I think you misunderstand the situation I tried to demonstrate. I am not the target audience since I am not even remotely interested in a fpga. Like I said my friends do love retro stuff but they are not techy enough to do it themselves. In my case I'd just order a clone on aliexpress (they circumvent/reduce tax etc), solder it if neccassary and flash the firmware/sd card and call it a day but I am not the average user. My friends would just skip completely the product if it is not 'ready to use'.
It would be nice to get something from the OEM who created the fpga and not have to rely on clones for price reasons. e.g. The company behind analogue 3d could have handled the tax by themselves (have a storage inside EU and ship from there) or make drop shipping directly from china to lower the costs. Sure it is completely legal to do it like I mentioned in the previous post but it is a bitter aftertaste for the customer. I also don't know if this is still a problem since the case I explained is over a year ago and was the 1st batch.
In my opinion clones are not the solution (it's ok that it is an option). It may or may not be 100% compatible and if OEM starts to detect clones the whole thing becomes a cat&mouse game. It is just sad that everything became so expensive that in many cases a neatless experience is just not worth the price tag.
Okay I think I got your point but at the same time
you misunderstood some things.
First off: Yes, I agree, the MiSTer project involves a little more tinkering than a pre-setup thumb drive or handheld already populated with ES-DE and roms.
But apart from the fact that some of them come with pre-flashed SD cards (I would always replace them with a Samsung or SanDisk card though), the initial setup steps are really easy:
- Flash Mr. Fusion to the SD card
- Copy the famous update_all.sh script the SD's script folder
- Boot up the MiSTer with the SD card
- Run the update_all script (it will get you all Arcade games, BIOS files and other stuff you need)
- Copy your (non-Arcade) roms to the rom folders in sd:/games/ (a step that you have to make in each other emulation setup as well)
There are some things you need to know/learn though when using a MiSTer, especially coming from other environments such as RetroArch. For example how to make screenshots, create a "favorites" menu, the fact that you need to open the MiSTer menu (OSD) when a game is running so that it writes its save to the SD card (it won't until then, to not corrupt the SD card) and so on.
None of these things are hard or way more complicated as in other setups (RetroArch for example is complex on its own and takes a while to master, same applies to ES-DE and other frontends) but you still need to know/learn them.
I can totally understand that this turns people off though. The MiSTer clearly is not for everyone.
I still stand by that point though that if you love retro games, nothing comes close to the MiSTer and it's worth getting into it for that single reason.
Now lets talk about your
clones subject...
If we were super correct, the term "clone" is basically wrong. The MiSTer project is built around the Intel FPGA chip
Altera Cyclone V.
That chip (like any CPU, ARM or GPU) can be placed on any compatible board.
The community decided to go with the
DE10-Nano dev board by
Terasic back in 2017 due to wide availability.
It was just a board that had that FPGA chip and that everyone could order for not too much money (it heavily raised in price since then) and start developing/testing things so the MiSTer project eventually emerged, based around that chip, coming from an older project named only
MiST that was built around a weaker FPGA. The
M is from A
miga and the
ST from Atari
ST if I recall the name correctly.
But since that Terasic DE10-Nano board became morer and more expensive and (partially) also less and less available (limited stocks, especially throughout the Covid years), a famous YouTuber Taki Udon took the opportunity to release an own dev board built around the Cyclone V and make it cheaper.
Again, in the end the Cyclone V is just a chip. Like you can buy a certain Nvidia GPU in a graphics card from MSI or ASUS or Gigabyte. None of them are clones. They are just variants built around that same certain GPU.
Same as if you buy different notebooks or PCs by different brands, built around an exact same AMD or Intel CPU.
My point is, since you mentioned the term
OEM I have to say:
There's no such thing as an original MiSTer.
Everyone can make boards based on the Cyclone V. They just have to make sure to have certain things present on the PCB so that it stays compatible with the MiSTer software.
As long as that is the case, every hardware manufacturer can make adjustments that differ from Terasic's DE10-Nano (since it's not the "original").
For example:
- Taki Udon replaced the power connector on his MiSTer Pi with a USB-C port for charging.
- QMTech soldered the additional SD RAM directly onto the board.
- MiSTer Multisystem 2 shaped the board totally different to easily allow for expanding it with their own addons.
- SuperStation One has multiple analog outputs and supports a docking station that runs real discs.
- The Ironclad fits the MiSTer in an ITX case and provides direct implementations for an RTC module and a MT32-pi connector.
I call all these "clones" because everybody does but in the end, they are just variants and are just as good if not even better than the Terasic DE10-Nano for certain reasons. You can get any of these and enjoy the MiSTer project.
And to close things up I'm coming back to the "ready to use" and "user friendly" aspect of your post again.
There's a new fancy graphical interface that came out recently, making the MiSTer even more accessible, the Zaparoo Launcher:
And Taki Udon is also working for months at this point on his own take on such a frontend. I think he just simply calls it "console mode" and it's about to come out soon as well:
