I'm curious if there's any significant documentation, interviews, etc. regarding what the development process between Nintendo and Ricoh was like regarding the creation of the chips in the Famicom. Is it known whether Nintendo R&D had any hand in the actual implementation of the chip logic, might of done any rudimentary logic programming or even mask layout stuff and then sent that off to Ricoh for fine tuning and fab, or if Nintendo went to Ricoh with some very basic specs and they did almost all of the R&D in-house?
What I have heard is a lot of it came down to analyzing the Donkey Kong hardware and componentizing its of it into the ICs we know and love today, but I'm curious if any of the facts of the matter survive in a meaningful way, for instance if Nintendo would've had any direct hand in the logical analysis and implementation parts, or Ricoh was more of a black box they were throwing specs at and likely receiving prototype eval boards for folks like SRD to tinker with and provide requirements back to Ricoh R&D for.
There is a book by Masayuki Uemura I hope to pick up a copy of one day, but I've tried twice now and had my order get lost in the mail, so I'm iffy about trying to order yet another copy again any time soon...but I would imagine some of this might live in that book if I ever get to set eyes on it...
What I have heard is a lot of it came down to analyzing the Donkey Kong hardware and componentizing its of it into the ICs we know and love today, but I'm curious if any of the facts of the matter survive in a meaningful way, for instance if Nintendo would've had any direct hand in the logical analysis and implementation parts, or Ricoh was more of a black box they were throwing specs at and likely receiving prototype eval boards for folks like SRD to tinker with and provide requirements back to Ricoh R&D for.
There is a book by Masayuki Uemura I hope to pick up a copy of one day, but I've tried twice now and had my order get lost in the mail, so I'm iffy about trying to order yet another copy again any time soon...but I would imagine some of this might live in that book if I ever get to set eyes on it...
Statistics: Posted by segaloco — Fri Jul 26, 2024 11:33 am — Replies 2 — Views 117