Richard Kain
CAGiversary!
After releasing (and selling out of) the original-model Analog NT, the fine folks up in Portland are releasing a slim version of their retro-focused system.
Still crazy-expensive, it is going to be shipping to the tune of $450 USD. That's the bad news. The good news is that it is going to have certain benefits and extras. It will ship with a wireless NES controller dongle (by the also fine folks at 8bitdo) and with a wireless bluetooth NES-styled controller from the same company. And where the HDMI option was an extra feature on the original NT that you had to pay extra money to have installed, HDMI output will be a standard feature for the Mini.
The big difference between this model and the original is the extraction of the original parts. One of the selling points of the original NT was that authentic chips from the NES were used in its production. This was a point of pride for purists and collectors, as the NT did in fact have legit NES hardware inside it. (instead of clone hardware which tends to be cheaper and introduce compatibility issues)
This new Mini version won't have those original NES chips. It will instead use an FPGA (Full Programmable Gate Array) to "emulate" the hardware of the NES. This is becoming a popular approach to classic console emulation, as it avoids some of the drawbacks of software emulation, while still providing some of the benefits. And it is one of the best ways to provide full or near-full compatibility without using original hardware.
One of the big draws for collectors looking to best present their classic games is that the NT Mini will be providing full 1080p support through HDMI with zero lag. Not many hardware-focused emulation efforts can boast this particular feature.
Still crazy-expensive, it is going to be shipping to the tune of $450 USD. That's the bad news. The good news is that it is going to have certain benefits and extras. It will ship with a wireless NES controller dongle (by the also fine folks at 8bitdo) and with a wireless bluetooth NES-styled controller from the same company. And where the HDMI option was an extra feature on the original NT that you had to pay extra money to have installed, HDMI output will be a standard feature for the Mini.
The big difference between this model and the original is the extraction of the original parts. One of the selling points of the original NT was that authentic chips from the NES were used in its production. This was a point of pride for purists and collectors, as the NT did in fact have legit NES hardware inside it. (instead of clone hardware which tends to be cheaper and introduce compatibility issues)
This new Mini version won't have those original NES chips. It will instead use an FPGA (Full Programmable Gate Array) to "emulate" the hardware of the NES. This is becoming a popular approach to classic console emulation, as it avoids some of the drawbacks of software emulation, while still providing some of the benefits. And it is one of the best ways to provide full or near-full compatibility without using original hardware.
One of the big draws for collectors looking to best present their classic games is that the NT Mini will be providing full 1080p support through HDMI with zero lag. Not many hardware-focused emulation efforts can boast this particular feature.