Study Finds Increased Incarceration Has Marginal-To-Zero Impact on Crime - <AUTHOR> https://eji.org/news/study-finds-increased-incarceration-does-not-reduce-crime <comment><USER3> Smart, well-meaning people on boards such as this refuse to see the Prison Industrial Complex for what it really is...a jobs program for police, courts, judges, jails, prisons, and of course, lawyers and politicians.

One group "increased incarceration" _definitely_ has a non-marginal positive impact on are all-of-the-above.

Can you show me any examples, anywhere in history, where a group that directly benefits from _and_ controls the entry level and duration of access have _ever_ decided to lower their wages and put at jeopardy their livelihoods?

Because at the heart of it, that's the real effect that decreasing incarceration will have...closing jails, firing police officers, lowering ridiculous attorney fees, and shutting down county court complexes.

And we are surprised when the very people whom benefit from the status quo don't see things the way we do?

<comment><USER4> This. One of the best comments I have ever read. In the south you also need to account for the lack of voting power of African Americans. %30 of African Americans can't vote in Florida because of their dealings with the "justice" system.

[http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/political- pulse...](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/political-pulse/os- former-felon-voting-rights-20170223-story.html)

<comment><USER5> "...%30 of African Americans can't vote in Florida because of their dealings with the "justice" system..."

I'm not a southerner. I'm certainly no Floridian. But I strongly suspect that's not a "coincidence". I think the current system was likely set up as a political "gimme" meant to appease Southerners.

<comment><USER6> I would advise being careful about treating this as just a north/south thing. For example, the exact mechanisms by which it happens might not be quite the same, but the disenfranchisement rate among black voters in Wisconsin is about the same as what GP reports for Florida.

<comment><USER5> Oh it's the _exact_ same mechanism.

The only difference is that here in Wisconsin we _know_ that our government is corrupt, and because of the corruption here there is little we can do to combat that corruption. I mean we have everything from Walker, to little boys being used for sex at Lincoln Hills, to out and out DA's who are crime lords. ( _Literally_ , a few years back there was a DA who would take "donations" to "charity" from drug runners. They would actually divert shipments to go through his jurisdiction because if you get caught all you had to do was pay the "donation". It was really bad.)

I'm pretty sure if you were to ask the average Wisconsinite, they would openly admit much of the corruption up here. Not only with crime, or blacks, but with money, with land, with _everything_ basically. Why do you think we have protests with hundreds of thousands of people showing up? It's not just Walker, at least in my opinion it's not. It's the system that people feel he represents and defends.

By contrast, in Florida, I get the sense that people think that's the way things are _supposed_ to work. They believe they have a good system and that the system works the way God intended.

<comment><USER7> > By contrast, in Florida, I get the sense that people think that's the way > things are supposed to work. They believe they have a good system and that > the system works the way God intended.

It depends who you ask. I've only lived in Florida for 40 years but I find it split in thirds with 1/3 willing to tolerate Tallahassee corruption and crumbling infrastructure as the price of low taxation while the other 2/3 are appalled but don't or can't vote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Because incarceration is _penitentiary,_ which means criminals are made to pay for their crimes - not to be _rehabilitated._ There other countries where incarceration works, for example Norway [1] - primary because they focus in rehabilitation. Incarceration is not the problem, the typical opinion of the purpose of incarceration is (justice through revenge).

Incarceration is 100% effective for what America wants it to achieve: penance.

[1]: [https://m.phys.org/news/2016-08-norwegian-prisons- criminal.h...](https://m.phys.org/news/2016-08-norwegian-prisons- criminal.html)

<comment><USER9> > There other countries where incarceration works, for example Norway [1]

The Nordic model works in Norway because of Norway's society and culture. It wouldn't work in US, or South Africa or El Salvador because of what level of violence is deemed acceptable in those countries.

You can try to transpose the Nordic model in US all you want it is not going to work because these are different societies bound by different civil contracts and cultures.

Plenty of societies and countries have a prison system that doesn't focus on rehabilitation,at all, yet the level of violence is still inferior to US by a long shot.

<comment><USER10> [citation needed] you won't know if it works until you try, has there been any experimental applications of the nordic model in the US that show it to be uneffective? there has been at least one in canada that I'm aware of,(admittedly only targeting youth offenders, so not conclusive, but at least an indication I guess) and the results were pretty good: [https://theconversation.com/judges-sentence-youth- offenders-...](https://theconversation.com/judges-sentence-youth-offenders-to- chess-with-promising-results-96172)

edit to add, I'm not sure you can call the Canadian trail a copy of "the nordic system" but it is similar to it in that it focuses on rehab rather than punishment. I like to think you could adapt from "the nordic system" to make it work in the us.

<comment><USER11> This was the point of halfway houses. They were intended to be an alternative, or supplement, to incarceration to help genuinely rehabilitate convicts and help prepare them for release back into general society. They include therapy, drug treatment, job training, and so on. The NYT ran a report [1] on these institutions some time back. Recidivism rates were actually higher than those who just were sent to prison with a 67% recidivism rate for halfway house residents compared to 60% for prison-only convicts.

And of course those rates are just within 3 years. They get much higher over time. The US is relatively unique in that we have a relatively large population of individuals that seem to resist all efforts at stopping them from engaging in crime. This is not really a problem in places like Scandinavia. The absolute and utter failure of rehabilitation driven systems further emphasizes the difference. For further statistics and information on various sorts of data related to prison, prisoners, recidivism, and so on you check out the Bureau of Justice Statistics [2]. Their page is loaded with all the information you could ever want.

\---

In my opinion the major problem is once a culture develops around criminality it becomes practically impossible to detach the criminality from the culture, as resisting reform becomes part of the culture. I grew up in this very culture and it's quite clear that people talking about reformation just have not been around this very much at all. Prison is not seen as game over. It's just another part of the game, and prison time is worn as a badge of honor once people are out, as it shows how 'hard' they are, and gains instant respect.

For instance have you ever thought about how completely idiotic resisting arrest is? You're not going to do anything except add years to your sentence, and get either beat down or killed in the process of it. But the reason people do this is again because it shows how 'hard' they are. You or I might be thinking 'Well how can I minimize my prison time and get back to real life?' so we would never behave this way, and then engage in all sorts of mental gymnastics to try to explain why somebody else would. But the issue is that we're not part of this culture, and to understand why things the way they are you really have to live through it. In that culture prison is just a regular part of what we'd call 'real life' so this sort of loss minimization calculus simply does not exist.

The more important question then is where did this culture come from, how did it emerge and spread, and how could that be stopped in the future? But that's an entirely different topic.

[1] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/nyregion/pennsylvania- stu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/nyregion/pennsylvania-study-finds- halfway-houses-dont-reduce-recidivism.html)

[2] - [https://bjs.gov/](https://bjs.gov/)

<comment><USER12> > For instance have you ever thought about how completely idiotic resisting > arrest is?

