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Author Topic: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration  (Read 21065 times)

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Offline DarrinTopic starter

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #29 on: December 22, 2008, 09:22:19 PM »
Quote

Triton199 wrote:
I figured i might as well post this here instead of starting a new thread for it. is there any possible way to get actual floppy drive support on the minimig with the existing hardware? I am planning a minimig laptop (in the event i can somehow get a minimig for undet 150USD shipped) and mainly wanted the floppy drive for the novelty of being able to use the original disks.


To be honest, I can't see where you could hope to attach one on the current design.

In theory the C-One design could take a Catweasel in the PCI slot, but it still means that someone would have to write the code to make it work.

I don't see that happening any time soon if at all.
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline FrenchShark

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #30 on: December 26, 2008, 12:01:27 AM »
Quote

Darrin wrote:
Quote


In theory the C-One design could take a Catweasel in the PCI slot, but it still means that someone would have to write the code to make it work.

I don't see that happening any time soon if at all.


No need for a catweasel, the C-One has a floppy drive connector.

Regards,

Frederic
 

Offline DarrinTopic starter

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #31 on: December 26, 2008, 01:29:42 AM »
Quote

FrenchShark wrote:
No need for a catweasel, the C-One has a floppy drive connector.

Regards,

Frederic


Ah, thanks.  I'm really looking forward to using my C-One as an Amiga and C64 replacement.  I just hope that someone manages to release a core that takes advantage of some of the extra ports on the motherboard.  While a real floppy drive support would be handy for making ADFs from real disks, I'd like to see the IDE hard drive port enabled, the A1200 clock ports for expansion cards like the Subway USB controller, printer support and (ultimate wet dream) PCI graphics card RTG support via CGX.

Personally, I'd be happy with just hard drive or hard file support on the C-One.  :-)
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline countzero

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #32 on: December 26, 2008, 05:48:42 AM »
I have some questions about these mods. Does jakub post here ? or is there a website with more elaborate details ? Core available for download ?

first thing, about RAM hack. What did he change in the core to access the new RAM ? just assigning extra IO pins to Address bus is ok ?

the 25 MHz 68000 hack. Is this softcore 68000 ? or did he overlock existing 68000 ?

And finally the HDD. Is this available with an extra SD slot ? (SD card dedicated as a HDD) or is it a hardfile on the SD slot of the minimig ? If the latter, is there anything that prevents normal minimig users to use this ? (is it dependent on the ARM board ?)
I believe in mt. Fuji
 

Offline boing4000

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #33 on: December 26, 2008, 12:26:58 PM »
Please read the postings on minimig.net (link in Darin's 1st post). Also take a look at the high quality youtube video to find out more answers to your questions :-)

Facts are:
There are no 25MHz available but 28.37Mhz - Sysinfo is not state of the art. As long as the CPU is in sync with the OCS/ECS chipset the clock rate is a multiple of 7.xx MHz or in other words a divider of the 28 MHz source clock.

A file called "Hardfile.bin" is present on the existing SD card in the original SD slot. Jakub inplemented an A600/A1200 GAYLE IDE interface to make it accessable.
(This may only be possible by using the PIC replacement board.)

The original 68SEC000 CPU is able to operate at nearly 30MHz. Also the existing Spartan3 FPGA is not big enough to take the TG68k softcore made by Tobias.
 

Offline Vlabguy1

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #34 on: December 26, 2008, 04:40:06 PM »
Looks interesting..

My soldering skills are top-notch..where can I get this stuff..??


Rich
ny

 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #35 on: December 26, 2008, 05:42:47 PM »
what are the specs of the ARM used? How much connectivity does it have to the FPGA? Could one also run a 68000 emulator on it? :idea:

Offline boing4000

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #36 on: December 26, 2008, 06:23:58 PM »
This ARM module is just a PIC replacement. The ARM cpu has more power and room for bigger firmware and HDF support. Jakub made his own experimental board afaik. NO 68k simmulation can run on it, the PIC socket only provide a simple SPI bus to the FPGA.
Compatibility: 100% - depending on programming.
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #37 on: December 26, 2008, 07:36:44 PM »
Quote

boing4000 wrote:
This ARM module is just a PIC replacement. The ARM cpu has more power and room for bigger firmware and HDF support. Jakub made his own experimental board afaik. NO 68k simmulation can run on it, the PIC socket only provide a simple SPI bus to the FPGA.
Compatibility: 100% - depending on programming.


