It has been a few months since we got to know that the Analogue OS v1.1 Beta will finally open the secondary FPGA built-in in the Analogue Pocket where developers can design for other purposes including original games and preserving classics.

And that the first classical preservation use case is Spacewar!, a game developed for the classical computer PDP-1 in 1962 by developers at MIT inspired by science fiction books written by E.E. Doc Smith and wanting to test the capability of the PDP-1 for displaying images in a 1024x1024 CRT vector display.

The computer is also known to be a precursor for modern hacking as a highlight beside of the game itself.

The development team, Spacemen 3, announced that they used the open source part of the game and added obviously the codes necessary to use the openFPGA of Analogue Pocket.

Spacewar! is a space shooter and a 2-player versus style game that featured orbital mechanics around a gravitational star.

The Analogue OS v1.1 Beta will include improved ROM management that includes capture and load save states as well as capture screenshots functionality called Memories.

There is no clear date one when the BETA will ends meaning the massive availability of Pocket OS v1.1, but be aware that if your are not immediately interested on the mentioned functionality and/or you will not have the tolerance/patience on dealing with known/unknown issues, the best thing is not to participate on the BETA. 

Analogue is known for his other electronic and great repurposing of FPGA machines that lets you play legacy hardware including Nintendo and Sega’s Game Gear.