One of my favourite stories from Dev is around the NDS dev kit. We had outsourced the NDS version of our console/PSP game to a small developer in Utah but they didn't have any (or not enough) NDS Dev Kits. So one one of our managers boxed up a bunch of kits and sent them from our studio in Vancouver, Canada to Salt Lake City, USA. A week later the guys in Utah let us know that the package had not arrived so we looked into it and the shipment was stuck at the border. We got our shipping/receiving guys to find out what was going on and they found out that the shipment had been flagged as hazardous material. What? Well, it turns out the manager who boxed everything up wrote "NITRO" all over the shipping box and that caught the attention of screeners at the US border. We were able to sort it out and the kits eventually made their way to the developers.
that's glorious. I worked at a small developer as a graphics guy, back in the DS era, so I know the Nitro very well, but something like this occuring is gold.
@@offspringfan89 The officers at the border were not the shiniest apple in the barrel. Who is going to send nitroglycerin in a box...? that stuff explodes if you sneeze standing next to it.
@@ashir555 Give the customs people some credit, they don't want to be responsible for what might happen if it WAS nitroglycerin somehow. Better safe than sorry.
This "behind the doors of the studios" stuff is really cool, especially having a chance to see the stuff that helped make games that I never would have come across.
I don't even game, but I love technology and coding. :) The DS was a pretty beefy console for the size/type, at a whopping 100 MegaFLOPS, the same speed as a gaming PC from 1996, while being released in 2005. For comparison, the OG Nintendo DS had graphics between a PS1 and PS2.
There are light versions of the blue box, that are only used to display devgames on big screens. So the dev has the full version, the salesguy has the lightversion to show stuff to the customer.
When the Swedish Distributor for Nintendo games did a few marketing campaigns (this one in particular was a competition in 'Best Nintendo Player'), they used this device to be able to show gameplay live on a screen. This was very mysterious for me, so being able to see what it actually was is interesting.
@@johnfran3218 please touch grass EDIT: deleted comment was a behemoth rant about jesus and us being sinful or something among those lines, if it was deleted by MVG, you're a legend, dude
My hunch is that "Emulator" is used as in "In Circuit Emulator" - a tool used for debugging and developing embedded software/firmware, particularly in the days of mask rom processors. (You'd plug in the ICE instead of the processor, and it would act like the processor in the circuit) That said, most things labeled this are now used for just in circuit debugging of a flash micro, so there's no actual emulation happening because you can reprogram the micro. (E.g. I have an "Atmel ICE" that is just a debug adapter for AVR and ARM SWD)
Yep. That's where my brain went first since I spent a number of years doing embedded software development (not in the video game industry), and ICEs were a fundamental part of board bringup.
@@blakegriplingph finally everything makes sense :D I miss those times messing up with software protections :D I always pictured it as a literal oxymoron
It's my understanding that the device operates as a mass storage emulator. Just a really advanced flashcart, plus access to the ARM debugging registers over the USB connection *which a flashcart would lack*.
Good memories of middle school coming back. Back then we had to do a week-long "internship" of sorts to learn about the world of work, and I did mine in a development studio working on DS titles: they had the same exact devkits that you're showing. It was my first time seeing the insides of game development; and the image of those devkits sitting on the desks next to the PC monitors stayed with me ever since. Thanks MVG, great video as always !!
Woah what middle school did you go to?!! We need more programs like that in k-8 - as they can have a huge impact on kids! I wish I had that opportunity..
@@tyguy3876 It was in France, you have to do this in the last year of middle school and then write a report about what you've learned, your experience in a work environment. Definitely an eye-opening experience, and a chance to learn and do something with your own hands!
Personally I own a PSP debugging test unit that is pretty similar. I would say the biggest difference is it can play retail games out-of-the-box as long as you have the firmware up to date.
@@Zulf85 If you get lucky and look at the right places you can get them pretty cheaply, personally I only paid around $150 & and maybe another 50 for the controller.
@@reebokraidz1640 A few months ago you could have gotten one on eBay for around 200. I mostly look at Japan Yahoo auctions and eBay. Got both a PSP & PS2 TEST unit from eBay. Also got a TOOL HDD kit new on eBay.
WOW...this brings back memory when I was working in a video game development studio many years ago as a Level Designer for Nintendo DS games (worked around 8 titles). If I recall correctly, at some point the dev kids got refreshed with the newer Nintendo DS Lite screen and I was happy to somehow get one assigned to me. :D Unlike working on the "traditional" consoles at that time with longer development cycles, most of our Nintendo DS games took a year or less to make so a project never dragged for too long and before I knew it I was starting on a new project. I still miss those days, it was a real blast to work in a small team and create something with your own digital hands. Too bad the pay was low so I had to eventually switch careers to something with better pay. Thanks MVG for the trip in the memory lane!
Cygwin is much more than that. It's an environment that allows you to install / build / run a variety of tools that are written to expect a Linux-like POSIX-ish environment under Windows along with a massive repository of pre-built GNU tools and others. Programming in C is a very small subset of what you can do in cygwin.
At this point, it's sometimes more cost effective to buy one of these, than it is to buy a 3DS and mod it with a capture card. Mad jealous that you got a hold of one of these, absolutely incredible!
