Your thoughts on Minimig? Alternatives?

[appiah4]

I was on the market for some spare parts and I came across the Minimig, a piece of hardware that I didn't even know existed.. Most of you probably know what it is, but it was quite an interesting piece of hardware for me to discover anyway..

So I was wondering, what other contemporary clones, or affordable architectures that can run AmigaOS is out there? Is there a site I can go to read about these?

[Total Eclipse]

I've been pretty impressed with the Minimig core running on my MiST. There are a few quirks still, but the core is being actively developed, and supports a good proportion of AGA games as well. Plus it also has the advantage of emulating/simulating (always a contentious issue with FPGA's) several other computers and console, with varying degrees of accuracy.

Take a look at https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki for more details.

[clebin]

Another vote for the MiST.

It's cheap, comes in a neat little metal case as standard, has USB + old school joystick ports, the Amiga core works well and there's a load of other cores to play with. Doesn't get the attention it deserves in the Amiga world IMO.

You can get it from lotharek.pl directly, Amigastore.eu in Italy or Amedia in France (probably others).

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by Total Eclipse

I've been pretty impressed with the Minimig core running on my MiST. There are a few quirks still, but the core is being actively developed, and supports a good proportion of AGA games as well. Plus it also has the advantage of emulating/simulating (always a contentious issue with FPGA's) several other computers and console, with varying degrees of accuracy.

Take a look at https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki for more details.

Does it support other formats than regular ADF images for floppy, like extended ADF or IPF?

[chaos]

Originally Posted by appiah4

So I was wondering, what other contemporary clones, or affordable architectures that can run AmigaOS is out there? Is there a site I can go to read about these?

If you mean FPGA clones, you have the original minimig board, the MiST board & the FPGAArcade Replay board. There are also some versions of the minimig core for different FPGA development boards (like the Altera DE1 board). There's also the Vampire, which is currently just a CPU accelerator, but AFAIK they have plans to add AGA chipset implementation to it sometime.

If you mean software emulators, you have a whole bunch of options, like WinUAE, FS-UAE, PUAE ... etc, running on all sorts of computers, from PCs to RaspberryPis to Android & iOS devices.

Originally Posted by Total Eclipse

... advantage of emulating/simulating (always a contentious issue with FPGA's) ...

IMHO the FPGAs are neither emulations or simulations, I think the best expression is that they're re-implementations.

Originally Posted by turrican9

Does it support other formats than regular ADF images for floppy, like extended ADF or IPF?

No, not yet anyway. I suppose adding extended ADF support shouldn't be too problematic.

[1time]

The mist board with Chaos v1.2 core is pretty fun. I hope he will continue the development.

[appiah4]

Well, I was actually hoping that maybe someone somewhere could have had the rights to the complete OCS/ECS chips and could be producing a single SOC mini A500 board with the original connections and stuff.. For cheap, because you know, with the way processing chips evolved an A500 OCS SOC would cost like.. Nothing?

I will be sure to check the MiST as well. FPGAs are fascinating!

[clebin]

Originally Posted by appiah4

Well, I was actually hoping that maybe someone somewhere could have had the rights to the complete OCS/ECS chips and could be producing a single SOC mini A500 board with the original connections and stuff.. For cheap, because you know, with the way processing chips evolved an A500 OCS SOC would cost like.. Nothing?

I will be sure to check the MiST as well. FPGAs are fascinating!

The Minimig was an FPGA as well - the MiST uses an updated Minimig core. The only difference in ports is the Minimig had PS/2 instead of USB for keyboard & mouse. There's also the FPGA Arcade which is very good but expensive and hard to get hold of. With that you can even use an A4000 keyboard in the PS/2 port for a more Amiga-like feeling.

If you don't want to go the FPGA route, there's a product Amiga Reloaded coming from Individual Computers which is a new A1200 motherboard using a supply of real custom chips. It's AGA not OCS/ECS, but it's intended to work in an A500 case. Release date seems to be slipping on that though.

[appiah4]

I'm really interested in buying a MiST.. That it can hardware emulate an A1200 is amazing, I never had that system and that would be like buying a brand new A500 and A1200 together.. Shipping and customs would probably be a bitch though.. I'll have to look into getting one, somehow Maybe order one when I travel to France or Spain one day..

[Total Eclipse]

Originally Posted by chaos

IMHO the FPGAs are neither emulations or simulations, I think the best expression is that they're re-implementations.

That's a better explanation. I was struggling to come up with a suitable word

[Jope]

It's still emulation if it doesn't recreate the original silicon 1:1, no matter what you FPGA aficionados say. :-)

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Jope

It's still emulation if it doesn't recreate the original silicon 1:1, no matter what you FPGA aficionados say. :-)

The experience is different from using a software emulator such as WinUAE, though, so it's helpful to use a different term for this form of "emulation" to reflect the different expectations a user should have from it.

