Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Palm on January 08, 2009, 03:27:32 PM
Title: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Palm on January 08, 2009, 03:27:32 PM
Has anyone a good technical answer to this:
As the MinMig works great as a A500, is it possible to do the same to the A1200 ? Or is the A1200 so much more complex than the A500, that making it in a FPGA is virtually impossible ?
Just wondering :-)
Espen
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on January 08, 2009, 03:29:51 PM
it's not impossible, but difficult. but I believe it will be done eventually. there's already a project called NatAmi which progresses very slow (some also regard as vaporware).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Palm on January 08, 2009, 03:35:27 PM
Yep. I did see the NatAmi project, but there is not much hype around it. Will it ever be finished ? Pricy ? Any useful ?
We´ve seen that quick, dirty and cheap solutions work well. Like the C64DTV. Not quite perfect, but cheap and available. This made it a killer piece of HW to modify. I still love mine. I also think MiniMig is great. It is available, and works great. Alot of hacks seem to surface aswell and new cores comes out now and then.
As you say, it should be possible for a A1200 "minimig". However, I wonder who will make it, and when it will be out. Price is as always in the amiga-world: way-too-much (but we like that...hehe)
Espen
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on January 08, 2009, 03:42:28 PM
Quote
Palm wrote: Has anyone a good technical answer to this:
As the MinMig works great as a A500, is it possible to do the same to the A1200 ? Or is the A1200 so much more complex than the A500, that making it in a FPGA is virtually impossible ?
Just wondering :-)
Espen
The MiniMig has a 68000, AGA needs 68020 minimum... Can you even buy 020s cheap anymore?
The minimig has 12bit video out put... AGA needs 24bit... Should be as simple as adding a few more resistors to the DACs, I think there is enough IO left on the FPGA.
AGA is poorly documented... Bug fixing would be a pain... But I expect there is probably still enough room left on the FPGA (AGA was a very limited upgrade from ECS)... I don't know how much is used right now?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on January 08, 2009, 03:48:07 PM
Quote
bloodline wrote:
AGA is poorly documented... Bug fixing would be a pain... But I expect there is probably still enough room left on the FPGA (AGA was a very limited upgrade from ECS)... I don't know how much is used right now?
it really depends on the FPGA you're talking. what I know is minimig + 68k core takes about %70 of the resources of the Altera DE1 board, which is an entry level board. Higher/Newer models have an order of magnitude more space. AGA will definitely fit there. 68020, I dunno, but it should as well.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on January 08, 2009, 03:50:11 PM
Quote
Palm wrote:
We´ve seen that quick, dirty and cheap solutions work well. Like the C64DTV. Not quite perfect, but cheap and available.
I don't think a quick dirty cheap solution will suffice for a AGA + 68020 machine. somebody needs to sit and think about it for a long time, it's not c64.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on January 08, 2009, 04:32:24 PM
The Spartan3 400 in the Minimig is pretty close to full. The board I have been working on has a much larger (3e1200) device and the prototypes will have a 3e1600 device on board. The video is 24 bit. There is enough IO to support an external 68020 processor, and I believe there is sufficient space in the FPGA to run a 68020 core when we have one. The jump from 16 to 32bit will expand the logic, but hopefully that will be limited to the ALU - most of the logic is taken up with instruction and address control in the softcore.
The AGA chipset is not well documented so it won't be simple to implement it accurately, there is no fundamental issue with doing so however.
I have an ST, A500 and A1200 machine with me now so I can work on the board bringup. Once I have my ST core and the original Minimig core running with my memory controller (32MByte on board) and video then I will look at expanding the Minimig hardware. I do FPGAs for a living, this board design stuff has taken far too long - once I have a nice platform I hope to get things moving quite quickly. Couple of years then :)
/Mike www.fpgaarcade.com
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 21, 2010, 09:50:16 PM
I have implemented all the AGA features into the Minimig core using MikeJ's Replay board. You can watch it running on YouTube.
[youtube][/youtube]
As there is no 68020+ IP core available the TG68 CPU core is used. It runs at 7.09 MHz with no bus latency and according to SysInfo is 1.85 faster than a stock A1200.
The 64 MB of DDR SDRAM is configured as 2 MB Chip, 1.5 MB Slow, 8 MB Fast and 48 MB of extra memory which can be used as additional Chip memory. You can have 50 MB of Chip RAM in total.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hell Labs on February 21, 2010, 10:17:47 PM
I like that. I like that a lot.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: desiv on February 21, 2010, 10:19:56 PM
Quote from: yaqube;544283
I have implemented all the AGA features into the Minimig core using MikeJ's Replay board. You can watch it running on YouTube.
WOW... Nice work.... :)
Quote from: yaqube;544283
As there is no 68020+ IP core available the TG68 CPU core is used. It runs at 7.09 MHz with no bus latency and according to SysInfo is 1.85 faster than a stock A1200.
I'm surprised that those programs and games are running on a 68000. I assumed (I know) that they would have used instructions limited to the 68020 instruction set?? Are there not that many actual differences in the two from the codes perspective?
desiv
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Cammy on February 21, 2010, 10:30:16 PM
Holy crap, that's impressive! I love the way you just increased the ChipRAM so that gigantic image would load. Wow!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on February 21, 2010, 10:33:03 PM
Quote from: yaqube;544283
I have implemented all the AGA features into the Minimig core using MikeJ's Replay board. You can watch it running on YouTube.
[youtube][/youtube]
As there is no 68020+ IP core available the TG68 CPU core is used. It runs at 7.09 MHz with no bus latency and according to SysInfo is 1.85 faster than a stock A1200.
The 64 MB of DDR SDRAM is configured as 2 MB Chip, 1.5 MB Slow, 8 MB Fast and 48 MB of extra memory which can be used as additional Chip memory. You can have 50 MB of Chip RAM in total.
Nice, when will it be available to purchase?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Lando on February 21, 2010, 10:33:46 PM
This is a fantastic piece of work! Just wondering, how can it be accessing so much memory if it's using a 68000 core? The 68000 only has a 24 bit address bus, which would limit it to 16MB?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: koshman on February 21, 2010, 10:48:48 PM
EDIT: Nevermind, a wrong thread...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 21, 2010, 10:51:20 PM
Quote from: Lando;544293
Just wondering, how can it be accessing so much memory if it's using a 68000 core? The 68000 only has a 24 bit address bus, which would limit it to 16MB?
The TG68 IP core has full 32-bit address bus so it can access up to 4 GB of memory space.
Quote from: NovaCoder;544292
Nice, when will it be available to purchase?
Mike should finish the new PCB layout in a couple of days and then should have new boards made.
Quote from: desiv;544288
I'm surprised that those programs and games are running on a 68000. I assumed (I know) that they would have used instructions limited to the 68020 instruction set?? Are there not that many actual differences in the two from the codes perspective?
Those games don't use any feature specific to 020+ CPUs. I guess it was easier for developers to have the same code base for different (OCS/AGA) versions of their games.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on February 21, 2010, 11:22:33 PM
I want one NOW!!!! Please tell me when these boards go on sale they'll be under $300 Australian pretty please! (less than 280US?)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on February 21, 2010, 11:25:54 PM
as a sidenote here is a link to tobias' own post showing his improved core running with 40mhz on DE2 board hooked as a turbocard to a expansion bus of a 500er.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on February 22, 2010, 12:44:09 AM
Quote from: yaqube;544298
The TG68 IP core has full 32-bit address bus so it can access up to 4 GB of memory space.
Mike should finish the new PCB layout in a couple of days and then should have new boards made.
Those games don't use any feature specific to 020+ CPUs. I guess it was easier for developers to have the same code base for different (OCS/AGA) versions of their games.
Holy crap! Great work there. I'm so out of touch on how the Minimig core has developed thanks to the way my company has been working me to death lately.
Do you know if "X-Com: UFO Enemy Unknown AGA" works?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 22, 2010, 12:58:52 AM
Yay, this is much more news worthy than X1000 if you ask me! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Gulliver on February 22, 2010, 02:03:58 AM
I agree, this is much better than a SAM/X1000
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on February 22, 2010, 02:07:13 AM
Just call us backward, but I'd like a board, that I can put into a case, that would allow:
68000 processor that is speed selectable. 2 meg chip ram (user selectable) 8 meg fast ram hard drive support usb keyboard mouse support usb joystick support AGA chipset with VGA 60hz output with scan doubler, flicker fixer, etc that is 99% compatible with Amiga software and is under $300 Australian for the board.
If it was available now for that price, I'd buy one.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on February 22, 2010, 02:28:28 AM
Love it! Overclocked full 32bit 68000 compatible. Reconfigurable ram. That thing looks friggin fast. Flicker free. Beats the hell outta looking for $250 030 cards (without an FPU)
When this drops I'll be in there like Brazilian swimwear!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: djmartins on February 22, 2010, 02:37:21 AM
I want one so I can stop searching for a cheap 1200 in the US. After getting the machine, the card to allow it to run on a monitor, an accelerator, and ram you have put out some $$$. A nice NEW card with all the goodies that can run everything would be SWEEEET!
regards, DJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: LoadWB on February 22, 2010, 05:23:15 AM
That is really frakking amazing. I am thoroughly impressed and amazed.
What really gets me is how snappily it runs. As for the 020 games, it makes sense to some degree that you would just compile for 68000 and let the 020 do its thing.
This is something I am excited about. I would be more excited if the A600 HDC is a real, physical interface. Yeah, you can use flash cards blah blah blah, but a large 2.5" IDE drive (or 1.8", for that matter) would be a nice accessory. Now, to whore myself out to some more modem installations for the extra moula :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: koaftder on February 22, 2010, 06:14:22 AM
This is some seriously nice work.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on February 22, 2010, 07:11:50 AM
@Yacube
Well done!
Do I need to design a case for this?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on February 22, 2010, 07:30:36 AM
Seriously this is what Amiga needs. Legacy hardware that is relatively cheap, but powerful options to bring it up to speed.
I'd love a box that can give me what you've demonstrated there!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: koaftder on February 22, 2010, 07:34:21 AM
Quote from: tasmanian guy;544389
Seriously this is what Amiga needs. Legacy hardware that is relatively cheap, but powerful options to bring it up to speed.
I'd love a box that can give me what you've demonstrated there!
Absolutely, this beats the shit out of a 10 dollar micro-controller on a 2,000 dollar motherboard. This is something that people can actually use and afford.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 22, 2010, 08:13:41 AM
Quote from: yaqube;544283
The 64 MB of DDR SDRAM is configured as 2 MB Chip, 1.5 MB Slow, 8 MB Fast and 48 MB of extra memory which can be used as additional Chip memory. You can have 50 MB of Chip RAM in total.
I guess that chipmem size modifier works by adjusting mh_Upper and calling FreeMem() for the area to add? (that's how I would do it)
I have to say this is quite nice stuff. Now it just needs the 020 core.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on February 22, 2010, 09:28:36 AM
/Subscribes to thread... wants to buy one!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: dougal on February 22, 2010, 10:07:10 AM
This is very interesting news indeed. Good luck with the project.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on February 22, 2010, 10:18:14 AM
Quote from: Piru;544392
I have to say this is quite nice stuff. Now it just needs the 020 core.
I think MikeJ has a nice and fast 030 core in the works.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ognix on February 22, 2010, 10:23:28 AM
Quote from: Linde;544400
I think MikeJ has a nice and fast 030 core in the works.
If so (030), this is the REAL "NEW" affordable thing people are waiting for! Excellent work without advertisig it! Go on!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: zylesea on February 22, 2010, 12:00:40 PM
Hats off - this is really nice work!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on February 22, 2010, 12:25:06 PM
Great work.
Does this mean an FPGA board capable of using an external 68060 present may be available soon? This would be very good news.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 22, 2010, 12:36:21 PM
Is it possible to use higher screensizes, like HighGfx' 1024x768 or similar? It would be nice to see a (hopefully) quick demo of HAM8 workbench :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 22, 2010, 02:35:11 PM
One step closer to the allusive Amiga laptop.
...sans UAE that is.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on February 22, 2010, 03:11:02 PM
Cool. I don't need this, but I would be compelled to buy it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: koshman on February 22, 2010, 03:25:33 PM
Well, do you need ANY of your Amigas? :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on February 22, 2010, 03:58:18 PM
For the first time in close to 20 years, I'm actually interested in buying some dedicated Amiga hardware.
I don't need it, WinUAE is faster, but goddamnit I'm a hardware kind of guy (ask me about my PII/400 rig I'm building - go ahead, I dare you! :D ), and this excites me!
Can't wait until I can acquire one.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: CSixx on February 22, 2010, 04:31:06 PM
Please continue with this great work! I'd buy one immediately :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Tripitaka on February 22, 2010, 04:48:06 PM
Quote from: yaqube;544283
I have implemented all the AGA features into the Minimig core using MikeJ's Replay board. You can watch it running on YouTube.
