I was looking at Retron5 alternatives, and ended up getting a MiST FPGA. It's a hardware clone that can configure itself to become several machines, adding modern enhancements such as USB ports and SD card reader.
Recently the MiST received a lot of love from the open-source FPGA community, adding very good support for the NES and the MSX (and OK-ish support for the Master System).

So how is this different than emulators on a PC? Apart from the instant-on, it has very low power consumption (which to me matters quite a bit; on the criteria that less power for same task is better).
Mine runs at roughly 2W no matter what I throw at it, compared to the 40W pulled by my SFC and >100W of my PC on idle.
On the hardware side it supports natively two Genesis pads on DB9 connectors (or Amiga/Atari sticks) if you have them, and optionally MIDI in/out ports for the ST (which was big for musicians).

The catch is that each "core" is really a different open-source project, so their compatibility (and feature set) varies. It's also more expensive than a Retron5 - but cheaper than other FPGA versions of old machines.
I'd say this thing is worth it if you expect to heavily use 3-4 cores at least, and if you're comfortable with their current status. There are less developers than for emulators, so updates can be slow.

Currently it supports the following machines:

Computers:
* Atari ST (including MIDI if you get the expansion ports)
* Amiga 500 (and higher, with limitations such as no AGA chipset)
* MSX (very compatible)
* Commodore 64 (annoyingly limited to .prg files, otherwise OK)
* Apple II+ (good, limited to 48K games and can only load .nib disk in read-only)
* ZX Spectrum (relies on sound files to load like tapes...)
* Atari 800 (haven't tried it)

Consoles:
* NES (good support, except lack of save ram)
* Sega Master System (many games don't boot, those that do run well)
* Colecovision (as above)
* Atari 2600 (good compatibility)

In theory it can also run a SNES and possibly a NeoGeo, but there is no known open-source project for them.
Another thing pointing out is that the cores don't have many "modern" features like save states or cheats... which is understandable given they're not emulators.
Many games come with "trainers" though, and ROMs can be hacked, so not such a big deal.

The box doesn't look like much... but it's a sturdy metal box with USB inputs on the back.




[download a life]

Thank you for this very interesting find.

I think the question that comes to my mind would be "How is it different from a Raspberry Pi?" rather than "How is it different from a PC?"

I'm also wondering if -between heavy retrogaming sessions- this could perform decently as a bitminer?

The DB9 connectors add a really nice touch of authenticity, but it seems to be lacking any option for connecting to a good old CRT TV (VGA only).

Bitcoin

You can't use it for Bitcoin. The only open-source mining core that exists runs on a bigger FPGA (with Ethernet) but it seems slower than commercial solutions at 80 MH/s.


Vs. the Raspberry Pi

My Raspberry PI (model B) runs at 3W overclocked at 900Mhz.

With the MiST you feel like you are running the real thing (true instant on), and it is very straightforward to setup (copy some files on SD card).
The Pi is a Linux PC with emulators, with the implied fiddly installation (e.g. you may need to recompile to change key bindings) and a slow CPU limiting what you can effectively emulate.

Personally, I bought the MiST specifically to scratch my itch for real hardware,
which otherwise you would only get by buying the real machine and electronics to connect them to an SD card (e.g. Everdrives)
or by using devices such as famiclones or the C64 DTV - which usually make shitty compromises (esp. in video) to keep costs down.


Only VGA

There is another similar project with S-Video and other connection options, but it's more expensive and is not available yet (google for the FPGA Arcade Replay).





[download a life]