For fans of classic arcade gaming, the future of collecting and playing may have just gotten a little brighter.

While serious collectors will always seek to own the actual arcade hardware that runs their favorite game, most are relegated to emulation on PCs (MAME) and the occasional trip to a functioning arcade.

But a "new" field of computing is capable of giving us another way; FPGA.

A Field Programmable Gate Array is designed to be configured by the owner, to support whatever logic functions needed for a particular project. Using a Hardware Description Language (HDL), the FPGA board can be made to function in almost any way the user needs, including being flashed to function as a known processor type or other system type, such as the unique hardware designed to run specific arcade games.

This is not the same as a software emulation, but is in fact like shrinking the hardware of an arcade board down to fit into one chip. Several FPGA chips are available, with the most common being Arduino and Papilio.

The team at The Gadget Factory are developing a kit using this method to accurately recreate arcade hardware on inexpensive FPGA boards.

http://gadgetforge.gadgetfactory.net/gf/project/papilio_arcade/

For those interested in Arcade collecting, gaming, or even learning physical programming, FPGA provides a simple cost effective place to start.