[youtube][/youtube]
As there is no 68020+ IP core available the TG68 CPU core is used. It runs at 7.09 MHz with no bus latency and according to SysInfo is 1.85 faster than a stock A1200.
The 64 MB of DDR SDRAM is configured as 2 MB Chip, 1.5 MB Slow, 8 MB Fast and 48 MB of extra memory which can be used as additional Chip memory. You can have 50 MB of Chip RAM in total.
Man, if my arms could reach to Poland I'd hug you right now. Sir. I salute you, fantastic work.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: DyLucke on February 22, 2010, 05:57:12 PM
Great job indeed, now we only need to have a 020 core implemented and it will be a PERFECT replacement for our old A1200's. I doubt that the most of the stuff would work on a 68K processor, no matter the speed.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 22, 2010, 06:32:17 PM
Quote from: Piru;544392
I guess that chipmem size modifier works by adjusting mh_Upper and calling FreeMem() for the area to add? (that's how I would do it)
Actually I'm calling AddMemList() function with MEMF_CHIP attribute.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on February 22, 2010, 06:42:03 PM
Quote from: yaqube;544490
Actually I'm calling AddMemList() function with MEMF_CHIP attribute.
Is there room inside the Minimig v1.x FPGA for your AGA core? Or the C-One?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 22, 2010, 06:57:50 PM
Quote from: Darrin;544494
Is there room inside the Minimig v1.x FPGA for your AGA core? Or the C-One?
In Minimig V1.x FPGA definitely not but it should fit inside C-One Minimig extender FPGA. But be aware that the C-One doesn't support 24-bit video output, has no DDR memory neither dedicated system controller.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on February 22, 2010, 07:07:31 PM
Quote from: Piru;544392
I have to say this is quite nice stuff. Now it just needs the 020 core.
+1
It's fair to say that an 020 compatible core would be advantageous as there has never been a vanilla 68000 AGA combination before, so compatibility may be adversely affected for a lot of AGA titles.
Still, it's bloody impressive.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on February 22, 2010, 07:36:06 PM
Quote from: yaqube;544501
In Minimig V1.x FPGA definitely not but it should fit inside C-One Minimig extender FPGA. But be aware that the C-One doesn't support 24-bit video output, has no DDR memory neither dedicated system controller.
Ah, so not much point then.
I'll just have to put my name down for the FPGA Arcade. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on February 22, 2010, 10:28:26 PM
To create a 'nice' replacement AGA machine, all you'd need is to hook the FPGA Arcade to an 030 daughter board :)
An 060 100mhz would be a great option BUT would cost big $$$$
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 22, 2010, 10:38:42 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;544556
An 060 100mhz would be a great option BUT would cost big $$$$
Don't tempt me :hammer:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on February 22, 2010, 10:42:34 PM
Quote from: yaqube;544560
Don't tempt me :hammer:
Tempt you? Psh. You don't have the guts to try it. C'mon! I dare you! I double dog dare you! :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on February 22, 2010, 10:49:24 PM
Nice stuff boy's realy dig this..
@Yacube nice job again you never stop to suprise me with your corefiles...
@MikeJ hurry up with the boards i'm inline from the beginning to get one of your FPGAARCADE board LOL..
Where can I store my old amiga's now ;-))
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on February 22, 2010, 11:25:01 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;544556
An 060 100mhz would be a great option BUT would cost big $$$$
Depends how much the daughter cards are. I've got six 100MHz 060 chips here I bought off eBay in a tray for under $40 a few years ago.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on February 22, 2010, 11:28:59 PM
Quote from: alexh;544565
Depends how much the daughter cards are. I've got six 100MHz 060 chips here I bought off eBay in a tray for under $40 a few years ago.
Yep I guess if they sold them unpopulated it could work but I was thinking about the new price of 060's vs the new price of 030's.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: koaftder on February 22, 2010, 11:29:28 PM
Quote from: alexh;544565
Depends how much the daughter cards are. I've got six 100MHz 060 chips here I bought off eBay in a tray for under $40 a few years ago.
You should take some pictures of your workshop and post 'em on here. No doubt many of us will be jealous.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on February 22, 2010, 11:40:26 PM
Quote from: alexh;544565
Depends how much the daughter cards are. I've got six 100MHz 060 chips here I bought off eBay in a tray for under $40 a few years ago.
Does the tray fit in the Amiga CPU slot or connect to the A1200 trapdoor expansion?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on February 22, 2010, 11:55:25 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;544568
Yep I guess if they sold them unpopulated it could work but I was thinking about the new price of 060's vs the new price of 030's.
what do you mean by 'new' ? I doubt any of the 68k line is being produced anymore ... So it'll have to be second hand no matter what ... :hammer:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on February 22, 2010, 11:55:58 PM
Quote from: Darrin;544570
Does the tray fit in the Amiga CPU slot or connect to the A1200 trapdoor expansion?
:lol: you're kidding right :afro:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on February 23, 2010, 12:10:39 AM
Quote from: countzero;544571
what do you mean by 'new' ? I doubt any of the 68k line is being produced anymore ... So it'll have to be second hand no matter what ... :hammer:
You'd be suprised MC68030 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC68030) 68060 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC68060&nodeId=0162468rH3YTLC61654622&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab&fromSearch=false)
;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 23, 2010, 02:48:06 AM
Those prices are insane! I realize the demand is low, but those prices don't exactly invite development either.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on February 23, 2010, 05:19:40 AM
Quote from: countzero;544572
:lol: you're kidding right :afro:
Yes. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AmiDelf on February 23, 2010, 10:04:51 AM
You could have several models
MiniMig AGA 030 MiniMig AGA 060 MiniMig AGA 060 Notebook :) with Amiga 600 keyboard layout :) wow... that would be something!!!! Dreamings too much, but if someone did that.. huhu... no more social life :) just kidding.. hehehe... but yea.. would be great ... I think :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on February 23, 2010, 01:57:38 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;544575
Quote from: countzero;544571
I doubt any of the 68k line is being produced anymore ... So it'll have to be second hand no matter what ... :hammer:
You'd be suprised MC68030 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC68030) 68060 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC68060&nodeId=0162468rH3YTLC61654622&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab&fromSearch=false) ;)
I doubt they have made 68060 chips for many years. The FAB which used to produce them is almost certainly closed or upgraded to a different geometry by now. The 060 was perhaps a military chip which means the vendor has to agree to continue selling them for something like 25 years. At EOL (end of life) Freescale will have done what any normal military vendor does. Make a nice big stock pile of chips and then bump the price to something astronomical so anyone other than Military do not buy/use them.
Should be easy to tell, the date code is written in the corner of the chip. The latest I have are 2001.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 24, 2010, 02:42:22 AM
I cant help but wonder, why does minimig use a 68000 cpu, rather than a coldfire with CK68KLib running in 68060 mode? Seems like a logical progression with AGA on the way.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on February 24, 2010, 03:12:36 AM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544773
I cant help but wonder, why does minimig use a 68000 cpu, rather than a coldfire with CK68KLib running in 68060 mode? Seems like a logical progression with AGA on the way.
This isn't a mini-mig, though; this is an FPGA Arcade board. Different beast, I guess?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on February 24, 2010, 04:16:11 AM
@MikeJ - How do we get on the list for a fully assembled board? Are these going to be offered.
@yaqube - Great work as usual....
@everybody else - I think the best all around core would be an 030 for game compatibility. Very few people run un-accelerated A1200...
Sign me up for an assembled board...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on February 24, 2010, 04:51:47 AM
Sign me up for one as well as long as it was under $300AUD (around $280US), if possible.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: J-Golden on February 24, 2010, 05:35:57 AM
ME TOO ME TOO!!!!
I'll have to part with some vital organs, but you only live once!!! ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on February 24, 2010, 10:43:53 AM
Quote from: trip6;544781
@everybody else - I think the best all around core would be an 030 for game compatibility. Very few people run un-accelerated A1200...
I agree an 030 would be enough to run most (if not all) AGA software because it would be that much faster than a 'real' AGA machine.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on February 24, 2010, 12:47:47 PM
What would be the point in 030 over a much faster 020. None I think ?
You get very little software, Cant think of any games, that are compiled for 030 .
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on February 24, 2010, 12:52:37 PM
030 is just a 020 with cache and on chip MMU (or no MMU in the case of EC variants).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AndyLandy on February 24, 2010, 01:19:10 PM
Quote from: JJ;544842
What would be the point in 030 over a much faster 020. None I think ?
That's basically what an '030 is. It's an '020 with higher possible clock rates, and as mentioned above, the onboard caches, and MMU in the non-EC versions.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 24, 2010, 02:52:54 PM
Um, y'all do know that the v3 and higher coldfire chips are faster and cheaper than all of those 68Ks, and can translate whichever core you want to use just by changing out the library you use in the boot ROM, right?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 24, 2010, 03:24:42 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544773
I cant help but wonder, why does minimig use a 68000 cpu, rather than a coldfire with CK68KLib running in 68060 mode? Seems like a logical progression with AGA on the way.
Because the various 68000 variants are still mass produced, and unlike coldfire, dirt cheap? Also, the aim with original MiniMig was "A500 clone".
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: MskoDestny on February 24, 2010, 03:30:50 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544873
Um, y'all do know that the v3 and higher coldfire chips are faster and cheaper than all of those 68Ks, and can translate whichever core you want to use just by changing out the library you use in the boot ROM, right?
It's been a long time since I last looked at this, but the v3 isn't fully compatible even with the emulation library for missing instructions (for instance, I believe it only has a single stack pointer whereas the 68K has separate stack pointers for system and user mode). v4e + the emulation traps is probably close enough for most things though.
That said, emulating instructions via traps is expensive, especially on moderned pipelined architectures like ColdFire. I haven't seen any solid numbers on what the performance hit is, but from the impressions I get it's substantial enough to wipe out most if not all of the performance gains over a 68060 and maybe even less powerful members of the 68K family. If AROS had a working Amiga 68K port, it might make more sense. Then at least the OS and libraries could all be compiled for native Coldfire and only legacy apps would end up triggering the traps. The Atari folks are working on some hardware that would be suitable for a ColdFire based Amiga clone: http://acp.atari.org/ It looks like it has a fairly large FPGA so I imagine it should have plenty of room for an AGA implementation, TG68 core for a compatibility mode and whatever extra features one might like to add.
Of course, if I understand some screenshots made by Tobias from the thread linked earlier, it seems that TG68 can beat out an 030 just by virtue of being clocked so much higher. It would seem that with a more modern design (TG68 is designed to be cycle accurate to a 68000 for most byte and word width instructions from what I understand) smoking a 68060 in a reasonably attainable FPGA should be quite possible.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 24, 2010, 03:34:36 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544873
Um, y'all do know that the v3 and higher coldfire chips are faster and cheaper than all of those 68Ks
Not quite true, the cheapest coldfires are still twice the price of the typical 68000s.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 24, 2010, 03:56:20 PM
@kolla - No, the original purpose of the minimig was an A4000 clone, but Dennis had to start somewhere. Besides I was responding to the 020 and 030 posts. A MCF5407CAI220 is about US$26, vs $40-65 for the 020 or 030.
@MskoDestny - ...and at 220MHz I seriously doubt those traps would slow it down enough to even notice. The remainder of the coldfire's core is still 68K instruction compatable. The benefit I see is being able to select the CPU you want to emulate for maximum compatability and performance. Hell, make it a menu in the boot ROM. Before you load the library, select the CPU for this session.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 24, 2010, 04:04:18 PM
Who am I to argue with Dr Righteous :rolleyes:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on February 24, 2010, 04:04:25 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544886
@kolla - No, the original purpose of the minimig was an A4000 clone, but Dennis had to start somewhere.
you're making this up. MiniMig was intended to be a A500 clone, nothing more, nothing less.
@MskoDestny - ...and at 220MHz I seriously doubt those traps would slow it down enough to even notice. The remainder of the coldfire's core is still 68K instruction compatable. The benefit I see is being able to select the CPU you want to emulate for maximum compatability and performance. Hell, make it a menu in the boot ROM. Before you load the library, select the CPU for this session.
Coldfire route had been taken before (http://www.elbox.com/news_04_12_17.html), and it ended in disaster. Not much sense in discovering the wheel again. But of course you're free to make your own coldfire based board and put the world to shame :afro:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: MskoDestny on February 24, 2010, 04:41:35 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544886
@MskoDestny - ...and at 220MHz I seriously doubt those traps would slow it down enough to even notice. The remainder of the coldfire's core is still 68K instruction compatable.
I think you greatly underestimate the cost of all those traps. There are a number of commonly used 68K instructions and addressing modes that ColdFire doesn't support even in the v4e version. Something as simple as add.w would need to be emulated with a trap (ColdFire only supports the 32-bit add.l natively). It will take several cycles to just branch to the trap and then you'll need several instructions to emulate the unimplemented instruction.
