- It's retro time!
I told you, you'd know what it is. This is multiple boxes here,
it's actually multiple different things. So let's start with this here,
which is the base of what all of this is going to come together from.
This is the Terasic/Intel, actually owned by Intel,
FPGA called the DE10-Nano.
Why an FPGA? Well, it can be used to play video games,
retro games in fact. Actually, this thing is kind of interesting in itself,
it's a project called MiSTer. So we've got a starter guide here,
and a bunch of other stuff, just throw that over there for now. We've got a power supply.
Plus we got two USB cables,
one is Micro, and one is Mini, there's the Mini right there, nice and chunky.
It's like some standoffs, or feet. And the board itself.
Now what makes FPGA special? They're kind of like processors, but not really,
they're a lot slower than most processors are, but they execute code basically on the metal,
there's no operating system, it's for a single purpose.
So you would use one of these for prototyping, for an ASIC,
or, you could run retro games on them, because why not?
This is a pretty Raspberry Pi sized device here.
So we've got Ethernet, we've got the two USBs, actually Micro and Mini for some reason,
and we have another USB on the back, which is also Mini, plus HDMI and our power.
We also have GPIO, or General-Purpose IO pins.
These will be used I think, because, not only are we going to have
something for this to go into, which is kind of the, other boxes there.
But we should also have, I think, an expansion module to give it a little bit more RAM.
Not a 100% sure on that, let me take a look at these other boxes,
and see what's inside. These were sent over by Neil, from RMC-The Cave.
So hello, Cave Dwellers. Let's see what's in this main box here,
Oh, (Speaker hums) that's tasty looking.
This is the MiSTer multi-system. There's two parts to this,
there's this, and there's also a chassis as well.
This, is what we're going to be plugging this into.
I think it goes in something like this. So we got the GPIO pins pointing down,
and what that does, is it breaks this out into,
SCART if you want it, Ethernet, two USBs on the back,
VGA or DB15. I forget what this switch for,
this I think is, just straight up audio. This is digital audio, Toslink.
HDMI, it requires its own separate power adapter. And on the front here we've got more USB ports,
and, (Anthony laughing) this USB port here, and I think also this one.
These two are not USB. What they're wired for, I mean, okay, they are USB,
but what they're wired for, is something called SNAC, S-N-A-C.
So serial native accessory connector, I think.
What that does is, it breaks up this USB, into the native adapter for a Super Nintendo controller.
Why would you want that? Well, it just so happens, that we can run all kinds of "emulators," on this FPGA.
Now they're not actually emulators, they're also not actually what people seem to think they are.
We'll get into that later. This is an expansion port,
that can be used for all kinds of different things. Like for more SNAC connectors,
for a JAMMA harness, I think. Which is for plugging this into an arcade machine.
There's also things like mini-modules, so if you want to run old computers,
this can emulate old computers directly. Right now, I don't think there are any available
that I know of. But I do know that there are some that are prototyped,
aside from the JAMMA harness. This here,
there's a reason why this, is kind of on this little snap tab thing on the PCB.
There's some RAM here, there are RAM expansions you can get for these Terasic DE10s,
and this has it built in, but if you want to use your own, you can.
So let's move on to the next box. I'm told that Neil included some goodies for us,
including some SNAC modules. I do like some SNACs.
Let's see what's in here, okay. So, we have an SD card, presumably.
Oh, wait, what? I thought he was going to preload an SD card, this is a sealed one.
Hmm, okay, we'll see how this works out.
And here is the chassis, or one of the chassis, because I think, the other box, includes another chassis.
And you'll see why there are two chassis in a moment.
Yeah, here we go. So if you live in North America, chances are you have no use,
for the giant, very foreign connector, that is SCART.
And in that case, you wouldn't want to use this chassis here,
you'd probably want to use this one. So, there's this chassis, if that's you.
If you're me, and you have a bunch of SCART devices, then you might use this one,
so you can plug a SCART cable directly down into it. It's pretty interesting,
there's two separate layouts you can use, and in fact, this here,
on the back of the SCART-less version, allows you to hard-wire a SCART cable into it,
if you so choose. So you're not stuck with one or the other.
I don't have a SCART connector to show you right now, aside from what is on this PCB.
But what that carries is basically, everything from composite video,
to, I think in some cases, digital audio,
as well as RGB video. Which is similar to what you would get out of a VGA port,
and that's why there's both of these here. Let's see what's in this, this looks like SNAC modules,
so that's promising. That looks like Atari/SEGA,
this looks like original Nintendo, and I also have a Super Nintendo controller.
Does this come out? Yes, it does. There you go.
