Wiki_MiSTer VS analogue-pocket-utils

I think it's a bit rich to describe this as the 'future of video game preservation'.

The MiSTer project https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki more rightfully deserves that title. It's got a huge range of systems (across consoles, arcade and micro computers) and it's all GPL licenced. The base board is a Terasic DE10 Nano which is proprietary but all other hardware required is open source.

The MiSTeX project aims to make MiSTer portable across different FPGA platforms https://github.com/MiSTeX-devel so a DE10 Nano won't be mandatory enabling a new ecosystem of open hardware and commercial for profit solutions.

I take no issue with people wanting to make money in this space. I take great issue with trying to gatekeep system preservation behind a mostly closed system you stamp an 'open' moniker on.

Go to the source https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki that should have all the information you need and also https://misterfpga.org/ and https://discord.gg/4xKVg4XVYn

Cute, but I don't see the point relative to miSTer.

The MiSTer project[0] is a wonderful introduction to a practical use case for FPGAs. It uses verilog to describe how the DE10-Nano chip should be set up to resemble various classic computers, arcade machines, and video game consoles. With a single device you can have an Apple II+, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and a SNES. Currently it supports up to the PlayStation for console cores, which is probably the upper bounds for the DE10-Nano.

The entire project feels perfectly in line with hacker mentality and is exciting to watch grow. There's nothing like playing Super Metroid with an original SNES controller on a CRT at the end of the day.

[0] https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki

I'd advice anyone interested to look at miSTer instead. That is open hardware proper and has a very mature ecosystem of cores, including Amiga.

Consider the miSTer as an open source hardware (in FPGA) alternative (minimig FPGA core).

Have you followed the steps here https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki/Samba funily enoough google pointed me here.

Here https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki and https://misterfpga.org/ I assume you know about these links?

You can find a lot of old computers and game consoles implemented in FPGA here:

- https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki/Cores

I _technically_ had prior knowledge as a computer architecture class had us stick some premade pieces together to create a CPU we designed, but I personally wrote no Verilog, and it was a small subset of the class.

I don't have much documentation for getting started with HDLs (Verilog, VHDL, etc), but I have tried to document my process as much as possible. I have primarily developed for the Analogue Pocket, so my documentation is themed towards that device, but there's IP (code modules) and wiki entries that would be useful for everyone: https://github.com/agg23/analogue-pocket-utils

I had previously written a cycle accurate NES emulator, so I was familiar with hardware techniques, but not what they look like in circuits. The first core I wrote was a schematic accurate Pong implementation. This was both good and bad because it's very simple and has no CPU (and thus no code), but it also makes it very hard to tell what is going on. I went from there to doing a lot of ports (NES, SNES, PCE, and a few more), and after that I worked on my own cores (Tamagotchi, Game and Watch). Tamagotchi I took a very typical software approach where I wrote massive amounts of unit tests and wrote against those tests. While this is what real hardware developers do, I found it to be a huge waste of time when you're working by yourself on a small project.

I, and a few others, are very willing to help people learn (though I'm still really a noob). If you want to play around in this space, let me know and I'll try to help you with what you need.

Not to draw attention to myself or anything, but if you're interested in learning to make cores for the Analogue Pocket or MiSTer (or similar) platforms, I highly recommend taking a look at the resources and wiki I'm slowly building - https://github.com/agg23/analogue-pocket-utils/

I started ~7 months ago with approximately no FPGA or hardware experience, have now ported ~6 cores from MiSTer to Pocket, and just released my first core of my own, the original Tamagotchi - https://github.com/agg23/fpga-tamagotchi/

If you want to join in, I and several other devs are very willing to help talk you through it. We primarily are on the FPGAming Discord server - https://discord.gg/Gmcmdhzs - which is probably the best place to get a hold of me as well.