23 pointsby js28 hours ago3 comments

js26 hours ago
I hadn't seen the A2FPGA card before. It was briefly discussed on HN a couple years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41237176
- musicale3 hours ago
  You could probably implement the whole Apple II on the FPGA and have LUTs to spare...
  Edit: Tang Nano 20K, so fairly powerful, with 64Mbit of DRAM (enough to use as a virtual hard drive.)
  - js23 hours ago
    I realize it's not an FPGA, but even in 1986 the entire Apple II was already available on a single ASIC:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_II
    Can get a Sipeed Tang Nano 20K FPGA Development Board from AliExpress for $7.05. I don't know the first thing about working with FPGAs, but this seems like something worth learning someday.
    https://6502.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8270
pohl6 hours ago
I knew before clicking it was the 80 column card.
- CyMonk4 hours ago
  i had counted on the z80 card instead.
  - badc0ffee3 hours ago
    I thought it was going to be Woz's famous Disk II controller.
    rjrjrjrj3 hours ago
    It is difficult to understate the importance of the Disk II controller. Cassettes were ridiculous. Floppy drives were awesome, especially two of them (which the controller supported).
    Kind of the LaserWriter of its time: a very profitable peripheral that made the whole platform work.
musicale3 hours ago
Forget "serious" - games were and are the killer app for personal computing devices.
How many people use Apple II emulators to run VisiCalc, after all?