One thing to note, there is a little fan in here, that's for keeping the fan-less FPGA cool.
I think there should also be, yes, there's a heat sink kit along the screws
and stuff that I need. So, what I was going to show you, is this SNAC connector.
You plug it in like so,
then you can just plug in native peripherals, like this Super Nintendo controller,
I also have a Super Nintendo mouse, that I'm going to try, with some "Mario Paint." I don't have a Super Scope, or an NES Zapper,
or anything like that, we don't have a CRT to run them on right now either,
but it should support those. Are there any other questions
you have about the IO capabilities of the MiSTer multi-system, Jono?
- [Jono] No, it's pretty much, I just wanna start seeing it.
- You want to start seeing it? All right. Well, we're going to have to put it together first.
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actually controls some of what the HDMI output,
will actually output, so that you can disable HDMI CEC,
or you can override the display data
so that your a capture card, for example, won't freak out
if you're putting a weird resolution that your monitor supports, but the capture card doesn't.
So you can go ahead and switch those, however you need to.
I don't think we'll need to switch it at all, but they're there.
So we just slap that on there, kind of the same way we would for a Raspberry Pi.
So the Ethernet cable goes in there, and this here USB cable, goes in here.
It's a bit of a tight squeeze with that SCART connection.
So the idea is that, I can then bend these around,
and plug them directly into the DE10-Nano, like so.
It's a little jank, (Jono laughing) but hey, it's less jank,
than a lot of the other cases I've seen. We need to make sure that it is all aligned exact,
and then, we can push it down.
We're going with this black enclosure without the SCART.
Personally, I would use the SCART, but that's just because I'm crazy.
- [Jono] You can add it in later. - You can add it in later. Also you could just swap the case later if you wanted to,
it's not that big a deal. Fairly high quality print, all things considered.
Oh, actually, (Anthony laughs) I'm not sure you're supposed to be able to pet
the inside of the case like this. - [Jono] Oh dang! It didn't adhere.
- Yeah. I mean, it's not a problem, but it's something they're going to have to figure out
for quality control. - [Jono] Can you get your own files and download them?
- Yes, it is open source. - Ah. - So you can download and print this yourself,
if you so choose. You also can build this PCB yourself, if you so choose.
I'm not sure you'd want to. Come on, oh please, there we go.
There we go, we can use these little buttons that I put in, how nice, and it's got the switch there, ah, beautiful.
- [Jono] So is this like a little mini-console. - Yeah, basically.
The idea is, once you close it up, you don't see any of that jank.
The good thing about this case, is that it's all in one. So it includes that RAM expansion, it includes the cooling,
it includes the SNAC adapter, so basically you're getting
all the stuff you would have to source separately. - [Jono] It actually feels really soothing
to just put this together. - Yeah, it goes together really nicely,
even though it's a little bit jank. But like, I mean,
it's a labor of love. Wait, what am I screwing this into?
This is not the screw hole, that I'm supposed to be using.
(upbeat instrumental music)
All right, all that's left is to add the feet. Oh man, if I were more attentive to detail,
I'd probably use tweezers for these, since my fingers are giant sausages.
And we have an assembled MiSTer FPGA, or sorry, MiSTer multi-system.
Designed and developed by, Heber Electronics
and RMC-The Cave. Oh yeah, just in case you were wondering,
this is about, oh, look at the curvature.
(Jono laughing) It's almost perfect, I've got another banana right here.
So we can kinda like,
it's a little bit bigger than two bananas just overall.
Yeah, scale. - [Jono] How much did we just spend on this?
- How much did we spend on this? That's a wonderful question, $231 Canadian for that.
That's for the FPGA itself. That's about $199.
Retail price for the MiSTer multi-system is, £169.99.
(Jono exclaims) So that's another 200 bucks.
There we go, should be fine. Let's see, LTT, warning do not drop, that's a maybe.
WASD, nice. So this fits really nicely right here.
Nice. (Jono laughing)
Yeah, it's pricey, it's basically the cost again, of another DE10-Nano,
but you do get that extra RAM, which is something you normally have to pay,
I think like, $80 or more for.
Wait, what? What is this screwed into? What did I screw it into?
Oh, it was the wrong one. I did mess it up.
But how come, I don't, okay.
- [Jono] It's okay Anthony, it should be fine. - It should be fine,
but I want to have at least one, why did I do that? (Jono laughing)
So what should we do first Jono. - [Jono] I want to play some games.
- Got a couple of console games here.
Let's try this. All right, let's load up "Super Mario World."
You can see there, it's running at 720p. Actually I think that's a 3X scale,
for what we're looking at here. And it's currently using the whole screen, we can actually set that, to be an integer scale,
if we want. And what that does, is it just makes it so that the pixels aren't stretched out.
