A home computer remake is a re-creation or re-implementation of classic home computer hardware, usually using updated technology, such as FPGAs.
A remake is a hardware realization, in contrast to an emulator, which is a virtual realization. A remake can also be described as a hardware-based emulator. Some re-makes can function as more than one computer model or architecture.
Remakes and emulators are a way to keep old software, games, and operating systems alive without having to port them to newer computers or code them again from scratch. Remakes and emulators are methods of digital preservation.
Remakes are not to be confused with hardware clones. Hardware clones are made during a product's initial commercial run, intentionally competing with the original. Remakes are revivals of old, obsolete, or discontinued models. They fill a niche market for retrocomputing researchers, experimenters, hobbyists, gamers, and collectors. Demand for authentic antique hardware often exceeds supply.
Examples of home computer remakes include:
- Multiple Classic Computer (MCC), (e.g. C64 and Amiga) remake, implemented as handheld TV game
- Minimig and Natami, Amiga remakes
- Replica 1, an Apple I remake
- Atari Coldfire and Experiment-s, Atari ST remakes
- C-One, Originally a Commodore 64 remake but now also supporting Amstrad CPC and Amiga 500
- C64 Direct-to-TV, a Commodore 64 remake built inside a joystick
- 1chipMSX, an MSX-2 remake
- Sprinter, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum remake.
- N8VEM home brew single board Z80 small computer.
- Radica Games Limited under its Play TV collection remade the Sega Genesis as a handheld TV game
- Micro-KIM a 6502 Single Board Computer (SBC). The KIM-1 is not really a home computer, but was often used as a basis for such.
- Acorn Atom in an FPGA, much expanded.
Remakes of early minicomputer and supercomputers have been also made:
- Several experimenters have re-implemented the PDP-8 using FPGAs:
- DEC PDP-x FPGA Implementation
- FPGA: PDP8 Hans Pufal
- PDP-8 on an FPGA
- FPGA Implementation of supercomputer CRAY 1a
Famous quotes containing the words home and/or computer:
“Oh, it’s home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that’s westward bound to plow the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.”
—Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)
“The archetype of all humans, their ideal image, is the computer, once it has liberated itself from its creator, man. The computer is the essence of the human being. In the computer, man reaches his completion.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)