Amiga Mini

Pyromania · 27 April 2020, 17:34

Mini consoles are enjoying great success, even a C64 one. Which begs for the following question to be answered. Where the hell is an Amiga Mini. At the right price and with the right specs this would be a sales blockbuster. First an ECS one could be produced and then later an AGA one. Why is no one milking such a great idea?

alexh · 27 April 2020, 17:47

1) Because the Amiga had limited world wide success compared to other consoles / home computers (fewer sales)
2) Because ownership of Trademarks and copyrights is such a mess. (More NRE cost)
3) Because computer owners tend to be emulation users more than console users. (Fewer sales)
4) Multiple open source royalty free "Mini-Amiga" systems (MiniMig, FPGArcade, MiSTer etc. etc.) (Fewer sales)
5) GPL requirements of the open source Amiga emulators not in line with a commercial product (More NRE cost)

This is just the top 5 (all of which may or may not be true)

alexh · 27 April 2020, 17:51

If you want a Mini-Amiga just buy a MiSTer for about £120 or a RPI 4 for about £30 and both of which can be many other systems at the same time.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore...e/264629614997

alexh · 27 April 2020, 17:58

What is more interesting is can Vampire 4 become an official "Amiga Next" with an official case and keyboard and would the Apollo team be interested in taking the project in that direction and potentially sharing profits with the trademark / copyright owners?

Amigajay · 27 April 2020, 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

If you want a Mini-Amiga just buy a MiSTer for about £120 or a RPI 4 for about £30 and both of which can be many other systems at the same time.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore...e/264629614997

Same answers for the same arguments, in that you cant just buy one of these into a TV and away you go, the casual user isn’t experienced enough to bother wanting to touch any of these do it yourself products.

dreadnought · 27 April 2020, 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

If you want a Mini-Amiga just buy a MiSTer for about £120 or a RPI 4 for about £30 and both of which can be many other systems at the same time

Yeah, but it does not really work like that. Most people who buy minis want cute plug and play boxes which are collectible and look good too. That's not what RPi/MiSTer are exactly (btw MiSTer's real cost is somewhere up of 200 quid).

I'm not that great fan of Minis myself, seeing as so many of them had some serious flaws and were rather laggy, plasticky quick-jobs. But then, that's what you get at the ~50-80 quid price point.

Amiga is one of the most complex retro machines, so beside it being a bit niche it could be a pain to replicate correctly, even given the low-key Mini level, if you wanted to keep the costs low.

coldacid · 27 April 2020, 19:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

What is more interesting is can Vampire 4 become an official "Amiga Next" with an official case and keyboard and would the Apollo team be interested in taking the project in that direction and potentially sharing profits with the trademark / copyright owners?

It could if it weren't $900 per unit.

Gorf · 27 April 2020, 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

What is more interesting is can Vampire 4 become an official "Amiga Next" with an official case and keyboard and would the Apollo team be interested in taking the project in that direction and potentially sharing profits with the trademark / copyright owners?

I hope not!
I do NOT want an other closed source secretive and overprotective project involved.

luckily this is not going to haben anyways ;-)

Gorf · 27 April 2020, 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Mini consoles are enjoying great success, even a C64 one. Which begs for the following question to be answered. Where the hell is an Amiga Mini. At the right price and with the right specs this would be a sales blockbuster. First an ECS one could be produced and then later an AGA one. Why is no one milking such a great idea?

Well - that is more or less the same question our overenthusiastic self-proclaimed octopus with too much caffeine asked in the other thread .... now he/she/it has deleted all postings...

The amiga "Mini" or "2400", as it was called in the other thread, is not going to happen as long the trademark and copyright war is going on.

And if it would happen, most of us would probably be very disappointed with the result ...

I clearly see the momentum that projects like the ZX Next, Commander X16, ..., create, but as long as the intellectual property is split up the way it is now the Amiga will not be part of the this hype.

Maybe 2030...

nogginthenog · 27 April 2020, 20:10

Jeri Ellsworth made a prototype but it was cancelled.
[ Show youtube player ]

Pyromania · 27 April 2020, 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gorf

Well - that is more or less the same question our overenthusiastic self-proclaimed octopus with to much caffeine asked in the other thread .... now he/she/it has deleted all postings...

The amiga "Mini" or "2400", as it was called in the other thread, is not going to happen as long the trademark and copyright war is going on.

And if it would happen, most of us would probably be very disappointed with the result ...

I clearly see the momentum that projects like the ZX Next, Commander X16, ..., create, but as long as the intellectual property is split up the way it is now the Amiga will not be part of the this hype.