When you compile natively for Coldfire, a 220MHz v4e will handily beat even the fastest 68060, but code compiled for the 68K family will run substantially slower. Again, I don't have actual numbers, but at least one person said the performance was similar to a fast 030 or maybe an 040 when running typical Amiga software: http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2008/03/coldfire-developer-program-begins.html (see the second comment or so).
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544886
The benefit I see is being able to select the CPU you want to emulate for maximum compatability and performance. Hell, make it a menu in the boot ROM. Before you load the library, select the CPU for this session.
This isn't really a big deal. These libraries implement the missing instructions, but they don't deal with other sources of incompatibility (cache, 24-bit vs 32-bit addressing, etc.). If a piece of software won't run on a 68040 or 68060 equipped Amiga it won't run on ColdFire either. The only reason there are multiple versions of the emulation is that there is no point taking up ROM space to implement instructions your software is never going to use. Beyond that, there is no benefit not implementing some of the 68K family instructions.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: desiv on February 24, 2010, 05:18:42 PM
Quote from: countzero;544889
you're making this up. MiniMig was intended to be a A500 clone, nothing more, nothing less. http://www.techtravels.org/amiga/minimig/weeren001/minimig.html
That article doesn't mention his "original intentions", just that he first built the minimig as an A500 clone. He still "could" have intended it to be a 4000, but changed his mind early in development when he considered the complexity... BUT... I wasn't satisfied with "could".. So I knew the Interwebs would help me.. and they did! This quote agrees with countzero (great name btw..):
Quote
This pretty much means that I've completed my initial goal, recreate a console-like A500 to play games on my TV.
From here: http://eab.abime.net/archive/index.php/t-27708.html
Yes, this is a mostly useless post, but I'm delaying some bash scripting work a few minutes and needed a distraction.. :-)
desiv
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on February 24, 2010, 05:26:24 PM
Denis stated very clearly on these very forums that MiniMig was never intended to be anything more than an Amiga500 clone. That is the Amiga he had and wanted to emulate using an FPGA. A quick look at the hardware shows that the design had always intended 12bit gfx and a 68000, both unable to support AGA.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 24, 2010, 05:48:58 PM
Well that may or may not have been his original intentions. I'll conceed that point. But I DO clearly remember it was most people's intentions to take the concept well beyond A500.
Be it a v4 Coldfire or TG68 in a rubber burnin' FPGA, AGA is coming and we'll need more power than that 68000 in the v1.1.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on February 24, 2010, 06:02:40 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;544873
Um, y'all do know that the v3 and higher coldfire chips are faster and cheaper than all of those 68Ks, and can translate whichever core you want to use just by changing out the library you use in the boot ROM, right?
Wrong. They are completely incompatible. This has been covered.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on February 24, 2010, 06:13:11 PM
Isn't the V4 or V5 that was supposed to be 68K compatible?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on February 24, 2010, 06:23:54 PM
Quote from: tasmanian guy;544786
Sign me up for one as well as long as it was under $300AUD (around $280US), if possible.
Last I heard, Mike was aiming for "(much) less" than €200, so your price requirement gives some room for miscalculations.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on February 24, 2010, 07:08:47 PM
Not to mimic the "Forget hardware, just run UAE" crowd, but why would we want to use a hard wired processor when we can use an FPGA?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on February 24, 2010, 07:49:15 PM
Quote from: Belial6;544939
Not to mimic the "Forget hardware, just run UAE" crowd, but why would we want to use a hard wired processor when we can use an FPGA?
My sentiments exactly. Fast, reliable, future proof; all things good minus all things bad. As far as I understand, the 030 core will be able to maintain a high clock speed (faster than any 030 accelerator).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on February 26, 2010, 04:47:58 AM
Ah, so Yaqube has let his secret out :) This explains why my mailbox is now full. Sorry if you have mailed me and I have not replied, I'll try and get around to everybody.
I'm in China at the moment and working hard to finish the RevB layout. There are about 30 connections left to make, but it's pretty much done.
This has a few fixes over the RevA board. The main difference is the connectors are all moved to one side (not the rs232 debug) and it includes composite/svhs option on the main board.
It should go to manufacture Monday, and I hope they can make them in time before I leave... MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on February 26, 2010, 04:55:05 AM
Go MikeJ :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on February 26, 2010, 04:58:19 AM
Quote from: mikej;545178
Ah, so Yaqube has let his secret out :) This explains why my mailbox is now full./QUOTE]
Well an Amiga with AGA, that comes in a nice case, with AGA support, 2 meg chip (expandable) and 8 meg fast over 95% compatibility, a couple of times faster than a standard Amiga 1200 (for Elite Frontier) and under $300AUS would be on my wish list.
The minimig here in Australia seems overpriced for an OCS Amiga as no one here sells locally and even with our strong dollar at the moment I can't justify forking this out for. However I can justify an AGA Amiga
I know people say you can run Amiga Forever etc which I already do, but I don't like the idea of running an Amiga on a Windows System.
I look forward to developments and hopefully you'll have the boards ready for sale for the Christmas rush. Good luck with your venture I hope you do well, remember only "Nixon could go to China" and now only the "Amiga can make a come back from China"
** if I look on ebay I get around $270 for a minimig in a case from the USA, postage though is quoted as $137.00 there abouts which over half the cost of the item, pity someone doesn't import them and sell them locally in Australia.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on February 26, 2010, 08:59:38 AM
Quote from: mikej;545178
Ah, so Yaqube has let his secret out :) This explains why my mailbox is now full. Sorry if you have mailed me and I have not replied, I'll try and get around to everybody.
I'm in China at the moment and working hard to finish the RevB layout. There are about 30 connections left to make, but it's pretty much done.
This has a few fixes over the RevA board. The main difference is the connectors are all moved to one side (not the rs232 debug) and it includes composite/svhs option on the main board.
It should go to manufacture Monday, and I hope they can make them in time before I leave... MikeJ
That's awesome Mike!
What are the specs of the production boards in terms of RAM?
Is it 64meg for the dev prototypes and 32meg for production boards?
Would it be possibe to buy a board with 64meg?
Obviously more RAM is better... especially if we ever go towards Capcom/Neo Geo emulation as those ROMS are pretty huge!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on February 26, 2010, 09:33:54 AM
All boards have 64MB, I made a mistake on the schematic before - I can't count.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on February 26, 2010, 10:22:46 AM
Quote from: mikej;545202
All boards have 64MB, I made a mistake on the schematic before - I can't count.
/Mike
:-) By the way Mike, shall I sketch a case for this new board, it might be on the lines of the Minimig case I designed two years ago:
http://www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on February 26, 2010, 11:36:55 AM
Quote from: AndyLandy;544849
That's basically what an '030 is. It's an '020 with higher possible clock rates, and as mentioned above, the onboard caches, and MMU in the non-EC versions.
So then from a softcore or emualtion point of view, an 030 would be pretty pointless. I very fast 020 would be enough.
030 only any good for real hardware
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: zylesea on February 26, 2010, 02:59:37 PM
Quote from: JJ;545214
So then from a softcore or emualtion point of view, an 030 would be pretty pointless. I very fast 020 would be enough.
030 only any good for real hardware
The 020 has no data cache. Also the 030 supports a burst mode which the 020 doesn't. Should increase the throughput a lot. But I don't know how these things behave in a fpga reimplementation.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on February 26, 2010, 03:13:28 PM
Quote from: mikej;545202
All boards have 64MB, I made a mistake on the schematic before - I can't count.
/Mike
We forgive you about the "can not count part"
Wheeehiii 64MB SSSssooo sweet.. ;-) I want one FPGAARCADE but you already know that !!!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 26, 2010, 03:26:12 PM
Quote from: zylesea;545242
The 020 has no data cache. Also the 030 supports a burst mode which the 020 doesn't. Should increase the throughput a lot. But I don't know how these things behave in a fpga reimplementation.
I doubt softcores are going to implement any cache anyway. They just rely on the brute execution power, faster memory etc.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: andy9841 on February 26, 2010, 03:56:24 PM
WOW!!! I've only just come across this Minimig today! Can't believe you kept it from me for so long ;)
I too would want an AGA version. I do miss my A1200.
By the way for those wanting a portable Amiga, have you come across this before:
http://pandorapress.net/
I've been following the progress and it looks really promising, They have a version of UAE up and running on it as you can see from the videos. I have a Wiz myself which also has UAE and runs A500 stuff great.
As for the Minimig.. I would love to run this in my living room as a retro A1200 and having it as a divx player. Is there no way you could have the SD cards memory mapped as chip/fast ram? I know it would be slow in comparison to dimms etc, but surely its faster than 20yr old real Amiga memory? and this way you can expand it as much as the SD card can hold.
I long for the day i can play AB3D2TKG full speed on a real Amiga..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: SamuraiCrow on February 26, 2010, 04:08:06 PM
Quote from: Piru;545245
I doubt softcores are going to implement any cache anyway. They just rely on the brute execution power, faster memory etc.
The Natami team's 68050 softcore has caches. They are bigger than the original '030's caches also though possibly less than that of an '060. And before you play the "vaporware" card they are just finishing up the bitfield instructions.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: leszeka33 on February 26, 2010, 04:13:23 PM
Quote from: SamuraiCrow;545250
And before you play the "vaporware" card they are just finishing up the bitfield instructions.
Mr Gunnar von Boehn say 25 Feb 2010 10:01 that he started with bitfield instructions. "To complete it we now started work on adding support for the Bitfield instructions to our core." http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1¬e=17017
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: SamuraiCrow on February 26, 2010, 04:23:40 PM
I meant that they are just finishing up the instruction set with bitfield instructions. Not just finishing up the bitfield instructions as I said. Oops.
Also, the latest info indicates that they are going to try to have bigger caches than the '060 also.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 26, 2010, 05:01:02 PM
Quote from: SamuraiCrow;545250
The Natami
Can we please keep to something that is going to happen during this decade (or at all)?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 26, 2010, 05:59:26 PM
@MikeJ
What FPGA does it use? [edit]Nevermind, I found the answer... Spartan 3E[/edit]
And is the estimated pricing still the same?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on February 26, 2010, 07:50:26 PM
Quote from: Piru;545259
Can we please keep to something that is going to happen during this decade (or at all)?
Yeah cuz FPGA tech will never be able to run a Amiga software...
Oh wait?! O_o
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 26, 2010, 07:52:36 PM
Quote from: lou_dias;545284
Yeah cuz FPGA tech will never be able to run a Amiga software...
Excuse me? Who claimed anything like that?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 26, 2010, 10:19:07 PM
It sounds like we should have some kind of cross-project repository for all of this VHDL. A blending of technologies, sharing research and code. Pick your favorite FPGA kit, select the code pieces you want to use, put them together and run with it.
Exciting times!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Iggy on February 26, 2010, 10:51:41 PM
Quote from: bloodline;436651
The MiniMig has a 68000, AGA needs 68020 minimum... Can you even buy 020s cheap anymore?
50 MHz 68060's are available for about $40.00. I you need a reference I can point you to them.
The Natami project is progressing slowly, but surely. Developer boards may be available this year (this is purely my speculation - no firm notice yet). I trust Gunnar (who supervises the Natami's forum) and his technical team. Eventually their work should yield something with more capability than is present in the AGA chipset.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on February 27, 2010, 01:59:26 AM
Quote from: Piru;545285
Excuse me? Who claimed anything like that?
Everytime *Natami* comes up, you have something negative to say. The people on the team have CURRENT (not ancient) industry experience.
Now that we have Minimig and FPGArcade, is it such a stretch to see a similar device with even more oomph?
Here you'll see Gunnar has already developed an Amiga 3D card years ago: http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=2¬e=16454&x=1
As you can see, yacube has an AGA core...is it so hard to expand upon or add to that?
There goal is an Amiga 5000 if Commodore had still been around in 1997ish or better if possible. Seems attainable since *the community* has already replicated (with minor enhancements) what Commodore release to the public up to its demise in 1994.
The Minimig core is cycle-accurate with the 68000 and because it has a faster memory interface on the FPGArcade board, it performs 1.85x better (atleast that is my understanding). The latter Amigas did not use the 68000 and still maintained high compatibility.
Here: http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=2¬e=17027 You can see how much improved the N050 will be in processing instructions over legacy hardware because cycle accuracy is not necessary when moving forward in progress. Alot of stuff will still run, some stuff will break just like when the 3000 was released and then the 1200/4000 from there... Big deal. The goal in an A5000, not A500/3000/1200/4000 emulation.
Recall the flak Dennis took on this very forum when he first announced his project.
