There’s a long playlist here showing the hours of effort needed to figure out logic gates from chip layout, and build simulations of circuits. The eventual aim is surely a very accurate model of the VIC II for re-implementation.
(A previous thread asked Is there any VIC-II replica chip out there? and the answer seems to be “not yet”)
Yup.
I actually asked him, if the goal is to gather information, to create a foundation for creating an FPGA solution. He said that it might be an option in the future.
If nothing else, if they get a high resolution simulation working, then they can make a synthetic VIC that can be used for testing against a new implementation.
Once Bwack have gotten through the VIC-II exploration, he should sit down with Gideon. (the maker of the Ultimate64 board) And see what they can cook up together.
While this may not actually be the case (there might be still a few millimeters) the compression artifacts distinctively add to the effect! 