I see, makes sense. I love challenges, too. It's just the opposite that appeals me. 😆
I find it fascinating to make as much as possible by my self.
That's why I love through-hole, discreet circuits, etc.
But SMD per se isn't bad, I think. There are reasons for an old school fan to give it a go, too.
Balloon missions (high-altitude ballooning), single-sided PCB designs, R/C models etc..
Also, SMD parts don't have to be small per se. Big SMD components also existed.
In this case, I'm a bit surprised that both designs use a flash/eeprom still.
Why does the CPLD version not something like a microcontroller/SRAM/serial EPROM etc?
That chip surely could assist interfacing modern RAM to the bus..
Edit: The link to the benchmark is dead ("buffers=99").
Here's an alternative link to it.
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/DOS_Disk_Tester
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