If you happen to have a New 3DS you can use CFW to capture the screen in software. The Quality is not as good and it requires a really good Wifi signal on the 3DS, but I've tried it and it does work with any regular 3DS title, so long it doesn't use DS mode or any of the new 3DS features...
@@Chickenbreadlp "so long as it doesn't use DS mode..." yeah, so, using a 3DS to capture DS games is still a challenge. Not to mention it's either blurry due to scaling issues or tiny on the screens (depending on how you boot the DS game) and the form factor gives me major hand cramps so I don't even own a 3DS anymore :(
@@StormBurnX Although it looks like dog-shit on the console itself, while booting up any non-3DS game (VC titles, GBA VC and NDS cartridges) if you hold select and start up the game it will run at native resolution with black bars around the screen. This gets rid of the bluriness and with a capture card you can then crop the black bars. Though when not using bilinear with the particular capture card I have, I find it looks really bad because not all the lines are shown correctly, meaning in the end I find it actually looks better blurry (as someone who always always always prefers 1:1 resolution or multiplied by an integer without any blur). The only reason I know about the holding select is because I was trying to find a way to make GB VC games run at native resolution, and at some point I read about it. I just tested it with a DS cartridge and it does indeed work on DS, although the screens are vertically not centered.
@@Pixiuchu yep! That's been a feature since the very first generation 3DS models way back in like, 2011 I wanna say? It's nifty, but quite literally the only reason I want to get a DS screen capture system set up is for competitive Speedrunning of one single game, which unfortunately uses the touchscreen for aiming (it's a first person shooter) so playing it in that "true resolution" mode is disastrous due to how touch input is handled.
They did.make super game boy it started as a capture device for the press before they made it a retail product. The game boy player was them too basically up to DS we had retail GB players for Nintendo home systems except for N64 the Fat boy 64 stayed press exclusive and the transfer pack was game exclusive we never got a emulator cart that was unlocked for SGB
As much as the explanation given in the video for the name of the device makes perfect sense, I like to think that everything else at Nintendo is labelled "ISN'T NITRO EMULATOR".
I've had one of these since I worked on some DS titles back in the day, but hadn't looked into whether it still had any use today. The software development tools we downloaded from Nintendo would phone home every time they were started and quit working after a short time, maybe just a few weeks, requiring a new download and update. After I was no longer working on DS games I lost access to the Nintendo developers portal, and shortly afterwards the hardware became useless to me as all the software expired.
Thanks for sharing this! I used to work at a QA studio and would see some of the testers using this dev kit, but never got to personally check it out myself since I was on the PC games team. Made my day!
Yeah, they're a funny company - you'd think they'd be just another division within Nintendo like EAD and R&D1 because it looks like all they do is Nintendo related.
Dude i love this! I always love to see how games or music for a specific console are made, since I don‘t have the slightest clue about game development. And then my favourite homebrew and modding and gaming tech in general youtuber makes a video about my favourite handheld. Awesome!
1:55 I chuckled that most sponsership videos would say "If you're not happy you get money back, etc etc" but you just say "If you think it sucks...". Love it.
I used to work with one of these back in 2009... very nostalgic. The one I used was a newer model though, so the DS attached to it was a DS Lite model.
And now I'm here asking myself again, how did the dudes in the gaming show on NBC Europe back in the day showcase games then they received for such purposes. Where those really special builds of the games or are there indeed Nitro-Emulator boxes that were intended for magazines and TV shows?
Just to take a shot in the dark I would imagine it's probably the guts of a DS along with all the extra stuff on on or two PCB's, like the GBA kit H4G showed
there is a teardown made by a french channel ua-cam.com/video/CzsSLxPh9Y4/v-deo.html i don't know about the quality of the subtitles but i hope it helps
These were used extensively at Pokemon events held by Nintendo Australia. The kit did work with the infrared inside Pokemon Black White carts and their sequels, though sometimes the battle could drop out - usually they'd have the other competitor using their retail DS stand closer to the nitro unit to overcome this.
Blast from the past! I used to see the Nitro Capture all the time, since I worked on the same floor as the marketing/PR team. I only occasionally used it myself, interesting to know that there were so many variants. Definitely didn't expect to see such a detailed video about it, took it for granted. Thanks for the awesome content as always 👍
quick fact, the nds handheld thats hardwired to the box is actually just a controller, it has no processor and such inside, just the bare minimum to have the i/o devices work. if you watch the retro futures video about this system you can see elliot take it apart to restore it, he also mentions that part himself.
Hey, I have one of those, except for the DSi, the IS-TWL-DEBUGGER. No Ethernet, has the original DWM-W015 wifi chip, seems to recognize retail games. No video out, mine doesn't have the expansion board. Have to run CodeWarrior in a VM (bleh). For DSi roms you need to tweak the header/CRC and re-modcrypt it before installing it as a .tad
I guess by then they decided to not split the unit by firmware the Nitro had 2 units the Emulator for developers that only ran developer carts and the capture the same hardware for press put flashed to run retail signed carts and any unsigned developer flash carts they got for screenshots and video capture. That late they probably got complaints and just sold one box for the later DS models
I know for a fact that a few developers "prototyped" their games first with a (highly illegal if you ask Nintendo's lawyers) R4 card before going to the trouble of getting an official devkit ... 5th Cell's first DS game, Drawn to Life, was apparently developed in this way.
