With all the knowledge I'd gained from working on my first attempt at an NES emulator, I wanted to give it another shot in C++. This time around, I had much more success, though I still ran out of steam for now.

I implemented the CPU and GPU in C++ using SDL for 2D rendering and input. It can render Pong 80% correctly, though I have not implemented sprites or user input yet, so there is not much that can be tested aside from general ability to render.

I'd wanted to attempt an emulator forever, and at the beginning of the Fall 2008 semester, I was sitting at home, and realized that it would be a lot of fun to try and implement it in hardware. At the time, I was taking Digital System Design so had access to an FPGA board, the TerASIC DE1.

Being totally new to VHDL and hardware dev, I decided to start with the lowest end hardware I could think of, which was obviously the Nintendo Entertainment System. After a ton of research, I get a handle on a the basic hardware layout of the device.