this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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Isn't it better and more accessible to mod existing roms to work with software emulators instead of doing the FPGA thing? It'll help you preserve the game just the same way and won't be as difficult as learning FPGA shit.
The route most normal people think when some code is buggy is to modify the code instead of making a whole new CPU. The ROMs aren't going to vanish just because there are no more CPUs which can run the same ROM.
I think what the society
would benefit from is a centralized ROM Marketplace (Donation based) where you upload modded ROMs for obsolete consoles but of course because of how intellectual property works under capitalism this isn't possible.
As mentioned, FPGAs are super expensive, not very efficient and require a lot of knowledge of the underlying ICs.
Also there are no FPGAs for PS2 and other modern consoles
I guess the argument would be that software fixes need to be implemented for each ROM separately. Which also involves the pain of decompiling. Yes FPGAs are probably a pain, but they potentially offer perfect emulation of every game.
One thing I'm not sure about is how portable FPGA logic is. If I write a NES emulator in verilog for one FPGA, can that code be reused on a later model if, for example, my FPGA goes out of production?
There’s also an argument to be made for preserving the “hardware” - those machines don’t last forever. the Analouge guys recently made (or are making?) an FPGA that is compatible with all of the Turbografix hardware paraphernalia which is arguably just as important as the actual software