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by ruk_booze 635 days ago
Sounds like you may want a Commodore 64? Preferably equipped with an Ultimate 1541.

Or if that it is too limited, go for the Amiga. It is more modifiable.

As a sidenote, I got my Mega65 just the other day. Been waiting almost a year for it :)

2 comments

Real Commodore hardware is going to break down eventually, I'd love to have something that uses modern parts so we aren't dependent on rare parts that are going to disappear or become super expensive.
There are modern FPGA-based options like the Ultimate64.

https://ultimate64.com/Ultimate64

Got one of these too (the now discontinued non-Elite version) and it is pretty cool running stuff at 48MHz:

https://youtube.com/shorts/fF2IXTwWDPQ?si=ww3IXp7CVWDT3SZy

In above video, I hacked the awesome demo Andropolis to utilize U64’s turbo mode during vblank.

This clip shows it running in full turbo mode:

https://youtube.com/shorts/hvmNnwz7ENQ?si=6idbUgRYikXHh25O

They are extremely repairable due to low level of integration and commodity components. And many ICs (outside DRAM or PROM) can potentially last for centuries.
vintage hardware is too expensive. I'm not sure why, or who's buying it, but if you want to actually run & program on it you're better off with emulators
There's a project called MisterFPGA, there's probably a C64 core available.