An Emulator that's not an emulator? It should have been called a "simulator" xD Edit: taking my words back, please read hellterminator's comment in the replies
I think they did the same thing with the Super Nintendo development kit and someone who actually listed one eBay had it removed accidentally cuz they thought it was an emulator.
No, it's correct. In HW realm, “emulator” has a slightly different meaning. It's a device that performs the normal function of the system, while also providing debug access. For example, in the early days of computers, processor didn't have any debugging features built in to save die area, so manufacturers would release in-circuit emulators (ICE) along their processors. An ICE was this huge thing that plugged into your computer's CPU socket. It was usually implemented by using the normal CPU, but with extra connections (which were not brought out on a retail units) to a debugger chip. It'll be the same with this emulator - all the actual DS hardware (with extra debug connections) will be inside the big blue box and the “DS” itself is just screens and buttons, all connected through that thick cable.
The best thing about the DS devkit/SDK was that while the hardware didn't support floating point operations the devkit *did* and the debug libraries were fine with it while release libs only supported fixed point. So in debug variables defined as fixed point were actually floating point and all the basic arithmetic operations behaved like you'd expect. But compile in release and they'd all switch over to fixed point and those same operations would not do anything remotely close to what you were expecting because they all became integer operations. The math library provided functions for all the operations that you had to be really careful to use because the compiler wouldn't necessarily warn you.
So cool to see one of these kits again. When we used them we didn't use duel monitors for the game. We had one monitor for the game and one for the PC and the game also going to a capture card to record
When I heard MVG say "each are coded with NTR" I panicked for a second then I remembered I was watching about Nintendo DS development kit and not something ;)
I have the "IS Nitro Video" which only can show 1 screen on one Monitor. But on the plus side: it can run original retail Games on the get go. I have the model with a NDS Lite and it's just a great system, to play your Games on (2) TVs I wished i had the Capture Unit, to show both screens on one TV, but im happy having it in my collection. It's one thing to own a Game Collection, but having something that was not sell to the public back in the days, is always special. (Especially if you see the prices... i was lucky getting mine on ebay for 170€)
I remember seeing this development kit, but in red color, at Gameworld 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brasil. It was standing with some trash games and in a empty place, because in that event the 3DS was shown and everyone forgot about the little old Nintendo DS. I was wondering back then what was that thing haha Now after 10 years finally i can see some explanation. Thank you!!
Ben Heck did a repair video on one of these units. The attached DS is basically just a pair of screens with a controller, touch screen and microphone. The rest of the hardware is in the desktop box.
Did you find any sort of "debug button" on the "IS Nitro Emulator" itself, or the software running on Windows? Nintendo DS has a "hidden" debug button that it was used by developers. The interesting part is that, some retail games still has some debug functions if you press the debug button. Of course, this is not possible on an actual hardware, but DeSmuME has an option to press the debug button. An example of a retail game with a working debug button is "The World Ends With You". If you hold the debug button, the spinning icon (that appears when the game is initializing) disappears (source TCRF). You can read more about it on the "Nintendo DS" page on TCRF (as well its talk page).
Would u ever do a psvita video about how the security was broken like u did for PS3 and Xbox 360 etc?...or even a dev kit video similar to this one...would love to know more about psvita hard and ur videos are amazing for showing this
I remember the breakthrough moment when that was cracked wide open. The vita had some serious legends working on modding it. Shout-out to Yifan Lu for inventing that amazing card which replaces the SIM adapter on a 3g 1000 vita with an internal micro SD slot. Who knew my vita could have 256GB internal memory AND keep the ability to play all my physical games?
I’m soooooooo addicted to your videos❤❤❤❤ I would feel lost without all this techical info and history i wouldn’t otherwise know about at all, i really appreciate your work
Ha, still have fond memories of the first titles I worked on the DS. Still got the tools for exporting/viewing 3D stuff from the CAD soft to the kit I think.
This literally the only dev hardware I'd ever want to own some day. I LOVE the DS and a way to record/stream with actual hardware would be amazing, but alas the are CRAZY expensive (kinda makes sense that they are though)
You should have opened the unit... Is it actually just doing software emulation? Is it just a copy of the DS chipset? Is it a custom ASIC? Or are they using an FPGA?
If you'd like to see inside one of these Ben Heck did a teardown/repair of an IS Nitro Capture a little while ago. I found it fascinating that the DS on the IS nitro is just the screens and inputs in a modified shell, all of the processing happens in the blue box rather than on the handheld.
It looks like something the military would use to update the computers on the aircraft, but instead it's used for Hehe this Mario game is gonna be great
Can you do a video on the secondary serial port on the gamecube? I heard it’s for game development and it would be cool to see. Videos on how games were made on these older systems are very interesting
The other day there was a gaming expo on the mall on my town, I was amazed... it had devkits on display for the wii, wii u, ds and GC... and even some old stuff like odyssey 2 and ataris
"Emulator" is used widely in the electronics industry for denoting development hardware that is supposed to run the firmware/software of the actual end platform. For instance, in the old days, microcontrollers did not have any programmable ROM, it had to be baked in from the semiconductor factory or permanently programmed by the product manufacturer. During development this is a pain in the ass since every software build would require a new microcontroller, so they had big boxes that was connected in lieu of the microcontroller in circuit (or had a form factor of a dev board that you'd connect to a dev board of your product) that could be hooked up to a PC to load new firmware on to. This is proper "emulation" as we would think. The term "emulator" has stuck around in the modern day where the popular mainstream microcontrollers like the STM32 already come with high performance flash memory that can be quickly re-flashed with an in circuit programmer. However, some manufacturers (I think I encountered this with TI) use the term "emulator" to describe the functionality that the emulator used to perform--which is loading new firmware on the fly. There was no separate emulator, the device itself as it would be used in the final product would be the emulator. Though in this case, with that bulky tether, I think the DS emulator might actually expose the cartridge bus to the blue box, and maybe some more debug interfaces (JTAG and whatever custom stuff that lets you twiddle with the internal CPU/GPU state for debug or examination) so the development is much easier.
