I thought this $4 8-bit game console was going to be total junk

While looking around AliExpress I found this little 8-bit handheld game console for a mere $4 shipped, so I ordered it just to see how something like this could be made so cheaply.
To buy one of these, for $4 (as of Jan 2024) pick the 1 for $1.99 banner and look through those items, and you'll see one for $3.99.
-- Video Links
The actual unit I have came from this listing:
www.aliexpress...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd...
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.co...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/i...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.co...
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/i...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfrei...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/i...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/i...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/mis...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorec...
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino

[@benedictnothing]

"Recommended Age: 6-12y, 14+y" Poor 13 year-olds missing out on the fun.

[@volvo09]

Hahaha 😂

[@proCaylak]

if y = -1, then 13 year-olds can have fun as well.

[@rapiqui]

​@@proCaylak In that case only people aged 18 and 13 could enjoy it 😂😂. Imagine trying it during 1 year and having to wait 5 to finally not be allowed to play ever again 😅

[@nickwallette6201]

Man, I love nerds.

[@mikecook317]

nothing makes them happy anyway

[@OtterlyInsane]

I can't believe you don't remember when Chip N Dale got guns and hand grenades

[@dallesamllhals9161]

Didn't They have a christmas war/battle with Donald* once? *The Duck

[@Pootie_Tang]

@@dallesamllhals9161 nice of you to specify which Donald 😂

[@CrackerJayherber]

This device is no joke. I bought it for my 4-year-old daughter last Christmas thinking it wouldn't last long in our house and boy was I wrong. One year later it's been smashed, dropped, even dunked in water and yet it still works like a charm. Not to mention It plays all of those NES games I grew up with for only, you said it, $4!

[@ExtremePainGames]

Something has convinced me your Canadian ?

[@SixOThree]

Raid on Bungeling Bay is interesting because while developing the game maps, Will Wright realized he enjoyed making maps more than the game itself. Thus, he created Sim City.

[@davemcglynn]

I loved playing this on the C64, had no idea how to play, but pieced enough together for it to be fun. Wasn't until about 5 years ago, I read the instructions online and enjoyed playing it in an emulator!

[@JenniferinIllinois]

Loved it on my C64.

[@fluffycritter]

The NES version of Bungeling Bay is also interesting in how they implemented the scrolling. Most NES games which supported simultaneous horizontal and vertical scrolling did so using MMC3 tricks, but Bungeling Bay doesn't use a mapper. Instead, it does smooth scrolling horizontally but uses jumpy stepwise scrolling in the vertical axis, which is also surprisingly difficult to pull off on the NES.

[@madmanfrommars]

You can really appreciate the aesthetic similarities with it and the early versions of Sim City

[@ModelLights]

'Raid on Bungeling Bay' ROBB and Space Taxi are the two games that I still pull up once in a long while on a C-64 emulator. Both were great in their own respects, and it's difficult to find a similar experience on anything else.

[@AlexTaradov]

BL-5C is a very good battery form factor. I wish there were standalone battery holders for it, so it could be easily incorporated into custom projects.

[@graealex]

There are holders available four purchase, although there isn't much of a point to it, as you'd have to integrate it properly with the overall case, and at that point, the case itself becomes the holder. The battery spring contacts can be found on the usual sites.

[@lasskinn474]

@@graealex well you can just buy a gameboy looking case and holder with charge circuitry built in for like 4 bucks

[@dr_jaymz]

Have we all forgotten that they used to puff up and their capacity was drastically reduced after just one year? I would imagine the worst current chinese crappy copies may still be better than the originals.

[@eDoc2020]

@@dr_jaymz My original BL-5C is fine but I didn't use it much. I believe my brother's ones ended up only lasting a few days (as opposed to two weeks) but he used his phone for around 10 years.

[@robsku1]

I still have a Nokia that I believe uses just that battery model - although there were many batteries that were exactly or nearly same size, but then had some minor differences, like connectors on right instead of left side, etc. But I think it just might be cheaper to buy this device than a new battery ;D

[@networkg]

You mean I am not the only one who buys junk I just can't pass up while ordering chips from AliExpress?

[@Skawo]

Old clone NES CPUs had notoriously screwy audio, usually swapped pulse channel duty cycles. That naturally persisted to the system-on-a-chip designs like this.

