I've been watching MiST for years and its price has always hovered around ~180-200GBP, ine of the reasons I waited so long. So if you managed to snag one for 140, I guess it was a lucky shot.
MiSTer runs nearly everything pre-1995, with many cores being now ~1:1, and is the only board to offer HDMI. To me that's quite a progress, especially seeing how niche this all was a few years ago, and how hard the reverse engineering of old hardware is. Obviously, this is all being done by open source crowd, for free, so not sure if commercial-space progress measurements apply here.
And Intel actually subsidizes the DE10 boards to popularize FPGAs. If not for that they would cost >300USD.
Pricing up the MiSTER
Re: Pricing up the MiSTER
The pre-assembled Misters I've seen cost £260-350. I'm sure you can build it yourself for a lot less but that's a slightly different comparison to the Mist. It's purely my perception, but I hoped that FPGA prices would fall in 5 years, not stay static or increase.
HDMI is a great thing obviously. I'm not really talking about the cores. There's been good progress there, but remember that all but a few of those run on the Mist and other boards too.MiSTer runs nearly everything pre-1995, with many cores being now ~1:1, and is the only board to offer HDMI.
Ah, maybe I'm being harsh on Intel then... old habits die hard and all that.And Intel actually subsidizes the DE10 boards to popularize FPGAs. If not for that they would cost >300USD.
Re: Pricing up the MiSTER
The "building" constitutes of sticking the SDRAM in the slot and putting heatsink on the chip. It really is a KinderEgg-level operation
It's a strange, mainly industrial market, unlike the billion-selling popular electronics one. I don't know it really well, but it seems it's just slowly taking off and looking to break into some more popular applications. I don't think the DE10 is actually that expensive (or was before the hike). At 130USD, for what it offers, it's pretty decent. The add ons are pricey, but that's because they are hand-made and it's still a very niche area (compared to RPi for example) so the quantities sold are very low. But, you don't really need most of them anyway. So, 200 quid for a machine which practically handles most of the retro-zone is not too bad in my book (especially given the crazy prices for real hardware). And casual folks can just get Retropie and probably won't know the difference anyway.
The sheer FPGA power is not really that important here. DE10 could probably handle the likes of Saturn, N64, PSX. The main problem is extremely time-consuming complexity and low amount of qualified coders who can deal with this kinds of challenge. And past that, the next generation (Ps2, DC, etc) is out of reach and most likely will be for a long time.
They do on MiST, but some can be still better on MiSTer, eg Amiga is way ahead on MiSTer now. Also, cores like ao486 are worth it alone.
As for other boards, it can be hit and miss. I think SiDi is the one that can match MiST, but the rest is a bit of an unknown territory. The fact they have some cores does not mean they always run on the same level as on MiST/MiSTer, as I have unfortunately found out when starting out with ZX-Uno.
Re: Pricing up the MiSTER
I'd be fine with it, but let's be honest you've lost 95% of the population halfway through that sentence! People are scared stiff by this stuff.
The 486 core is indeed the one I would upgrade to a Mister for (ah, Slicks 'n Slide!) The improved Amiga core would be another one if I didn't have the real hardware. A PSX core would/will tip the balance for me... I mean, it's a great board, I agree with you on that.