If someone grabs your wrist and yanks you off balance - guess what, you're probably going to try to resist them if only to not fall over. Likewise humans are not perfectly rational beings - if someone runs towards you and you're already scared, you're going to start to run. This isn't because you somehow played out a competent mental calculus on your chances of escaping, it's because you're an animal with instincts.

Hell, this effect is counted on in martial arts - if you want someone to move, push them the opposite way.

The issue is that "resisting arrest" has grown to be a vague charge that encapsulates everything from people outright fighting police officers to people who are scared and trying to not get knocked off balance.

<comment><USER11> This is the day and age of cameras on police, cameras on bystanders, cameras on the streets, and cameras pretty much everywhere. Hypotheticals are not only unnecessary but counter productive. You can view practically endless footage at your leisure.

And these hypotheticals are part of the mental gymnastics I mentioned. This isn't to say that your hypotheticals have not happened, but if they do happen they represent an incredibly tiny fraction of all incidents - whereas you are implicitly suggesting they make up some meaningful percent of incidents. It's like somebody charged with breaking and entering who somehow genuinely thought he was getting into his own house after having forgot his keys. I'm sure that's probably happened, but that says absolutely nothing about the very near 100% of cases where this is not what happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This makes no sense. As far as I can tell they pulled property crime out of their definition of public safety, but left in the cost. This also flies in the face of the fact that the current era is one of the safest in history.

I think many people are sympathetic to reform in the criminal justice system. It would be a good thing to do. Particularly laws around drugs and illegal substances. It also gets to the root of many of these problems. I think that's a much better way to move the needle, rather than just looking at the money spent and deciding "well, this isn't working based on my definition, so we might as well not do it".

<comment><USER14> >This also flies in the face of the fact that the current era is one of the safest in history.

Is it also one of the safest in history in other nations that have not increased their incarceration rates?

<comment><USER15> >Is it also one of the safest in history in other nations that have not increased their incarceration rates?

Yes[1]

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop)

<comment><USER16> Interesting that there is no link between that page and the lead hypothesis, which seems to be gaining more credibility these days.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead- crime_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-crime_hypothesis) [https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated- le...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime- roundup-for-2018/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a nice data point in how crazy a "study" can be in how it abuses statistics to detach itself from reality. With a billion variables to control for, you can find many that seemingly account for trends in crime. Basically, locking people up prevents them from committing crimes for that duration. For anything besides organized crime, that's going to reduce crime by removing whatever crimes they'd commit.

<comment><USER18> > Basically, locking people up prevents them from committing crimes for that > duration. [...] that's going to reduce crime by removing whatever crimes > they'd commit.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. 1) There is no crime in prison. 2) The imprisoned would have kept on committing crime for their total sentence if they were not in jail. 3) Prisoners 'return' to the world committing the same type/volume of crimes that they were committing when they went in.

For #1: There is crime in prison, a whole lot of it, and (even if you don't have sympathy for criminals) it's bad for society; people may come out worse off than they went in, driving crime up further. Jail is an intense experience, and it seems like the skills that you develop while 'surviving' in jail may not be so constructive for society when you're released.

For #2: As a kid my friends and I made a lot of stupid mistakes and some pretty bad decisions. Purely arbitrary factors (race, affluence, geography, etc) meant that none of us were ever locked up for them. We had the opportunity to correct our behavior, grow out of it. Had we have been punished harshly, it's likely that that our bad behavior would have continued. This is due to #1 (exposure to crime/criminals in prison, and contact with the justice system), but also loss of opportunities, and probably a different exposure or experience with drugs.

For #3: The above two points lead to the possibility that people who come out of jail are more likely to engage in more or worse criminal activity when they're released than when they went in.

So while there need to be consequences for crime, it's not at all evident that increased incarceration, certainly the way we are doing it, would lead to reduced criminal activity.

<comment><USER19> Well for my family member who was/is a heroin addict, 6 months in jail meant 6 months of not stealing from her family. 6 months of not neglecting her kid. 6 months of sobriety to reflect on where her life was going.

She did not stay clean, and I'm sure we can do better as a society to rehab our people, but for 6 months she was limited in the damage she could do to those around her.

I'm pretty conflicted on the topic

<comment><USER20> How could one possibly not neglect one's kid while in jail?

Presumably someone or some institution stepped in, probably the family. How much was the jailing necessary for the kid to get this help?

<comment><USER21> By screaming at the child, hitting the child, taking drugs around the child....

Keep the easy questions coming.

<comment><USER22> That's abuse, not neglect.

<comment><USER23> A distinction without a meaningful difference.

<comment><USER24> I believe that the difference is meaningful. Neglect is a very specific type of abuse.

Physical, emotional and sexual abuse are all very different from neglect. All forms of abuse are different in terms of the psychological effects on the abused, societal reactions to both parties, motivation on the part of the abuser and much more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How could the opposite ever be true, most incarcerated are not there for life and when they get out they get shit on by the rest of us. Post incarceration opportunities that lead to yearly incomes above the poverty line are reduced 10x probably more. I'm not saying we shouldn't jail people but jail should be like forced education unless your jail term is for life.

<comment><USER3> What good is forcing someone to get an "education" when corporations refuse to give decent paying jobs with benefits to ex-cons?

<comment><USER25> They don't offer decent paying jobs because the odds are that if you are a con you don't have the skills to hold the job and/or can't be trusted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder how many people actually understood what the article is referring to when it says "increased incarceration". It's not referring to increased jail sentences for those who commit violent times. It's referring to the imprisoning of non-violent "criminals" such as marijuana dealers.

> " _Higher incarceration rates are not associated with lower violent crime > rates, because expanding incarceration primarily means that more people > convicted of nonviolent, "marginal" offenses (like drug offenses and low- > level property offenses) and "infrequent" offenses are imprisoned._"

I'm all for legalizing marijuana and other soft drugs, but not for going easy on rapists and murderers. Do increased jail sentences have a deterrent effect? A quick Google search shows that the answer is yes, up to a certain point, and this makes perfect logical sense. If the punishment for committing armed robbery consisted solely of one day in prison, so many more people would give it a go. As you increase the sentence from one day to multiple years, you would weed out the less hardcore would-be criminals.

We can debate the inflection point where the effects start to taper off. But there is no doubt that having some threat of jail time, has a extremely significant impact on crime.

[https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2016/03/29/longer- ja...](https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2016/03/29/longer-jail- sentences-do-deter-crime-but-only-up-to-a-point)

</comment><comment><USER27> The data show that areas with high incarceration rates generally have higher crime rates; and areas with lower incarceration rates generally have lower crime rates.

The article then deduces that high incarceration rates CAUSE high crime rates when it seems blatantly obvious to me that the causation runs in the OPPOSITE direction.

Areas with high crime rate cause high incarceration rates because as crime rate goes up, more people must be put in prison.

I don't necessarily disagree with the article's agenda (to support prison reform) but the reasoning seems shockingly lacking.

