June 2022 – distantdark

MiSTer FPGA Parts List

The Terasic DE-10 Nano board (the computer of the setup)
I believe I originally paid $160 for this but now it’s up to $215 (as of this post).

All the parts below can be ordered for VERY low costs from AliExpress. If you want to use U.S. sellers, I provided links below along with descriptions and pictures of the needed parts. I also posted a MiSTer setup guide here.

Parts list:

Terassic DE-10 Nano FPGA
128MB SDRAM
MiSTer IO Board
CPU Fan
CPU Heatsink
MiSTer USB Hub
Micro SD Card (64GB recommended); and optional – you can put games on a thumb-drive

128MB SDRAM. This is necessary for most Console and Arcade cores. Should run you around $62. Most can run with 32MB SDRAM but 128MB is necessary for Neo Geo. If you are on a budget, you can use just the SDRAM, the Terasic DE-10 and an USB Hub you have laying around.

MiSTer FPGA IO Board (version 6.1). Approximately $54. Use this board to connect to a VGA monitor (optional), line out for audio (analog or digital), built-in CPU fan to cool the FPGA, hardware reset and other buttons, and an IO port for using real console controllers (Nintendo, Genesis, etc).

Noctua NF-A4x10 5V, Premium Quiet Fan. Around $14. Mounts on the IO board.

CPU Fan, great for Single Board Computers like Raspberry Pi or the MiSTer IO Board

Speaking of cooling – you will need a heat-sink. This one is around $10 but if you order overseas, you can get it for less than half that.

MiSTer USB Hub, which is totally optional but very necessary IMO. Priced around $47.

Backup An SD Card In Linux

If you are like me, you have various projects on SD cards. Raspberry Pi images are a huge example of this. I’ve had a Raspberry Pi Zero W2 running as a server on solar power in my shed and decided it’s a good time to back the card up.

Here’s one way to do this in Linux.

The first thing I usually do is bring up the “Disks” utility in Ubuntu. Your distro of choice likely has something very similar to this. I use this to double check that I’m targeting the correct drive. I don’t want to accidentally backup or erase the wrong drive!

As you can see, “/dev/sdb/” is the correct drive.

The linux command we can use to view the drives in a terminal is:

sudo fdisk -l

You will have to sort through all the drives until you find the right one, which in this case is:

We have confirmation from the two methods and can confidently determine that the drive is “/dev/sdb”. So now it’s time to make a backup image of this SD card.

sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/sdb of=backup_sd.img

Please replace “/dev/sdb” with your drive and feel free to change the name “backup_sd” to whatever suits you.

Once the file is done, it is a good idea to compress it for storage.

tar -czvf backup_sd.tar.gz backup_sd.img

Volta Wireless is a SCAM

Volta Wireless review:
Like so many others, I tried Volta Wireless only to find out that the service DOES NOT WORK. Dial-up service from the 1990s was faster. Calls and texts do not come in. It’s a big fail.

I immediately asked Volta to cancel my account/subscription. They keep responding that they were working on it. Now a month later, they are still working on it. They just charged my account again.

They obviously intend to just eternally charge me for NOTHING. Notice how in the account section that there’s no way to end the service or remove your credit card information?

They also have no way to cancel the account online. They also have no phone number or any way to contact them outside of a form. When you contact them with the form, you are sent a robo-letter. Rest assured, they are “sorry” you are not satisfied.

If you fall into the trap of signing up for their service, you will be miserable and sorry you did so!

PLEASE AVOID at all costs.

voltawireless.com is a SCAM