Alternatives
Products that do what FPGA Based IBM-PC-XT does
I built an IBM-PC-XT compatible computer using a mixture of authentic parts and a modern FPGA. The article linked contains a detailed description of the development process, and at the bottom is a link to the schematics and HDL source code. My main goal for this project was to push myself to learn as much as possible while ending up with an small, fun, usable retro device I can play with. The computer currently has the following features: - NEC V20 CPU running at 10Mhz - 1MB SRAM system memory - CGA graphics adapter with some EGA support - Micro SD card emulation of a Hard Disk - PS/2…
- 1M4My 486 Server▲255
Hello. I wrote a multitasking 16-bit real mode "operating system" that works on every IBM PC compatible computer, and a TCP/IP stack for it. Then I wrote an HTTP server for it.
2022 · 486servu.dy.fi
- 2C8
2018 · github.com
- 3IM
This is a little toy project of mine that lets you simulate digital logic graphs. It was inspired by Minecraft's Redstone and the Piet esolang. It's got some serious drawbacks-- you write circuits as PNGs and simulate them with a Python interface. It's slow to run and slow to experiment with. And it is certainly difficult to use for people with any kind of color blindness. But despite that, I hope this can still be a fun toy!
2022 · github.com
- 4RW
2021 · unsafeperform.io
- 5FE
2015 · excamera.com
- 6
- 7H3
2016 · youtube.com
- 8
- 9FB
Last week I released a web-based, automated build environment / Makefile generator for FPGA projects: http://www.boldport.com It's just a start, and I'd appreciate feedback. Tell me what sucks about it, what you love, where to improve. (BTW, I'm happy to help anyone who's interested to set up or convert their projects to work with the "boldport flow"!) In this context, my proposal for a scalable and version control friendly project structure for FPGA designs may be interesting as well: https://www.boldport.com/docs/fpgaproj
2011
- 10BA
I am a Dutch high school student and last year I had to do a large project of my own choice. Together with two other guys I decided to do a project about digital logic. We had an ambitious plan: building an 8-bits computer. At that time I started learning programming and I already knew some HTML and CSS. So we decided to not build a physical computer, but one running in a self-built simulator. I was going to build the simulator, the other guys took care of the computer. I was hard, our school hadn't taught us anything about computers and programming so we had to learn everything ourselves.…
2017
- 11IB
2020 · github.com
- 12
- 13FH
Three years ago, I posted here about hacking together a fast e-ink laptop from a T480 because I was tired of spending all day on LCDs. I liked e-ink’s comfort, but it was too slow for day-to-day use. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26245563 That post drew in people, which grew into a community experimenting with ways to make e-ink usable for everyday computing. That project later turned into a company and a multi-year project to make e-ink fast and open. We built our own FPGA-based controller, Caster, and went through multiple iterations to push past e-ink’s usual limits,…
2025 · crowdsupply.com
- 14MA
Hey HN, Recently built an Apple II emulator and at the same time was getting into Tiny Tapeout and decided it would be cool to build a cycle-accurate 6502 CPU and an MCU for it. It's cycle accurate and the core itself should be 100% compatible with a stock MOS 6502 (would need to still test this though!). Tested on some FPGAs (fomu, ulx3s) and works great, hoping to get it taped out in the upcoming IHP26a shuttle. Also as part of the project I built a bus multiplexer to allow memory/bus access from an RP2040 to work around the limited pin count on Tiny Tapeout. This let's you load up…
Feb 2026 · github.com
- 15AE
2020 · github.com
- 16P6
2021 · jfoucher.com
- 17LS
2018 · youtube.com
- 18WR
2019 · kickstarter.com
- 19IB
Dec 2025 · friggeri.net
- 20PA
A little game I made to show off an old project. The functionality of the CPU is derived entirely from simulated logic gates. All the operations and control flow are based on the underlying properties of the logic gates, and changing their operation leads to corresponding changes in function. The original game code is all python and it runs in the browser using wasm/pyodide. Not very mobile friendly
2024 · loreley.one
- 21IM
This is a personal project I've been working on and off for the past few years. It's a set of tools that have allowed me to prototype quickly small (and increasingly bigger) kernels, and create userspace programs to interact with them. Supports riscv64, amd64 and i386. The intel port has been tested and used on real hardware, from big dual-socket Xeon machines to an old X220. It is all C, I have plan to make rust bindings for the kernel library. But again, they're plans at this stage. Porting to new architectures is relatively simple, a basic port to riscv took me a couple of weeks of…
2024 · github.com
- 22IB
VSCode extension with games (Snake, Plinko, slots), HN/LessWrong reader, and Pomodoro timer for AI coding wait times. Fake currency only. Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TouchGra... Built in a week with Claude Code after seeing Chad IDE get ratio'd for integrating real gambling. Happy to answer questions or get roasted on the code.
Dec 2025 · github.com
- 23PB
2014 · assembleyourpc.net
- 24IB
You know that old TI calculator you used in high school, then put in a box and forgot about? Have you ever wished you had an operating system for your calculator with preemptive multitasking, dynamic memory management, a tree filesystem conforming to the FHS, and all the comforts of Unix? Well, good news: that's totally a thing that exists. I've been working on my kernel for about three and a half years now and I'm looking for new contributors to help out. It's written entirely in z80 assembly, and it's both challenging and fun to work on. There's an IRC channel for contributors or people…
2014
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →