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Comment by ThomW | Hacker News Reader

What letdown -- they're unpopulated PCBs. I'd buy Major Havoc in a second if it was ready to pop into my Tempest machine. :)

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Yeah... but the manufacturing processes for those chips are long, long gone. Nobody's building fabs for CPUs like the MOS 6507 which only have 3,218 transistors in total (seriously). That CPU hasn't been in production since 1992, so any replacement would be a complete redesign, or an FPGA packaged inside to simulate that part, which would no doubt cause its own griping. It would also be pointless, because emulating a 6507 cycle-accurately is pretty easy nowdays. Same goes for the other chips. If you can emulate with perfect accuracy because the tech was so primitive back then; what's the point of making what will still be a redesign?

At that point, just build a MiSTer (FPGA-based reimplementation), then get or build an arcade cabinet adapter to have your MiSTer provide the brains.

https://misteraddons.com/products/mistercade

So they’re selling a reproduction board, that does not actually work with original hardware, for over $200 a pop? That’s some expensive wall-art.

> that does not actually work with original hardware

Well, if you were to populate it with the chips from your old board, it would work. So as a replacement part if it was just your PCB that was cooked, it's not a terrible option. Just having the option to get such a brand-new ancient part is still valuable, regardless of cost.

On the bright side, I could spend $500 more on Mac Pro wheels.

I’m not sure I would even trust it. But if everything was socketed it might be a fun project.

I definitely wouldn't trust it if they're not certifying that they work and providing the exact revision of the board. Even boards that appear to have the same layout may be different - it was common to screw up a trace layout on a first version and need to manually solder bodge wires during assembly.

They are providing the specific revisions: Lunar Lander, Warlords (Rev D), Black Widow (Rev A), Gravitar (Rev C), and Major Havoc (Rev D).

And their site also states "These boards use the original bill of materials, follow the original schematics, and can be used to replace damaged original boards by using the original parts from these boards."

Walk into an art gallery sometime and you'll see even more expensive wall art.

Then can you emulate a 6507 cycle-accurately on a surface mount board that fits within the package envelope of an original 6507 DIP-28?

That exists but for 6502. The 6507 was not used on arcade boards, just for the 2600 home console. (Of course it could be easily modified to be used as a 6507)

This is a link to some emulated 6502 cycle accurate units both using ARM or FPGA

https://github.com/MicroCoreLabs/Projects

The 6507 is just a cut-down 6502 without all the address pins broken out. You could fit a 40-pin chip on an adaptor board hovering above the PCB on an Atari 2600, for example.

You may need to do some Grievous Bodily Metalwork to make the screening can fit.

> Nobody's building fabs for CPUs like the MOS 6507 which only have 3,218 transistors in total (seriously).

But you can still buy 6502 compatibles built on other technologies and processes, right? (Not sure if you can get them in DIP but still.) Differences in voltage levels are bound to cause changes, but jumping straight to emulation seems excessive (even if it’s probably actually easier).

You can still buy 65C02 chips (DIP, CMOS version) from Western Design Center [1]. I've bought a few in recent years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Design_Center

The WDC 65C02 is a current product which you can buy for a couple of dollars direct from the foundry.

Most of the TTL stuff is current manufacture, although you may need to adjust passive components used around "straight" TTL if you use modern 74HCT-family chips.

It's a piece of piss to build 1970s computers with cheap modern jellybean parts that Farnell keep in stock by the million.

Agreed. They could have the whole decorative thing, and in a little corner put an STM32 and breakout components, with the whole emulated game... I'd pay good money for something like that.

You might really like my friends little niche gaming cabinet company (custom full size arcade cabinets)

https://www.instagram.com/arcade_army/

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