Also, the article mentions that the incarceration budget went up by 340% with no meaningful change to public safety, but fails to mention that inflation during the same time period was 240%....so the budget didn't really increase all that much.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is just a correlation study, showing that states where incarceration went up did not simultaneously have decreasing crime rates.

The study can't tell you what would have happened if that state had reduced incarceration rates.

People who get cancer treatment are far more likely to have cancer than the general population. This does not mean that reducing cancer treatment reducing cancer treatment will reduce cancer incidence!

</comment><comment><USER29> Why can't the focus ever be on the prevention of crime in the first place? These discussions always dissolve into the same cesspool of blaming prisoners and politicians. The government can never be relied on to fix things. The single biggest predictor of living in poverty or doing time in prison is growing up with no father around. 80% of prisoners today had no father in their life.

Seems like we should be looking at things like that. I never shook those conversations here though. W have to empower single motherhood (heroism) and not discourage it here... Well look at where that has led us.

</comment><comment><USER30> While I'm sympathetic to this point of view, it's really hard to take seriously a conclusion like "no impact".

California's murder rate peaked around 1994. Three-strikes sentencing was enacted that same year in CA and about a dozen other states. Are we to believe that the 50% decline in murders since then is not, at least in part, a result of the incarceration of repeat criminals?

I guess we'll find out soon enough now that 3-strikes is being considerably softened.

<comment><USER31> Property and violent crime rates started dropping in California in the early 90s[1], along with the rest of the country, before three-strikes was enacted. Crime in California has also declined at rates similar to states without three-strikes policies (e.g. Illinois).

[1] [http://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/crime- trends-1.png](http://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/crime-trends-1.png)

<comment><USER30> Using the same site you referenced, violent crime peaked around 1993, the year before three strikes.

[http://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in- california/](http://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/)

Also, the number of homicides specifically peaked in 1993 at 4,096 and dropped almost every year for the next 25 years. It looks like it bottomed out in 2014 and started climbing again.

[http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm)

It's true that rates in other states dropped also. You mentioned Illinois who did not enact a three strikes law (but its neighbors did, as did the federal government). Note that it didn't see improvement on the same scale as California - and now Chicago's murder rate is so bad that it makes the national news almost every week.

I really don't know that the halving of the murder rate should be credited to tougher sentencing, but it coincides pretty well - so well that when I see claims that they have zero effect I can't help but assume that the findings are agenda-driven.

But tough sentencing laws are falling out of favor and being reversed - <USER2> partially reversed. Maybe the homicide rate will stay low and 3-strikes laws will be completely discredited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is just a correlation study, showing that states where incarceration went up did not simultaneously have decreasing crime rates.

The study can't tell you what would have happened if that state had reduced incarceration rates.

People who get cancer treatment are far more likely to have cancer than the general population. This does not mean that reducing cancer treatment rates will reduce cancer rates!

</comment><comment><USER32> Whenever this topic comes up, I like to link to this [1] study done by the ACLU. It is a study on people that have received life without parole for nonviolent offenses. It is truly shocking that US lawmakers have allowed even one of these sentences to happen. The "land of the free" is anything but. Here's one of the more salient quotes:

 _"...thousands of people are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for nonviolent crimes as petty as siphoning gasoline from an 18-wheeler, shoplifting three belts, breaking into a parked car and stealing a woman's bagged lunch, or possessing a bottle cap smeared with heroin residue."_

[1] [https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/111813-lwop-complete- repor...](https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/111813-lwop-complete-report.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER33> Too many politicians and voters are in the habit of ignoring facts and instead going with their gut feelings, even when the facts directly contradict their "feelings". And unfortunately fear mongering for votes can be very effective.

Here's Newt Gingrich's classic "debate" between FBI crime statistics and his own "feelings". Notice particularly the language he uses to frame actual facts that don't agree with his ideology:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I)

</comment><comment><USER34> I thought it had positive impact on crime - that is, prison teaches petty thieves to become hardened criminals.

</comment><comment><USER35> Not surprised at all. Born and raised in a country with criminal punishments a lot harsher than here in Canada yet the crime rate is 5-10 times higher.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is making a good case for death penalty.

<comment><USER36> 4%+ of people who receieve the death penalty are innocent. This is unacceptable.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death- penalty-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty- study-4-percent-defendants-innocent)

<comment><USER37> 100% of people who receive the death penalty are murdered. This is unacceptable.

<comment><USER38> murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

If a legal system grants the death penalty, it isn't murder under that legal system.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The abundance of slowness - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/content-creators-curators/348a9f60e176

<comment><USER2> > sometimes entrepreneurs work on their businesses after hours out of love, > rather than straining toward an overly-optimistic deadline out of fear. I've > been there, I've put in the hours and I'll do it again. But not unless I'm > motivated by love.

This article is the best thing I've read in a while, and I needed to read it. Thanks.</comment>


California drought spurs protest over 'unconscionable' bottled water business - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/19/california-drought-protest-bottled-water

<comment><USER2> What I find so funny about this is that bottled water is much more 'sustainable' than public provisioned water because, since everybody in the bottled water supply chain makes money, can pay for itself and can pay for continuous improvement.

When the public water fountain in the park fails this is seen purely as a cost center, not an opportunity center, thus the public water fountain which is vastly more economically competitive loses every time.

<comment><USER3> Just goes to show, anything can look sensible if you measure it poorly enough.</comment></comment>


Protect Your Privacy, Ditch Mainstream Email - <AUTHOR> https://antifederal.com/2017/10/21/protect-your-privacy-ditch-mainstream-email/ <comment><USER2> [https://today.law.harvard.edu/internet-privacy- afraid/](https://today.law.harvard.edu/internet-privacy-afraid/)

SCHNEIER: _I use an encrypted chat application like Signal. By and large, email security is out of our control_

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty much been my conclusion, and whilst Schneier's confirmation is somewhat reassurring for my sanity, it's deeply troubling for any prospects for privacy.

I'd _really_ like to see a focused effort put forth on addressing the failures of email in a novel, _and open_ , standard. After many decades of service, I'm largely convinced that _no_ level of patching SMTP _or_ the various hacks of message formats will be successful.

And proprietary efforts are all but certain to be harmful.

<comment><USER3> MTA-STS [0] is the first decent effort (that would actually have some impact) that I've seen.

[0]: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-uta-mta- sts-10](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-uta-mta-sts-10)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, though that's at best a very partial step.

I'm looking at a more comprehensive rethinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> (Irony that email is a federated implementation of a protocol, yet the website is called antifederal.)

I've had my own domain name since 2002. Many others here may also do similar. Many may not.

This federates you, and your mailing address. Freedom to change email providers, without inconveniencing those you converse with.

There are two sides to a transaction, however. Your mail may be federated, but the other side likely isn't. I'm incredibly disappointed how stuff like PGP has not been widely adopted.