That machine reminds me of a black one that gave off a signal for DS to download special gifts for certain games. I saw it once on the ground inside those game shelves with an unlockable glass door.
This one was super interesting. I’m ngl, I honestly thought most game development took place on a PC with “unlocked”, but otherwise standard, hardware connected. The big blue box for the little old DS is surprising.
One of my favourite stories from Dev is around the NDS dev kit. We had outsourced the NDS version of our console/PSP game to a small developer in Utah but they didn't have any (or not enough) NDS Dev Kits. So one one of our managers boxed up a bunch of kits and sent them from our studio in Vancouver, Canada to Salt Lake City, USA. A week later the guys in Utah let us know that the package had not arrived so we looked into it and the shipment was stuck at the border. We got our shipping/receiving guys to find out what was going on and they found out that the shipment had been flagged as hazardous material. What? Well, it turns out the manager who boxed everything up wrote "NITRO" all over the shipping box and that caught the attention of screeners at the US border. We were able to sort it out and the kits eventually made their way to the developers.
Heh that's pretty funny thanks for sharing 😂
That manager wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed 😂
that's glorious. I worked at a small developer as a graphics guy, back in the DS era, so I know the Nitro very well, but something like this occuring is gold.
@@offspringfan89 The officers at the border were not the shiniest apple in the barrel. Who is going to send nitroglycerin in a box...? that stuff explodes if you sneeze standing next to it.
@@ashir555
Give the customs people some credit, they don't want to be responsible for what might happen if it WAS nitroglycerin somehow. Better safe than sorry.
This "behind the doors of the studios" stuff is really cool, especially having a chance to see the stuff that helped make games that I never would have come across.
I don't even game, but I love technology and coding. :) The DS was a pretty beefy console for the size/type, at a whopping 100 MegaFLOPS, the same speed as a gaming PC from 1996, while being released in 2005. For comparison, the OG Nintendo DS had graphics between a PS1 and PS2.
MVG is the best
There are light versions of the blue box, that are only used to display devgames on big screens. So the dev has the full version, the salesguy has the lightversion to show stuff to the customer.
I love how the ethernet port is labeled "wireless".
Delightfully confusing.
First time I've had a devkit gaslight me.
I get why they did that, because it’s emulating the retail DS’s wifi chipset, but that is confusing as hell.
I saw that too, but if you watch closely there is an anthena conector under the "Wireless" label.
@@Golecom2 That's not an antenna, that's a screw terminal for an earth lead (see the symbol underneath).
@@Golecom2 No that's a grounding screw. They mean the ethernet jack because like already said, it emulates wireless on the ds.
When the Swedish Distributor for Nintendo games did a few marketing campaigns (this one in particular was a competition in 'Best Nintendo Player'), they used this device to be able to show gameplay live on a screen. This was very mysterious for me, so being able to see what it actually was is interesting.
It was also used for a german tv station focused on gaming stuff for the same reason. (giga)
Yep, there was no other way to capture footage from a Nintendo DS at the time.
Bought one of these IS nitro Capture units from sweden, and playing DS games on the TV screen is crazy cool ❤️
You mean for a bigger TV? Of course
@@johnfran3218 please touch grass
EDIT: deleted comment was a behemoth rant about jesus and us being sinful or something among those lines, if it was deleted by MVG, you're a legend, dude
My hunch is that "Emulator" is used as in "In Circuit Emulator" - a tool used for debugging and developing embedded software/firmware, particularly in the days of mask rom processors. (You'd plug in the ICE instead of the processor, and it would act like the processor in the circuit) That said, most things labeled this are now used for just in circuit debugging of a flash micro, so there's no actual emulation happening because you can reprogram the micro. (E.g. I have an "Atmel ICE" that is just a debug adapter for AVR and ARM SWD)
Yep. That's where my brain went first since I spent a number of years doing embedded software development (not in the video game industry), and ICEs were a fundamental part of board bringup.
I agree. This is almost certainly related to ICE. I’ve used an ARM one called RealView ICE. It is what connected to a J-TAG port
From what I've read, this is what the debugging tool SoftICE took its name from.
@@blakegriplingph finally everything makes sense :D I miss those times messing up with software protections :D I always pictured it as a literal oxymoron
It's my understanding that the device operates as a mass storage emulator. Just a really advanced flashcart, plus access to the ARM debugging registers over the USB connection *which a flashcart would lack*.
Wow. That was a fast video! You were excited to make this! It was fun sending this to you!
Do you know which studio this devkit came from?
