I've been in the software game for almost 30 years professionally, with another 10 dabbling in programming. I'm one of those who think anyone can code, but creating a software product...
It seems like a lot of that time and work getting prototypes made could have all been handled with an FPGA?
Mock up all the hardware on an FPGA, use a breakout board to tie your microcontroller and cartridge reader to it, then do all your hardware prototyping on that.
Once you’re happy with it there, then ship it off to have it built. Any reason that wouldn’t be preferable?
For a lot of things I previously used a FPGA for im using the RP2040 now. Since its dirt cheap and the PIO capability is amazing. And the prototyping speed of thr RP2040 is amazing. I basically put python on it and build a working prototype and then port it to rust if I need more performance. It will not be able to replace FPGA’s for very complex tasks, but for a lot of the use cases it can.
It seems like a lot of that time and work getting prototypes made could have all been handled with an FPGA?
Mock up all the hardware on an FPGA, use a breakout board to tie your microcontroller and cartridge reader to it, then do all your hardware prototyping on that.
Once you’re happy with it there, then ship it off to have it built. Any reason that wouldn’t be preferable?
For a lot of things I previously used a FPGA for im using the RP2040 now. Since its dirt cheap and the PIO capability is amazing. And the prototyping speed of thr RP2040 is amazing. I basically put python on it and build a working prototype and then port it to rust if I need more performance. It will not be able to replace FPGA’s for very complex tasks, but for a lot of the use cases it can.