2012 Reports

Reconstructing Pong on an FPGA

Edwards, Stephen A.

I describe in detail the circuitry of the original 1972 Pong video arcade game and how I reconstructed it on an FPGA--a modern-day programmable logic device. In the original circuit, I discover some sloppy timing and a previously unidentified bug that subtly affected gameplay. I emulate the quasi-synchronous behavior of the original circuit by running a synchronous “simulation” circuit with a 2x clock and replacing each flip-flop with a circuit that effectively simulates one. The result is an accurate reproduction that exhibits many idiosyncracies of the original.