Gaming

On February 10, 2026 by Jonathan Zdziarski

The above isn’t an emulator screenshot, it’s a photo of the actual Zelda played through my system on an HDMI monitor (any moire effect is from taking a picture of a screen). For several months, I’ve been playing with the c0pperdrag0n PPU Digitizer; I’ve successfully soldered it into an early Famicom, a NES Test Market console, and now a TinyNES. The PPU digitizer easily solders onto the back of the PPU and converts the picture into a signal they’ve dubbed Lumacode. The signal contains all of the RGB information to render individual pixels for the game in high definition. This signal can then be rendered by a few different upscalers (I use OSSC Pro) to display on an HDMI monitor with absolute perfection.

If you’re not familiar with the TinyNES, it’s fully open source hardware to create a modern, but authentic, NES clone. It comes with DIP slots for the PPU and the CPU from an original NES, and all modern SMT circuitry for the rest of the bits that don’t really matter. You can purchase it with clone chips (which do not provide authentic sound or picture), or you can de-solder the original PPU/CPU chips from an old NES and use it in the TinyNES, giving you an identical experience to the original console. Not only is it small and modern, but it’s also more power efficient and even supports Famicom expansion audio (great if you like to play old FDC games like me).

When I ordered the TinyNES, it wasn’t clear whether or not there would be room for the digitizer chip, or whether it would work with clone chips, or at all. Here is the back of the TinyNES board, once removed from its case:

The PPU digitizer solders over the back of the pins, as shown. There are two pads for signal output and ground. I didn’t want to physically modify the TinyNES’ video port, as I wanted the ability to plug it into a PVM whenever I felt like it. Instead, I cut up a well-shielded RCA cable, ran it through one of the screw holes on the bottom, and soldered it to the digitizer, adding an extra video port out the back.

A few close-ups show the per-pixel detail is far superior to the basic AV out that the TinyNES comes with. I was surprised to find that the clone chips it ships with are compatible. I ended up also desoldering the NES CPU and PPU from an old console for the final version, as the sound from the clone CPU is quite inauthentic.

A lot of people may not like this hard-raw-pixel look, but once you get a clean signal like this you can layer special effects on top of it. The photo above adds scanlines and an overlay using the OSSC Pro’s built-in functions. It’s easier on the eyes than a blurry picture, and doesn’t look nearly as blocky as the original RGB signal.

My understanding is you can also desolder the PPU chip from an arcade Vs. System to generate the RGB signals, however you’ll also need an RGB kit that doesn’t seem to be stocked right now. This seems like a much less expensive solution.