<comment><USER5> Maybe it continues the historical tradition of Federalists vs Anti- Federalists:

"The primary opposition to the Constitution was based on it being a centralizing document that risked making the states a mere administrative arm of the central government. States' rights advocates like Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Elbridge Gerry were wary of the new document. The Federalists were aware of these objections and their opponents. Thus, in trying to head them off at the pass, they adopted the name Federalists to give people the impression, true or not, that they were for a federal form of government and not a national one. This forced those who opposed the constitution to be known as Anti-Federalists, which to the less attentive audience gave the impression that they were against federalism and thus for a centralized regime."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I agree it is an apt idea, it is not so useful. See this post [https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email- be...](https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it- has-all-of-yours) The graphs may change a bit but the overall trend is communication involves big 5 SV.

<comment><USER7> While this is true, most of my personal correspondence ends up on Google servers, there is a significant increase of privacy you get from the more utility based emails. For instance, if you shop on Amazon and switch away from Gmail, Google loses out on all of your purchasing habits. Consider that the Unroll.me fiasco involved one ride sharing company buying data about your receipts from the other.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time - <AUTHOR> https://internalregister.github.io/2019/03/14/Homebrew-Console.html <comment><USER2> This is the coolest thing I've seen posted on HN in years, very cool work.

I've been playing with Atari 2600 programming on and off for the past few years and it is so fun programming directly against the specific hardware. I can't help but occasionally wonder if I could piece together a similar system, but I have 0 experience with electronics. I can only imagine how satisfying it must be to actually pull it off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot :)

It really is super satisfying to get this far, I still turn it on sometimes just to check if it really works.

And I also had zero experience with electronics (and I still don't know as much as I should...), so yeah I think you could piece together something like this. :)

<comment><USER3> I was a tad skeptical when I saw the title. But it looks like you really pulled it off. It took Atari engineers like 4 years ;)

Is it fast enough for multi-input / multi-player?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

The only multi-input game I have right now is Tetris for 2 players. My girlfriend doesn't complaint while playing it (except when I win :P), so I'd say it's pretty responsive, even with the somewhat convoluted way the CPU communicates with the PPU and the double-buffering.

I think it will work for other types of games as well. With all the hardware, firmware for the 3 microcontrollers, bootloader software, compiler toolchain and tools, I still haven't gotten around to actually make a lot of games for it.

<comment><USER4> This is crazy dude! You're an inspiration! Awesome job!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As much as I enjoy quickly building circuits on a breadboard like in many of the photos, they're _hell_ to debug, because there's so much that can go subtly wrong. It's much easier with digital than analog circuits, of course, but it still can be crazy hard to logic-probe every connection to get it all to work. I have spent far too much time fixing little bugs in breadboarded circuits. The toughest issue I encountered was when someone melted through part of a big, expensive breadboard with a soldering iron and it caused shorts on the other side of the board. I couldn't even trust that the holes that were supposed to be connected were in that case, and I sure wasn't going to copy over the project onto a new breadboard.

However, I'm not sure if there is an easier way to get quickly prototype electronics. Opting for more ICs and a lower BoM count helps, because there's less wiring to do in the first place.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree. The reason I stuck to DIP ICs was because I could fit them into breadboards and I thought that was easier than any alternative. I was incredibly lucky on how all the breadboards were functional. And there were a few times where I would accidentally disconnect a wire and spend the next 2 hours trying to figure out what was wrong. All this without having a logic analyser and not even an oscilloscope until much later in the build (they are not that cheap). And yes the project sure is complex, too complex, but I guess I was lucky, and I'm glad it's working :).

<comment><USER5> More power to you for being patient enough to fight through! I'm nowhere near that good.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really not that special, don't sell yourself short.

And thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you wrote a book explaining how to do this, teaching the concepts, etc... I think a lot of people (or at least me) would be very interested!!!

Great job

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

I've kept this project to myself and would only describe it occasionally to some coworkers and friends. I never thought that many people would find it cool. And always thought that people with more knowledge than me would find a lot of flaws. So it's really awesome to read yours and all the other comments. :)

I don't think I could write a book, but I have though in writing other posts, giving more detail in certain aspects of the console. There's really a lot I could say about it and I only realised how much there was to say when I started writing this.

<comment><USER7> > I don't think I could write a book

That's what you thought about building a video game console from scratch, and look how that turned out :) Awesome work!

<comment><USER8> Plus the blog post is effectively a draft of said book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh to built 20Mhz systems again! ... no picosecond timing skews to stress over, no ground plane worries, no trace-related design rule violations, no harmonic noise issues, no dynamic bus inversions to prevent victim/attacker degradation, no thermal issues... I spend so much time debugging GHz multi- layer circuit boards that I forget how "easy" 20MHz digital circuits can be. This guy's project is truly inspiring!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :)

I would love to learn more and be able to work with faster circuits like you. Yes it's way easier to work with "slow" digital circuits I had very little issues using breadboards and really long wires, that probably look cringy to you and others.

<comment><USER9> Note I put "easy" in quotes because your project was by no means "easy", especially with no tools at your disposal but the internet!

Can I ask how you incrementally tested the video circuit as you built it? Did you have a test pattern generator or something? I know very little about TV signals, I spent some time trying to wire up an analog camera and just ragequit because I lacked a good fundamental debug process.

<comment><AUTHOR> I knew what you meant by "easy" and I agree.

Well, I think it isn't that hard to get an analog video signal going. Having a TV that took an RGB analog signal, meant that I could connect the microcontroller directly to the TV (using resistors to convert the voltage and for the color DAC).

Then all I did was get the timing right, especially with the sync signal. Along with other resources, I used this image ( [http://martin.hinner.info/vga/pal_tv_diagram_non_interlace.j...](http://martin.hinner.info/vga/pal_tv_diagram_non_interlace.jpg) ) to understand when to set the Sync signal to 0 or to 1. When using a microcontroller you can use interrupts or you can have well-timed instructions to set the sync signal on or off at the correct time, I chose the latter. The micros I used are AVR 8-bit architecture based, so most instructions always take 1 cycle, others take from 2 to 4 cycles to execute, simply by looking up in the manual I could calculate when certain instructions would execute and build a program in assembly that would generate the sync signal successfully. And if everything was right, my TV picture would switch to black, meaning it detected a valid PAL signal.

Of course, it wasn't always this easy, for example, I had a bug when I started, I wasn't setting one of the registers correctly and it took me a day to solve it, I had to look at the code over and over until I figured out what was wrong. Not having an oscilloscope nor a logic analyzer certainly made it harder.

Another lucky thing for me, was that the TV I have (an old CRT TV) is actually quite forgiving and even if I don't feed the timings exactly, it will still show a picture, so that helped.

Once I had a valid signal going I tested sending pixels to the screen, and I did use patterns to see if I had the timing right for each pixel, if I took too long switching pixels they would get wide. So I tried some checker patterns and stuff like that, but nothing fancy. I hope this answers your question. It really isn't that difficult to generate a video signal and also I was quite lucky to get it working early on.

