MiSTer I/O Boards Plus

[Washac]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place but I have some MiSTer questions.

I am on my way to setting up an Amiga MiSTer so as to be able to use
and play Amiga stuff on my big TV to save lugging real Amigas around the
the place. So far I have the main board and a bare I/O board supplied by
EAB user Mickgyver for fan mounting.

Spent best part of yesterday looking around the net for pointers as to which
I/O board I shoud get should I choose that type of build etc ?

Also whilst searching for an idiots guide to setting up the MiSTer SD card
on a Mac I was pointed towards The Atari-Forum.com for parts and advice,
this forum seems to be closed.

I think it would be good to maybe have a section here for the Amiga MiSTer
setup/builds with more people turning to the MiSTer for using Amiga stuff
and playing games.

Thanks

[cugar124]

Would be nice vampire mister and unamiga section all emulators together also minimig too. I am building mine into a C64c case with a keyhra. Expansions i use ram, I O, and USB Hub. To be honest the I O is only useful to me for the buttons and fan.

Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

[Fastdruid]

The Atari board is the "home" of the MiSTer (somewhat to their chagrin when Amiga is discussed) because it was an port of the MiST "ST" emulator originally (hence the MiSTer name) but the forum appears under maintenance at the moment.

That's not normal, it was working the other day.

Anyway, you don't _need_ the I/O board for most things, it's handy for the fan and if you want the VGA it is of course essential.

The only thing you _need_ is a powered OTG USB hub, although you can use a USB OTG adapter and then a hub. If you are only attaching a single or pair of low power device(s) you can get away without it being powered (eg just a keyboard and mouse).

[dreadnought]

The I/O board is not needed for VGA anymore since now you can handle that via DirectVideo + some cheap DAC.

Yes, it's be nice to have FPGA section on the board. I'm about to get on this stuff as well.

[Washac]

Originally Posted by Fastdruid

The Atari board is the "home" of the MiSTer (somewhat to their chagrin when Amiga is discussed) because it was an port of the MiST "ST" emulator originally (hence the MiSTer name) but the forum appears under maintenance at the moment.

That's not normal, it was working the other day.

Anyway, you don't _need_ the I/O board for most things, it's handy for the fan and
if you want the VGA it is of course essential.

The only thing you _need_ is a powered OTG USB hub, although you can use a USB OTG
adapter and then a hub. If you are only attaching a single or pair of low power device(s)
you can get away without it being powered (eg just a keyboard and mouse).

Yes I was looking to get hold of an I/O board with/for a fan and buttons only,
apparently one can be obtained from somebody on that site.

Found these messages from the person who runs the Atari-Forum Dai I believe.
--------------------------------
First Message.
"Hi all - The forum is down for maintenance while we move servers. Please bear with me
as it won't be a 5 minute job! I'll post back once we/re back up and running again. Thanks!"

Second Message.
I have the new vps commissioned with the base installation. Need to finish the hardening
and config before I can migrate the sites off the old box onto the new one. I'll be grabbing
bits of time over the weekend to work on it as and when I'm free.

[Fastdruid]

I got mine from here https://misterfpga.co.uk/

[Washac]

Originally Posted by Fastdruid

I got mine from here https://misterfpga.co.uk/

Yes I am aware of that site, but the board Is just for fan and buttons it has nothing else on the board.

You can see it here - [ Show youtube player ]

I/O board can be seen at 3:35 minutes in.

[Fastdruid]

Er, isn't that this board but semi-populated https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...b-unpopulated/ in which case you probably want this one https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...for-de10-nano/

I'm confused though, you said before you _had_ the board now you're after another one?

If you want one _made_ but only some of the components on (ie just fan and buttons) then you could email them.

[Washac]

Originally Posted by Fastdruid

Er, isn't that this board but semi-populated https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...b-unpopulated/ in which case you probably want this one https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...for-de10-nano/

I'm confused though, you said before you _had_ the board now you're after another one?

If you want one _made_ but only some of the components on (ie just fan and buttons) then you could email them.

Yes I do have a bare I/O board that I before taking new the route, if when the Atari-Forum is back up and I cannot get one from there then yes I will contact them.

[Fastdruid]

The "atari forum" is just a bunch of people who are members of the forum who are making them for other people, it's not a shop front or anything like that.

"misterfpga.co.uk" is one of those on the forum (and is also contributing back to the board designers).