@@RappinPicard I have no idea unfortunately. I got it from a used games store in Taipei and asked MVG if he wanted it for a vid.
You where lucky to get one of these
@@Nobbie248 Haha. No no. I saw in the store and helped MVG buy it. I didnt own it. I only wanted to make sure something this rare was in good hands.
Sending things to other people is tight!
That Arkham Asylum prototype's title screen looks glorious when blown into a bigger screen.
Good memories of middle school coming back. Back then we had to do a week-long "internship" of sorts to learn about the world of work, and I did mine in a development studio working on DS titles: they had the same exact devkits that you're showing. It was my first time seeing the insides of game development; and the image of those devkits sitting on the desks next to the PC monitors stayed with me ever since.
Thanks MVG, great video as always !!
Woah what middle school did you go to?!! We need more programs like that in k-8 - as they can have a huge impact on kids! I wish I had that opportunity..
@@tyguy3876 It was in France, you have to do this in the last year of middle school and then write a report about what you've learned, your experience in a work environment. Definitely an eye-opening experience, and a chance to learn and do something with your own hands!
@@Bazzooka1518 very cool & informative! Thanks for sharing 👍
@@Bazzooka1518 J'ai tout de suite compris que c'était un stage de 3ème mdrr
Personally I own a PSP debugging test unit that is pretty similar. I would say the biggest difference is it can play retail games out-of-the-box as long as you have the firmware up to date.
Those things are amazing. In my hypothetical billionaire mansion I would have that and the DS one and maybe a Net Yaroze PS1
@@Zulf85 If you get lucky and look at the right places you can get them pretty cheaply, personally I only paid around $150 & and maybe another 50 for the controller.
@@lain328 I dont know where your looking but ive got to find it
@@reebokraidz1640 A few months ago you could have gotten one on eBay for around 200. I mostly look at Japan Yahoo auctions and eBay.
Got both a PSP & PS2 TEST unit from eBay. Also got a TOOL HDD kit new on eBay.
What's a retail game?
WOW...this brings back memory when I was working in a video game development studio many years ago as a Level Designer for Nintendo DS games (worked around 8 titles). If I recall correctly, at some point the dev kids got refreshed with the newer Nintendo DS Lite screen and I was happy to somehow get one assigned to me. :D
Unlike working on the "traditional" consoles at that time with longer development cycles, most of our Nintendo DS games took a year or less to make so a project never dragged for too long and before I knew it I was starting on a new project.
I still miss those days, it was a real blast to work in a small team and create something with your own digital hands. Too bad the pay was low so I had to eventually switch careers to something with better pay. Thanks MVG for the trip in the memory lane!
Mind sharing what you changed your career to?
"C" is the language, cygwin is a collection of tools as environment for programming in "C" under Win.
Thank you.
Cygwin is much more than that. It's an environment that allows you to install / build / run a variety of tools that are written to expect a Linux-like POSIX-ish environment under Windows along with a massive repository of pre-built GNU tools and others. Programming in C is a very small subset of what you can do in cygwin.
And make sure you don't store your C programs under the C: Drive. :) Sorry, I just had to... Lol....
@@robmc2049 True, i was making short correction, and was bit shocked that Modern Vintage Gamer made this mistake, strange.
@@angelinalewis9807 I was shocked to see nano and not vim or emacs
At this point, it's sometimes more cost effective to buy one of these, than it is to buy a 3DS and mod it with a capture card. Mad jealous that you got a hold of one of these, absolutely incredible!
They do popup on ebay from time to time..
AV only tho.Still better than the 3DS USB Capture cards...
If you happen to have a New 3DS you can use CFW to capture the screen in software. The Quality is not as good and it requires a really good Wifi signal on the 3DS, but I've tried it and it does work with any regular 3DS title, so long it doesn't use DS mode or any of the new 3DS features...
@@Chickenbreadlp "so long as it doesn't use DS mode..." yeah, so, using a 3DS to capture DS games is still a challenge. Not to mention it's either blurry due to scaling issues or tiny on the screens (depending on how you boot the DS game) and the form factor gives me major hand cramps so I don't even own a 3DS anymore :(
@@StormBurnX Although it looks like dog-shit on the console itself, while booting up any non-3DS game (VC titles, GBA VC and NDS cartridges) if you hold select and start up the game it will run at native resolution with black bars around the screen. This gets rid of the bluriness and with a capture card you can then crop the black bars. Though when not using bilinear with the particular capture card I have, I find it looks really bad because not all the lines are shown correctly, meaning in the end I find it actually looks better blurry (as someone who always always always prefers 1:1 resolution or multiplied by an integer without any blur).
The only reason I know about the holding select is because I was trying to find a way to make GB VC games run at native resolution, and at some point I read about it. I just tested it with a DS cartridge and it does indeed work on DS, although the screens are vertically not centered.
@@Pixiuchu yep! That's been a feature since the very first generation 3DS models way back in like, 2011 I wanna say? It's nifty, but quite literally the only reason I want to get a DS screen capture system set up is for competitive Speedrunning of one single game, which unfortunately uses the touchscreen for aiming (it's a first person shooter) so playing it in that "true resolution" mode is disastrous due to how touch input is handled.
4:58 I love that one of the cable ports is labeled "wireless"!
I was just thinking that!
I love stuff like this. Dev kits are always so interesting to me. Thanks for bringing stuff like this to us.
