frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Show HN: Tamagotchi P1 for FPGAs

https://github.com/agg23/fpga-tamagotchi
71•agg23•3mo ago
After being thrust headfirst into FPGA development thanks to the Analogue Pocket, my first from scratch creation was a gate level implementation of the original Tamagotchi toy.

The core, running on both the Analogue Pocket and MiSTer platforms, lets users re-experience the very first Tamagotchi from 1996 with accurate emulation, but modern features. The core has savestates (which is much harder to do in hardware vs software emulation), high turbo speeds (1,800x was the max clock speed I've reached so far), and more.

Learning more about hardware and FPGAs is something I've wanted to do for many years, and I highly recommend it for any programmer-brained person. It's a very slightly different way of thinking that has vast consequences on how you look at simple problems.

Comments

ozarkerD•3mo ago
That's insanely cool! I love fun applications of FPGA like this.
crims0n•3mo ago
This is awesome, nice work!
FredPret•3mo ago
1800x turbo?

What happens if you fast-forward a whole lot, any easter eggs?

agg23•3mo ago
That ends up not actually being that fast. The real goal was to be able to wake the Pocket/Tamagotchi core and have it automatically fast forward time as if the device was running that whole time. But when the FPGA fabric (and my design) limits us to 1800x, that means we get a whopping 30 minutes of sim time per every 1 second of real time. So even if you slept the device for a day, it's unreasonable to wait for it to fast forward.

Nothing special happens when fast forwarding, other than you can kill your Tamagotchi very quickly :P

brian-armstrong•3mo ago
Very cool project!

Anything surprise you about working on this? Any tips you found about implementing for FPGA?

agg23•3mo ago
As someone with no hardware experience, I find working with HDLs to be a very different environment and potentially hard to reason with. I did my best to document things from a software perspective (particularly for the Analogue Pocket) (https://github.com/agg23/analogue-pocket-utils/wiki). My code is also running in some capacity in most of the main core ports to the Pocket.
magicalhippo•3mo ago
Man, I'm kicking myself for not having a backup, but there was this game programming contest around early 2000s where they had to make a game in a day or less.

It was either hosted by flipcode[1] or linked to from there.

One of the entries was a faithful reimplementation of Tamagotchi for Windows, except instead of a small creature to look after it was a small rock, and the game was called Tamagraniti (I'm pretty sure).

You could do all the same things, water your rock, give it a pet pebble and such.

I just really loved the silliness of it, and the implementation was really well done in that it mimicked the little device with the LCD screen.

Been trying to find it but seems gone...

[1] https://www.flipcode.com

magicalhippo•3mo ago
Very nice project. Playing with FPGAs can be difficult, but also a lot of fun.

Must say the code was nicely organized and easy to follow. My own code is a bit of a mess in comparison.

Did you try out plain Verilog before going with System Verilog? My plan was to move on to generators like nMigen, now called Amaranth[1], and they spit out Verilog IIRC so decided to learn that for debugging.

Then life happened and got sidetracked, but been wanting to pick it up again.

How was it to program for the Analogue Pocket? I was recently looking at it as just a portable retro gaming device, but if it's easy to double as a fun FPGA platform then that would be great.

[1]: https://github.com/amaranth-lang/amaranth

agg23•3mo ago
I wrote my first project in VHDL (https://github.com/agg23/openfpga-pong) due to the type safety, then learned that the US (and Analogue team) primarily use Verilog, so I switched. I don't use many System Verilog features, but I saw no need to use older versions unnecessarily.

I've talked to the Amaranth people. I'm not incredibly interested in using real programming languages to write HDL, but I think I like keeping programming and hardware separate in some ways.

The Analogue Pocket is fantastic for getting started with FPGAs because everything you need is built into the device and it's not "too" expensive. You do lack Pmods. There is the fully open source Game Bub (https://www.crowdsupply.com/second-bedroom/game-bub) as a cool new platform to target, but it will have orders of magnitude fewer users than the Pocket. NOTE: I am extremely biased about the Pocket; I have a working relationship with Analogue and own the main platform ports to the Pocket (for example NES, SNES, and many more).

ginko•3mo ago
Great stuff. Reminds me of some of my favorite CCC talks about reverse-engineering tamagotchis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4PkcZScBV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbTgDfB0cao

dempedempe•3mo ago
Now I finally have an incentive to buy an Analogue Pocket. Nice work and really great idea for a project!