[@UltimatePerfection]

Perhaps that's why Hummer Team sound engine sounds so bad? It was tested only on clone consoles that had that audio issue, so if the hardware is working correctly it suddenly becomes annoying chirpfest?

[@_MasterLink_]

Yep I was going to chime in and say that. It's a duty cycle issue which has *never* been fixed on the NES on a Chip clones. It continues to this day for some oddball reason.

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@_MasterLink_ Probably there's a lot of NOACs in some warehouse leftover from when famiclones were popular and they sell it for cheap. Modernized handhelds that don't use NOACs, but are emulation handhelds instead don't have this problem.

[@_MasterLink_]

@@UltimatePerfection I understand emulation based (and FPGA based) don't have this issue. I wasn't referring to those nor was Skawo. I do question though how this NOAC is capable of driving an LCD directly seemingly with digital RGB as Adrian expressed it's not composite and I trust his assessment of that, which those original NOAC's you speak of, did *not* have support for. It doesn't add up. I don't feel these are new old stock, they were re-worked to have new circuitry that the original NOAC's simply did not have. I think these newer NOAC's and older ones should be sent to Ken Shirriff to reverse engineer. It would be interesting to see what's going on. As Adrian also expressed the LCD controller has tearing, I'd appreciate it if Adrian chimed if the tearing was diagonal perhaps? I ask this because a LOT of cheap devices use 90 degrees rotated displays, and when produced even further on the cheap, the tearing happens to be 45 degrees due to the rotation happening as it's drawing lines, creating diagonal tears. I have a feeling the tearing he saw might be diagonal, and if it is, I might actually know what NOAC this is.

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@_MasterLink_ NOACs had RGB support since forever though. That's how we got famiclones with the SCART output. In most cases though you'd need to solder RGB out to specific pins or traces on the famiclone's PCB. Looks like they use these traces to drive the LCD.

[@ethzero]

If Adrian did an _authentic_ AliExpress review it would be something like: "Received in 10 days. Missing cables. Did not test.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐" ... followed by a single picture of the thing in it's grey courier packaging 😂

[@OMA2k]

Yeah, why do people do that?! I don't care that you received it, it's the bare minimum I can expect when buying something! What I want to know is how good the product is or not! Don't waste my time with asinine "received, didn't test it" reviews! If you didn't test it, why the f*** are you "reviewing" it?! 🙄 For some reason, this happens only in Aliexpress, I can't fathom why. For example, in Amazon most reviews are actual reviews.

[@diamondsmasher]

Ah yes, the classics, who could forget Mario 14 or Contra 7.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

😂

[@joshonthetube]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Or the famous "Rural Goblin".

[@UltimatePerfection]

I am particular to Mario 7, also known as GRAND DAD.

[@Aeduo]

@@UltimatePerfection FLEEENTSTONES!?

[@sluxi]

Mr Mary I have fond memories of

[@root42]

The screen tearing is actually because the scaling is "nearest neighbor" and the LCD isn't an exact multiple of the native NES resolution. I have the same issues on the GameGear replacement screen. You need a screen with exactly 1x or 2x the pixels of the NES to not get this effect, or leave black bars around the screen edges.

[@Aeduo]

You're probably referring to shimmer, where you get a sort of flickery effect while the screen is scrolling because lighter and darker logical pixels are passing through different sized output pixels. Screen tearing is just that the screen is running at a different rate than the hardware driving it, or the screen is just not being filled/refreshed fast enough so you can see the process of the screen being between frames.

[@mancavehobbies6213]

For a family who are struggling with money. For $3 you can't go wrong. If this was out in the 80's you be the BOSS OF THE PLAYGROUND .

[@Lbf5677]

Playground Emperor

[@awilliams1701]

raid on bungling bay was one of my favorite C64 games when I was a kid.

[@fabioacrs]

I never seen someone trying to change the roms of this things. Could be a cool project.

[@britlion]

Just checked. UK price is £0.40 plus £1.60 shipping. What?! Less than $4! Same price for an identical looking model with the second controller, too...

