Revenant wrote:If you have to use something on the expansion bus to emulate the PPUs in lieu of the original video output, you're arguably no longer getting any video out of a real 3CHIP at all. Why not just sell/buy an entire clone console at that point?
(To clarify: the only relevant signals that exist on the expansion port are the 8-bit peripheral bus and the PPU dot clock)
You'd still have a real CPU and APU in there, and people tend to like the accuracy that FPGA cores could theoretically provide (given they're implemented correctly). The Turbo Chameleon 64 is seen as a top of the line product for the C64 (likely due to its accurate emulation of the 1541 in addition to its multitude of other features, but also its VGA output), so I don't see a reason why we couldn't have a comparable top of the line product for SNES, and assuming accuracy, I don't see people minding the fact that the PPUs are emulated with an FPGA.
Also a quick look at the schematics show that all the data lines connecting the CPU and PPU1 together are available through the expansion port. Whether this would be enough to be able to replace PPU1 and PPU2 with FPGA replacements using the expansion port is unknown to me, as I do not develop hardware, but if it is, this could be a viable solution.
Assuming the price is <$100 or so, it would be a cheaper alternative to the Super NT that I'm sure people would be willing to buy (similar to how people still use the NESRGB and HiDef NES instead of just buying an NT Mini). And I don't think I need to elaborate on why cheapo clone consoles aren't a proper solution.
Hell, even the fat 1CHIPs have the same expansion port, so it might be possible to replace the integrated PPU1/PPU2 with more accurate FPGA versions, although I'm not sure how many people will want it for that purpose as the 1CHIPs already output good video (after proper attenuation).