I appreciate this is a 3-day-old comment now, but consider MISTer - https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki - which allow access to all of these older systems rather than being locked down to one of them. You could then also move through time, from an original Apple I, through Commodore 64, Amiga, etc. Also permitting your child to learn about FPGA, hardware, etc. at any point.
In The lost ways of programming: Commodore 64 BASIC (2020)MiSTer-devel
Main_MiSTer
C++2018–2022
MiSTer-devel / Main_MiSTer
Main_MiSTer
Main MiSTer binary and Wiki
32Distinct people
34Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
3.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Main MiSTer binary and Wiki
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
I recommend the Terasic DE10-Nano. Because of the MiSTer (https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki) project, a cottage industry has formed around addons for this board…
nkatsaros used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year34 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-07-07 09:38:20 UTC to 2022-09-20 13:38:35 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 13 | 3 | 10 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Main_MiSTer Main Binary and Wiki Repo
This repo serves as the home for the MiSTer Main binaries and the Wiki.
For the purposes of getting google to crawl the wiki, here's a link to the (not for humans) crawlable wiki
If you're a human looking for the wiki, that's here
To compile this application, read more about that here
This version has been modified to add support for MiSTer Floppy, SCP and IPF support - see https://mister.robsmithdev.co.uk
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
34 sourcesWhat exactly are you aiming to build? DP/HDMI output and Ethernet aren't exactly beginner topics in FPGA (though you may be able to cobble something together using pre-existing components).
The Nexsys Video would give you what you need: https://digilent.com/shop/nexys-video-artix-7-fpga-trainer-b... (though out of stock)
The DE10-Nano gives you both HDMI (though not 2.0) and Ethernet: https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=.... There's some availability, apparently buying direct from Terasic is the best option (though often more expensive as shipping is pricey and you pay import duties). It's also what the MiSTer project uses https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki so is what you need if you want to play with console emulation.
FPGA toolchains are indeed a nightmare but both Xilinx and Intel have freely avail
Read the rest
able versions. They tend to be limited in the devices they support but the free versions of Vivado (Xilinx) and Quartus (Intel) both support the FPGAs in the boards I mentioned above.
Hardware-accurate emulation in software is typically not fast. FPGAs however can achieve low-level emulation with a high degree of hardware accuracy:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
In MetalNES: Transistor Level NES Simulation> Buying original equipment is very expensive. But emulators are abound. A middle ground would be for me to play those with original controllers.
For NES/SNES? Absolutely trivial. Those controllers are literally just one (NES) or two (SNES) 4021 shift registers connected to the various buttons. Console sends a latch signal every now and then and then reads out the button state one by one.
There are adapters to convert those to USB HID available through a variety of sources and they're also trivial to DIY if you like to play with microcontrollers.
Most other 8/16 bit era controllers are either doing something similar or just directly wire the buttons to pins on the connector like the old "game port" on PC sound cards did.
If you want the ultimate in realistic play though, you can build a MiSTer.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiST
Read the rest
er/wiki
Take one not-super-expensive FPGA dev board, add some open source firmware and optionally a few open hardware addon boards, and you have a near universal hardware emulator for 8/16 bit era consoles and computers that has perfect hardware timing. With either of the addon I/O boards you can connect native controllers directly at which point the accuracy is so high that you can actually use original light guns if you're connected to a CRT.
Anyone who is nostalgic for the 8/16 bit eras should really take a look at this project. Recently there has even been progress in to the 32 bit era, with both PSX and Saturn cores in development.
You can have both.
* https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
Combine retro with FPGA as you like(within the constraints of that development board).
Or waste Watts by using software emulation.
In What is AT&T doing at 1111340002?For those who don't know the project :
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
In MEGA65 – highly advanced C64 and C65 compatible 8-bit computerBoy do I have something neat for you:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
In Apollo 68080 – Motorola 680x0 High Performance Processor in FPGAAsk HN: Do you know any modern computers with retro characteristics?
I know about several modern computer projects with retro characteristics:
* ZX Spectrum Next[1]
* Commander x16[2]
* Mega 65[3]
* C256 Foenix[4]
* Vampire V4+ Standalone[5]
* MiSTer[6]
* Maximite series
- The Monochrome Maximite[7]
- The Original Colour Maximite[8]
- Colour Maximite 2[9]
Do you know any other?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum_Next
[2] https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/home/
[3] https://mega65.org/
[4] https://c256foenix.com/?v=6cc98ba2045f
[5] http://www.apollo-computer.com/v4.html
[6] https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
[7] https://geoffg.net/MonoMaximite.html
[8] https://geoffg.net/OriginalColourMaximite.html
[9] https://geoffg.net/maximite.html
9 points · Open discussionWe have FPGA implementations of the Amiga nowadays; these are basically identical to the original hardware.
It's quite amazing, I can highly recommend checking them out: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
In AmigaOS 3.2It is indeed an amazing project, especially its open source nature. It provides some impressive power savings and latency reductions that are very hard to match with general purpose CPUs.
But in most cases, it is emulation, as the lead developer will attest.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Why-FPGA
"From my point of view, if the FPGA code is based on the circuitry of real hardware (along with the usual tweaks for FPGA compatibility), then it should be called replication. Anything else is emulation, since it uses different kinds of approximation to meet the same objectives. Currently, it's hard to find a core that can truly be called a replica – most cores are based on more-or-less functional recreations rather than true circuit recreation. The most widely used CPU cores – the Z80 (T80) and MC68000 (TG68K) – are pure funct
Read the rest
ional emulations, not replications. So it's okay to call FPGA cores emulators, unless they are proven to be replicas."
But there's nothing wrong with emulation for preservation, until we get to a point where we can wide-scale clone these older chips down to the transistor level through analysis of delayered decap scans. And even then, emulation will be useful for artificial enhancements as well as for understanding how all those transistors actually worked at a higher level.
It's also not a total solution: by taking many more transistors to programmatically simulate just one, it limits the maximum scale and frequency of what it can support. N64/PS1/Saturn has not yet been fully supported and is still theoretical, but likely, to be possible. Going beyond that is not possible at this time.
Software emulation and FPGA devices should be seen as complementary approaches, rather than competitive. The developers of each often work together, and new knowledge is mutually beneficial.
I don’t really know much about game emulation so I was curious about what differentiates this FPGA game project vs traditional CPU emulation.
From their github page [1]:
>Traditional emulators on CPUs execute code sequentially. This is a tricky method of emulation because real hardware has many chips and all of them work in parallel...This requires a lot of CPU power to emulate even an old and slow retro computer. Sometimes even a modern CPU working at 100 times the speed of the retro computer is not enough, so the emulator has to use approximation, skip emulation of some less important parts, or assume some standard work of the emulated system without extraordinary usage.
> FPGA doesn't need high frequencies to emulate retro computers; it works at much lower frequencies than traditional emulators require. Since everything in FPGA works i
Read the rest
n parallel, it is no problem to handle any possible usage of the emulated system.
[1] https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Why-FPGA
(Edited for formatting)
MiSTer, an open-source FPGA gaming project
343 points · Open discussionShowing the 15 most recent of 34 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.