If you are into various “retro” computer systems and video games, there’s a Hardware emulation platform using FPGA created by Terasic Technologies. An open source hardware add-on called MiSTer gives the FPGA hardware additional functionality, including an integrated USB hub, SDRAM, VGA video, analog out via headphone jack, and many other functions.
The board naively has an HDMI output and one USB port.
Specs:
- 110K LEs; 5570 Kbits Embedded Memory; 6 PLLs; 2 Hard Memory Controllers
- 800MHz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 Process; 1GB DDR3 SDRAM; 32-bit Data Bus
- 1 Gibabit Ethernet PHY; USB Micro-AB Connect; Mirco SD Card Socket
- Model Number : P0496
Once you set it up, you can run computer systems from the early hobbyist computers like the Apple 1 to an IBM 486. You can also run a huge list of arcade games and video game consoles with no input lag. There are filters for scan-lines and video up-scaling for raster images. They are many other options as well, including game saves, input mapping, dip switch settings and more. Imagine the possibilities! Want more RAM for you Pet computer? There’s a setting for that! The best part is that you have a system that fits in the palm of your hand that can replace the hardware for hundreds of systems. It delivers with hardware accuracy, which will be an immediate improvement from software emulation in most cases.
There are three things you can buy that will compose the entire system. The FPGA motherboard, a micro SD card and the kit (I make no $ off these links):
Kit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZC2NNW9?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details
Motherboard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B89YHSB?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details
Once you obtain the hardware, the next step is to flash the MiSTer software to a micro USB card:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/mr-fusion/releases
Balena Etcher is a perfect program to flash ISOs (and free).
Then obtain the “update-all” script, which will download all of hardware cores, computer bios files and arcade game roms:
https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer
Once you flash the “mr-fusion” iso, you will need to run the SD card in the FPGA board. The system will set itself up.
Then place the “update-all” script in the scripts folder on the SD card.
Boot the system, hit ESC on your keyboard to get to option to run scripts. You will then run the wifi script to update your wifi settings. Then go back into the scripts option and run the “update-all” script. This will automatically install all your needed bios files, roms, and hardware cores.
After the wifi is setup and the “update-all” script run, your system will report the IP address when you hit the back button. With this IP, you can later SSH into it and add new games or virtual computer disks (example: d64 files for Commodore 64). Simply add the files under the “games” folder and into the appropriate system folder. Alternately, you can remove the SD card and mount it with your PC to add files.
Reference video:
1 comment