Whatever you had on your 2024 bingo card, I'd likely bet that "Porting .NET onto devices that didn't natively support it" wasn't on there. Despite that, people have been hard at work to get the service running on as many old devices as possible. We're still reeling over when someone ported thousands of games from Windows 98 to 95 by adding .NET to an operating system never designed to support it, and now - presumably in a bid to one-up them - someone has done the same but on a NES. And yes, we meant the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Someone got .NET running on a NES, because why not?

As spotted by Tom's Hardware, this amazing feat was made possible by John Peppers of Microsoft. He showed off the feat during Microsoft Build, because apparently, all that stuff about Copilot+ wasn't enough to satiate John's desire to show off something cool. Of course, given the NES's limited hardware, he couldn't get the entire suite of .NET onto the console, but he could do a simple "Hello World" program just fine.

So, why did he do this? Well, if we've learned anything from these .NET porters, sometimes you just gotta do what you want to do. The Windows 95 porter claims they did it because they wanted to, with the operating system holding a nostalgic moment in their heart. As for John, he describes it as a "nerd flex," a way to show off his coding prowess to fellow geeks who'd enjoy what he achieved.

If all this NES talk has got you fired up to play some classics, now is a fantastic time to hop on the retro train. We've covered the best retro gaming handhelds to sate your appetite regardless of where you are, and we've also seen a powerful Nintendo emulator arrive on the App Store.