It really is. Sometimes I think of it as 1D raytracing: indeed of tracing rays for a grid, you trace them for a line in the central horizon of the screen :)
Ummm... Of course you can! Consider using opengl libraries like pyopengl. But I would write my own rasterizer (and I did)! With python though that path is much harder.
It does work with channels that produce pulse waves yes, but what I meant is that you can't supply samples of a wave and expect it to play it. The sound is still analog.
I sometimes wonder if Façade actually used neural networks for text generation or just simple markov chains... I remember pewdiepie saying melon and getting kicked out lol. Also the Sims would be awesome but imagine an RPG with rich worldbulding, and LLM's interacting with the lore, like in an Elder Scrolls or Fallout title. Wouldn't it be mind blowing?
This... Hopefully inference can become so cheap games can have simple LLM's integrated into them. Imagine an RPG with LLM's and with rich worldbuilding; like Fallout NV with LLM's. Honestly, scary!
I would not think so, at least not in a meaningful way. That would require to edit the cartridge data thus the ROM, as all sprite data was contained within the cartridge. Sample based sound is impossible natively, as NES and older game consoles don't work with digital data but synthesizers. You could perhaps synthesize the music to WAV files and then enchance it. But then again, NES and thus its emulators have no way of playing digitized audio!