[@alskidan]

I was watching patiently just for the tear down 😂

[@Exuprince]

I have at least 10 of those, some in the walking bag, some in gaming room, some in work, some in the toilet....and so in love with them (despite having much more advanced handhelds). It's fantastic emulation, lightweight, long battery life, ability to connect second USB gamepad to play 2-player, ability to connect to TV et. You can play 2 player on TV, this is fantastic. Have 400 in 1, 500 in 1, 800 in 1.... You bought not the best model those, can link you to the best one (I tried them all). Other model has better dpad and buttons (due to how pcb and body is built).

[@bkd69ster]

Bungeling Bay is a pretty significant game. Max Wright's first game, and it was the inspiration for SimCity, after he found the animations for the cities in Bungeling Bay to be so intriguing.

[@green64]

15:12 yep, germany, Game is called "Probotector" here and all Humans are Robots. Games where you have to shoot at people are only allowed to a limited extent and are forbidden for children, especially in the 80s. So we swap the meaning and and sprites, made up some sci fi robot laser stuff, artificial life is not that sacred :D

[@ThomasFlemingOriginal]

Yes, same in Ireland. I still have the cart and the box.

[@lasskinn474]

i think it's all of pal region. personally I think it was cooler than the rambo dudes in contra. the contra name makes no sense to begin with of course nor does the game have anything to do with contras rebels.

[@green64]

@lasskinn474. You are right, all or most PAL regions. But I heard it was done due to the German Federal Agency BPjM, which would be banned it. So big sales would go down.

[@green64]

That's right, I like some sci fi robot laser dude more than this Rambo guy. I'm not so into the military J.I. Joe thing either, I had spaceships to play.

[@lasskinn474]

@@green64 yeah it probably was, but in hindsight i think it was a good move in general. rush'n'attack was published as green beret though and it's got guns too so dunno.

[@Locut0s]

The power and scale of China’s vertical integration machinery is pretty insane. The fact that we get stuff like this for like $4 is crazy! Even considering the lack lustre quality which honestly for the cost is still impressive!

[@macethorns1168]

I mean...they make iPhones for like $4, why couldn't they throw these together for pennies?

[@snuf23]

Raid on Bungeling Bay was Will Wright's first game, the original version is on the Commodore 64. It actually has some neat mechanics in that the enemy city has factories which work towards building an enemy battleship to take out your aircraft carrier. The city aspect of the game became the inspiration for SimCity and you tell the similarity with the tile graphics used in the C64 version of SimCity.

[@jefflavenz7285]

So I'm sure you found out when doing some research but Mario 14 is a romhack of a game called Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3, a Japan only sequel to Kid Niki Radical Ninja. The Qbake game is a game called Obake no Q-Tarou Wan Wan Panic, which was released in the US as Chubby Cherub. Kage was Shadow of the Ninja, and the first Tetris bootleg you ran was actually the Tengen version of Tetris. I saw Kage Legend in the list too, which is The Legend of Kage, a Taito arcade game port.

[@horusfalcon]

Hacking that into a TV would make a great video, man! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[@RyeOnHam]

I bought that EXACT model, red and everything, in December. I was just as impressed (and unimpressed) as you were. DigDug and Joust are enough for me. I have spent $20 in quarters on just those two games on single nights back in the 80's.

[@Lbf5677]

$20 was a fortune then lol

[@RyeOnHam]

@@Lbf5677 Yeah. I had a paper route and I would blow my profits at the arcade! I make better decisions these days.

[@Lbf5677]

@@RyeOnHam that's good 👍🏻 I would have spent it on home games. Would have cried if I spent it at the arcade :D

[@exidy-yt]

Raid on Bungeling Bay was one of my fave early C64 games, and trivia the engine was used to make the first incarnation of Sim City!

[@glow_n_show8968]

Contra here in Sweden is named Probotector and you play as Robots.. Thanks for another greatt video! Greatings from Sweden.. 😊🇸🇪

[@martinlebl631]

Got one if these 400-in-1 few years ago on Amazon, for under ten dollars, and it came with the second controller for two player play. Still impressed it can be done for such an insane price. Just try buying the components for that little, not to mention the custom cases, packaging, and cables.

[@iroll]

Similar story, bought one (shaped like an N64 controller) at the swap meet from a guy working out of a shipping container back in the mid 2000s. Got a surprising amount of fun out of it with my friends.

[@dr_jaymz]

I bought a similar one just now from the corner shop. It has a controller included although not mentioned on the included list. Has 500 games but I think Adrian's is better selection. Mine doesnt have that moulding easter egg. I am guessing there are many clones of the clones. My audio is far better though and the composite video looks better or ot could just be that my crt 14in just works well with it.

