[ANTSANTS]

Why do people have Renaissance fairs, use film cameras, paint instead of using Photoshop, etc? Why do anything? It's fine if it doesn't interest you, but it's not like you need a practical reason to have fun making something.

>Even if I could write NES code, I probably can't find working NES hardware to test it on.

NESes themselves are readily available. Flashcarts like the PowerPak and the Everdrive-N8 are somewhat expensive, but not outrageously so. Some people also gut old games or buy repro PCBs to create test cartridges with somewhat easily-rewritable EEPROMs.

>There are emulators, at which point I may as well write in another language.

As long as you periodically test on the real deal, I fail to see how this would be a problem. It's certainly faster to load a ROM in an emulator than it is to copy it to an SD card or rewrite an EEPROM. Not to mention, there are obvious advantages to having access to a software debugger.