime…

  • Finding and exploiting hidden features of Animal Crossing’s NES emulator

    While looking for ways to activate the developer menus left over in Animal Crossing, including the NES emulator game selection menu, I found an interesting feature that exists in the original game that was always active, but never used by Nintendo. In addition to the NES/Famicom games that can be obtained in-game, it was possible to load new NES games from the memory card. I was also able to find a way to exploit this ROM loader to patch custom code and data into the game, allowing for code execution via the memory card.

    Incredibly detailed and well-written article, goes super deep into reverse-engineering the technology.

  • Unreleased Sim City NES prototype shown on the Internet

    I’ve never wanted any single object more than this one? If there is any decency left in the world this will get dumped and I will get to play it.

    I can barely make words about this.

  • New 3D Printable Object: NES Cart Covers

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    I designed [this simple NES cart cover][link] to use as little material as possible, but still be robust enough to print even on janky printers. Hopefully this will help keep your NES carts safe and sound for future generations. It’s available [on thingiverse][thing] for the low price of FREE.

    [link]: http://thisoldconsole.com/post/146951201585/original-nintendo-entertainment-system-cart-cover “NES Cart Cover”
    [thing]: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1659496 “Nintendo Entertainment System Cart Cover (Tender NES)”

  • DuckTales Remastered announced by Capcom

    >[DuckTales Remastered is in development at WayForward Technologies, Capcom announced today during its “World of Capcom” panel at PAX East 2013.][link]
    >
    >It will launch this summer for $14.99 on PlayStation Network, 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Arcade and $15 on the Wii U eShop.

    DuckTales is a beloved NES game from an era when almost every licensed title was completely awful. Don’t fuck this up, Capcom.

    [link]: http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/22/4135724/ducktales-remastered-capcom-wayforward-pax-east-2013 “DuckTales Remastered announced by Capcom, launching this summer on XBLA, PSN, Wii U eShop for $15 | Polygon”

  • NESpad

    An NES gamepad library for Arduino.

    One use of this is to allow your Arduino access to the status of 8 buttons (up, down, left, right, A, B, START, SELECT) using only 3 digital pins (for STROBE/LATCH, CLOCK, DATA).

    3 pins is a tall order on my Arduino Uno, but for the new Due it’s a drop in the bucket. It supposedly works with the Freedom Stick, too. Wireless Arduino NES Remote here I come.

  • Metroid Source Code Expanded

    [Nine text files in which you will find the complete source code for the original Metroid game for the NES][link]. I assume this is the code for the American NES cart version, and not the slightly superior Japanese FDS version.

    [link]: http://www.romhacking.net/documents/459/ “Romhacking.net – Documents – Metroid Source Code Expanded”

  • Lost Levels: The Legend of Zelda prototype

    [A prototype for one of the most important video games in history][link], with [a meticulous look at the changes][two] between this prototype and the final release.

    [link]: http://forums.lostlevels.org/viewtopic.php?t=2471 “Lost Levels :: View topic – The Legend of Zelda prototype”
    [two]: http://tcrf.net/Proto:The_Legend_of_Zelda “Legend of Zelda Prototype on The Cutting Room Floor”

  • Megaman II’s Intro Animation In HTML

    Created by yours truly. No Flash, just CSS, HTML5, and jQuery. The animation is very not smooth in Firefox, but works great in Safari and Chrome.

    [You can check it out here.][link]

    [link]: http://extrafuture.com/mm2/ “Megaman II Intro”

    Using the scrollbar to bring the view upward was a stylistic choice, it could’ve just as (if not more) easily done in a single “screen”, but what’s the fun in that? The demo uses the jQuery [backgroundPosition-Effect][plugin] plugin to achieve the parallax scrolling effect, and the new Javascript audio capabilities introduced by the HTML5 group. The timing may not work very well on older machines.

    [plugin]: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/backgroundPosition-Effect “jQuery Plugins: backgroundPosition-Effect”

  • Detailed Longplay Annotation of Gimmick! For The NES

    [Great use of YouTube’s annotations system][link] for a skillfully-crafted NES game. Could this be the start of a new longplay genre? See also: [Gimmick!][gim] on Wikipedia.

    The ROM is available on the web using a simple Google search. I’ll leave you to that.

    [gim]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimmick! “Gimmick!”
    [link]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcf2yUgblc “YouTube – Mr. Gimmick – Annotated NES Longplay (Pt. 1/4)”