agg23/fpga-gameandwatch

This project lets you play classic Game and Watch handheld games, the vintage single-game LCD devices Nintendo made in the 1980s, on modern hardware like the Analogue Pocket and MiSTer. Think of titles like Donkey Kong, Fire Attack, Ball, and Octopus. Instead of tracking down decades-old hardware with aging screens, you can run these games on devices designed for retro gaming. The creator built an original recreation of the Game and Watch internal processor (the CPU) based on Sharp's original documentation and MAME's existing emulator code. Rather than software emulation, this project runs on FPGA chips, hardware that physically reconfigures itself to behave like the original electronics. The result is meant to be a more faithful reproduction of how the games originally worked. You'll need to supply your own game files, and a tool is included to convert MAME ROMs into a format this project can use. The target audience is retro gaming enthusiasts who own an Analogue Pocket (a handheld device that plays classic games via FPGA) or a MiSTer (a similar system typically built on a small circuit board). If you collect vintage handheld games or want to experience early Nintendo history without buying fragile original devices, this lets you do that with some modern conveniences. It supports games built on several related CPU families, including some Tiger Electronics titles and a couple of homebrew games created by hobbyists. A few thoughtful touches stand out. The display runs at 720x720 resolution, and there's an option to show inactive LCD segments, the ghostly outlines you'd see on the original screens when certain elements weren't lit up. There's also a deflicker feature, since the original LCDs pulsed at a rate that looks fine on vintage liquid crystal but would flicker badly on modern displays. The project handles this by updating the screen much faster than the original hardware did, unless you specifically want authentic flicker.