I hope he shows us an N64 dev kit. Would be neat to see just how that archaic processor works and how development was done.
@@arnox4554 N64 would be really interesting! 🤔
Always fun to see dev kits up close!
Yeah, no teardown though. :( Thankfully there are some photos of the guts out there...
@@ATOMIC_V_8 That's fair. But then again, it's not exactly rocket science...
Didn't know Intelligent Systems had a hardware department making Nintendo dev and debug tools, nice!
I think they made all the hand-held to big screen hardware too (super game boy etc)
They did.make super game boy it started as a capture device for the press before they made it a retail product. The game boy player was them too basically up to DS we had retail GB players for Nintendo home systems except for N64 the Fat boy 64 stayed press exclusive and the transfer pack was game exclusive we never got a emulator cart that was unlocked for SGB
Devkits are always fascinating.
Nintendo Dev kits especially
As much as the explanation given in the video for the name of the device makes perfect sense, I like to think that everything else at Nintendo is labelled "ISN'T NITRO EMULATOR".
I love the look of this thing, it's like a piece of industrial equipment. I've used MIG/MAG welding machines with thinner cables than that.
For real I think I have ballast from 1990 that looks like that.
Looks like some kind of medical equipment you might see in a hospital for monitoring vitals.
I've had one of these since I worked on some DS titles back in the day, but hadn't looked into whether it still had any use today. The software development tools we downloaded from Nintendo would phone home every time they were started and quit working after a short time, maybe just a few weeks, requiring a new download and update. After I was no longer working on DS games I lost access to the Nintendo developers portal, and shortly afterwards the hardware became useless to me as all the software expired.
Thanks for sharing this! I used to work at a QA studio and would see some of the testers using this dev kit, but never got to personally check it out myself since I was on the PC games team. Made my day!
Who knew Intelligent Systems was so influential on Nintendo as a whole.
They made fire emblem paper mario warioware and lots of other stuff
Yeah, they're a funny company - you'd think they'd be just another division within Nintendo like EAD and R&D1 because it looks like all they do is Nintendo related.
@@johnsimon8457 this is called a 2nd party developer a independent developer that only makes game for a specific company
It's extremely cool that Intelligent Systems made so much hardware, on top of their generally excellent games.
Dude i love this! I always love to see how games or music for a specific console are made, since I don‘t have the slightest clue about game development.
And then my favourite homebrew and modding and gaming tech in general youtuber makes a video about my favourite handheld. Awesome!
That DS dev kit looks more like something you would see in hardware store or some piece of electronics from a plane.
Yeah, it looks a lot like a small compressor
@@user-10021 That or one of those portable scam air conditionings. lol
1:55 I chuckled that most sponsership videos would say "If you're not happy you get money back, etc etc" but you just say "If you think it sucks...". Love it.
I used to work with one of these back in 2009... very nostalgic. The one I used was a newer model though, so the DS attached to it was a DS Lite model.
Because of your video about retroarch on Xbox I bought a Series S and have installed it! Thanks man, I love emulation!
And now I'm here asking myself again, how did the dudes in the gaming show on NBC Europe back in the day showcase games then they received for such purposes.
Where those really special builds of the games or are there indeed Nitro-Emulator boxes that were intended for magazines and TV shows?
He mentioned the unit in the video the IS Nitro capture model was the model sent to the press that ran retail and flash carts.
@@JeffreyPiatt Huh... good point, must have been overheard that 😅
Still, I was always interested in that device so it's nice to see some MVG footage 👀
@@MegaManNeo the fk he talkin bout iz not remind this shit currybet för fasn
How does the hardware look like inside? The same chips as the DS+debug stuff or 100% FPGA?
We need a teardown follow up to this video with Spawnwave
Just to take a shot in the dark I would imagine it's probably the guts of a DS along with all the extra stuff on on or two PCB's, like the GBA kit H4G showed
there is a teardown made by a french channel ua-cam.com/video/CzsSLxPh9Y4/v-deo.html i don't know about the quality of the subtitles but i hope it helps
Love the industrial look of it. Beige box PC style felt like the norm with some exceptions like Sony.
Finally appreciating how far ahead of their time the DS and PSP were.
I remember using this while working at Nintendo. I was the only way to record videos off the DS.
These were used extensively at Pokemon events held by Nintendo Australia. The kit did work with the infrared inside Pokemon Black White carts and their sequels, though sometimes the battle could drop out - usually they'd have the other competitor using their retail DS stand closer to the nitro unit to overcome this.
Blast from the past! I used to see the Nitro Capture all the time, since I worked on the same floor as the marketing/PR team. I only occasionally used it myself, interesting to know that there were so many variants. Definitely didn't expect to see such a detailed video about it, took it for granted. Thanks for the awesome content as always 👍
quick fact, the nds handheld thats hardwired to the box is actually just a controller, it has no processor and such inside, just the bare minimum to have the i/o devices work. if you watch the retro futures video about this system you can see elliot take it apart to restore it, he also mentions that part himself.
