MiSTer FPGA Community Teases Multisystem2 Carts, GBA Passthrough, and New Hardware Experiments

The MiSTer FPGA community served up a dense batch of hardware teasers and core releases last week, with the Multisystem2 generating the most buzz. Two new attachments for the platform were shown off: one sporting a small screen for core info and artwork, apparently built on the tty2oled project, and a second that claims to allow direct play of real Game Boy Advance cartridges without dumping. That second one is the headline grab. No-dump GBA passthrough on a MiSTer-connected device would be a meaningful quality-of-life addition for anyone who wants to run their physical cart library without pulling out a dumper first. Both attachments are still at the teaser stage, with no availability details or technical documentation publicly released.

Separately, community member Heber posted color experiments for the Multisystem2 shell itself, floating custom options in blue, pink, and red, and asked fans which they preferred. It reads like early-stage product research, though Heber offered no production timeline alongside the survey.

On the core development side, RodimusFVC had a productive week. A new MiSTer FPGA core for Konami's 1983 arcade shooter Juno First landed, covering a game that doesn't come up often in emulation circles. Juno First is a fixed shooter with a tilted perspective, mechanically comparable to Nintendo's Radar Scope from 1980. It's a niche pick, but that's exactly the kind of title the MiSTer scene tends to rescue from obscurity.

RodimusFVC also pushed a Jaleco Z80 arcade platform core to GitHub. That release covers three games from the platform: Blue Print, Grasspin, and Saturn. Multi-game platform cores like this are particularly useful for preservation, since they bundle related hardware architecture under one implementation rather than requiring separate cores per title.

RetroRGB's March 6 roundup also flagged additional topics under the same umbrella, including real floppy disk usage, NBA Jam, and Amiga floppy integration, though details on those items weren't fully fleshed out in the available coverage. The Multisystem2 hardware teasers and RodimusFVC's twin core drops are the story for now, and the GBA passthrough attachment in particular is worth watching as more technical details emerge.