Good god, there's no *conceivable* reason why. That's why I'd insist
on doing it in hardware, etched chips and all. Functionality is not
the point here. If I wanted an emulator, I'd write one. (Errm...)
I'd also insist on a fully-functional game-playing machine, which
means it'd have to include a display and keyboard. (The display
circuitry could include off-the-shelf chips, of course.) And some way
to save games, although I guess I'd settle for storing in some memory
cache in the box. Persistent memory or a disk drive would be cooler,
but more expensive.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."