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Reverse emulating the NES to give it SUPER POWERS!

suckerpinch · talk · Watch on YouTube

Speedrunning, glitches & game hackingGame history & retro gamingEmbedded systems & DIY electronics

What it is

Tom Murphy (suckerpinch) shows 'reverse emulation', using a Raspberry Pi in an NES cartridge to give an unmodified NES new abilities such as playing SNES games. The video starts in a strange way and gets stranger.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Praised as a brilliant, deadpan and inventive hardware hack, and a good starting point for Tom7's videos.

  • 12 people recommended it
  • 12 different months
  • 5 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “The talk is brilliant”

    Reverse emulation uses a Raspberry Pi as an NES coprocessor

    sdenton4, 2019-09 · Strong recommendation · in “SNES Cartridges and Enhancement Chips”

  2. “As usual for his videos, it's absolutely wonderful.”

    Hacks a real NES cartridge with a Raspberry Pi emulator

    sgrove, 2020-12 · Strong recommendation · in “SuperRT – Realtime Raytracing on the SNES”

  3. “His dead pan delivery coupled with the ridiculous amount of effort he puts into things that don't _really_ matter is honestly inspiring.”

    Deadpan, ridiculously elaborate projects that inspire

    GuestHNUser, 2022-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Harder Drive: Hard drives we didn't want or need [video]”

  4. “though really, they are all fantastic”

    Good starting point among fantastic videos by Tom7

    anyfoo, 2022-06 · Strong recommendation · in “The Floppotron 3.0”

  5. “Tom7 is one of my favorite people, he is hilarious, has an amazing technical depth, and so much whimsy to go along with it.”

    Favorite Tom7 video, hilarious with technical depth and whimsy

    pinkmuffinere, 2025-10 · Strong recommendation · in “First convex polyhedron found that can't pass through itself”

  6. “Listed among best talks of 2018, Deconstruct conference”

    rrherr, 2018-12 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?”

  7. “you can skip to 3:35 if you're not interested in the jokes”

    Reverse-emulated NES with a Raspberry Pi, jokes can be skipped

    progval, 2020-04 · Recommendation · in “RaSCSI: SCSI Interface for Raspberry Pi (2019)”

  8. “still worth it.”

    Best watched without spoilers, worth it

    jerf, 2021-07 · Recommendation · in “Installing Linux into a 286 laptop from the year 1989”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: reverse emulation, nes, raspberry pi, retro gaming, tom7

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