As you are (iirc) a MorphOS developer, my feelings are that such a project succeeding may cause a conflict of interest for you here. However, you could put your talent to use and join the team and write new libraries to take advantage of the platform.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: downix on February 27, 2010, 02:21:23 AM
Quote from: AmiDelf;544625
You could have several models
MiniMig AGA 030 MiniMig AGA 060 MiniMig AGA 060 Notebook :) with Amiga 600 keyboard layout :) wow... that would be something!!!! Dreamings too much, but if someone did that.. huhu... no more social life :) just kidding.. hehehe... but yea.. would be great ... I think :)
Can't guarantee the 060, but am adapting my minimig netbook now to hopefully get aga onboard now... gee thanks guys for moving the goal posts just when I had the pcb masks prepped...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 27, 2010, 02:47:34 AM
Quote from: downix;545315
Can't guarantee the 060, but am adapting my minimig netbook now to hopefully get aga onboard now... gee thanks guys for moving the goal posts just when I had the pcb masks prepped...
There is a solution for that... Use a big honkin' FPGA. Future proof now! LOL!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on February 27, 2010, 03:55:12 AM
I don't know if you really are making a netbook, but I bet a lot of people would be really interested in a MiniMig motherboard that was sized and had the right connectors to just replace the motherboard on a cheap netbook.
People already pay ~$100 for a case, and ~$100 for a monitor + the cost of a keyboard and mouse. If a MiniMig motherboard coud be made that could use the screen, keyboard and touchpad of a pre-existing netbook, I would buy a $250 netbook and throw the motherboard away. The only missing piece would be getting it to take a joystick.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on February 27, 2010, 05:04:29 AM
Quote from: Piru;545245
I doubt softcores are going to implement any cache anyway. They just rely on the brute execution power, faster memory etc.
I have a TG68 softcore with a 4-way 8KB unified cache running on an FPGA. What's wrong with that ? To use the massive throughput of an SDRAM, you have to put a cache. Pure random access on an SDRAM is not better than an old DRAM : 60ns at best.
Regards,
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 27, 2010, 11:45:59 AM
Quote from: lou_dias;545314
Everytime *Natami* comes up, you have something negative to say.
I've questioned the feasibility of the Natami project. I don't believe they will ever finish it (with the plans they have). It's just way way too much work. Just the software side of the project is enormous (10 years or so with moderate sized team).
It does not equal to "FPGA tech will never be able to run a Amiga software" however, as MiniMig has clearly shown. MiniMig project uses the correct approach of dividing the problem to smaller sections which can be solved individually.
Quote
Now that we have Minimig and FPGArcade, is it such a stretch to see a similar device with even more oomph?
Yes. I've skimmed the reasons above, but I can dig up the more detailed posts about it if it is required.
Quote
Recall the flak Dennis took on this very forum when he first announced his project.
I had my doubts, but didn't voice them. That was because it was clearly within reason to create such a feat. With Natami it is just totally unrealistic. Unless if they cut out most of the unrealistic stuff it will never finish.
Quote
As you are (iirc) a MorphOS developer, my feelings are that such a project succeeding may cause a conflict of interest for you here.
You're correct that I'm a MorphOS developer.
You are incorrect in that my dislike of Natami would have something to do with MorphOS. Natami wouldn't compete with MorphOS in any way as they're targeting different audiences. Getting either one doesn't exclude getting the other.
Not every move I make or thing I say have some hidden MorphOS agenda behind them.
Quote
However, you could put your talent to use and join the team and write new libraries to take advantage of the platform.
I was already asked years ago. I declined as soon as I realized what kind of unrealistic mess the project was.
When I was contacted regarding MorphOS project ~10 years ago I instantly knew the people behind it were serious and had it all well thought out. I knew it would work and that's why I joined up.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 27, 2010, 11:54:15 AM
Quote from: FrenchShark;545329
To use the massive throughput of an SDRAM, you have to put a cache. Pure random access on an SDRAM is not better than an old DRAM : 60ns at best.
Forgot about that. For some reason I built an analogy in my mind that this would be similar to running software emulation on top of a host system, but indeed that is not the case. Here we have to deal with the memory interface directly, which indeed is quite slow. Just shows how much of a software guy I really am. ;)
Quote
I have a TG68 softcore with a 4-way 8KB unified cache running on an FPGA. What's wrong with that ?
Nothing.
So I assume the 68000 softcore has some kind of built-in cache to compensate for the slow memory interface, too?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on February 27, 2010, 12:53:50 PM
@ MikeJ or Yaqube,
Can you please tell us the sysinfo speeds from the FPGAARCADE board ? I realy want to now how fast the softcore speeds are and HDF speeds.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on February 27, 2010, 01:49:29 PM
Quote from: Piru;545355
So I assume the 68000 softcore has some kind of built-in cache to compensate for the slow memory interface, too?
The softcore from Tobias does not have a built-in cache but I added one. This is the beauty of VHDL. The cache is more like a L2 than a L1 one (no instruction prefetch, no Harvard architecture). It works in write back mode too.
Regards,
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on February 27, 2010, 01:57:54 PM
Quote from: wizard66;545358
@ MikeJ or Yaqube,
Can you please tell us the sysinfo speeds from the FPGAARCADE board ? I realy want to now how fast the softcore speeds are and HDF speeds.
On http://www.a1k.org, Tobias has his new core having 6 MIPS with a 8-byte I-Cache and 7.6 MIPS with 16-byte I-Cache. This is with his new core. You can expect maximum 6-7 MIPS with the first TG68 version running at 28MHz and a good cache. The new core would certainly reach 15 MIPS.
Regards,
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 27, 2010, 02:06:07 PM
Quote from: wizard66;545358
Can you please tell us the sysinfo speeds from the FPGAARCADE board ? I realy want to now how fast the softcore speeds are and HDF speeds.
TG68K @ 7.09 MHz : 4.27 x A500 / 1.85 x A1200 TG68K.C @ 7.09 MHz : 5.81 x A500 / 2.52 x A1200
Hardfile read speed: 1900-2000 KB/s
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crumb on February 27, 2010, 02:21:18 PM
@yaqube
you rock, man!
If it was possible to add a socket for a real 68060 I would probably buy one.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on February 27, 2010, 02:25:12 PM
Quote from: yaqube;545367
TG68K @ 7.09 MHz : 4.27 x A500 / 1.85 x A1200 TG68K.C @ 7.09 MHz : 5.81 x A500 / 2.52 x A1200
Hardfile read speed: 1900-2000 KB/s
Rockin like Dokkin! Nice work! Can't wait to fire up this thig when it's available. I have to laugh at the clowns that have said it was impossible to reproduce Amiga 1200's again.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on February 27, 2010, 02:32:42 PM
Quote from: Dr_Righteous;545318
There is a solution for that... Use a big honkin' FPGA. Future proof now! LOL!
Yea. And I'd put a number of conncetors on there, even if current Minimig doesn't support them yet: IDE, maybe SCSI, ethernet, USB, etc. including analog chips related to them. Not sure what sound looks like in there as I don't have a Minimig board. Sure, that may mean a larger BGA FPGA package, I'd be fine with that. And do a 24bit/color video DAC, hoping for more than just ECS (which now came true with AGA added).
If I ever have time, I do want to play with porting Minimig AGA to a board I have. It even has a PCMCIA slot. I'll have to make a small PCB for an SD at some point, will try to use PCMCIA-CompactFlash initially. For a new small PCB, I'd also want to put on an HD-Audio codec and a couple other things, just in case. But I'll probably work in verilog, learning that is more relevant to my day job and much easier for me to deal with. I really hated VHDL in college, just a personal taste thing.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 27, 2010, 02:38:14 PM
Quote from: Crumb;545369
If it was possible to add a socket for a real 68060 I would probably buy one.
A daughterboard with 060 and some goodies like dedicated SDRAM, Fast Ethernet and USB ports is planned.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on February 27, 2010, 03:40:00 PM
Quote from: yaqube;545367
TG68K @ 7.09 MHz : 4.27 x A500 / 1.85 x A1200 TG68K.C @ 7.09 MHz : 5.81 x A500 / 2.52 x A1200
Why just 7MHz ? Is it because of the non cached SDRAM access ? (7MHz for the CPU, 7 MHz for the Chipset, 70ns access time). Looking at the numbers, the new TG68K.C execute almost one instruction per clock : it is at the performance level of a '040 ! Tobias claims it can run at 40MHz on the fastest (and more expensive) cyclone II.
Quote from: yaqube;545367
Hardfile read speed: 1900-2000 KB/s
Is it with SPI or 4-bit SDIO ? Is DMA involved ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on February 27, 2010, 04:31:02 PM
Quote from: FrenchShark;545388
Why just 7MHz ? Is it because of the non cached SDRAM access ? (7MHz for the CPU, 7 MHz for the Chipset, 70ns access time).
The memory bus of the Minimig runs at 7.09 MHz so it was the simplest solution. The CPU can access the bus every clock cycle if it's not used by the chipset DMA.
Quote
Looking at the numbers, the new TG68K.C execute almost one instruction per clock : it is at the performance level of a '040 !
The 16-bit opcodes are executed one per clock cycle. The performance could be even better if the data bus was 32-bit wide.
Quote
Tobias claims it can run at 40MHz on the fastest (and more expensive) cyclone II.
According to timing analysis results both these cores can run up to 20 MHz on Spartan-3E. I will try to run the CPU twice the speed of the memory clock. And with a prefetch buffer to improve memory throughput.
Quote
Is it with SPI or 4-bit SDIO ? Is DMA involved ?
24 MHz SPI, no DMA.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crumb on February 27, 2010, 04:40:17 PM
@yaqube
Quote
A daughterboard with 060 and some goodies like dedicated SDRAM, Fast Ethernet and USB ports is planned.
that's really nice :-) BTW, do you think it would be possible to emulate the registers of some gfx chip like Virge/Trio64/CirrusGD54xx? If an amiga gfx card was emulated no drivers would be required so we would have P96/CGX support. That would require that 020 emulation was already present.
Have you think about bounties? I know you do this for fun but perhaps it would help to buy pizzas :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 27, 2010, 04:45:55 PM
Quote from: kolla;544413
Is it possible to use higher screensizes, like HighGfx' 1024x768 or similar? It would be nice to see a (hopefully) quick demo of HAM8 workbench :)
Bump! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on February 27, 2010, 06:15:30 PM
Quote from: Piru;545355
Forgot about that. For some reason I built an analogy in my mind that this would be similar to running software emulation on top of a host system, but indeed that is not the case. Here we have to deal with the memory interface directly, which indeed is quite slow. Just shows how much of a software guy I really am. ;)
Nothing.
So I assume the 68000 softcore has some kind of built-in cache to compensate for the slow memory interface, too?
The memory interface on the NATAMI is much faster and uses DDR2(iirc). It's also going to have 32k or 64k cache. Also, I believe their bus will be 32bits.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on February 27, 2010, 07:43:34 PM
Quote from: lou_dias;545404
The memory interface on the NATAMI is much faster and uses DDR2(iirc). It's also going to have 32k or 64k cache. Also, I believe their bus will be 32bits.
Hi,
When I initially designed the board I did a lot of analysis of the memory timings. DDR2 is not better than DDR1 in this application. DDR2 is basically optimised for faster clock speeds, the memory access time is about the same. For the speeds we can obtain with the FPGA (133-166MHz) then DDR1 is the better choice.
The memory bandwidth is not the problem, for example the 16 bit memory at 133Mhz will deliver over 4GBytes per second in burst sequential access. We are using the DRAM at the moment to emulate large amounts of static RAM, and we can get cycle accurate timing for the original hardware.
The softcores are not at the level of compatibility that I would like at the moment. The reason I have a 68000, 68030 and 68060 on daughter boards is to develop and test new softcores. As has been mentioned before, using FPGA internal SRAM as a cache can significantly increase performance.
People always complain about the cost, so for where we are now the memory system is about optimal cost/performance level.
The expansion board idea is a way to increase the performance above the basic card. We can develop boards with either real processors, or faster FPGAs with dedicated memory.
The most important thing for me is to get a stable board which can be mass produced which meets 90% of our current desires and has potential for expansion for the people that want that.
I imagine a future version without the expansion connectors and with several banks of memory instead.
4 connections to make on the layout, still on track for manufacture on Monday.
/Mike in a bar in China....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on February 27, 2010, 08:40:43 PM
I like it! Keep up the good work / drinking :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mumule on February 27, 2010, 10:31:42 PM
Quote from: mikej;545411
Hi, The memory bandwidth is not the problem, for example the 16 bit memory at 133Mhz will deliver over 4GBytes per second in burst sequential access. /Mike in a bar in China....
Are you sure, you didn't mean 4Gbit/s ?
133MHz times 2 (word) times 2 (double data rate) ~ 532 MBytes/s ...