I probably didn't do things like they should be done, but it worked for me. I would say that best thing is have a logic analyzer or oscilloscope to check if the signal you're generating corresponds to what it should be, that makes it a lot easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Okay, this is cool as hell.

I've reading up about the architectures and programming of computers and consoles from the 80s and early 90s lately, and have been itching to do a similar project of my own, but have been kind of floundering on where to get started. The fact that you pulled this off inspires that this sorta thing _can_ be done.

Have you considered doing a series of blog posts going into more detail on each section of the console and your journey in getting each bit working, describing failures and successes both? I think such would be instructional to other people who want to do some similar homebrew computer/console hacking.

I was kind of surprised that your PPU design was frame buffered instead of line buffered, but I suppose I perhaps shouldn't be. I imagine the PPU chips of old were line-buffered because RAM was expensive in the 80s, and it was a good enough interface to control a scanline-based display. In my recent reading about the architecture of 3rd, 4th, and 5th gen consoles, I noticed that the 5th gen systems became fully frame buffered, as memory had become cheap and fast enough in the early-mid 90s. And a frame buffer certainly feels a bit simpler and more intuitive to think with than a scanline buffer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :)

I am considering doing a series of blog posts, I don't know how often I could write them or if I could keep them going, but I will try. I'm not big in social media and I have never written any posts or anything like before this one, which is weird, I'll admit it, so all this is kind of new, but I think I'll give it go.

Old systems used line-buffers like the Neo Geo or no buffers like the NES, for example. So yeah, going with a frame-buffered approach was definitely easier, but this was not the only reason I chose this way. I had a lot of restrictions, I was learning a lot of stuff, I didn't know how to work with FPGAs and I stuck with DIP package ICs that I could put on breadboards and experiment. And that's why I picked the AVR microcontrollers, which are awesome but have their disavantages. They have good performance (20Mhz), but not many pins and I had to bit-bang things like external RAM access (actually the PPU accesses 3 RAMs with only 32 IO pins available), which meant that it takes "some time" to access external memory. That's why I chose 2 microcontrollers for video instead of just one, one of them could take "all the time in the world" (one frame) to fetch information and write a frame to the frame buffer while the other would generate the video signal and dump the a frame to the TV. Connecting the two, I felt a double buffer was better.

I definitely would have preferred doing a more "traditional" non-buffered render system, but this was the solution I found with what I had to work with.

I hope serves as a good explanation and maybe I'll get to explain these details better in another post :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know this has been said before but this is one of the coolest things I've seen posted here on HN. My undergrad is in computer engineering and this post brought back a flood of writing VHDL and doing design in Mentor Graphics.

I'm going to read this a few more times. It's like reading a good book about my hopes and dreams.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :) (I don't mind people saying it over and over again, believe me :P)

I actually started building a much smaller video game console with a cheap Cyclone II FPGA board (a friend of mine wanted one and I tried to figure it out how I could make something smaller and cheaper but still retro and cool) and I'm using VHDL, it's not exactly easy to learn but it's pretty cool, and I find it really hard to find good resources to learn from.

If I was to start all over again, I would use an FPGA for the graphics, for sure, at the time I just didn't know how.

And thanks again for the comment :)

<comment><USER12> You could use a Zynq FPGA that has a built-in dual core ARM processor. It has 512K of L2 cache and 256K of memory, more than enough to basically copy the same architecture into that design. It also has ADCs built in so you can implement analog joysticks too. It's also probably fast enough to build a graphics processor in logic. Only thing you may want to keep is the sound processor because there is no built-in DAC so you would need to implement that anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a wonderful project. Well done. You might just inspire this software engineer to take his first crack at hardware. :)

One somewhat personal question, if you don't mind. You say you are Portuguese. Is English a second language for you? I don't see the telltale signs of a Portuguese -> English speaker (I have a lot of experience interacting with Portuguese speakers, and their English mistakes are pretty uniform due to the specific differences between the languages, esp regarding prepositions and tense). Your article, as many have noted, is beautifully written even for a native English speaker.

<comment><USER14> It's almost like Portuguese people are not a uniform block, right?

<comment><USER13> Who said anything about Portuguese people as a uniform block? That doesn't even make any sense as it's not only Portuguese people that speak Portuguese lol. I only referenced those who have either chosen or were involuntarily exposed to English as a second language who speak Portuguese natively.

<comment><USER14> > and their English mistakes are pretty uniform due to the specific > differences between the languages, esp regarding prepositions and tense

This is not the case. Different people make different mistakes, as any exposure to a high-school level English class will allow you to discover. There's a case for clusters of similar errors, but then again any generalizing statement is true for a sufficiently high level of clustering.

<comment><USER13> "Their" referring to the group of Portuguese speakers that I know, not Portuguese people as a block. That implication came about due to you alone. The observation that you quoted is based on both my interaction with them, but also their interpretation and observation of themselves relayed to me in conversation(many of them are in the field of linguistics, so this type of thing comes up a good bit).

I can see how you could draw that conclusion from my post, however. I assure you there was no intent to generalize.

<comment><USER14> > I assure you there was no intent to generalize.

My apologies for misunderstanding, then. And thanks for making that clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting how this kind of project has come into the realm of possibility of an individual's pet project (a smart individual, sure, but not a company).

I guess that the availability of information and materials through the internet has helped a lot. And also more people have knowledge in electronics and programming.

Great job, Sérgio. É muito giro.

<comment><USER16> Interesting perspective. I wonder what kinds of projects a motivated individual would be able to tackle say, 20-30 years from now.

<comment><USER17> Perhaps building a world where the occupants don't realize they're in a simulation....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You're a top notch hacker, from high to low level. Not many people can do what you do. I know this is a hobby/fun project, but I really hope your current employer/clients appreciate and reward you commensurately!

</comment><comment><USER19> I never comment on here. This was cool enough for me to try to figure out my password and log in and say that you are the tinkerer/creator I wish I could be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much :)

I'm actually a bit overwhelmed with all the comments and I'm trying to answer at least a few of them.

Just wanted to say that, even without knowing you, I think you could absolutely be a tinkerer or creator, just choose something you would like to build, start small and go from there. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is something I wish I'd be able to do one day, but every time I look into getting into electronics I get overwhelmed.

Can you recommend the materials you used when learning? Books or resources etc.

This was a really interesting read, thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER21> People invariable ask a form of this question every time an impressive project like this is posted.

For what its worth(1), I think that _" learn a bunch of stuff -> go build something cool on the first try"_ isn't quite the right approach. I think you have to set for yourself a series of tasks and then fight like hell to figure out how to accomplish them. Start with a single blinking led. Just google "how to blink an led" and try to do it a few different ways.

In short the only "material" you might use to get started is google, by typing in "how do I..." while chasing modest goals that look like they might be in roughly the right direction. If there is a magic book out there that will "teach you electronics", I haven't found it yet. It sounds a lot like the sort of book that might "teach you astronauting".