Hey, I have one of those, except for the DSi, the IS-TWL-DEBUGGER. No Ethernet, has the original DWM-W015 wifi chip, seems to recognize retail games. No video out, mine doesn't have the expansion board. Have to run CodeWarrior in a VM (bleh). For DSi roms you need to tweak the header/CRC and re-modcrypt it before installing it as a .tad
I guess by then they decided to not split the unit by firmware the Nitro had 2 units the Emulator for developers that only ran developer carts and the capture the same hardware for press put flashed to run retail signed carts and any unsigned developer flash carts they got for screenshots and video capture. That late they probably got complaints and just sold one box for the later DS models
That hose looking cable is so thick you would almost think theres a fluid going to the Nintendo DS from that blue box haha
Wow, who knew you could make Nintendo DS games on a welding machine.
I know for a fact that a few developers "prototyped" their games first with a (highly illegal if you ask Nintendo's lawyers) R4 card before going to the trouble of getting an official devkit ... 5th Cell's first DS game, Drawn to Life, was apparently developed in this way.
What's your source? Not that I have any reason to doubt it.
An Emulator that's not an emulator? It should have been called a "simulator" xD
Edit: taking my words back, please read hellterminator's comment in the replies
I think they did the same thing with the Super Nintendo development kit and someone who actually listed one eBay had it removed accidentally cuz they thought it was an emulator.
No, it's correct. In HW realm, “emulator” has a slightly different meaning. It's a device that performs the normal function of the system, while also providing debug access. For example, in the early days of computers, processor didn't have any debugging features built in to save die area, so manufacturers would release in-circuit emulators (ICE) along their processors. An ICE was this huge thing that plugged into your computer's CPU socket. It was usually implemented by using the normal CPU, but with extra connections (which were not brought out on a retail units) to a debugger chip. It'll be the same with this emulator - all the actual DS hardware (with extra debug connections) will be inside the big blue box and the “DS” itself is just screens and buttons, all connected through that thick cable.
@@hellterminator Thank you for the explaination!
As someone who loves both Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, I had a feeling I knew what IS would stand for.
More Dev stuff please. This stuff is fascinating
AGREED
The best thing about the DS devkit/SDK was that while the hardware didn't support floating point operations the devkit *did* and the debug libraries were fine with it while release libs only supported fixed point. So in debug variables defined as fixed point were actually floating point and all the basic arithmetic operations behaved like you'd expect. But compile in release and they'd all switch over to fixed point and those same operations would not do anything remotely close to what you were expecting because they all became integer operations. The math library provided functions for all the operations that you had to be really careful to use because the compiler wouldn't necessarily warn you.
This was so interesting! Very well made.
Hi
No fucking way. I literally searched that video yesterday and was surprised you didn’t make one. What are the fucking odds.
So cool to see one of these kits again. When we used them we didn't use duel monitors for the game. We had one monitor for the game and one for the PC and the game also going to a capture card to record
When I heard MVG say "each are coded with NTR" I panicked for a second then I remembered I was watching about Nintendo DS development kit and not something ;)
lmao
Same
Yea same reaction
Cursed observations
As a game developer, it is epic to watch this
I like how it appears they just got an enclosure for a cheap import inverter welder and put their toolchain in it.
What a throwback! I used both the Emulator and Capture back when I used to work for SEGA's QA department. Thanks for this video!
I have the "IS Nitro Video" which only can show 1 screen on one Monitor. But on the plus side: it can run original retail Games on the get go.
I have the model with a NDS Lite and it's just a great system, to play your Games on (2) TVs
I wished i had the Capture Unit, to show both screens on one TV, but im happy having it in my collection.
It's one thing to own a Game Collection, but having something that was not sell to the public back in the days, is always special. (Especially if you see the prices... i was lucky getting mine on ebay for 170€)
I remember seeing this development kit, but in red color, at Gameworld 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brasil. It was standing with some trash games and in a empty place, because in that event the 3DS was shown and everyone forgot about the little old Nintendo DS. I was wondering back then what was that thing haha Now after 10 years finally i can see some explanation. Thank you!!
Was always curious on how these dev kits worked. Great video!
Ben Heck did a repair video on one of these units. The attached DS is basically just a pair of screens with a controller, touch screen and microphone. The rest of the hardware is in the desktop box.
you're like an intelligence agent against OEMS, sneaking and collecting all their super cool tech!
if you want to see inside Ben Heck took one apart. The hand held part has no hardware in it just the displays, speakers and buttons.
2:40 so *thats* what ntr stood for
not the other thing
Did you find any sort of "debug button" on the "IS Nitro Emulator" itself, or the software running on Windows? Nintendo DS has a "hidden" debug button that it was used by developers. The interesting part is that, some retail games still has some debug functions if you press the debug button. Of course, this is not possible on an actual hardware, but DeSmuME has an option to press the debug button.
An example of a retail game with a working debug button is "The World Ends With You". If you hold the debug button, the spinning icon (that appears when the game is initializing) disappears (source TCRF).
You can read more about it on the "Nintendo DS" page on TCRF (as well its talk page).
I can't believe I just nerded out on that for 8 minutes straight, then snapped back to reality when he said '... certainly overkill in 2021.'
Steel box looking like a welding unit with actual rust eating at the metal under the paint
wow
Just imagine being a game streamer on Twitch. You'd love this for capturing DS content.
Would u ever do a psvita video about how the security was broken like u did for PS3 and Xbox 360 etc?...or even a dev kit video similar to this one...would love to know more about psvita hard and ur videos are amazing for showing this
he already did a video, but it wasnt as deep as about the other consoles because the authors have not disclosed the exploit in full
@@omegarugal9283 oh...