Even the cheapest ARM available is much much more powerful than the most powerful 68k ever made. If a more powerful ARM were used, one could run a 68020 emu to replace the 68000... That is a more elegant solution :-)  

Offline boing4000

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #38 on: December 27, 2008, 10:44:24 AM »
The ARM chip is already a cpu by itselfs and in your way of thinking it had to emulate the 68k (0x0) cpu. That would male it much much slower then the real calculating speed. ARM is in fact faster but still just a microcontroller with an embedded cpu, ram and (flash)rom. So no way to simulate the TG68k core!!
See it as an extendet PIC with more resources.
Also the last thing in "minimig mind" is to emulate something! The whole thing is programmed hardware and want/need to stay that way. Everything else would make it to an UAE rebuild.
 

Offline DarrinTopic starter

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #39 on: December 27, 2008, 11:24:03 AM »
Quote

boing4000 wrote:
Also the last thing in "minimig mind" is to emulate something! The wohole thing is programmed hardware and want/need to stay that way. Everything else would make it to an UAE rebuild.


Exactly.  The Minimig v1.1 is an A500 replacement and not a next-generation classic PC.

The achievable goals for the Minimig v1.1 are:
68000 @ 28MHz - already done
Extra RAM - done
Floppy drives - done, df0-df3
Hard Drive support:  done, IDE HD emulation via hard file
Firmware update from USB/SD Card - planned

Also, the serial port can be used to link the Minimig to a PC to access the PC printer (and other devices).

All in all, I think this makes for a good replacement A500.

Now, if we want to talk about pushing the envelope and developing a more advanced Amiga then the C-One motherboard has some serious potential with more room for softcore processors, a real processor slot, PCI card for expansion cards, 2 x Amiga clock ports, IDE headers, floppy connector, CF Card slot and parallel port.  Of course the cost is much higher.  It's a case of what are you prepared to pay for.  For classic gaming with a few old applications the Minimig v1.1 is more than enough.
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline boing4000

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #40 on: December 27, 2008, 12:01:24 PM »
To me Minimig is a very native Amiga(500/1000) rebuild with many modern features.

Thanks to Dennis's open source Amiga chipset all kind of new expansions and development is possible :-)
In the future this project will grow, surely to different platforms and goals.
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #41 on: December 27, 2008, 12:22:41 PM »
Firstly, the TG68 is a hardware map for an FPGA emulation of the 68000... That's not what I want at all.

There are plenty of 68k emulator for the ARM, I used to use PocketUAE on my old PDA... I'm pretty sure there is an ST emu that has a JIT too...

My goal is threefold:

1) I want to get rid of the real 68k (the only chip we have no control over).
2) I want to have 020 compatibility.
3) I want to reduce the component count.

My point is that the current ARM used might only be a microcontroler, but updating that chip to a more powerful chip could allow it to do its current job and 680x0 emulation too, and with only a small cost increase (if you include the loss of the 68k)...   There was no chance of doing that with the old PIC that was there before.

Offline boing4000

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #42 on: December 27, 2008, 03:07:12 PM »
I ask again: How could a microcontroller act like another cpu?
In Minimig one will need a real (simulated) cpu to be used as in a real Amiga model too. Or just try it in any Amiga 500 to let an ARM chip act as MC68000. If this works fine, it could also work in Minimig.
But still this would be another way of thinking. It would be Emulation and not Simulation.
Therefor UAE (on any platforms) is available. In our case we want to simulate and act as real hardware. Emulation is a complete other thing.

If a bigger FPGA (say Spartan 3E with 1.5mio gates) is used, the whole ECS (even AGA) and a 68020 cpu could fit in. This is the right way to act :-)
 

Offline SKAN

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #43 on: December 27, 2008, 03:29:33 PM »
What Boing4k said, exactly.

And sorry, but there's nothing in emulation getting close to "a more elegant solution". If you like it that way, just use some UAE and please leave MiniMig out of this. Quite simple.
[...emulation is for sissies...]
 

Offline denli

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Re: Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration
« Reply #44 from previous page: December 27, 2008, 11:39:39 PM »
@bloodline

Perhaps you would be better of with an OpenPandora and UAE4ALL

The Minimig is an A500 cycle exact (nearly) device.
/Dennis