"Electronics" is broad enough that it might be more like learning a language than learning a skill.

 _(1)My own meandering opinion_

<comment><USER22> > For what its worth(1), I think that "learn a bunch of stuff -> go build > something cool on the first try" isn't quite the right approach.

There might be also some kind of misconception in the way that you're seeing something cool and now also want to get this cool stuff. But if you aren't interested in the fundamentals - in this case electronics - and don't have fun learning these by simple experiments - like you described - then it's neither worthwhile for you nor you will get to the cool projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Shine on, dude, shine on. Inspiring! I love the fact that you've been working on this for a long time, yet 60 seconds ago I was completely unaware of it. What other amazing things are amazing people working on out there?

</comment><comment><USER24> This is simply incredible. I teach high school and elementary kids, and the thing I'm always telling them and parents is how the added complexity and modern design of software and hardware have made it so challenging for kids to take a "peak" under the hood. Projects like this are such a wonderful way to really spark that curiosity between hardware and software. So inspirational!

<comment><USER18> You see this with grown up devs too. Many of them have only ever learnt to code with a full suite of build tools such as web pack, grunt and npm. They seem lost without these things and only a few really know what's going on under the hood. The best devs I've worked with are feel comfortable getting things done even when those tools are taken away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I know that I am echoing the same sentiment, but how cool is this! In the video where you demo'd BASIC and had that ball bounce across the screen, my jaw literally dropped, and my mouth stayed open the whole rest of the page. Amazing :)

</comment><comment><USER26> This is incredibly impressive! You should be very proud of yourself for not only having the knowledge to work through a project like this but also the discipline to see it through to fruition. Hats off!

</comment><comment><USER27> THIS kind of project is why I've replaced ./ with HN in my favorites bar. Thanks for sharing, this is an incredibly cool project!

<comment><USER28> In case you don't know about it, see also: [https://hackaday.com/](https://hackaday.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It finally happened. I had to sign up for Hacker News just to give props. Very cool and inspiring project. Thanks so much for posting.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is both amazing and terrifying.

Seeing all these breadboard cables going into a scart lead fills me with dread. One bump of the table and the chunky scart lead flexes in an unpredictable direction and rips out a subset of 4 hours of carefully set jumper cables. Not to mention the EM interference that so many wires must be generating.

This is very cool.

</comment><comment><USER31> At risk of being more "me too" about this, I am in awe of the hard-earned multi-disciplinary skills that went into making this. You should be proud of yourself :) Great project, and a great read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment :)

I am proud and honestly reading all these comments of people like you saying awesome stuff and also saying this inspires them makes me even prouder :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> You should talk to the 8bits guy, he's on the process of creating his own dream 8 bits machine, and it looks like you've beaten him :)

<comment><USER33> I agree! I was just watching one of his videos the other day on creating a brand new 8-bit computer and I think he would be super interested in your work.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Retro gaming in general is about re-enacting the consumption of games, I have never though that you can also re-enact the development/production of them :) Good work!

</comment><comment><USER35> This is super cool. Do you have plans to make the emulator public? If so I'd be very interested in developing software for the console.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is so badass! Not only are you a good hacker, but your writing was a pleasure to read. I wish that I could upvote this more than once.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is very cool. Doing this all on your own, especially since you're not a computer engineering professional, is astonishing.

The one thing that irks me about the console design is the amount of RAM it needs. In the age where 8-bit consoles were actually being built, RAM was the most expensive part of the devices by a far margin. It is no accident that the Atari 2600, for example, only had 256 bytes of main memory, and even the very popular NES/Famicom ran on only 2kB of main memory. This "retro" design, by contrast, employs a lot of RAM chips in a variety of places, even where they are not actually needed: the CPU and PPU can be connected with different technologies (as the article hints at), and double buffering via a second VRAM chip is the kind of feature that classical home consoles would never do due to cost reasons.

Don't get me wrong though, it's still an amazing project!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I did put more memory than the old school consoles had, absolutely, however the RAM in those days was only used for data mostly because they also had the cartridge ROM (or ROMs) to store the code. In my case I need to load the code to RAM, so I would always need a larger RAM.

But yeah, they also had less colors to work with and palettes (which were costier to implement in a software renderer). And this CPU is also faster than of those consoles. I did give myself a more confortable system in terms of RAM and computational power.

But my aim was for a machine that would sit somewhere between the 3rd and 4th generation.

The double buffering I understand as well, if I was working with an FPGA I would not have gone with frame buffers, for sure, but that was the solution I found at the time using the components I was using and it worked.

The attention this has gotten, especially here in HN is still a bit unbelievable to me (and amazing of course). I don't want people to think this is an optimal console design or anything. This is by no means a perfect project or "the way to go" in terms of homebrew video game consoles, it's just the way I found to do one while learning electronics along the way.

And thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you're interested in this you might be interested in 8-bit Guy's new computer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayh0qebfD2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayh0qebfD2g)

<comment><USER39> Yeah, his project was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Great project and kudos to you for seeing it through to completion. In our spare moments this is often the greatest challenge. I read the whole blog post, really cool to see the architecture diagram, would love to see more.

</comment><comment><USER41> I would like to express my deep admiration and esteem for you. The tenacity, competence and intelligence that your project demonstrates is what this planet needs. You are a great hacker and you have all my admiration.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm surprised you didn't implement a simple 8k bank switching scheme to utilise the rest of the 128K chip, it's really just a handful of 74 _244 buffers and a 74_ 138 decoder stuck on an IO port.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about it, I really did, however, I really felt I didn't need the extra RAM, especially for the kinds of programs and games I was aiming for.

And in this case "a handful of 74244" is a lot more complexity and it got a to a point where I really wanted to minimize the amount of ICs I used.

Also I was felt bank switching added complexity when developing for it. This way I can write a C program have it access data and I don't have to worry about the code being split in more than one bank or having the data be in a different bank than the code, etc.

It's a nice catch though, thanks for the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was expecting to see an article about yet another retro pi but I'm seriously impressed by this. Not only is the hardware really cool but your tooling and software setup is equally impressive. Great job.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is so awesome, a righteous hack built from chips up. Just what we need more of on a site called Hackernews.

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow! I was impressed to start with, but then the article and the build kept going, and going, and going .....

</comment><comment><USER46> This is a brilliant project. I've toyed around with electronics and microcontrollers and I once wanted to build a full "desktop" PC with an STM32 and a PS/2 keyboard input and a VGA output. Unfortunately, school took over me and I left it.

One thing that I am curious about though is whether you could use such a big project as yours for employment. E.g. if you had absolutely no formal qualifications and applied to a (relevant) company by using such projects in your CV, would they consider you?

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all thanks :) And if you do find some time that project seems really cool, I never really got to work with the STM32 micros, but they are really powerful and cool.