[@Petertronic]

I bought one of these in 2019 when you showed one before. Still works well and battery holds its charge for ages!

[@elmariachi5133]

I think the sound might be affected by the famous Reversed Duty Cycles issue which NES clones had for many years.

[@slightlyevolved]

What I really want to know is where Adrian is finding cups of coffee that are under $4 nowadays...

[@kirusyaga]

​@@IntegerOfDoomWhat? 5 rubles? Do you mean belarusian rubles?

[@slightlyevolved]

@@kirusyaga I mean, Adrian is up in the PacWest, who knows what kind of strange, foreign currency they use up there. It's like Jefferson CA or Louisiana, no one knows.

[@ironhead2008]

@@slightlyevolved Here in Louisiana we use alligator skins ;p

[@samueldr]

For anyone wondering about the Contra Force review, it was most likely part of Game Sack's “Left in North America 4” video.

[@turbinegraphics16]

I was thinking it was from Inglebard gaming, he did contra force very recently

[@MabuseXX]

In Europe Contra was called Probotector, it has Robots (not Zombies) instead of Humans. 15:17

[@Pootie_Tang]

some sellers also sell them with an additional gamepad you can connect directly to the thing and play with a friend (works both on the screen of a console or on tv), it's only about a dollar more expensive

[@philipbirch9183]

You persuaded me. These are on sale in a store near me for £50! I picked two up for my grandkids for £4.10 plus £1.40 for a extra controller

[@Midcon77]

I played a TON of Raid on Bungling Bay on my C64 - what a blast from my past! :) I never had a game console after my Intellivision until I bought an XB1 - cool to see a console version of that game. Thanks Adrian!

[@lowendnet]

Most of the modern NES clones with this sort of large Flash use a VT-02/03 SoC, that is a series of NES clones manufactured by a company called VRTech. In the early 2000s they implemented something called the OneBus, essentially a programmable mapper that lets the system address an 128Mbit memory space. This means that anything other than MMC0 needs to be hacked to run in it (for example, certain portions need to be repeated and some of built-in games PPU data is interlaced with other games that share the same mapper type) - it is a slightly larger undertaking than just flashing the ROMs. Later on they went as far as building a non-NES compatible SoC called the VT1682 that drove many chinese handlhelds and Wii clones in the early 2010s - I actually reached out for them on the topic of building a hobbyist computer based on that chip.

[@ZanaGBYT]

And how'd that go

[@igorperuchi2114]

This sounds like a very cool project!

[@DxDeksor]

Hey I had the same thought ! I have a bunch of famiclone UMC chips and I watched ben eater's 6502 breadboard computer, and it got me thinking I could just make one myself out of these :D

[@greggv8]

There was a NOAC (or FOAC) that could use the proper ROMs. It was typically packaged into a fake N64 controller (with a fixed "joystick" in the middle) with a Famicom compatible slot on the bottom. I had one with one Famicom game cartridge, sold it for cheap. It had the usual huge number of games in one built in, which were multiple minor hacks of 100 or so games. I assume it could have worked with a NES to Famicom adapter.

[@jeromethiel4323]

When Broderbund was just starting out, the enemy of the player was quite often the "bungling empire." I actually bought an early Broderbund title. Which was rare back in the day, because i was poor and had no money.

[@rommix0]

I'm gonna guess it's Lode Runner, because that was a great game and that put Broderbund on the map.

[@jeromethiel4323]

@@rommix0 Sadly, no. But Lode Runner was an amazing game. And it came with a level editor, so you could make your own levels! Amazing for it's time. In fact, i can't even remember the name of the game i purchased. It involved a jet flying horizontally, and you could shoot and drop bombs. There was a tank that was as fast as you, so you either had to drop a supply crate on it, or fly down and release the bomb after diving to give it extra speed. That and we didn't have joysticks, we had paddles (school system). So one person controlled the horizontal speed, and the other the vertical position. Way harder that way.

[@rommix0]

@@jeromethiel4323 > It involved a jet flying horizontally, and you could shoot and drop bombs. Sounds kinda like Defender, but that was by Williams Electronic so it couldn't be that.