[Washac]

Originally Posted by Fastdruid

The "atari forum" is just a bunch of people who are members of the forum who are making them for other people, it's not a shop front or anything like that.

"misterfpga.co.uk" is one of those on the forum (and is also contributing back to the board designers).

Yes I am aware of that.

[dreadnought]

I'm about to order the main Terasic board. Was wondering what else do I really need.

-must have: some OTG USB hub, which as I undertsand for basic use (KB+M+pad) can be unpowered, no need to buy the USB extension board

-must have: SDRAM - how much though? The price difference between 32, 64 & 128 is substantial. I'm not that much interested in arcade cores, though it'd be nice to be able to run them. I think only few games from Neogeo require 128 MB?

-I/O board: used to be a must for me (output to CRT TV) but now apparently you can do it via HDMI DAC. So is it really needed? I think it's possible to connect a fan without it?

-is fan a must? Wiki says only minimig core is heat sensitive, and this could be also anecdotal. On the other hand, they are cheap...

[Fastdruid]

-OTG HUB: All depends on what you want to plug in. You can get away with just an OTG adapter and a separate hub. The USB extension board is neat but increases the size of the assembly somewhat.

-SDRAM: I'd say 32MB needed, anything more isn't by any means essential except for the NeoGeo. Potentially the Minimig/Amiga core might use more memory in future.

-I/O Board: Convenient for the fan but you'd probably manage to get away with a heatsink. You can pickup the bare boards for a few £/$ if you're just after some way to _physically_ mount a fan easily.

-Fan: I ran mine to start with without anything, it worked fine but the chip was rather hot to the touch. For longevity alone I'd put at least a heatsink on and consider a fan.

[dreadnought]

Thank you. USB extension is neat (so is I/O) but I'm trying to keep the costs down (I have many other microcomputer expenses).

I guess I will get a 64GB then, seems a reasonable compromise.

I'm a bit confused about I/O board and fan, since the wiki says "If you do not use any I/O boards then you are free to choose any fan" - meaning I can mount the fan without the I/O board?

I will definitely get a heatsink anyway.

Also, do I need a separate dongle for WiFi? If so, would that require a powered USB hub?

[Washac]

You can get one of these - https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...-and-heatsink/
Also one of thses - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
this hub is also on the US Amazon.

[Fastdruid]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I'm a bit confused about I/O board and fan, since the wiki says "If you do not use any I/O boards then you are free to choose any fan" - meaning I can mount the fan without the I/O board?

Without the i/o board you're free to do wtf you want! Be that to mount a fan inside the "case" or attach it to the heatsink or just cable tie it on.

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Also, do I need a separate dongle for WiFi? If so, would that require a powered USB hub?

There is no wi-fi with it so if you want to do wifi then yes. Although it doesn't _need_ it for anything other than updating the cores. I haven't bothered with networking on mine.

[cugar124]

Just to add choice there is a fat i o board that has sdram on it so that might keep cost down in total.

Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

[abbub]

Originally Posted by Fastdruid

-SDRAM: I'd say 32MB needed, anything more isn't by any means essential except for the NeoGeo. Potentially the Minimig/Amiga core might use more memory in future.

I'm confused by this. The MiSTer documentation doesn't seem to be keeping pace with development, but in a lot of the videos and documentation I see references to setting up with 2 MB of chip RAM and 24 MB of fast RAM.

On my system, I have the options for 2M, 4M, 8M, 256M, and 384M of memory, and no option for 24M. I have the 64 MB SDRAM card in my MiSTer. Are they now using the host computer's memory for fast ram? (I have mine set to 256M and it seems to work without any issues.)

[Fastdruid]

Originally Posted by abbub

I'm confused by this. The MiSTer documentation doesn't seem to be keeping pace with development, but in a lot of the videos and documentation I see references to setting up with 2 MB of chip RAM and 24 MB of fast RAM.

On my system, I have the options for 2M, 4M, 8M, 256M, and 384M of memory, and no option for 24M. I have the 64 MB SDRAM card in my MiSTer. Are they now using the host computer's memory for fast ram? (I have mine set to 256M and it seems to work without any issues.)

Obviously you have got your answer...but for the benefit of anyone finding this later the answer is here https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=117

Originally Posted by raparici

The wiki is outdated. Chipram comes from the Sdram addon Board and fast Ram comes from own DE10Nano DDR.

Which does mean however that 32Mb would be plenty.