Answering your question, well, even thought this is an electronics engineering project, I don't feel qualified to work with electronics professionally, for example, there's a lot of knowledge I lack. I do work as a software engineer and I have done a couple of interviews myself to hire people and I do believe this helps when applying to a job, I'm not saying it completely replaces your qualifications but it might at least give you an edge. I'm seeing this as someone who would want to hire someone skillful. A technical project certainly is on the very least a nice thing to have in a CV. Of course this is just my opinion. And if you are feeling like applying for a job based on your projects, just give it a go.

One advice I can give is: if you do have projects of your own, big or small, don't do it like me and keep them to yourself for years :P. I really had no idea so many people would appreciate my pet project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Wow! What an achievement. Putting it all together, including the YM3438 FM chip, great work!

</comment><comment><USER48> This is awesome. Congratulations. Have you considered turning this into a book, or a MOOC, or something you could sell? Many people would be interested.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is awesome inspiring. All from discrete ICs and fully hand optimised. You could always make it into a kit and do a Kickstarter though.

</comment><comment><USER50> Muito bom! I'm not sure I understood more than 10% of this but I love the concept and the determination to follow through on it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Cool hack! I'd like more details about how you removed the wires (custom board or otherwise) or got the IC equivalents.

Ideally I'd like to see as few dangling wires when making something like this, because I have fat finger syndrome. :) I prefer joint wires with headers in them (like ATA cables) but that's just me.

</comment><comment><USER52> Lemme hijack this opportunity to request someone to make the console I have always fantasized about, as a gamer and a developer:

• TL;DR: Basically an iPad with detachable controllers and open-source OS, SDK, app store and sideloading. OR: Basically a Switch with fewer OS limitations, sideloading and lower barriers to development and publishing.

• Nintendo Switch form factor.

• Capable of connecting to external displays and using wireless controllers, mice and keyboards.

• A semi-multitasking OS, where only one app has screen focus but you can have messaging etc. apps in the background, notification overlays and use a web browser at any time. (I'm mostly thinking of the dear old PS Vita here.)

• A single, centralized app store while still allowing users to run apps downloaded from anywhere else.

• An SDK that lets you write games in the language of your choice (but if we had to choose: Swift, please.)

</comment><comment><USER53> Very impressive. My first thought is, why? Just use a Pi with Retro-pi. However, you wanted to be down at the metal. That's quite a challenge, particularly when you work alone.

I'm always impressed when someone is skilled at both hardware and software to make a finished product. It's Woz-like.

Very impressive work.

<comment><USER54> Because the journey is more important than the destination.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes the journey was very important, absolutely.

Also I had set myself a specific set of goals that obviously are not going to make sense to most people and I understand that.

It could seem like a daunting task at first, but breaking it into milestones actually makes it easier and makes the journey a lot better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is so far above my head that I really don't have anything to add to the discussion that hasn't been said by people who know a lot more about this stuff but I really just have to say this is insanely cool and inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is so very cool. It really took me back to the late 70's when I was a kid and my dad built a "computer" that took up an entire 4'x6' workbench. We played lunar lander on it, but I never knew what we were doing because it was just a numerical LED display. It looked very similar. Just breadboards of modules connected by hundreds of wires. One day, my little brother was playing in the garage where the "computer" was, and discovered the wire cutters... 2 years of work gone in a few minutes. Yes, he's still alive. How, I don't really know lol. Epoxy that thing!

</comment><comment><USER57> :O

Incrível e inspirador! Thanks for sharing this and congratulations for this amazing accomplishment!

</comment><comment><USER58> Very impressed and you come across as such a nice person too! All the best to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> (I'm actually secretly a horrible person :P)

Thanks for the comment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is something I have set out to begin (or similar) and ended up giving up on, multiple times. Maybe this will motivate me to finally pull something off!

This is awesome work, as someone else mentioned, I would totally buy the book.

</comment><comment><USER60> Awesome work! Here's a similar project (done using an fpga) I saw on github: [https://fotino.me/consolite-fpga/](https://fotino.me/consolite-fpga/)

</comment><comment><USER61> As someone who grew up using an Z80 powered MSX, this brings back a lot of memories.

It's amazing how "accessories" can make even an 8-bit processor go far

Projeto fixe demais!

</comment><comment><USER62> If you made a kit and put it on Kickstarter I'd buy one. Just sayin'

</comment><comment><USER63> I can't remember the video post, but something similar was here few years ago and the guy decided to make a video series for the project.

Can you do the same for a new project from start to finish?

</comment><comment><USER17> This post makes the failure of micropayments poignant: if one-click payments were possible, its creator would be enjoying a unexpected inflow of cash. Real soon now, like cold fusion.

</comment><comment><USER64> Just awesome!!!

I built a 68k machine (no video, just CPU, Serial I/O, RAM/ROM) in high school and it was really nostalgic to see your incredible and awesome project!

Congrats on such an awesome build!!!

</comment><comment><USER65> This is outstanding work. You should feel proud that you created something this complex from scratch over a number of years and did not give up! I'm in awe

</comment><comment><USER66> I'm myself a self taught electronic hobbyist who followed the same path you did I guess (eevblog and such). I'm nowhere that good at the moment and you sir are an inspiration to what can be achieved with dedication !

Thank you for making such a project and for putting it online for the world to see. Your friends were right ;)

If you haven't already you should definitely add your project to hackaday.io (the community driven part of hackaday).

</comment><comment><USER67> Great work! I wondered what resource you have used when you started learning electronics. I'd be really appreciated if you share them

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I wrote in another comment. There's a great book called "Make: Electronics". And you can get started with an Arduino kit, it comes with a book and several components. After this when you feel comfortable, you can move one to more advanced stuff, depending on what you're interested in.

There are plenty of videos online for almost any topic in electronics, and projects online using all kinds of components and for all kinds of purposes.

Check out EEVblog, the forums are good, and there are some videos for beginners and also the Youtube channel GreatScott!.

And thanks :)

<comment><USER67> Thank you for your reply!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope Woz sees this and says a word or three here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wozniak is a legend and this no where near the quality of his work. The way he designed the Apple II was just amazing.

Thanks for the comment :)

<comment><USER17> Nevertheless, I just emailed and tweeted him the link. You never know with Woz.... About 10 years ago, I posted a link about him on my blog. In it I wrote that he wasn't much of an athlete in HS. Within a couple hours he posted a comment correcting me, noting that he was a varsity pole vaulter on the Homestead High School track and field team. OMG

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Thank you for sharing, this is a very cool project!

</comment><comment><USER69> This is so freaking cool!!

I've been dreaming of building a Z80 computer for literally 20 years. I think you inspired me to stop dreaming and start doing.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm really impressed - what a great project!

</comment><comment><USER71> I've considered trying a project like this in the past. You've given me a little inspiration to go do it! Great read!

</comment><comment><USER72> Fantastic and really inspiring, with a great presentation and narrative to boot! I am impressed and a bit thrilled :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Very cool project, I just wish the images on the website weren't many megabytes a piece. They can't even all load on my slow internet connection without timing out.

