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So, a holy grail of retro-gaming emulation is the Vic 20. It had 16k of total memory, reduced by basic, with a 20 column screen displayed most often on a TV. It was the precursor of the C64. I had one - and I thought it sucked - but it was really WAY better than my Atari 2600 - just- difficult and not as many titles and they were hard to find. It is the bastard child of retro-emulation - because of memory expansion and ripping carts to .rom images means you have to know hardcore memory address locations and how to make your Vic 20 emulator act like one with an 8k and 16k memory upgrade. Right? It isn't easy.
But I bought this thing - called an ESP32 VGA - it is an Audrino board. I'd never messed with that - but it is basically a SoC eprom you can burn a program to. I KINDA get that. And one of them is a Vic 20. This one, the ESP32 VGA has a VGA port and PS/2 keyboard/mouse ports, an SD, USB power - and BT and WiFi on the board - for $15.
And it is a f'kin Vic 20. Which shouldn't impress me. Anything can do a Vic 20 now. I've got a MiSTer FGPA and a MiST FPGA that do Vic 20 without breaking a sweat.
And I just bought a Vic 20 - the real deal - and of course, it is dead. For $25. A good, tested one costs $100 or more - and still might be broken.
Pockets of the real may be attractive - but simulations of the real that are user friendly are more satisfying for most people - but right now - all of it -
I had no Adurino experience - I had to learn about what it takes to make a programmable SoC board programmed as an Adurino system so I could make this thing a Vic20. Most people who are non technical would fail. I almost did. 