OH, OK. You're sitting at the bar ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on February 27, 2010, 11:58:09 PM
With any luck the factory owner will provide you with flesh and blood Asian Amigas to keep you happy ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on February 28, 2010, 12:33:49 AM
Quote from: mikej;545411
Hi,
When I initially designed the board I did a lot of analysis of the memory timings. DDR2 is not better than DDR1 in this application. DDR2 is basically optimised for faster clock speeds, the memory access time is about the same. For the speeds we can obtain with the FPGA (133-166MHz) then DDR1 is the better choice.
The memory bandwidth is not the problem, for example the 16 bit memory at 133Mhz will deliver over 4GBytes per second in burst sequential access. We are using the DRAM at the moment to emulate large amounts of static RAM, and we can get cycle accurate timing for the original hardware.
The softcores are not at the level of compatibility that I would like at the moment. The reason I have a 68000, 68030 and 68060 on daughter boards is to develop and test new softcores. As has been mentioned before, using FPGA internal SRAM as a cache can significantly increase performance.
People always complain about the cost, so for where we are now the memory system is about optimal cost/performance level.
The expansion board idea is a way to increase the performance above the basic card. We can develop boards with either real processors, or faster FPGAs with dedicated memory.
The most important thing for me is to get a stable board which can be mass produced which meets 90% of our current desires and has potential for expansion for the people that want that.
I imagine a future version without the expansion connectors and with several banks of memory instead.
4 connections to make on the layout, still on track for manufacture on Monday.
/Mike in a bar in China....
Hi Mikej,
Kudos to you. The board you designed is to emulate older hardware and I understand why it was designed the way it was and how you can get some enhancements as it exists now. What I said earlier about the NATAMI was not intended to take anything away from your design.
I was merely pointing out, as people seem to forget, that the target for the NATAMI is a new evolutionary 68K Amiga platform. An up and down evolution over the A4000, not an emulation of it or older hardware.
What you have done is excellent. It's basically a hardware MAME and it does that job perfectly.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: desiv on February 28, 2010, 12:58:11 AM
Personally, I'm interested in both projects.
The Natami, a souped up A5k so to speak, sounds interesting and I can't wait to see you guys release..
However, the thought of a really fast AGA Amiga with boatloads of CHIP RAM is intriguing as well...
I think you both need to get to market, if only to see the look on Piru's face. :-)
desiv
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on February 28, 2010, 02:31:24 AM
Well its official, I am foaming at the mouth with the thought of this.
Its sad for my Amiga's, as the Accounts Manager (Wife) is going to demand some sell off's if I am going to get this.
@TasmanianGuy
I am just over the pond (Bass Straight) in Melbourne.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on February 28, 2010, 03:21:02 AM
@Crom00 - I think we'll all be willing to throw hookers at MikeJ and Yaqube once we get this project in our hands...LOL Am I the only one who caught this reference?
Quote from: Crom00;545449
With any luck the factory owner will provide you with flesh and blood Asian Amigas to keep you happy ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 28, 2010, 04:20:16 AM
What reference?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on February 28, 2010, 04:38:11 AM
"Are you sure, you didn't mean 4Gbit/s ?"
um, yes - forgot the /8 :) much more sensible number.
head hurts today...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 28, 2010, 08:50:13 AM
Quote from: desiv;545452
I think you both need to get to market, if only to see the look on Piru's face.
We'll see what happens...
[edit: thanks kolla]
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on February 28, 2010, 10:20:00 AM
You're welcome. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mel_zoom on February 28, 2010, 10:53:24 AM
A replacement AGA machine would be very nice :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Piru on February 28, 2010, 11:13:58 AM
Quote from: Crumb;545393
BTW, do you think it would be possible to emulate the registers of some gfx chip like Virge/Trio64/CirrusGD54xx? If an amiga gfx card was emulated no drivers would be required so we would have P96/CGX support. That would require that 020 emulation was already present.
That shouldn't be too hard, I believe. Those old chipsets are quite well documented, too. The fun part is that (as far as I can tell) it wouldn't require any changes to the HW side of things.
Being able to use existing drivers would be a big plus, indeed.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on February 28, 2010, 01:34:34 PM
Quote from: trip6;545467
@Crom00 - I think we'll all be willing to throw hookers at MikeJ and Yaqube once we get this project in our hands...LOL Am I the only one who caught this reference?
LOL! Yes Asian factoty owners will workd hard to keep the work in China...
Compare that to the USA where you're lucky if you get treated to Appebees. (hey I'll take what I can get and ain't complainin')
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mumule on February 28, 2010, 03:27:57 PM
Quote from: mikej;545472
"Are you sure, you didn't mean 4Gbit/s ?" um, yes - forgot the /8 :) much more sensible number. head hurts today...
Don't worry, I step into this trap a lot since the data sheets started talking about "bandwidth per pin"
Cheers
P.S. I was still hoping you would get rid of the atmel controller. It works without nicely on the Altera DE1/DE2 boards, and looks much cleaner ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on February 28, 2010, 05:40:10 PM
Speaking of the DE boards, has anyone successfully used the minimig core on the DE2-70? That sure is a heapin' helpin' of LEs, and I foresee a lot more code coming down the pipe.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 01, 2010, 06:00:54 AM
Didn't Illuwatar succesful use the minimig core on his DE boards? I think he did... Haven't seen him on here in a while though...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on March 01, 2010, 08:37:13 AM
@MikeJ
Its now 16:00(ish) in China... Did the boards make it to manufacture?
Did you make those last 4 connections?
I'm excited. I can't help it!
:)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on March 01, 2010, 10:07:09 AM
Quote from: logikstate;545684
@MikeJ
Its now 16:00(ish) in China... Did the boards make it to manufacture?
Did you make those last 4 connections?
I'm excited. I can't help it!
:)
Let's hope so, this is almost the perfect Amiga ever!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 01, 2010, 11:05:30 AM
Yes, routing is completed. I have some more work to do to produce the manufacturing data, but they should start tomorrow. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on March 01, 2010, 12:43:43 PM
Quote from: mikej;545692
Yes, routing is completed. I have some more work to do to produce the manufacturing data, but they should start tomorrow. /Mike
How much boards are produced MikeJ? Because looks like your replay is rely taking off bigtime now with the AGA core availble now and stuff. Looks like there is even more populair then say a year ago (looks like it to me)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 02, 2010, 04:49:59 AM
Since Loriano was the only one to broach the subject and was ignored... I will bring it up again just to find out the answer.
@MikeJ - Is there a casing solution avaialble that will work for your new board? I am sure this is important but not a deal breaker for many of us. Thanks for all your hard work on this.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 02, 2010, 06:36:49 AM
Quote from: trip6;545822
Since Loriano was the only one to broach the subject and was ignored... I will bring it up again just to find out the answer.
@MikeJ - Is there a casing solution avaialble that will work for your new board? I am sure this is important but not a deal breaker for many of us. Thanks for all your hard work on this.
The board will fit in any mini-itx case (or atx case for that matter). It is basically half mini-itx depth, same width so the front two mounting holes work. All the IO fit in a standard ATX IO window.
50 PCBs being made, the first 10 will be populated. If there are no problems, the rest will be populated and more boards ordered. Once the design work is done, they can knock them out pretty fast here. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 02, 2010, 06:50:46 AM
Quote from: mikej;545831
The board will fit in any mini-itx case (or atx case for that matter). It is basically half mini-itx depth, same width so the front two mounting holes work. All the IO fit in a standard ATX IO window.
50 PCBs being made, the first 10 will be populated. If there are no problems, the rest will be populated and more boards ordered. Once the design work is done, they can knock them out pretty fast here. /Mike
Sounds good Mike, best way though to populate a few, see how the Board manufacture was, see what Dead's turn up and go from there..
I do not see you having trouble shifting 50 populated boards. Good work Mike ! No I take that back, OUTSTANDING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[edit] after reading through the progress on your Website, and the bit about 720p@60hz (Pal) jumped out at me, is that only the main system menu, or would all output be upscaled to whatever resolution you want ?
My media player runs 1280x720p@60hz on my LCD screen.., but it wouldnt support 31khz (Scandoubled Amiga modes).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on March 02, 2010, 07:09:28 AM
Quote from: trip6;545822
Since Loriano was the only one to broach the subject and was ignored... I will bring it up again just to find out the answer.
@MikeJ - Is there a casing solution avaialble that will work for your new board? I am sure this is important but not a deal breaker for many of us. Thanks for all your hard work on this.
@Trip6
Thanks. I thought I had turned invisible for a moment. :-) I was asking because since my Minimig case got a good response I thought I'd have a go, I have got the basis and some material left to make one for the fpgaarcade but I'll better concentrate on the case for the SAM/NATAMI or maybe see if I can fit the fpgaarcade in it too.
I'll post some photos soon.
Thanks.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 02, 2010, 08:42:22 AM
Quote from: whiteb;545832
after reading through the progress on your Website, and the bit about 720p@60hz (Pal) jumped out at me, is that only the main system menu, or would all output be upscaled to whatever resolution you want ?
My media player runs 1280x720p@60hz on my LCD screen.., but it wouldnt support 31khz (Scandoubled Amiga modes).
The video ouput block can do anything upto 1080/60P, although this is pushing the timing a bit. 1280x720p and 24/50/60 works well as do various computer standards such as 1280x1024 etc.
Not all cores will support these outputs without extra hardware support such as a video re-sizer or frame rate converter. I would like to see native hi-res support for the Amiga core and I don't think this is particularly difficult. My Atari ST code supports non-standard hi-res modes currently.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on March 02, 2010, 10:34:22 AM
Quote from: mikej;545844
The video ouput block can do anything upto 1080/60P, although this is pushing the timing a bit. 1280x720p and 24/50/60 works well as do various computer standards such as 1280x1024 etc.
Not all cores will support these outputs without extra hardware support such as a video re-sizer or frame rate converter. I would like to see native hi-res support for the Amiga core and I don't think this is particularly difficult. My Atari ST code supports non-standard hi-res modes currently.
/Mike
Am looking forward to a review of the board, once it all up and running so I can place an order :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 02, 2010, 12:13:25 PM
Quote from: tasmanian guy;545848
Am looking forward to a review of the board, once it all up and running so I can place an order :-)
Count me in as soon as these are available. I have a rapid porotype printer at the ready to spit out a case design.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on March 02, 2010, 12:43:33 PM
mini itx case could be easily introduced an amiga feeling with a right custom front panel. shouldnt be that hard. i have done such an early conception draft for natami way back. the dumb thing is there is no standard, so one would have to order an amount of cases to produce a fitting panel.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: skurk on March 02, 2010, 02:17:02 PM
I've been quietly reading this thread for a while, and I must say that this is one of the most interesting and promising classic Amiga projects I've seen for a while.
The original Minimig alone is quite interesting and fun to play with every now and then, but if we introduce AGA, more RAM and possibly even more features ('060, hdd and ethernet was mentioned) then this would definitely reach the level of a computer that I could use every day.
Also, MiniITX form factor would be absolutely perfect. No reason to re-invent the wheels with custom cases, let's use what's available.
Good work, keep it up!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on March 02, 2010, 02:23:14 PM
Quote from: mikej;545831
The board will fit in any mini-itx case (or atx case for that matter). It is basically half mini-itx depth, same width so the front two mounting holes work. All the IO fit in a standard ATX IO window.
50 PCBs being made, the first 10 will be populated. If there are no problems, the rest will be populated and more boards ordered. Once the design work is done, they can knock them out pretty fast here. /Mike
What do you estimate the price will be for a fully populated board?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yssing on March 02, 2010, 02:30:21 PM
IT could be cool if the case could look like a small A4K
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on March 02, 2010, 03:54:07 PM
Quote from: yssing;545871
IT could be cool if the case could look like a small A4K
Balls to that, I want it in a full size A2000 case with a couple of house bricks inside to replicate the weight of the original! :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on March 02, 2010, 04:30:41 PM
Yeah, make my case look like the Walker. :roflmao: Actually an A4000 tribute is a good idea.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 02, 2010, 05:37:56 PM
Quote from: mikej;545831
All the IO fit in a standard ATX IO window.
How about the backplate, when can we expect the backplate, can I preorder a backplate? :laughing:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yssing on March 02, 2010, 07:03:47 PM
Quote from: Fanscale;545892
Yeah, make my case look like the Walker. :roflmao: Actually an A4000 tribute is a good idea.
Well actually I liked the walker case... :) honestly...
Not kidding, I liked it...
Seriously, I did..
YES I DID..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on March 02, 2010, 07:05:48 PM
If anyone is interested my latest design, the case for the Natami/SAM accepts mini-itx motherboards so if the fpgaarcade is definately a mini-itx it should fit nicely.
Pics coming soon! :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yssing on March 02, 2010, 07:11:03 PM
Would love to see pictures of the case..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on March 02, 2010, 08:01:26 PM
no seriously, it would be nice to have some sort of lightweight replica of a fully stuffed a4k/060+ to take it on a ride, except i can drag an winuae setup along. but this is not even that enjoying. @the daddy: lets see what you are up to even if in this case i might be really going my way. hell, should i really sign up for that baby?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 02, 2010, 08:48:26 PM
@Kolla - Unless I read something wrong in his last post MikeJ stated that the connectors would fit in a standard Mini-ITX or ATX Backplate. There may be an empty connector hole or two I would think.