You can also set up some scalar stuff, like you can make it look smoother,
you can do scan lines I think, yeah, scan lines.
Which, I mean, I kinda dig that, but it's a little bit basic.
Delay generally is pretty good, but the keyboard is only running at 125 Hertz,
as far as its poll rate goes.
So it's not like original hardware.
So what is like original hardware, is the SNAC.
So let's have ourselves a SNAC here. All right, let's see if that just works.
Okay, so, I might have to restart the game here. I can set the serial button here,
or serial function to SNAC, and what that lets me do. (Anthony exclaiming)
Now I'm using an actual Super Nintendo controller on this
with original delay. The only lag that I'm getting here,
is the lag that I'm getting from the display. Everything is instantaneous.
- [Jono] If we had a 360 Hertz monitor would that be faster?
- I mean, it all depends, it's not going to be running at 360 Hertz,
but if monitor's delay is lower, then that would definitely help.
This is an older monitor, so it's not the fastest thing in the world.
It's totally fine. But yeah, the Super Nintendo controller totally works.
I wonder though, I have a Super Nintendo mouse, you want to set up some "Mario Paint"?
(Anthony and Jono cheering) Oh yeah. But yeah, if I were to do a,
L-T-T.
I'm not using the official mouse pad. - [Jono] There's an official mousepad?
- Oh yeah. - Oh. (Jono laughing) I didn't know.
- I feel like there's a little bit of delay actually,
is it angle snapping or something? I feel like, maybe this is how it works
in the original as well. It's been a hot minute,
since I've done anything, but see that? When I click, it stops the movement.
I don't remember that happening in the original cartridge.
I think I'm done with Super Nintendo for now. First, I would like to try my SEGA Genesis controller,
it's just a six button controller. Cable is very frayed, because as a kid,
I didn't tie up cables like this. I just wrapped it around the controller like this,
as tightly as possible, which is actually bad for controllers.
One thing to note, you cannot use a SNAC, on incompatible hardware.
So I can't use a Genesis six button controller, at least not via a SNAC, to play Super Nintendo games.
(speaking faintly) Yes.
(indistinct) controller or anything like that, like an Xbox controller,
you can pair that, and it'll be fine. It's kind of a bad version of "After Burner,"
if I'm being honest. - [Jono] It looks good.
- It looks good, it's not as good as the arcade version though.
All right, well, there's another reason why, I have the Genesis version of "After Burner" on there.
And the reason, is this. Analog joy, there it is, start.
That's really gratifying. And this is what you can do with a SNAC.
They have SNACs for the TurboGrafix 16, the NES,
the SEGA Genesis, and the Super Nintendo. They basically work with every peripheral.
I don't think that there's a peripheral that it wouldn't work with, because it's just passing the raw data through to the core.
Now those cores, they are basically emulators,
but they're running on the FPGA itself, so there's no delay.
That's kind of the advantage you get, with the FPGA. Arcade, a whole bunch of arcade games.
Computers, AcornAtom, a bunch that I haven't heard of, like the AliceMC10,
Apple-1, Apple-2, Atari800, AtariSt, BBCMicro,
Commodore64, Color Computer,
a couple of others that I've never heard of, I think this might be Polish.
And for consoles we got, all the Atari,
except for the Jaguar. Yeah, no Jaguar.
GBA, ColecoVision, NES, WonderSwan.
Yeah, so everything up to the 16 bit generation.
And that's the MiSTer FPGA, MiSTer multi-system.
The MiSTer multi-system, really brings the entire experience together.
I think if I just had that FPGA sitting on my desk
doing this, it would feel pretty rad,
like, "Oh wow, I'm a hacker man." But at the same time, it's not something that I would want,
sitting on my entertainment center. This is something that I could see myself wanting
on my entertainment center. This is a very coherent, cohesive piece of kit.
And dare I say, it's nice. Is it worth it?
If you're the kind of person who's like, "I don't care, I just want to play the games."
Then probably not. The NES Mini, or even a Raspberry Pi with
emulation station on it, would probably be more than enough. For people who want the original experiences,
people who want to see what it was like to use these weird controllers,
to see what it was like to see these games running on original monitors,
or discover new things, that they never thought that they would
be interested in before. Then I think it's a really great platform.
Anyway, if you thought this was a rather nice "ShortCircuit,"
maybe you want to get subscribed, so you see others like this one.
Maybe you want to check out, RetroTink, or the OSSC,
if you want to do some more retro time.
Or, you could not do that, and check out something else like,
Alex does cars sometimes, it's weird.