Redherring32 designed and developed the world’s smallest portable NES that uses authentic Nintendo hardware. This project is called TinyTendo. While the size of the final product is absolutely incredible, the manner in which redherring32 achieved this is even more impressive.
This is TinyTendo, a real hardware NES handheld that is the size of the original GameBoy.
This is not emulation, it is not a Pi, it is not a NOAC, and it is not an FPGA.
This is real NES hardware from a real NES.This project will also be open sourced in a few weeks. pic.twitter.com/Csf10EYPcc
— Redherring32 (@redherring32) May 24, 2022
First, I want to start off with a bit of history. You may know redherring32 from some of his previous projects, one of which is the OpenTendo. OpenTendo is a open source, complete reverse engineering of the original Nintendo Entertainment System’s motherboard. After redherring32 completed that project he was able to start the TinyTendo project which leveraged heavily from his findings from OpenTendo.
With his knowledge of the NES’ motherboard, he was able to shrink it down to it’s bare essentials. But he still had one issue. The size of the NES’ PPU and CPU were just too large. So he had to get creative and eventually devised a plan to make them smaller. This involved cutting thise chips down to a size no larger than one square centimeter and sanded down the bottom to expose the chip’s traces and die.
As part of my experimentation in cutting chips, I have ground a NES PPU down to expose the die as well as allow surface mounting.
The die has a layer of substrate on the bottom that makes this possible, and allows material to be removed from the die while maintaining function. https://t.co/J31fijnNoD pic.twitter.com/KmkvCyVp5H
— Redherring32 (@redherring32) June 17, 2021
If your NES PPU looks like this, you may want to consider not attacking it with a dremel and sander. pic.twitter.com/lIYc1Kp3uz
— Redherring32 (@redherring32) August 6, 2021
Now that he was able to trim down the CPU and PPU, the hardest part was essentially done and the rest just stemmed from there. He gave himself a few constraints to guide the rest of the projects design. He wanted the shell of the TinyTendo to be exactly the same outer dimensions as a Game Boy DMG. Additionally, he wanted the game cartridges to also be the same as a Game Boy’s.
Speaking of the game carts, redherring32 sought the help of another familiar modder, BucketMouse. BucketMouse has extensive experience with reverse engineering retro video game carts, ranging from the Sega Genesis, all the way to the NES. His expertise in this area was vital to shrinking down the TinyTendo carts. BucketMouse designed a few different TinyTendo cart types to support different games. The carts are also hardware accurate and use modern readily available components.
TinyTendo uses custom mini cartridges designed for me by the awesome @BucketMouseBite.
But the really cool thing about using real hardware for the handheld is, I could use original carts with an adapter if I wanted. pic.twitter.com/UbY4zF8YBN
— Redherring32 (@redherring32) May 24, 2022
So at the end of the day, the countless hours that redherring32 (and his collaborators) has dedicated to this project has really paid off. He has successfully made the world’s smallest NES!
Now I have to caveat that this will not be made into a kit for purchase, nor will there be sold as fully assembled units. Redherring32 has made this project completely open source for anyone who would want to make one themselves. I do have to warn you however, it is a very, very difficult mod.
