$60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

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thenendo
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$60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by thenendo »

I recently noticed that Two Sigma Investments, the big quantitative hedge fund that manages over $60b of assets, has a section on its website titled "powerful engineering," which features this photograph of what we must assume are employees at work:

Image

They appear to be inspecting the mainboard of an NES Control Deck. The topcase and RF shield are clearly visible on the bench next to them.

And what's that book sitting on the bench?

Image

Hmmm.

Hmmmmmmm.
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Ben Boldt
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Ben Boldt »

“Why the hell did those Japanese goofs loop the audio through the cartridge? We can free up 2 more EXP pins!”
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Hamtaro126
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Hamtaro126 »

"Now you are playing with power, Corporate Scienctific power!!!"

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AKA SmilyMZX/AtariHacker.
calima
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by calima »

The US army used PS3s for computing? Pfft, we're going to use NESes.
WedNESday
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by WedNESday »

calima wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 2:02 amThe US army used PS3s for computing? Pfft, we're going to use NESes.
In North Korea they use the Intel 4004. Probably explains why their missiles can't fly very far. :lol:
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Dwedit
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Dwedit »

Oh my god, they're gonna invent Bender.
Here come the fortune cookies! Here come the fortune cookies! They're wearing paper hats!
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by WedNESday »

Dwedit wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:27 pm Oh my god, they're gonna invent Bender.
Bite my shiny metal... What a second, what's this about Dwedit?
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Gilbert
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Gilbert »

WedNESday wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:29 pm
Dwedit wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:27 pm Oh my god, they're gonna invent Bender.
what's this about Dwedit?
Because Bender uses a 6502 cpu?
WedNESday
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by WedNESday »

Gilbert wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 11:36 pm
WedNESday wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:29 pm
Dwedit wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 4:27 pm Oh my god, they're gonna invent Bender.
what's this about Dwedit?
Because Bender uses a 6502 cpu?
Ooooooh, very good! I tell you this, my mind was totally BLOWN when I saw that clip on Futurama. I was so proud of myself, safe in the knowledge I was among the 1% of people to probably get that joke. :)
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Gilbert
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Gilbert »

Though, you know, the 6502 is also powerful enough to power the ex-California mayer a man killing android!
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Ben Boldt
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Ben Boldt »

The 6502 is pretty bulletproof.
Drag
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Drag »

I forget, doesn't the 6502 benchmark good enough to have lower clock speeds compared to other 8-bit CPUs of the time? I'd consider that pretty powerful. :D
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Gilbert
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Gilbert »

I can't say anything in a technical level, but were most z80 systems bitd 4MHz? Considering 6502 were mostly at around 2MHz and lower (the Apple ][s were at 1MHz) and the systems were comparibly similar in performance (take Famicom vs SMS) I'll say the 6502 was quite good.

The PCE, having a 7+ MHz 65C02 core, should be a 8-bit powerhouse. Considering that the SFC's 65816 ran at below 3MHz I guess that the reason some of its early games being slow was that developers weren't familiar with the chip so they either used mostly 8-bit code (if this is the case these games would perform much worse than PCE games) or that they're sloppy in using the 16-bit codes.
Pokun
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by Pokun »

Yeah Z80 systems were often 3.58 MHz around this time, so speed was about equal I suppose.

PC-Engine used the fastest RAM chips available at the time and is supposedly even faster than the Mega Drive typically. So yeah it beat all the 16-bit systems in terms of speed at least. It was built powerful to make sure it could use the CD-ROM technology that NEC pioneered but they had to sell it for a loss at first despite the premium price.
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aa-dav
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Re: $60 billion hedge fund uses the "powerful engineering" of the NES

Post by aa-dav »

Hilarious. :)
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