I remember the breakthrough moment when that was cracked wide open. The vita had some serious legends working on modding it. Shout-out to Yifan Lu for inventing that amazing card which replaces the SIM adapter on a 3g 1000 vita with an internal micro SD slot. Who knew my vita could have 256GB internal memory AND keep the ability to play all my physical games?
I love DevKits. They are so fascinating to me. As always, thanks for the informative video!
oh my goodness, that blue box triggers my PTSD 😂 so many sleepless nights trying to squash all the bugs before Lot Check...
I’m soooooooo addicted to your videos❤❤❤❤
I would feel lost without all this techical info and history i wouldn’t otherwise know about at all, i really appreciate your work
Ha, still have fond memories of the first titles I worked on the DS. Still got the tools for exporting/viewing 3D stuff from the CAD soft to the kit I think.
Emulator here refers to an In-Circuit Emulator or ICE. It is a generic term in embedded systems programming.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-circuit_emulation
This literally the only dev hardware I'd ever want to own some day. I LOVE the DS and a way to record/stream with actual hardware would be amazing, but alas the are CRAZY expensive (kinda makes sense that they are though)
Very cool device! Thanks for covering this in detail. 🙂
I was just in the bathroom thinking about what development kit the DS had to make games. An hour later I see this video. Truly a coincidence!
That "Mario Bros. 2"-styled "Development Kid" on the Disc.
You should have opened the unit... Is it actually just doing software emulation? Is it just a copy of the DS chipset? Is it a custom ASIC? Or are they using an FPGA?
MVG, you inspire me to get back into programming. Thank you.
I thought on the thumbnail that the DS was hooked onto life support
Sweet Nitro Devkit MVG!
Interesting to see old dev kits.
If you'd like to see inside one of these Ben Heck did a teardown/repair of an IS Nitro Capture a little while ago. I found it fascinating that the DS on the IS nitro is just the screens and inputs in a modified shell, all of the processing happens in the blue box rather than on the handheld.
It looks like something the military would use to update the computers on the aircraft, but instead it's used for Hehe this Mario game is gonna be great
sponsor advertisement ends at 1:54
Man, Bob must be flipping by seeing you having that dev kit.
Can you do a video on the secondary serial port on the gamecube? I heard it’s for game development and it would be cool to see. Videos on how games were made on these older systems are very interesting
The other day there was a gaming expo on the mall on my town, I was amazed... it had devkits on display for the wii, wii u, ds and GC... and even some old stuff like odyssey 2 and ataris
Good name for the dev kit
Oh man what a trip down memory lane. I worked with one of those by my side for so many years!
"Each are coded with the letter NTR"
Otakus: I fear no man, but this thing scares me!
2:34 Not all. There are a few with the TWL prefix. Pokemon B/W is an example (I dont have any others with a different prefix.)
IIRC TWL are DSi-enhanced or exclusive, as opposed to NTR (DS) and CTR (3DS)
@@sundhaug92 you’re correct.
The Australian accent really comes out when you say "debugger".
Bob from Bob's game would certainly have loved this
"Emulator" is used widely in the electronics industry for denoting development hardware that is supposed to run the firmware/software of the actual end platform. For instance, in the old days, microcontrollers did not have any programmable ROM, it had to be baked in from the semiconductor factory or permanently programmed by the product manufacturer. During development this is a pain in the ass since every software build would require a new microcontroller, so they had big boxes that was connected in lieu of the microcontroller in circuit (or had a form factor of a dev board that you'd connect to a dev board of your product) that could be hooked up to a PC to load new firmware on to. This is proper "emulation" as we would think.
The term "emulator" has stuck around in the modern day where the popular mainstream microcontrollers like the STM32 already come with high performance flash memory that can be quickly re-flashed with an in circuit programmer. However, some manufacturers (I think I encountered this with TI) use the term "emulator" to describe the functionality that the emulator used to perform--which is loading new firmware on the fly. There was no separate emulator, the device itself as it would be used in the final product would be the emulator.
Though in this case, with that bulky tether, I think the DS emulator might actually expose the cartridge bus to the blue box, and maybe some more debug interfaces (JTAG and whatever custom stuff that lets you twiddle with the internal CPU/GPU state for debug or examination) so the development is much easier.
Awesome vid, would love to see more dev kit focused videos!
Neat. I think CodeWarrior was what we used for my C++ classes back in the early 00s.
That machine reminds me of a black one that gave off a signal for DS to download special gifts for certain games. I saw it once on the ground inside those game shelves with an unlockable glass door.
This one was super interesting. I’m ngl, I honestly thought most game development took place on a PC with “unlocked”, but otherwise standard, hardware connected. The big blue box for the little old DS is surprising.
OMG!!! That Dev. Kitt i was looking for that one for years! Wooow!!!!
2:34 NTR is nintendo ds. Only legends wll get that one.
I saw some of these dev kits on the shelves in the IT dept. at EA Florida ~2005.
MVG using nano is not the plot twist I was expecting today
nano > all
@@unicodefox I personally am also quite fond of micro, but nano seems to get the job done just fine.
Insane that you managed to even one of these, with the manual and discs too
thumbnail makes it look like the ds is on life support