Originally Posted by clebin

The Minimig was an FPGA as well - the MiST uses an updated Minimig core.

The original Minimig used an FPGA to recreate the Amiga chipset, but it actually had a real MC68000 processor on board - the other solutions use Tobias Gubener's TG68K processor, which can be configured as 68000 or (mostly) 68020 compatible.

Incidentally, one other current FPGA option that's not been mentioned here is the Turbo Chameleon 64. It doesn't have AGA Minimig yet, but it does have the best C64 core currently available, and can be used to provide VGA output to a real C64 (its original purpose) as well!

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Jope

It's still emulation if it doesn't recreate the original silicon 1:1, no matter what you FPGA aficionados say. :-)

Out of curiosity... What is "the original silicon" exactly ? A1000 stuff ? First working prototype ?

For "emulation" the dictionary says:
COMPUTING
reproduce the function or action of (a different computer, software system, etc.).

As I see it - the word "different" - is implying there is a primary function. Like with WinUAE. When you use it there's some emulation happening. x86 hardware and Windows and then through the magic of WinUAE you emulate 68k instructions with the help of x86 ones. Also MAME, Sega, SNES emulators, etc.

But when you buy, say, a Vampire accelerator (or soonish, a standalone system), what is its primary purpose ? You use it for what ? And then it can (luckily) emulate Amiga hardware.

I think chaos put it best as "re-implementation". It is neither emulator nor original hardware. But it is certainly not the same thing as WinUAE and MAME.

[NorthWay]

An FPGA is just a compiler backend that you can afford in your own home. Much like a humongous wirewrap board already populated with chips you can't move or take away and then you put down the wires (well, let a tool do it for you).
The comparison should not be lost to those who knows what the original Joe Pillow war&peace looks like. I would guess you can find a few unused pins and gates on some of the chips contained within there.

And good luck finding a 1:1 of the original silicon. Supposedly (has the story ever been confirmed?) C= lost the drawings of the original chips and had to re-create them for ECS.
By the time AGA was done I highly doubt C= was doing hand layout of gates any more and as such any circuitry with the appropriate pins and operating speed could be welded together with the HDL description of the chips to generate an equivalent and correctly functioning unit.
I am sure you could get a Denise in a 3 micron process, but the computer industry has collectively moved forward and would probably prefer to make you one in 90 nanometers. I could forsee a bit of voltage hassle though... (remake it all at modern votage levels).

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Out of curiosity... What is "the original silicon" exactly ? A1000 stuff ? First working prototype ?

For "emulation" the dictionary says:
COMPUTING
reproduce the function or action of (a different computer, software system, etc.).

As I see it - the word "different" - is implying there is a primary function. Like with WinUAE. When you use it there's some emulation happening. x86 hardware and Windows and then through the magic of WinUAE you emulate 68k instructions with the help of x86 ones. Also MAME, Sega, SNES emulators, etc.

But when you buy, say, a Vampire accelerator (or soonish, a standalone system), what is its primary purpose ? You use it for what ? And then it can (luckily) emulate Amiga hardware.

I think chaos put it best as "re-implementation". It is neither emulator nor original hardware. But it is certainly not the same thing as WinUAE and MAME.

And sitting with this little black box infront of you (Mist) is certainly not like sitting with a beauty like a real Amiga 500 infront of you. Looks and feel of the real hardware can be much of the experience.

[Lord Aga]

Well MiSt is kind of a bad example, cause it's not an Amiga-only device. Nice for what it does, but not hard core enough for us die hard Amigans

Say a Vampire standalone system.... Just swap the mobos with a dead A1200 (or put one in a new Philippe's case) and you've got an Amiga looks and feels power house in front of you.

Would you pass on that

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Well MiSt is kind of a bad example, cause it's not an Amiga-only device. Nice for what it does, but not hard core enough for us die hard Amigans

Say a Vampire standalone system.... Just swap the mobos with a dead A1200 (or put one in a new Philippe's case) and you've got an Amiga looks and feels power house in front of you.

Would you pass on that

That may be something I could be more comfortable with, yes indeed.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Well MiSt is kind of a bad example, cause it's not an Amiga-only device.

Neither was any Amiga computer ever made.

Putting an A600 inside an A1200 case is doable, but for the keyboard you need something clever, like using a Keyrah and Subway/Broadway or maybe a SUM.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by NorthWay

And good luck finding a 1:1 of the original silicon.

Decap + microphotos + spend a long time inside photoshop.

This has been done for other chips in the past, such as the SID.

It is not easy or quick, but it is not impossible.

[NorthWay]

Originally Posted by Jope

Decap + microphotos + spend a long time inside photoshop

You forgot the last step: Bake in a 3 micron (NMOS?) process tuned for 5V

I don't know how many foundries you know of who do that..