[@Jody_VE5SAR]

Mine arrived today - less than 2 weeks! Pretty darn impressed! Even more so given the price.

[@popsfreshenmeyer7607]

Got one of these from a friend too. Was amazed at how they pulled off such a feat at the price of a burger or whatever. Gave me confidence to upgrade to a Anbernic RG35XX (beast)... these handheld devices simply rock. Loved the video!

[@MartinsGraveyard]

The character underneath the battery is Doraemon in space. I love your videos although I understand maybe 10% of what's going on, but I'm learning. Love from Poland.

[@IvanIvanov-vt2xl]

I got the same console hours ago and you posted a video, what a coincedence :D :D I was planning to dissasemble it to see whats inside but now i dont have to. Thank you for the quality videos you make :)

[@Tetrastructural]

In regards to the sound, I heard that on some cheap handhelds they are designed for stereo sound but only have one speaker hooked up.

[@Thezuule1]

I bought one of these a while ago and love the thing. There's a couple ROMs I wish it had but for $5 it's hard to complain.

[@colinm5548]

Famicom clones in the asian market always had 100 or 400 games, circuis charly was popular

[@fattomandeibu]

Some of the later Russian NES clones had improved hardware. It could be that the extra buttons are for games for those systems. They could also just be auto-fire as they are on a lot of the Chinese clone systems.

[@DrTofu83]

I guess it's because they're made with same form factor of "better" stuff like the Miyoo Mini or the Anbernic line. They use four buttons plus "shoulders" to be mapped with Retroarch

[@faokie]

I have one that's almost identical to this (my cardboard box is a bit different, but everything else looks the same) and Y/B are the B/A NES buttons, and X/Y are turbo.

[@captainchaos3667]

It's amazing what you can do without those pesky labour laws, environmental regulations, human rights, copyright, etc.!

[@LazyBunnyKiera]

I want one for sure. I would totally remove the flash and see if i can dump it. If i can dump the flash then maybe i can reprogram it with some actual good games. Having a cheap portable with Little Samson would be amazing. Or a bunch of other rom hacks, there's even a pokemon yellow rom hack for NES.

[@medinachete73]

I have the same exact thing, and it gaves me tons of amusement when waiting in the car for the kids to finish school (mine runs properly). Just playing 1942 for half an hour already makes you realize that it was a good buy. I love that little red thing.

[@stfanboy]

My wife got me this last Christmas as a joke. I love mine. :D

[@emarskineel]

It's currently being sold for $3.27. pretty amazing despite it's problems.

[@MartinWolves]

I ordered one of these yesterday after watching your video. £2.87 including shipping!

[@rusty1187]

HUH!!! I just bought 3 of these, thinking i would give one to my grand daughter for her birthday, and i would have some spares. Then i realized that my wife's mini van has a rear seat "tv" display, a cigarette lighter socket, and an A/V input jack!!! So basically i can power it off the cigarette lighter, plug it into the A/V input, and watch it on the rear seat TV screen, with sound through the factory "quadraphonic" sound system!!! I told her that she would be doing the driving duties on long trips, and i would be in the back seat!! It will definitely keep the grand kids busy and out of our hair! I paid $27 incl. shipping for three of these. Would probably make GREAT stocking stuffers at Christmas time! BTW.... Mine came with 500 games built in.

[@taskanawa9604]

nice little system to have fun, now day i just wanna have fun,, i dont care anymore if games dont sound right or the screen is not perfect, games just plays fine, im in 😊

[@hidden_vault]

i really enjoyed watching this, it's great seeing you have so much fun too, nice to see some unknown titles lol , i was hoping you could do a future video and modify one of those and turn it into a mini console with controller support , would be awesome to see what you come up with.

[@Controllerhead]

Insanely awesome deal for 4 dollars honestly

[@waltlock8805]

The fact that something like this can be manufactured and shipped all the way from China for that price boggles my mind sometimes. What a time to be alive.

[@ruevs]

35:11 the interesting part starts :-)

[@CheapCheerful]

Little character is Doraemon perhaps? Also, do you remember what the NES was like playing through an analog TV via antenna adapter? This looks like IMAX in comparison!

[@Pilotgeek]

These are totally worth it just for the exploration of the weird roms. After you get your fun, they're nice to give to kids without fearing them wrecking such a cheap device. I also got into an argument with someone about it being an emulator, which it absolutely is not, but I think the young kids don't understand quite what a NOAC clone is and why they are so cheap vs an ARM based emulator.