It's unfortunate how often people share files directly from their camera without first compressing and resizing them appropriately these days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

And yeah you're right...my bad...

(EDIT) It should be a bit better now, thanks for the warning

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> """Even though I had no experience, I said to myself "why not?", bought a few books, a few electronics kits and started to learn what I felt I needed to learn. """

Would you mind sharing what books (and kits) you decided to buy? I'd like to work on my electronics a bit as well :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I've said in a few other comments (I've been trying to answer some of the comments, everyone has been really nice and really interested), one book that got me started was "Make: Electronics", I believe there's a second one now, I really like how the book explains the very basics in a pratical way. Other than that there's a lot of info online nowadays. EEVblog aside from the forums has a nice youtube channel with videos with topics that range from beginner to advanced, GreatScott! is another one that explains things really well. Ben Eater has also a very interesting channel. Also check other people's projects similar to things you would like to make. As for kits, I started with the Arduino starter kit, it comes with a project book and a few varied components, after that I started buying components locally or from major international component shops and going towards the things that interested me the most in electronics. I hope this helps :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I think this should give everyone the motivation to continue working on side projects till they are finished.

</comment><comment><USER76> Wow. This is incredible. Bookmarked and will be a lot interested if you could do a series of blog post, man.

This is amazing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

I'm gonna try and keep posting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Congrats Sérgio! Such a cool project.

</comment><comment><USER78> ok, this is the most awesome hacker news of the year so far. Really interesting, nice to see that you were able to make it work.

Sometimes I talk to people about some ideas and they say "too dificult, find a simpler project". Sending your post to these lazy devs.

</comment><comment><USER79> Thanks for sharing. This looks awesome! Post likes this are the reason I follow Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER80> All those wires! You should checkout dirtypcb.com to get yourself a cheap pcb for your boards, that will make the it very special and longer lasting for you. Designing PCB with eagle on mac or kicad on linux are great software to design PCBs.

</comment><comment><USER81> Nice job! Are you going to do more designs in the future? Maybe Verilog/VHDL based?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

Yeah, I already have another ongoing project based on a cheap FPGA board with a Cyclone II (quite old but it does the job), the idea is to keep it cheaper and much less complex.

The FPGA has a Z80 implementation, video, sound and handle the game controllers. An external Atmega328 is used to handle the SD Card and then just RAM, an ICs for composite video and an op-amp.

I also have some ideas for a better console, maybe a generation forward and an 8-bit computer, but...these are just ideas, I doubt I'll actually get around to do them.

<comment><USER82> I also made a Cyclone II FPGA implementation :] It looked like this and supported very primitive line rendering:

[https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC057...](https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC05786.jpg) [https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC057...](https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC05763.jpg) [https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC057...](https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC05751.jpg)

Unfortunately, the physical hardware and later the code were both stolen in separate incidents. I was able to recover some version of the latter I had shared with a peer. It's posted in the same repo but probably not worth reviewing as it's from my college days and a total mess.

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks awesome, congrats :)

I'm sorry the hardware and code were stolen.

And of course it's always worth reviewing, I got inspiration out of projects just like that and besides my code is a mess too, don't worry about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> This is incredibly cool... I've thought about playing with some of the software emulators, but wouldn't have even thought to tinker with replicating or creating with real hardware.

</comment><comment><USER84> similar project from december (using an oscilloscope)

[https://mitxela.com/projects/console](https://mitxela.com/projects/console)

</comment><comment><USER85> Wow is that like creating a separate shell for running the games.

</comment><comment><USER86> Amazing work :) It's very passionating to read also.

</comment><comment><USER87> This is incredible! Thank you for posting and outlining all your work! As a fellow 80s/90s kid, this is extremely my shit.

<comment><USER87> Follow-up — you've inspired a colleague and I to do something similar! I read this, iMessaged her the link and said "we have to do this" (she has significant hardware experience. I do not.) and she's in total agreement!

So thank you again b/c this is legit inspiring and exciting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> This is such a clool project.

I would be really curious for:

A porting guide

An fpga tutorial

</comment><comment><USER89> This is absolutely amazing, well done!

</comment><comment><USER90> Great achievement! Muito bom!

<comment><AUTHOR> Obrigado :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> amazing indeed, what a great read, and inspiration to go build something...

</comment><comment><USER92> Now pour coffee over the console!

( _surprised by the lack of Bandersnatch jokes_ )

Great job on this!

</comment><comment><USER93> dude, this is not a human, not belong to our universe, sollute

</comment><comment><USER94> You sir, are awesome.

</comment><comment><USER95> One word, awesome.

</comment><comment><USER96> This is fantastic

</comment><comment><USER97> Awesome

</comment><comment><USER98> beautiful project.

how does one obtain a z80 if it's not manufactured anymore?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

Actually they are still being manufactured to this day, that's one thing I didn't mention in the blog post is that you can get a brand new Zilog Z80 today, the 6502 (the CMOS version, 65C02) is also available. You can probably get them from all the major electronic components stores (Digikey, Mouser, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Oh wow! This is so cool!

</comment><comment><USER100> Awesome work. Parabens

</comment><comment><USER101> EPIC!

</comment><comment><USER102> Way more impressive than various fantasy consoles that typically involve a lua programming environment and an artificially limited screen. Here the limitations actually stem from the hardware being used. This is something that only huge companies could attempt to design not that long ago.

I once made a virtual machine for a console designed from scratch as "fantasy hardware", with its own architecture, assembly language, CPU, and so on. I'd like to be able to bring it to life some day as you have.

</comment><comment><USER103> I love these posts of new retro consoles. I would love to see one that maintains the audio-visual aesthetics i.e. FM chip tunes, sprite-based 2D graphics yet otherwise pushes the hardware to the absolute max of what is possible today. I think the zenith of 2D gaming was consoles like Neo-Geo and Sega Saturn (and possibly a 2D arcade board whose name escapes me?) and I'm thinking of something along those lines. Does such a thing exist?

</comment><comment><USER104> It's not really "retro" if you've been building it in $current-year.

/pedant

<comment><USER105> Retro doesn't mean "old." It is a style.</comment></comment>


Why InfluxDB Is a Must in Your IoT Application - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/why-influxdb-is-a-must-in-your-iot-application-67e26fb276d <comment><USER2> Indluxdb is one of the most fastest dB.

<comment><USER3> I would consider VictoriaMetrics to be technically superior.

[https://medium.com/@valyala/measuring-vertical- scalability-f...](https://medium.com/@valyala/measuring-vertical-scalability- for-time-series-databases-in-google-cloud-92550d78d8ae)</comment></comment>


Home Computers Connected to the Internet Aren't Private, Court Rules - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.eweek.com/security/home-computers-connected-to-the-internet-arent-private-court-rules.html <comment><USER2> Extensive previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12015388](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12015388)

</comment><comment><USER3> my house is connected to the street, does it mean it isn't a private place ?</comment>