Minimig v1.1 ARM Hardfile Demonstration

[Darrin]

OK, all Minimig v1.1 owners prepare to weep like children!  Our resident genius Yaqube has just posted a demonstration of Hardfile support on the Minimig v1.1 with his ARM extentension board.

Follow this link to see his post and then click on his link to go to uTube and watch the 6 minute demonstration of his machine booting into what looks like Workbench 3.0/1, running Sysinfo and then playing several hard drive installed games:

http://www.minimig.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11&p=153#p153

You might also note that this Minimig has the following:

68000 @ 25MHz (should help with those flight sims)
1.5MB Slow RAM
2.0MB Chip RAM
4 x Floppy drives (df0, df1, df2 and df3)
1 x 512MB Hardfile showing as a FFS SCSI drive

Brilliant work!  This really is a complete expanded A500 replacement suitable for most people.

[Darrin]

whiteb wrote:
Ummmm, my normal minimig only has 2MB on the board, I take it this one has new ram or something, or does the ARM contain RAM that configs as well ?

According to the Youtube comments, Ram was "Piggy Backed", you cannot just plop on two more chips and have them work surely ?

I thought you would at least need to separate them via Address lines ?

I've no idea.  I've posted the question and I'll be interested to see the answer.  :-)

Edit:  and here's how, plus a picture:

http://www.minimig.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27

[Darrin]

My soldering skills are zero too, but I'm sure I can pay someone local to do it when the exact instructions are published.

[Darrin]

weirdami wrote:
if that ram chip piggy backing thing works then why aren't manufacturers doing it to save on sockets and stuff?

Probably because your average PC motherboard has plenty of room for extra sockets and your average PC user doesn't want to piddle around with a soldering iron when he upgrades his RAM.  :-)

[Darrin]

Looki ng at other news on this thread, what that demo really needs is AmigaSYS installed on that Hardfile.  

[Darrin]

whiteb wrote:
This trick is done, to *DISABLE* the existing chip, in favor of the new chip.  Also, given the nature of the board, its *FRAGILE !!!!!*.  I have tried to desolder a damaged minimig, and lifted the pads in the process (hey, it was damaged), so you just solder over the top of the existing one, and just re-route the 'Chip Select' line.

This way it is ONE or the other, not both.  If it was to use BOTH ram, then you would need independent addressing (At least).

Ah so this was a "safer" way to replace the existing RAM chips without having to remove them?

[Darrin]

whiteb wrote:

Is there one for A500/A600's ?  I think the lowest Amigasys for classic is A1200/4000 etc (AGA).

Unless you mean ClassicWB, Lite can run on 2MB, ADV needs 4MB/030, 3.9 needs 6MB ram and 030.

Bugger!  I tried putting OS3.9 on an expanded 68000 A2000, but the install failed to work so without a 68020 or better then the only option for a "pretty" workbench will be an installation of New Icons.

[Darrin]

whiteb wrote:

Precisely.  Solder the chips directly on to the old ones, and route the new CS signal over the Spare I/O.

The new chips are 10ns too, so that alone makes the Minimig compatible with that 1943 clone

Fantastic!  That makes this news even better!  Cheers for that info.  :-)

[Darrin]

Illuwatar wrote:
Clever idea by yaqube with the piggy backing. But he is not disabling the original 2 MB SRAM on the board - he adds an extra 2 MB (making up these 4 MB total). The CS1-pin (nr 6) are used to choose what half of the 2 MB that will be used. All other pins are connected in parallel - that is normal and should be like that. Even on a standard 2 MB MiniMig, all pins except of CS1 are connected in parallel. The core of the FPGA has been modified to provide four chip select signals instead of just two.

Someone complained about the amount of free space at my MiniMig design - here is a reason to fill it up... these mods will keep me busy changing the design all the time. I hope there will be a final so I can make the Ultimate Mini-ITX MiniMig. I would be nice to put that ARM thing right on the motherboard too...

It must be getting frustrating for you - every time you think you have your design finsihed then another good idea comes along.  :-)

[Darrin]

TheDaddy wrote:
For anyone who is going to buy a Minimig now (after this great work done by Jakub) please remember that if you want a case for it, I have only got 20 left of the second batch (arriving in the middle of January).

email: amigarulez@hotmail.com

Thank you :-)

Do you have the email addresses of your case customers?  Ever considered doing a monthly newletter to keep them up to date on developments?

[Darrin]

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.

[Darrin]

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.  :-)

[Darrin]

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.

[Darrin]

yaqube wrote:
The Minimig in the video is equipped with 20 MHz 68SEC000 (the price difference between 16 and 20 MHz version was marginal). The speed gain of the CPU run @ 28 MHz over standard A600 is only 2.91 due to memory running at 7 MHz and being shared with custom chips. I have also made some tests with memory run @ 14 MHz (requires faster memory chips) and achieved speed gain of 5.05.

I have made some tests to find out what the maximum operational frequency of the 68SEC000 rated at 20MHz is and mine is able to run at 39 MHz. But without equally fast memory access the speed gain is very small (SysInfo reports 3.03 times the A600 speed).

I do not expect the 16 MHz rated parts to be much slower.

So you don't foresee any problems with the 16MHz chip being run at 28 Mhz?

Are you planning a new core release for the unmodified v1.1 anytime soon (bug fixes, df1:, etc)?

[Darrin]

yaqube wrote:

That's my expectation. Actual tests will reveal if it runs or not.

I'll let you know if my Minimig melts.  :-D

Yep, I have already rewritten some parts to make the Minimig more cycle exact (it's not 100% exact and will never be) and now some games and demos work in the same way as run on a real Amiga.
But there are still some others that do not run correctly and I would like to find out why and fix the problems if feasible.

After implementing upgrades from SD-Card for the ARM controller board I will port the firmware to the PIC (most of it has been already done). The FPGA core will be the same for the ARM and the PIC (only the former will allow to have 4 floppy drives and hard disk support).

Excellent news.  Cheers.  :-)