[@nickc7494]

Excellent content as usual

[@midinotes]

I just looked this console up on Ali Express shipped to the UK. £0.40! Yep 40 pence (plus shipping though) but even with shipping it's only £1.62 to ship. Crazy!

[@sideburn]

I use those cheap game consoles as composite video testers when checking monitors, mini lcd displays etc. video tester on the cheap!

[@tristanbuckner]

Looks like a little doraemon on the back there.

[@Frischbrot]

PAL Guy here: no manufacturer ever fixed the speed issue. we always played nes/snes/SM/MD, etc. 20% slower than it was meant to be.. also the music was 20% slower

[@retropuffer2986]

Someone told me the screens in cheap retro consoles are surplus screens from other other devices like cell phones. That's why you get such crazy upscaling

[@jimstang2328]

I got 1 too.. was pleasantly surprised

[@picblick]

15:13 in Germany, Contra was heavily censored, you played as a robot against other robots and it was called Probotector.

[@d.lewischampie7657]

That language select and game select screen, including some of the sound effects, come from a game called "Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight".

[@Kocorochan]

I can see this being a lot of fun to mod for a kid. Replace the controls with some DS buttons, 3d print it a cooler case. That sort of thing.

[@erikmerchant567]

I bought a pair of these back around Christmas for $7 total and I was honestly impressed for the cost. The duplicate games cut down on the 400 game value, but I simply cannot complain much considering the price. Probably about 150 decent games. Good ol' Ali Express. Glad to see you do this review, since so few of my friends believe me about this game device's existence.

[@Herby-1620]

For less than $5.00 to get an LCD display is probably a good price as well. It looks like the Unihiker might fit in the box which might be interesting as well.

[@scrumbles]

I'll never how this is possible. I tried to order a replica acientroman pocket knife from spain for my dad and the shipping ALONE was 75$.

[@Crafty_Chops]

Thanks Adrian. We have one of these, I bought it for my daughter but she doesn't play these "old" games. I had Raid on Bungling Bay on my C64 - we played it a lot.

[@keithperry8098]

Okay. You talked about building it into a tv. So let's see you do it.

[@robsku1]

Oh my godess, for that price I actually must get myself one - no matter the glitches in video and audio, it's still a nice pocket NES I can get entertainment worth much more - and the possibility that in future someone finds a way to mod this to be able to load your own ROM's from SD card, or something, is thrilling.

[@davidabner8885]

I played through Super Contra 7 in the early 2000's, each level features a bunch of stolen assets from a different NES game. I just checked and I actually still have the rom file!

[@spacepygmy4443]

Bought one last year, mine came with controller, luv to see you read the flash.

[@karlporath8904]

I have one of these that I bought 2+ years ago. Same start screen but Mario played at the correct speed.

[@makskk6spm275]

great video! thanks!

[@bjn714]

They're like $17 on Amazon, but come with the second controller. I grabbed one off Ali from your link for $3.61 lol

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

ROTFL! I can't believe i overpaid by 28 cents!!!!

[@bjn714]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 what a rip-off! 🤣

[@tramadol42]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Price shown to me right now is €2.2 including shipping and VAT, thats US $2.37

[@mirabilis]

Ah, the classic 25/50% duty cycle swap on the square wave channel.

[@Boogie_the_cat]

Contra in europe had to be changed to robots. It was called Gryzor and in england it was called Probotector.

[@crashputer]

Nibbles was from well before the Nokia days. It was released on the supplement disk for DOS 5.0 as a demonstration of QBASIC abilities.

[@senilyDeluxe]

Back in around 2000 or 2001 teen me discovered that the players are stored in an array, so I thought, what happens if I set that to 3, implement keyboard bindings and set the spawn point in the levels... IT FRIGGIN WORKED! And then I made a 4 player version, a 6 player and then an 8 player version...