Maybe 2030...

LOL, why would he delete his intellectual brain fart thread? Some cool conversation was going on there.

EAUniW · 27 April 2020, 23:08

..

alexh · 27 April 2020, 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Same answers for the same arguments, in that you cant just buy one of these into a TV and away you go, the casual user isn’t experienced enough to bother wanting to touch any of these do it yourself products.

There are no casual Amiga users today.

Pyromania · 27 April 2020, 23:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by EAUniW

Because I'm currently designing and implementing this very idea around a Raspberry Pi with a graphical front-end much like the Nintendo and PlayStation classic editions.

If that’s the case then your thread was free marketing, why delete it?

Amigajay · 27 April 2020, 23:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

There are no casual Amiga users today.

Thats because there is no Amiga Mini for people to have a casual game of something!

EAUniW · 27 April 2020, 23:26

..

Gorf · 27 April 2020, 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

There are no casual Amiga users today.

the chicken or the egg ....

Gorf · 27 April 2020, 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by EAUniW

Because I'm currently designing and implementing this very idea around a Raspberry Pi with a graphical front-end much like the Nintendo and PlayStation classic editions.

that is for sure no reason to delete all your previous messages, where other users spend time to answer your questions

robinsonb5 · 27 April 2020, 23:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Where the hell is an Amiga Mini.

I'd argue that the Amiga beat the current crop of Mini consoles to the punch by well over a decade with the original Minimig!
OK, it didn't come with a case (though there was one available), and you had to supply your own keyboard, mouse and monitor, but I'd say it was nonetheless a forerunner of the current Mini consoles.

Now what I'd *really* like to see is an FPGA board capable of running a souped-up Minimig core, in laptop form factor!

Gorf · 27 April 2020, 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pyromania

LOL, why would he delete his intellectual brain fart thread? Some cool conversation was going on there.

at least it made me have a look into the internals of the Minimig-fpga core.
there is for sure enough room for improvement and some nice features:

Quote:

Furthermore the SDRAM controller can do 4 cycle bursts within one of these 125ns cycles allowing it to transfer 4*16 consecutive bits within one cycle. This can be used to prefetch data for future CPU accesses (without delay as the data required by the CPU has already been read) or it can also be used to increase video performance four times.

Overall the re-implementation of the stock Amiga or Atari ST thus only uses 1/8 of the available memory bandwidth.

https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki/TG68SDRAM

that is very close to the first guess I made in the other thread ... well it is actually exactly the same number

question is only if speed or bandwidth improvements for the chipset are a thing, developers would support...

27 April 2020, 17:34	#1
Pyromania Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 3,375	Amiga Mini Mini consoles are enjoying great success, even a C64 one. Which begs for the following question to be answered. Where the hell is an Amiga Mini. At the right price and with the right specs this would be a sales blockbuster. First an ECS one could be produced and then later an AGA one. Why is no one milking such a great idea?

27 April 2020, 17:51	#3
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,337	If you want a Mini-Amiga just buy a MiSTer for about £120 or a RPI 4 for about £30 and both of which can be many other systems at the same time. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore...e/264629614997 Last edited by alexh; 27 April 2020 at 17:57.

27 April 2020, 23:08	#12
EAUniW Registered User Join Date: Sep 2018 Location: USA Posts: 203	.. Last edited by EAUniW; 12 January 2023 at 15:42.

27 April 2020, 23:26	#16
EAUniW Registered User Join Date: Sep 2018 Location: USA Posts: 203	.. Last edited by EAUniW; 12 January 2023 at 15:42.

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27 April 2020, 17:47	#2
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,337	1) Because the Amiga had limited world wide success compared to other consoles / home computers (fewer sales) 2) Because ownership of Trademarks and copyrights is such a mess. (More NRE cost) 3) Because computer owners tend to be emulation users more than console users. (Fewer sales) 4) Multiple open source royalty free "Mini-Amiga" systems (MiniMig, FPGArcade, MiSTer etc. etc.) (Fewer sales) 5) GPL requirements of the open source Amiga emulators not in line with a commercial product (More NRE cost) This is just the top 5 (all of which may or may not be true)

27 April 2020, 17:58	#4
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,337	What is more interesting is can Vampire 4 become an official "Amiga Next" with an official case and keyboard and would the Apollo team be interested in taking the project in that direction and potentially sharing profits with the trademark / copyright owners?

27 April 2020, 20:10	#10
nogginthenog Amigan Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: London Posts: 1,309	Jeri Ellsworth made a prototype but it was cancelled. [ Show youtube player ]

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