@MikeJ - The question I have is where is the CF or SD card slot located\orientated? Also are the connectors on ribbon cables win pin connections so that they can easily mount to the case backplate or do the flush up against the backplate? Oh man I am... I am loving this thing... I wanna get my hands on one...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 02, 2010, 09:11:21 PM
Wow, I want one too.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: EvilGuy on March 03, 2010, 01:04:25 AM
Quote from: trekiej;545928
Wow, I want one too.
Yep, the more I hear about the AGA minimig, the more I think of cool uses for it.
Now if only I could convince the Minister for War and Finance to release some funds from my pay-cheque. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: desiv on March 03, 2010, 02:15:56 AM
Quote from: Piru;545481
We'll see what happens...
So you felt you needed to save 3 bytes when you quoted me by not including the smiley face at the end? Hmmmm... It kind of changes the feeling of the quote...
I could be paranoid about that, but .... it's too late.. :swords:
:roflmao: desiv
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 03, 2010, 03:16:50 AM
Quote from: wizard66;545701
How much boards are produced MikeJ? Because looks like your replay is rely taking off bigtime now with the AGA core availble now and stuff. Looks like there is even more populair then say a year ago (looks like it to me)
Didnt he say 50 boards are being made ? Populate 10, see what the quality is like, see how they perform etc, then populate the rest and sell them.
At least i think he said that.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on March 03, 2010, 04:58:54 AM
Quote from: whiteb;545969
Didnt he say 50 boards are being made ? Populate 10, see what the quality is like, see how they perform etc, then populate the rest and sell them.
At least i think he said that.
I think that was for the v1 replay board, but can be my mistake ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 03, 2010, 05:09:17 AM
Quote from: wizard66;545971
I think that was for the v1 replay board, but can be my mistake ;-)
I am under the assumption he was referring to the new V2. We shall see.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 03, 2010, 06:17:09 AM
@ EvilGuy I wonder if this will be the best A1200.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on March 03, 2010, 06:50:43 AM
Quote from: trekiej;545973
@ EvilGuy I wonder if this will be the best A1200.
Again, I can't wait. I've played with WinUAE (and it is damn good) off and on for years now, but deep down inside I'm a tinker-with-hardware kind of guy and this excites me.
I could say some things about post C= "Amiga" but it would be neither kind nor constructive so I'll keep shtum.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on March 03, 2010, 07:26:58 AM
Quote from: B00tDisk;545974
Again, I can't wait. I've played with WinUAE (and it is damn good) off and on for years now, but deep down inside I'm a tinker-with-hardware kind of guy and this excites me.
I could say some things about post C= "Amiga" but it would be neither kind nor constructive so I'll keep shtum.
After failng to get an Amiga CD32, I am tempted to get an Amiga 1200 now but after seeing this I may put my money towards this. I wonder what the level of compatability will be.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 03, 2010, 07:43:45 AM
Quote from: tasmanian guy;545975
After failng to get an Amiga CD32, I am tempted to get an Amiga 1200 now but after seeing this I may put my money towards this. I wonder what the level of compatability will be.
With Jakub (Yaqube) already fiddling with Minimig core's for it, quite good I expect.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 03, 2010, 08:11:20 AM
Quote from: whiteb;545972
I am under the assumption he was referring to the new V2. We shall see.
Yes, it's the new board.
All connectors are flush with the ATX IO back panel, in including SD card. On the other side are RS232 and power. USB is on the left, but this is only used for flashing the board, and there is a USB header so you can cable it out to the back panel if you want.
I haven't got around to making a back panel yet, could be useful. Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: clusteruk on March 03, 2010, 08:32:32 AM
Seriously looking forward to seeing this board, I missed the 060 bit. I thought it was to be twice the speed of the standard A1200 which is not bad. If it can be even faster and with ethernet this could be a great little machine.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: InTheSand on March 03, 2010, 09:03:06 AM
Quote from: desiv;545966
So you felt you needed to save 3 bytes...
Only 3? I guess you're a UTF-8 person! :-)
Anyway, I digress... Great stuff on this topic, would also be very interested in a populated board. Amazing to see so much progress in the (several) months I've been away from A.org.
- Ali
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on March 03, 2010, 04:17:10 PM
What with native high resolution support and drivers, it would be nice if you could implement an AHI compatible 16-bit sound interface, too. Things like Hivelytracker, AmigaAMP, etc in 16 bits would then be supported.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on March 03, 2010, 04:32:40 PM
Quote from: InTheSand;545983
Only 3? I guess you're a UTF-8 person! :-)
Anyway, I digress... Great stuff on this topic, would also be very interested in a populated board. Amazing to see so much progress in the (several) months I've been away from A.org.
- Ali
I've always preferred the WTF-8 transformation , sadly some browsers don't support it.
:biglaugh:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on March 03, 2010, 04:58:26 PM
I would just love to be able to buy an FPGA/Replay2/Minimig type o thing in laptop form.
Surely with all the crazy gear that comes of China there would be a company that could make this happen?
I guess it would be down to how much demand there would be for such a product...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on March 03, 2010, 05:08:32 PM
Quote from: logikstate;546013
I would just love to be able to buy an FPGA/Replay2/Minimig type o thing in laptop form.
Surely with all the crazy gear that comes of China there would be a company that could make this happen?
I guess it would be down to how much demand there would be for such a product...
Here's an idea: probably the least sane I've had in a while but if you were dedicated to doing this, why not?
Get a portable DVD player. Track down the specs on the screen's input. Gut said player. Put your Replay2 inside, wire up the screen...you'll still need an external mouse and keyboard but outside of that - you're golden!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 03, 2010, 06:23:08 PM
Quote from: trip6;545925
@Kolla - Unless I read something wrong in his last post MikeJ stated that the connectors would fit in a standard Mini-ITX or ATX Backplate. There may be an empty connector hole or two I would think.
There is no standard backplate, the standard just covers the window in the case. Or do you really think all ATX machines have the exact same connectors? It should be obvious that this is not the case :)
Btw, my posting was ofcourse meant as a joke, but still... will there be a backplate? :laughing:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 04, 2010, 12:40:27 AM
@MikeJ - How many retro style joystick ports does it have? I'm hoping for two... Can you give us a list of all the connectors on the board?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 04, 2010, 01:48:59 AM
Quote from: trip6;546070
@MikeJ - How many retro style joystick ports does it have? I'm hoping for two... Can you give us a list of all the connectors on the board?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on March 04, 2010, 04:31:28 AM
How are we supposed to play 4-player Amiga games with only 2 joystick ports? Is there a PAR: port for me to plug in my 4-player-adapter?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: djmartins on March 04, 2010, 05:03:28 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;546099
How are we supposed to play 4-player Amiga games with only 2 joystick ports? Is there a PAR: port for me to plug in my 4-player-adapter?
You know 4 people who want to play Amiga games? :laughing:
Sorry, had to say it......
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on March 04, 2010, 05:39:34 AM
@djmartins
haha, good joke :) but seriously I know 5 local people who like to play good Amiga games.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 04, 2010, 06:07:36 AM
I wonder if it is going to use a standard Mini-ITX form factor P4 style power connector on the board....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 04, 2010, 08:23:07 AM
"I wonder if it is going to use a standard Mini-ITX form factor P4 style power connector on the board."
Wouldn't fit. There is a molex 4 pin (old hard disk connector) for power, and also a separate two pin 5v/gnd connector.
It has 2x9pin joysticks ports which have an IO pin wired to them to support gamepads.
"How are we supposed to play 4-player Amiga games with only 2 joystick ports? Is there a PAR: port for me to plug in my 4-player-adapter?"
There are two 32 pin connectors at the back which contain a whole load of IO pins and 4 analogue inputs, so you can make an adapter cable. This is also for arcade game input connectors.
The ATX spec gives the IO dimensions. I can get a panel made with the holes punched in (hopefully) the right places, if there is enough demand.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 04, 2010, 10:07:42 AM
update - manufacturing data sent to PCB house, production has started .....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: arnljot on March 04, 2010, 10:08:47 AM
How does one stand in line for one? PM you, email you, wait until you announce?
Cheers
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 04, 2010, 10:28:44 AM
I've got a list of people who have expressed interest. As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: arnljot on March 04, 2010, 10:45:16 AM
PM'ed to request addition to the list :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on March 04, 2010, 12:09:39 PM
Quote from: mikej;546134
I've got a list of people who have expressed interest. As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested. /Mike
I want my birthday present from last year, so I hope i'm on the list ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on March 04, 2010, 01:07:07 PM
I'm keen to get one, but I want to see it action first. ...Start saving money... ...now... $250 in my Amiga fund.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: EgillSkallagrimsson on March 04, 2010, 03:09:00 PM
Quote from: arnljot;546137
PM'ed to request addition to the list :)
Same here.:)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 04, 2010, 04:49:17 PM
Quote from: egillskallagrimsson;546161
same here.:)
aol :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on March 04, 2010, 08:32:22 PM
Quote from: mikej;546134
I've got a list of people who have expressed interest. As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested. /Mike
Will you also be selling bare boards to those who wish to assemble one themselves, like some of the MiniMig boards were sold, or just completely assembled boards?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 04, 2010, 08:38:12 PM
A back panel for Mini-ITX would be nice so we can completely enclose this little gem in a protective case. Please post your interest here in a backplane cutout to match this board.
Count me interested.
Quote from: mikej;546119
"The ATX spec gives the IO dimensions. I can get a panel made with the holes punched in (hopefully) the right places, if there is enough demand. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 04, 2010, 10:22:42 PM
Quote from: mikej;546134
I've got a list of people who have expressed interest. As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested. /Mike
Add me too
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 04, 2010, 11:43:47 PM
Quote from: mikej;546134
I've got a list of people who have expressed interest. As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested. /Mike
Add me to this list....
bbond007@hogranch.com
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: EvilGuy on March 04, 2010, 11:51:40 PM
Quote from: mikej;546134
I've got a list of people who have expressed interest. As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested. /Mike
Sounds like you might have a lot of interest for ready made boards. If we miss out on this round are there plans to do another run of ready made boards?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 04, 2010, 11:59:21 PM
I assume that this first batch is reserved for skillfull people like Yaqube and boing4000, and their peers of Atari ST and whatever other platforms the Replay targets. That would surely be for everyone's benefit, right? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on March 05, 2010, 12:20:38 AM
Quote from: kolla;546233
I assume that this first batch is reserved for skillfull people like Yaqube and boing4000, and their peers of Atari ST and whatever other platforms the Replay targets. That would surely be for everyone's benefit, right? :)
That's right, give them to the people that will move the 'platform' on first, then when they get the softcore(s) working correctly Mike can do a new production run of a revised board for the the general populus (eg us).
I just hope that someone like AmigaKit or ACube pick this sucker up and market it properly.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 05, 2010, 01:05:45 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;546234
That's right, give them to the people that will move the 'platform' on first, then when they get the softcore(s) working correctly Mike can do a new production run of a revised board for the the general populus (eg us).
I just hope that someone like AmigaKit or ACube pick this sucker up and market it properly.
I think Revision B is more or less where Mike wants the boards. HE already said that once these 50 work out, it will be no hassle to bang out more.
I agree that the people who are working on the core's should get the first boards made, but... WE WANT SOME TOO :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on March 05, 2010, 02:54:45 AM
My other half will probably kill me but please put me one down for me as well, as long as it under $300AUS :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 05, 2010, 04:03:52 AM
Quote from: whiteb;546239
I think Revision B is more or less where Mike wants the boards. HE already said that once these 50 work out, it will be no hassle to bang out more.
I hope RevB is the final version in this form factor. The very first few will be prioritised for developers, that way we get more stuff to run on it.
It will only be available ready-made, it's not really possible to hand assemble. Well, you can apart from the BGA but it takes a while! Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Lizard on March 05, 2010, 08:51:45 AM
Very nice, count me in too, I assume you already noticed the pm from yesterday?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: andy9841 on March 05, 2010, 11:26:58 AM
Quote from: mikej;546119
There are two 32 pin connectors at the back which contain a whole load of IO pins and 4 analogue inputs, so you can make an adapter cable. This is also for arcade game input connectors.
/Mike
Hi Mike
Great job on this! I'm not sure if i've missed anything here, but wouldn't usb connectors be a good idea? Then you could connect any peripheral to it
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on March 05, 2010, 05:00:32 PM
I'll definitely be interested in one of the Rev B products.
Are there pin headers on board for parallel and serial? How about pin headers for expansion (CPU bus, etc) - although I guess that the FPGA is better for expansion internally, if there is space. I like the idea of adding an AHI compatible 16-bit audio system inside, with an internal mixer for paula audio as well.