What to know about the software selloff

https://www.morningstar.com/markets/what-know-about-software-stock-selloff
1•RickJWagner•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Syntux – generative UI for websites, not agents

https://www.getsyntux.com/
3•Goose78•3m ago•0 comments

Microsoft appointed a quality czar. He has no direct reports and no budget

https://jpcaparas.medium.com/ab75cef97954
2•birdculture•4m ago•0 comments

AI overlay that reads anything on your screen (invisible to screen capture)

https://lowlighter.app/
1•andylytic•5m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Seafloor, be up and running with OpenClaw in 20 seconds

https://seafloor.bot/
1•k0mplex•5m ago•0 comments

Tesla turbine-inspired structure generates electricity using compressed air

https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-tesla-turbine-generates-electricity-compressed.html
1•PaulHoule•7m ago•0 comments

State Department deleting 17 years of tweets (2009-2025); preservation needed

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/07/nx-s1-5704785/state-department-trump-posts-x
1•sleazylice•7m ago•1 comments

Learning to code, or building side projects with AI help, this one's for you

https://codeslick.dev/learn
1•vitorlourenco•7m ago•0 comments

Effulgence RPG Engine [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQOUe9S7dU
1•msuniverse2026•9m ago•0 comments

Five disciplines discovered the same math independently – none of them knew

https://freethemath.org
2•energyscholar•9m ago•1 comments

We Scanned an AI Assistant for Security Issues: 12,465 Vulnerabilities

https://codeslick.dev/blog/openclaw-security-audit
1•vitorlourenco•10m ago•0 comments

Amazon no longer defend cloud customers against video patent infringement claims

https://ipfray.com/amazon-no-longer-defends-cloud-customers-against-video-patent-infringement-cla...
2•ffworld•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Medinilla – an OCPP compliant .NET back end (partially done)

https://github.com/eliodecolli/Medinilla
2•rhcm•14m ago•0 comments

How Does AI Distribute the Pie? Large Language Models and the Ultimatum Game

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6157066
1•dkga•14m ago•1 comments

Resistance Infrastructure

https://www.profgalloway.com/resistance-infrastructure/
2•samizdis•18m ago•0 comments

Fire-juggling unicyclist caught performing on crossing

https://news.sky.com/story/fire-juggling-unicyclist-caught-performing-on-crossing-13504459
1•austinallegro•19m ago•0 comments

Restoring a lost 1981 Unix roguelike (protoHack) and preserving Hack 1.0.3

https://github.com/Critlist/protoHack
2•Critlist•21m ago•0 comments

GPS and Time Dilation – Special and General Relativity

https://philosophersview.com/gps-and-time-dilation/
1•mistyvales•24m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Witnessd – Prove human authorship via hardware-bound jitter seals

https://github.com/writerslogic/witnessd
1•davidcondrey•24m ago•1 comments

Show HN: I built a clawdbot that texts like your crush

https://14.israelfirew.co
2•IsruAlpha•26m ago•2 comments

Scientists reverse Alzheimer's in mice and restore memory (2025)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/12/251224032354.htm
1•walterbell•29m ago•0 comments

Compiling Prolog to Forth [pdf]

https://vfxforth.com/flag/jfar/vol4/no4/article4.pdf
1•todsacerdoti•30m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Cymatica – an experimental, meditative audiovisual app

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cymatica-sounds-visualizer/id6748863721
1•_august•32m ago•0 comments

GitBlack: Tracing America's Foundation

https://gitblack.vercel.app/
5•martialg•32m ago•0 comments

Horizon-LM: A RAM-Centric Architecture for LLM Training

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04816
1•chrsw•32m ago•0 comments

We just ordered shawarma and fries from Cursor [video]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WALQOiugbWc
1•jeffreyjin•33m ago•1 comments

Correctio

https://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/C/correctio.htm
1•grantpitt•33m ago•0 comments

Trying to make an Automated Ecologist: A first pass through the Biotime dataset

https://chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com/p/trying-to-make-an-automated-ecologist
1•crescit_eundo•37m ago•0 comments

Watch Ukraine's Minigun-Firing, Drone-Hunting Turboprop in Action

https://www.twz.com/air/watch-ukraines-minigun-firing-drone-hunting-turboprop-in-action
1•breve•38m ago•0 comments

Free Trial: AI Interviewer

https://ai-interviewer.nuvoice.ai/
1•sijain2•38m ago•0 comments