My roundup of Commodore motherboards turned up on a vintage computer discussion board. A minor aside that I mentioned in passing turned into a major topic of discussion. And then the conversation turned in an entirely different direction. What about going with an FPGA solution, rather than vintage hardware? With an FPGA approach you can be certain you’re getting what you want. But what are the drawbacks of FPGA vs retro hardware, if any?
A purist will object to modern FPGA approaches, usually for more than one reason. But there can be practical advantages to an FPGA solution, and it’s also possible to blend it with a more traditional approach.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