[@robertusa1234]

I have one of them. Bought it for off line time passing on a cruise worked great

[@CarlosGomez-vt9pk]

I got two of the "500 game" versions from banggood for maybe $10+ each. For the price they are great. I did have a few problems that I solved. One problem was that one of the consoles had a misaligned screen right-shifted up to 4 mm. I discovered that if I hit the reset button a random number of times, it would line up. The second problem is that the battery is garbage. They would last under an hour. I ordered "authentic" nokia batteries from ebay for $7 each and now it can last for a week or more (relative to how much I play it). The third problem was that one of the battery covers was loose to where it would rattle. I just put a spongy pad on the inside and now it's tight as a drum. My favorite game is a version of Defender called "Star Gate". I tell people that this is like being in a video arcade where your favorite game has worn out controls *BUT* the coin slot is broken, so you get infinite games. Playing Devil World now. Kill the CYCLOPS!!! PS - Thank you for opening it up. This helps me to decide how hard it would be to swap the direction "+" sign for a 3D-printed joystick. Decisions, decisions ...

[@soulagent79]

Bought one of these a couple of years ago for 15 bucks. It was okay for the money, the only bad thing about it was that there are absolutely no savestates for the games, so you literally have to finish games like SMB3 in one setting.

[@Darxide23]

That Super Mario Bros 3 was the Japanese region version. It's weird that the sound effects were so wrong, but everything else seemed fine. The audio between the regions is supposed to be identical.

[@mrjsv4935]

Nice game console for it's price. This kind of battery indeed seems to have long life. A (fake?) battery (ZMC BL-4C) was in my 1st cheap "Made in China" dashcam already in 2012. It didn't keep the dashcam powered very long, just couple of minutes, but when I replaced it with real Nokia BL-5C battery from Nokia 1600 cell phone, I recall it kept it powered up at least ten times longer, maybe even an hour or so. Usually of course dashcam is powered from the car's 12V socket, but when parked, there's no power coming from that socket. If you'd like to use the motion sensor, or G-sensor mode, long lasting battery inside the dashcam is useful. Nice to see this kind of battery is still powering up devices, at least inside this handheld game console. I still have the Nokia 1600 phone and battery for it, altough I don't use it as a phone anymore. I also have later Nokia C1-01 phone which has 3,7V Nokia BL-5CB version of the battery, but never tried this in that old dashcam.

[@ZombieRyushu]

This Famiclone has Reversed Duty Cycles.

[@unvaxxeddoomerlife6788]

Adventure Island is also on SEGA Master System but it is called Wonder Boy.

[@BapsyGames]

I'm pretty sure that the character in the plastic moulding of the battery compartment is ... "Doraemon" ... The AWESOME 22nd Century Space Cat 😀

[@seanoconnor8843]

I have no experience of cartridge games but I recognise many of these games from loadable copies on tape

[@graealex]

The word you were looking for is "Sokoban"

[@luizalexandregavarronlucca4045]

I'm from Brazil and I am an Electronic Engineer. I'm also surprised with the quality of this stuff. I added a real lithium charging circuit because the charging is rediculously simple and might under charge or overcharge the battery. The vídeo on a CRT TV is wonderful except the levels are a little bit low and might get a little dark in some old TV, most newer TV set Will compensate. Overall is a good toy for little kids but I would prefer normal AA battery because lithium may explode and It is risky for little kids.

[@ScottPlude]

Thanks!

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

You're welcome! Thank you for the super thanks!

[@alexmirica]

Adrian, there are two options: first, the handheld console only with AV and USB cable, and second with controller included, for 2 players gaming, for 2 bucks more. The controller plugs in the Micro USB connector.

[@BloodiTearz]

Damn i bought it 2 years for around $20 in my local currency, dont increase the brightness too much it will affect the sound playback lol

[@izools]

You know what though, the display might be poor compared against the latest and greatest OLED and IPS displays, but compare it against the Sega Game Gear and OG Game Boy and this display is absolutely next level phenomenal. Not to mention the grain and drift you got on your TV over RF from NES and Master System! Would've given my left arm for clarity, response times and viewing angles like this as a nipper

[@rolen47]

The Mario 14 game is actually a hack of Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3. Also known as Kid Niki 3.

[@NivagSwerdna]

The multichip FLASH and RAM is interesting... never knew about those. Looks like this part is obsolete as far as ST Micro is concerned but that isn't stopping this manufacturer!

[@waytostoned]

I got one of these a few years ago for around 6 dollars. Its held up better then expected. For the price, its a fun toy that I use when have to take wife to the doctor. Sure controls better then a smartphone using an emulator.