“Discovering the MEGA65: A Journey of Open Hardware, Community, and Learning”

What would have become of the Commodore 65, had it ever made it to market? The MEGA65 offers an answer, not as mere emulation, but as a fully realized FPGA computer that brings the spirit of that era back to life. Around it, a remarkable community has grown: developers, core builders, assembly programmers, game creators, hardware tinkerers, and Commodore enthusiasts who together make it something far more than a nostalgic collectible. Trenz Electronic manufactures and sells the MEGA65 and is itself part of this community. Javier Troncoso is one of its members who expresses his enthusiasm in a series of blog posts. He told us what moves him. 

“My discovery of the MEGA65 happened, as it does with so many great things, almost by chance. While browsing retrocomputing websites and YouTube channels, I stumbled upon the news of a new system aiming to continue the legacy of the Commodore 65. From that moment on, I began gathering every piece of information I could find until I had exhausted all available sources. 

For a long time, the personal computer market - provided with identical machines offering the exact same features - has ceased to be a source of learning and intellectual development for tech enthusiasts and self-taught programmers. Modern hardware is tailored for a standardized, mass-consumer market. In a way, computers have become uniform, predictable, and frankly, boring. 

The MEGA65 goes completely against this grain: it is an open, teachable, and highly accessible system. Based on an approachable 8-bit architecture, it makes you feel close to the machine again. It is developed and maintained by the community under the umbrella of the MEGA Museum - a global benchmark for retrocomputing education. Its creation was carried out by a top-tier team of engineers with great human warmth and a clear vision for the future, led by Paul Gardner-Stephen. 

Driven by this same premise of generously sharing knowledge and preserving digital heritage, Retro Tech & Café was born. It is a global publication, still very young - founded on August 30, 2025. However, it quickly became a reference site in the Spanish-speaking community due to its technical rigor and precise analysis of vintage tech. Soon after, we diversified our audience by incorporating articles in English. Today, the blog welcomes an average of over 800 unique visitors and 1,250 monthly pageviews, showing high reader loyalty. Around 30% to 40% of this audience is deeply interested in 8-bit computing ecosystems like the MEGA65. 

In February 2026, I decided to reach out to the Sales and Marketing team at Trenz Electronic through their contact form. I offered to collaborate by creating exclusive content on the topics I am most passionate about. I shared my interview with Paul Gardner-Stephen, the "father" of the MEGA65, and their response was almost immediate. By the next day, we were already drafting a content plan in exchange for a review unit. It felt like paradise: getting access to one of the best retrocomputing systems ever created, just to write about it. It was doubly rewarding. 

From the start, I knew I wanted to cover every relevant angle of the machine, but most importantly, I wanted to reflect its community-driven nature, which is essential to understanding the system as a whole. The team at Trenz understood this perfectly and never interfered with my editorial freedom. On Discord, where the brilliant engineering minds behind the machine coexist, I connected with wonderful, open, and collaborative people eager to share their projects. Ideas began to flow naturally, interconnecting different software and hardware projects, unifying criteria, and allowing us to learn and grow together. Because that is what the MEGA65 community is all about: making you grow by learning the inner workings of a machine that feels like it's standing out from the mainstream tech world in a positive way." 

If you want to know more about the MEGA65, you can take a look at the official website mega65.org

And you can read Javiers blog on Facebook or on his webpage: facebook.com/retrotechcafe/ or retrotechycafe.wordpress.com