MAMEWorld Forums - Programming - Open Source/Copy Left Hardware Mame on an FPGA ?

> > Oh come on. I'm just pointing out the amazing possibilities of open source hardware
> > here. Does that not interest you ?
>
> I think it's extremely cool, but the practicality is somewhat limited given the
> "emulator" at that point becomes effectively a dedicated PC that needs its own
> monitor and speakers and whatever.
>
> > Don't tell me "there's no MAME involvement" when
> > MAME must be one of the most influential emu projects ever !
>
> MAME, surprisingly, is not terribly influential even though it's widely used. Aside
> from Final Burn Alpha, no other emulator out there does things even remotely the way
> MAME does. This even extends to multi-system emulators, where each "driver" is a
> self-contained complete emulator on its own rather than using a library of shared
> software components. I just read a thread on a non-emulation-related technical site
> that suggested MESS is all wrong for using that approach when it could simply
> concatenate a bunch of high-quality GPL emulators like Mednafen does.
>
> Even the concept of having the source code available continues to be resisted by some
> high-profile emulators, although that situation at least has gotten a lot better.

Ok, I may have quite a simplistic view of MAME having not been involved in the coding of it. My understanding is that it has the most faithful and accurate emulation of games due to the focus on the historical documentation of the board hardware rather than just emulation per se.

I can see how MAME way would not necessarily be the best way to implement these games in an FPGA. But I was thinking of an implementation in logic that would retain the historical aspect. For example part of the OS cold show a graphic of the actual board hardware as implemented in the FPGA ... much like some arcade machines show at bootup. A custom programmed FPGA would be an emulator ...

Quote:

In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates (or emulates) the functions of a first computer system [...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator

However it would reproduce the hardware as used on the original boards. ROMS would still need to be obtained by the user to avoid copyright infringement. There might be some patent issues with reproducing some hardware in an FPGA especially if the unit is sold for profit and/or cloned from the open sources by various companies. I need to look into this some more. Could a unit be made with an unprogrammed FPGA to avoid all the copyright/patent issues ... ? Then the user would program it themselves to reproduce whatever classic arcade board. Or if they're not bothered about total accuracy they could program the board with some other method of emulation.

I just find it intriguing that that it could actually be possible to community build a unit like this. It could be the new DS or Pandora and might allow gaming with some games that struggle even on high end PC's.