Why use a FPGA? For the price of the chip (113€) you could get an entire SBC that has more storage, voltage regulation and protection, 3.3V or 5V IO and linux.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
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Yeah I don't get it either. I work in aviation and we use fpgas so we can do field upgrades since physical hw changes are not that common in the industry. None of these handhels look like they support fpga image updates. My only guess is that they dont sell enough volume to make ASICs due to economies of scale.
Then you're not in the target group.
Can someone explain to me who the target group is tho? I understand FPGAs have a larger potential of emulating hardware fast. But it's not like the chip designs for these old consoles are open source. So FPGAs are usually not cycle accurate either.
The same kind of pretentious person that says they can feel the difference of 1ms of input lag, or hear the difference between 320kbps audio and 1411kbps. You know, an elitist.
More seriously, people can still use their physical copies on a console that can easily connect to modern display technology. But at the same time, that physical media will eventually deteriorate to an unusable degree and FPGA users will be right back to where they started. That is perhaps the singular benefit of going digital for retro emulation. As long as copies are made on new media, they cannot become unusable.
What makes this better than the Analogue Pocket?
It's all about the screen ratio. The Pocket is 10:9, same as the original Game Boy. This way all Game Boy and Game Boy Color games perfectly fit the screen. The Pocket can play GBA, sure, but GBA was 3:2, so it's heavily letterboxed on the Pocket. The Game Bub is a 3:2 screen, while using similar underlying tech of FPGA. Basically, the Game Bub is the right landscape layout and right screen ratio to best play GBA games.
huh, neat.
I can see that being a draw for enough people to own both
Oh for sure. Heck, I have all 3 black Analogue Pockets, and a couple colors of the Chromatic too. I love me some dedicated hardware. But the modded Game Boys just aren't cutting it with their buzzing sound, I want perfected dedicated hardware with backlit screens.
Why not use a Raspberry Pi Zero?
Because that's emulation. This is a FPGA. Like the Analogue Pocket
If the outcome is the exact same, who cares?
This is like golden audio cables but for retro gamers.
The outcome isn't the same; FPGA devices can read the physical carts. And if the core is made well, it can be indistinguishable from OG hardware, though it's not like we don't have some good emus out there as well. For me, it's like asking why anyone buys imported beer when Coors exists. Sometimes I want something that's made to be a higher grade, and FPGA devices tend to be on the higher end. I'm a collector of games and devices, and the last thing I'm looking for is yet another cheap emulation device. Those are a dime a dozen that market is served. Right now, what the market doesn't offer is an FPGA handheld with a 3:2 screen that can read physical GBA carts, and I'd love to get one as soon as someone makes one.
A computer/microcontroller can read physical cards just as well and if the specs of the hardware are well known enough for someone to write vhdl/verilog, they can also write c/rust.
If someone offered you a molecularly identical beer, would you complain that it's not the original.
You just named a bunch of things that don't actually exist in one package that fits in my hand, hardly identical whatsoever. Gimme a call when it is. Or don't, I'm not here to argue semantics of nonexistent things.
Emulation of an ARM console on an ARM computer? And a FPGA is also kind of an emulation but on a lower level, IIRC.
And if the "no emulation" part is about the SM83, the APU or the PPU then maybe just an add-on card for the RPi can work. And cheaper.
Neat. But crowdsourcing is just theft with extra steps. It's called a bank loan.
Were it a shithead company like Ubisoft running a crowdfunding campaign, I would heartily agree. But using crowd sourcing for its intended purpose, I'd say it's less so. Not everyone can just go out and get a loan for $100K to manufacture an open-source handheld. No bank is signing up for that. Really, I'd be a lot more skeptical if they didn't already have a manu lined up. Sure, crowdsourcing can be risky to back, but I've also bought all kinds of stuff off the shelf that was absolute junk at the end of the day. Purchasing things comes with risks, some more than others. You just gotta weigh if the purchase is a risk you're willing to take.