It would be nice to have a centralised website where all these projects could be hosted and have updates - it's very hard to keep track of them all, all the tweaks, the softcores, etc.
Good luck with the testing and production builds!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Clyborg on March 05, 2010, 09:05:43 PM
Ever since I shorted out my a1200 in 1999, I regret throwing it out. I'm really dumb that I threw out my 1230 50mhz card too....I do not know why.
Anyway, this project sound amazing!!
Mikej, Please add me as well.
Jason
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crumb on March 05, 2010, 09:33:33 PM
@hattig
Toccata emulation may help for that. Anyway I'd like to see 020 support before. And Cirrus||Virge emulation after 020 support :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 05, 2010, 09:42:01 PM
Quote from: amigadave;546200
Will you also be selling bare boards to those who wish to assemble one themselves, like some of the MiniMig boards were sold, or just completely assembled boards?
Do you have a reflow oven ? The FPGA is BGA (Ball Grid), you cannot just take a fine pitch soldering iron to it.
Then again, people are fixing their video cards, when Dry joints appear on them under the BGA chips, plonk them in a Toaster Oven.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: desiv on March 05, 2010, 09:42:26 PM
With all those pins and such, is there any possibility of adding a real Amiga floppy to the mix? I have to admit, I kind of like putting a disk in the drive to load a game. Hearing that evil sound as the floppy performs the head-killing dance of copy protection... Even flipping though my collection of disks brings a nice retro feeling.. :-)
desiv
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dr_Righteous on March 05, 2010, 10:26:52 PM
Quote from: whiteb;546348
Do you have a reflow oven ? The FPGA is BGA (Ball Grid), you cannot just take a fine pitch soldering iron to it.
Then again, people are fixing their video cards, when Dry joints appear on them under the BGA chips, plonk them in a Toaster Oven.
What's wrong with working the BGA on with a rework station? They're just US$99.
These guys rock! I just bought a USB PIC programmer from them.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 06, 2010, 04:39:00 AM
As I understand it re-flow is the way to go for BGA... to make clean precise solder connections. The other way with an SMD iron could get messy...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on March 06, 2010, 10:08:49 PM
Quote from: Crumb;546345
Toccata emulation may help for that. Anyway I'd like to see 020 support before. And Cirrus||Virge emulation after 020 support :-)
The board is equipped with a 24-bit stereo audio DAC. Upgrading Paula to 16 bit and writing suitable AHI driver won't be a big problem. I'm also thinking about more sophisticated solution.
There is still a lot of unused memory bandwidth which can be used for implementation of an advanced flicker-fixer or graphics board (although implementation of CL/S3 chips seems to be impossible).
Both the AHI and P96 require at least 020 CPU and this is the next design object.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on March 06, 2010, 10:26:31 PM
This thing keeps getting better guys :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: koaftder on March 06, 2010, 10:45:00 PM
Quote from: trip6;546394
As I understand it re-flow is the way to go for BGA... to make clean precise solder connections. The other way with an SMD iron could get messy...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: DyLucke on March 07, 2010, 12:17:39 AM
I'm definitelly interested on the project and i could buy one unit once everything is set for an standard user.
However i would like to know what is going to implement at the end this Rev B board.
020 or 030 code? Hig res modes? Gfx and audio card emulation? Will it be faster than a 030 /50?
Maybe this is asking too much for now... XD But it would be good to know what are we exactly aiming to.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 07, 2010, 05:54:46 AM
Two posts....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on March 07, 2010, 05:57:36 AM
Quote from: DyLucke;546494
I'm definitelly interested on the project and i could buy one unit once everything is set for an standard user.
However i would like to know what is going to implement at the end this Rev B board.
020 or 030 code? Hig res modes? Gfx and audio card emulation? Will it be faster than a 030 /50?
Maybe this is asking too much for now... XD But it would be good to know what are we exactly aiming to.
Initially, 68000 (Softcore), they are planning an 020 soft core. That is all I know.
There will be Plug in boards to extend CPU's, like the 68060 test card they have.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 07, 2010, 06:12:05 AM
Quote from: Crumb;546345
@hattig
Toccata emulation may help for that. Anyway I'd like to see 020 support before. And Cirrus||Virge emulation after 020 support :-)
Cirrus and Virge were really tack-on PC parts retrofitted to Amiga. Virge was actually known in the PC circle as a "3D Video Decelerator" meaning that the 3D rendering performance was slower than simply using the CPU.
I really think the developers would be better off expanding the AGA core to support some "new" chunky 8bit, 16bit or 24bit modes. Here we have the opportunity to go back and fix AGA and make it would it should have been.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 07, 2010, 06:40:16 AM
Quote from: yaqube;546480
The board is equipped with a 24-bit stereo audio DAC. Upgrading Paula to 16 bit and writing suitable AHI driver won't be a big problem. I'm also thinking about more sophisticated solution.
There is still a lot of unused memory bandwidth which can be used for implementation of an advanced flicker-fixer or graphics board (although implementation of CL/S3 chips seems to be impossible).
Both the AHI and P96 require at least 020 CPU and this is the next design object.
Wow. Very cool. If a 16bit Paula is not a big problem, I can't wait to hear about the "more sophisticated solution". Is it a DSP or something?
Is Minimig 1.1 obsolete after this? I'm still trying to get an ARM controller :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on March 07, 2010, 09:31:27 AM
Quote from: bbond007;546514
I really think the developers would be better off expanding the AGA core to support some "new" chunky 8bit, 16bit or 24bit modes.
I agree, but more specifically, "new" should mean Graffiti and/or P96, in my opinion.
I guess that if we see this speed increase on the 68000 core running at 7 MHz, there will be a similar improvement factor to the 030, no? Someone got any estimate for what happens speed-wise when you minimize the memory delay times and increase the clock speed of the 030 to whatever th FPGA is able to maintain? Will we see other improvements like 1 instruction/cycle?
Is there a full list of other computers/arcade boards/video games that run on this hardware?
I'm sorry; just a bunch of questions that will obviously be answered automatically once this thing is out.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on March 07, 2010, 12:21:45 PM
The NatAmi design is planning to extend AGA, I think if the MiniMig AGA core is extended then it should be designed to be register compatible at least.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crumb on March 07, 2010, 02:14:52 PM
Quote from: bbond007;546514
Cirrus and Virge were really tack-on PC parts retrofitted to Amiga. Virge was actually known in the PC circle as a "3D Video Decelerator" meaning that the 3D rendering performance was slower than simply using the CPU.
that comment makes me think you have never used RTG on Amiga. On Amiga CirrusGD5446 and Virge work great, infinitely better than AGA. Moreover, P96 drivers already exist for that. When I say Cirrus/Virge I mean making something register compatible so P96/CGX work with it. You could run your Cirrus/Virge at whatever frequency you like since it's not a real chip. BTW, Virge3D part works faster than software rendering with slow cpus. I am not interested on Warp3D on minimig anyway but it would be possible.
[/QUOTE]I really think the developers would be better off expanding the AGA core to support some "new" chunky 8bit, 16bit or 24bit modes. Here we have the opportunity to go back and fix AGA and make it would it should have been.[/QUOTE]
I disagree with that because nobody is going to write drivers for that extensions. So zero software would actually use it. In contrast if a gfx chip supported by P96 or CGX was supported we suddenly would be able to run ALL amiga RTG software.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on March 07, 2010, 03:01:14 PM
The most obvious way to expand the AGA core is to add oodles of extra bandwidth to allow high-res AGA screenmodes and ultra fast blitter access without slowing down CPU accesses. This should be transparent to all well-behaved software. Games might need a compatability mode however.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Jose on March 07, 2010, 04:54:23 PM
While no software is able to use them (new would have to be written), I think implementing HAM10 and some of the other AAA modes would be very interesting because techniques are already available to use those Amiga chipset tricks. For example imagine a copper with SuperHiRes resolution :) AAA one was HiRes only and it would have opened possibilities in video effects that would have made the Amiga lead in a whole bunch of areas back in the day. Those Commodore management guys were really either completely dumb or sold out to M$.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on March 07, 2010, 05:04:47 PM
Quote from: bbond007;546514
Cirrus and Virge were really tack-on PC parts retrofitted to Amiga. Virge was actually known in the PC circle as a "3D Video Decelerator" meaning that the 3D rendering performance was slower than simply using the CPU.
They might be slow by PC standards, but they are way faster at productivity work than AGA ever was. Getting an RTG card was one of the best things I ever did for my Amiga.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 07, 2010, 06:16:19 PM
Quote from: Crumb;546543
that comment makes me think you have never used RTG on Amiga. On Amiga CirrusGD5446 and Virge work great, infinitely better than AGA. Moreover, P96 drivers already exist for that. When I say Cirrus/Virge I mean making something register compatible so P96/CGX work with it. You could run your Cirrus/Virge at whatever frequency you like since it's not a real chip. BTW, Virge3D part works faster than software rendering with slow cpus. I am not interested on Warp3D on minimig anyway but it would be possible.
I disagree with that because nobody is going to write drivers for that extensions. So zero software would actually use it. In contrast if a gfx chip supported by P96 or CGX was supported we suddenly would be able to run ALL amiga RTG software.
I had CV64/3D in my A2000 and in my 1200T I had a Bvision and later ended up trading that out for a G-REX/Voodoo III.
I disagree that "nobody" would write the extensions for p96. Given that line of thinking, nobody would have written P96 driver for UAE.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 07, 2010, 06:32:54 PM
Alll that stuff your mentioning is interesting and would be nice, but personally I just want it for playing OCS\ECS and AGA games and to make sure that its compatability with games is as close to 100% as possible for the cores that are developed. If any of the extra stuff on the wishlist breaks games compatability, then to me a separate core for that type of computing should be developed. After all the board is called FPGAArcade it is supposed to be a modern FPGA replacement for original stand up arcade games and now the amiga as well.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 07, 2010, 07:31:12 PM
Quote from: Karlos;546555
They might be slow by PC standards, but they are way faster at productivity work than AGA ever was.
But what productivity work is this project good for? SCALA, Deluxe Paint, Brilliance, various old music, and animation software. What do they all have in common? Do not work well with RTG. Personally I cant wait to play with DPaint on AGA with heaploads of chipram, just hope it will work :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 07, 2010, 07:44:43 PM
I wonder if there is a enough room to add RTG to the FPGA. I hope this leads to an Amiga software revival.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 07, 2010, 08:07:18 PM
Quote from: trekiej;546582
I wonder if there is a enough room to add RTG to the FPGA. I hope this leads to an Amiga software revival.
Why would it? Seriously, if RTG is so important, then why not get a Mac mini with MorphOS or some OS4 box already? As a bonus you get PowerPC, heck lot more CPU power and RAM, and they are available *now*!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 07, 2010, 08:12:35 PM
More curriosity than anything, I wonder if productivity apps benefit. One could build a 68k computer with chunky graphics instead.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on March 07, 2010, 08:51:46 PM
Quote from: trekiej;546585
More curriosity than anything, I wonder if productivity apps benefit. One could build a 68k computer with chunky graphics instead.
Productivity apps? Just run UAE/WinUAE :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on March 08, 2010, 02:02:13 PM
Quote from: Crumb;546543
I disagree with that because nobody is going to write drivers for that extensions. So zero software would actually use it. In contrast if a gfx chip supported by P96 or CGX was supported we suddenly would be able to run ALL amiga RTG software.
Why not expose the new chunky "AGA++"/AAA modes via a P96 driver?
The biggest difficulty with adding chunky modes (or a chunky P96 compatible video card alongside the AGA functionality) is that it isn't just the video output circuitry that needs to support chunky, the blitter and other features also need to support it - possibly including chunky-planar conversions.
The biggest advantage on a modern design is RAM quantity and speed. Hopefully this will be quite nice on this card, so 256-colour AGA will work nicely without slowing down the rest of the system... :p
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on March 08, 2010, 02:33:19 PM
Quote from: Hattig;546685
Why not expose the new chunky "AGA++"/AAA modes via a P96 driver?
The biggest difficulty with adding chunky modes (or a chunky P96 compatible video card alongside the AGA functionality) is that it isn't just the video output circuitry that needs to support chunky, the blitter and other features also need to support it - possibly including chunky-planar conversions.
The biggest advantage on a modern design is RAM quantity and speed. Hopefully this will be quite nice on this card, so 256-colour AGA will work nicely without slowing down the rest of the system... :p
If youvare going to use a P96 driver, why not use a nice modern chip from ATI or Nvidia? It will be cheaper and more powerful than any FPGA solution.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on March 08, 2010, 03:02:23 PM
Quote from: bloodline;546597
Productivity apps? Just run UAE/WinUAE :)
If we were all looking for the optimal way of doing things, we wouldn't be here, would we?
Quote from: bloodline;546687
If youvare going to use a P96 driver, why not use a nice modern chip from ATI or Nvidia? It will be cheaper and more powerful than any FPGA solution.
Because there is already an FPGA on the board, I guess. Also, it's obviously the most future proof solution. I also believe that it would be a bit overkill with a modern GPU, considering the RAM amount and processor speed of this thing.
Personally, I don't think there's any point in extending the chipset, though. What software would developer would ever support it? If anything, just add generic P96 and AHI compatible "hardware" to support the various apps that actually make use of it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 08, 2010, 03:27:39 PM
Productivity apps? Just run UAE/WinUAE
Yes A $150 throw away pentium 4 gets you a $3000 Amiga using UAE and AMiKIT.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on March 08, 2010, 03:49:48 PM
Quote from: bloodline;546687
If youvare going to use a P96 driver, why not use a nice modern chip from ATI or Nvidia? It will be cheaper and more powerful than any FPGA solution.
I think that misses the point of the FPGAArcade by a clear mile, whilst extending AGA with chunky modes for fun and then looking for a way to make them accessible to serious applications doesn't.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 08, 2010, 05:31:55 PM
Hi all, Thanks to all the people who have PM'd or emailed me. I am keeping a list, and you lot will be at the head of the queue when the boards are qualified.
I still have to do some checking on the price, but I'll let you know as soon as I have firm details, probably after the first 10 are made so I know if I have to factor any board changes into the cost.
I'm very keen to have the boards working and ready to ship before I accept any orders.
I know it is taking longer then we all want, but I am going as fast as I can.
We should see the boards in less than 2 weeks. Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on March 08, 2010, 05:37:48 PM
Put me down for a board.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 08, 2010, 07:12:38 PM
I am going to wait on the price, then getting the money will be difficult.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: djmartins on March 08, 2010, 08:04:52 PM
Quote from: mikej;546706
I'm very keen to have the boards working and ready to ship before I accept any orders.
I know it is taking longer then we all want, but I am going as fast as I can.
Mike,
It is always better to have people waiting to give you money than complaining that you have their money but not sent their stuff.
regards, DJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 08, 2010, 08:15:45 PM
My thoughts exactly. /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on March 08, 2010, 08:20:29 PM
Quote from: trekiej;546585
More curriosity than anything, I wonder if productivity apps benefit. One could build a 68k computer with chunky graphics instead.
Does the AGA minimig include the CD32 chunky->planar chip Akiko? If so, then problem solved. If not, add it. Heck, create new chunky modes that are not in legacy AGA from Commodore and add them. Isn't Natami planning to do such things, why not Minimig too?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 08, 2010, 08:38:29 PM
I haven't actually seen the new code yet, but from my Atari work it is easy to do this sort of thing.
Plane mode is least efficient from a DRAM point of view. What I did with the ST is to burst read a chunk from each plane from the DRAM and hold it in a local RAM cache. I can then combine each plane how I like. The DRAM access is very efficient as it is reading 8 word burst access per plane. I wrote it to support 32 planes, and they all share one RAM block.
For chunky modes you just cut up the data as it arrives into suitable size, um, chunks.
It has to work in legacy mode of course as well, these new modes are no use unless we write a driver to support them. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on March 08, 2010, 08:51:19 PM
Quote from: mikej;546728
It has to work in legacy mode of course as well, these new modes are no use unless we write a driver to support them. /Mike
Wasn't there an old AGA driver for P96 or CGX? Even if it seemed silly back then, it may start making more sense now with this new AGA and potential addons in Minimig. OK, so maybe new modes aren't useful without drivers. So write a driver... I don't see that as a reason not to create new modes.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on March 08, 2010, 09:30:53 PM
Quote from: billt;546730
Wasn't there an old AGA driver for P96 or CGX? Even if it seemed silly back then, it may start making more sense now with this new AGA and potential addons in Minimig. OK, so maybe new modes aren't useful without drivers. So write a driver... I don't see that as a reason not to create new modes.
I believe in baby steps, minimig then came the arm processor add on.
If we can get minimig + AGA + more processing speed (along with being able to use a normal mouse and keyboard, with vga output that acts as a scan doubler) I am happy.
Leave all the other stuff for version 2, lets just get the hardware out there!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on March 08, 2010, 10:51:33 PM
I'd like to see what happens when a team of demo coders get their hands on one.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on March 09, 2010, 04:25:57 PM
Quote from: mikej;546728
Plane mode is least efficient from a DRAM point of view. What I did with the ST is to burst read a chunk from each plane from the DRAM and hold it in a local RAM cache. I can then combine each plane how I like. The DRAM access is very efficient as it is reading 8 word burst access per plane. I wrote it to support 32 planes, and they all share one RAM block.
I didn't even know the ST had planar graphics modes. I thought it supported 16, 4 or 2 colours on screen, in a chunky format.
However planar graphics in conjunction with a fast (potentially full scanline, but actually only needs to be the optimal size of a DRAM burst access per plane) cache as you describe isn't so bad for outputting the graphics to a monitor.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 09, 2010, 09:13:14 PM
Quote from: Hattig;546852
I didn't even know the ST had planar graphics modes. I thought it supported 16, 4 or 2 colours on screen, in a chunky format.
However planar graphics in conjunction with a fast (potentially full scanline, but actually only needs to be the optimal size of a DRAM burst access per plane) cache as you describe isn't so bad for outputting the graphics to a monitor.
In the original machine the planes are interleaved in 16 bit words, so in 4 plane mode you get
plane 0 |plane 1 |plane 2 |plane 3 |plane 0 | etc
but I wanted to expand this. Just messing around to play with the memory controller to be honest. /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 09, 2010, 10:48:46 PM
Quote from: tasmanian guy;546740
I believe in baby steps, minimig then came the arm processor add on.
If we can get minimig + AGA + more processing speed (along with being able to use a normal mouse and keyboard, with vga output that acts as a scan doubler) I am happy.
Leave all the other stuff for version 2, lets just get the hardware out there!
Interestingly enough, the current minimig 1.1 already runs optionally at A1200 speeds because it clocks the real 68K up to almost 40mhz. Should be interesting to see if the softcore cpu will be faster or slower...
Also should be interesting to see if the soft cpu is more or less compatible.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on March 10, 2010, 05:59:26 PM
@MikeJ
Will the cores be released as opensource when they are ready?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: warpdesign on March 10, 2010, 06:12:24 PM
Quote
If youvare going to use a P96 driver, why not use a nice modern chip from ATI or Nvidia?
Who's going to write this driver ? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's currently no Nvidia driver, and ATI drivers are closed source and PowerPC only (if you exclude Elbox hacks)...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 10, 2010, 06:12:34 PM
I was looking into planar graphics a while back and listening to MikeJ lets me know I am on the right track with an equation I was working on using. It seems that pixels are modified with a bit wise function. Each 16 bits are 16 pixels for the first plane, then second, etc.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 10, 2010, 08:13:44 PM
Quote from: warpdesign;547029
Who's going to write this driver ? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's currently no Nvidia driver, and ATI drivers are closed source and PowerPC only (if you exclude Elbox hacks)...
Perhaps look at the UAE Picasso 96 driver. Maybe I'll write it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on March 10, 2010, 11:44:15 PM
Quote from: bbond007;547055
Perhaps look at the UAE Picasso 96 driver. Maybe I'll write it.
Most likely, the P96 driver of UAE goes a long route through the system graphics API rather than poking at the graphics hardware directly, so I'm not so sure that that's a good source.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 11, 2010, 01:12:51 AM
Quote from: Linde;547094
Most likely, the P96 driver of UAE goes a long route through the system graphics API rather than poking at the graphics hardware directly, so I'm not so sure that that's a good source.
Still, that driver may be a good example of how to interface with P96. The hardware side of things will be all new anyway.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 13, 2010, 08:25:56 PM
Quote from: logikstate;547026
@MikeJ
Will the cores be released as opensource when they are ready?
In general yes, I am a very keen on everything being open.
If there are any IP issues (I can only think of two, one being part of the ST chip set and the other part of my memory controller) I'll release that sub-module as obfuscated (scrambled) VHDL. In this way you can still recompile the chip and add new features to 99% of the code.
I intend all the code to be fully open from day one if possible, so I hope this will not be necessary.
The ARM code will also be available as are the schematics and a developer wrapper file for the FPGA which drives the various interfaces and has a standard interface to the different cores.
Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 12:10:20 AM
Here is a shot of a possible case design done in SolidWorks. I don't have the exact locaton of the ports but when Iget my board I'll measure it. Paying homage to this projects Atart ST roots with the case design. If I have time I'll do a Commodore A500 style one. I have access to a RP machine so I'll print my own for sure.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on March 14, 2010, 12:33:23 AM
@crom00: not bad- i always liked the st design despite never owned one. especially the gray plastic and that it had no external psu. the power cord sticking off its back, still a little better than amiga wedge cases, and ur design reflects it all. nicely unpretencious.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Tension on March 14, 2010, 12:49:17 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;547484
@crom00: not bad- i always liked the st design despite never owned one. especially the gray plastic and that it had no external psu. the power cord sticking off its back, still a little better than amiga wedge cases, and ur design reflects it all. nicely unpretencious.
Commodore got used to the C64 way of doing things. They didnt see a problem with external PSUs.
At least the C64 &CD32 had a switch on the case.
They were cousins.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on March 14, 2010, 01:03:40 AM
all them damn external power supplies are driving me crazy, things should be compact, handed over in one piece, ready to use, without all the bulk of manuals, spare pieces, replacements, cardboards, polystyrene one has to store in the basement or labourosly put together. plug and play..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 14, 2010, 03:43:43 AM
Quote from: Tension;547485
At least the C64 &CD32 had a switch on the case.
Not just a switch, it's the very same switch, CBM were saving money using left over parts from the C64 production.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 14, 2010, 06:41:52 AM
@ crom00 That case looks cool.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: JimS on March 14, 2010, 01:38:20 PM
There's something to be said for the external power brick... it keeps the bulk and more importantly, the heat of the power supply out of the main case.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 07:10:01 PM
Amiga 500 /1200 style case design.
In the spirit of "Fair and Balanced" retro gaming... Here is an A500 stye case. Again the front and side port cutouts are not included as I don't have a board "yet".
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AJCopland on March 14, 2010, 07:32:45 PM
@Crom00 How about getting away from the biege/grey to something a little sleeker? http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acdcmag.html
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 07:39:03 PM
Curved cases = More time and Money. I think the dreamcast is the perfect case design. Classy look. I'm stikcing to a RETRO theme and I can bang these simples cases out quick....just like Atari and Commodore did!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 07:47:51 PM
here is a rear view.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on March 14, 2010, 07:48:45 PM
I like the Amiga one. What sort of cost per unit are we talking if you had say 50 made?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 07:55:04 PM
Got me on the cost. MOQ for cases are in the 500 range and the price would be expensive even if I use a low cost material like vynil... that's right roto vynil NOT ABS. Abs tooling is expensive. The tooling would be 10-15K for the ABS molds then. Not really feasable.
Another options is RAPID Manufacturing. This is a new thing where if you're making short runs they literally print it out for you. Still expensive and you're limited to the colors they have for the build materials and the finishes are limited as well.
If everyone here is serious and the FPGA arcade is actually released I could look into it.
I could do a MiniMig one as I have a MiniMIG.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 14, 2010, 08:03:27 PM
I think this is pretty neat :) How about a more A600/A1200 style one? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on March 14, 2010, 08:08:12 PM
Quote from: kolla;547565
I think this is pretty neat :) How about a more A600/A1200 style one? :)
Hi Kolla,
Maybe you should look here...
http://loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/game.htm
;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on March 14, 2010, 08:10:37 PM
>>The tooling would be 10-15K for the ABS molds then. Not really feasable.
I know...I have been there :-)
I would like to use your help at a later stage for my new case for the SAM/Natami if you are interested, but not before I have finished the rear panel, waiting for ACube's backplate.
Thanks :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 14, 2010, 08:26:39 PM
Quote from: TheDaddy;547566
Hi Kolla,
Maybe you should look here...
http://loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/game.htm
;-)
I looked, wondering what was wrong with my browser, fired up the next browser, no... same thing. Ah, it's a game. Duh. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 08:34:19 PM
Quote from: kolla;547565
I think this is pretty neat :) How about a more A600/A1200 style one? :)
Sure that sounds cool. The A600/1200 styling is cool becuase if you cast in CD32 gray color it works out nice. You get an extra option.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 14, 2010, 08:38:20 PM
Well, if you add a CD-drive to the Replay you very much have a souped up CD32... oh man! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 08:42:39 PM
Yep. The problem with these FPGA projects is that for cases it'd be best to just make them all ITX compliant.
What I've done in the past for console modding projects is take say an XBOX 1 motherboard and mount it on a thin piece of plexi that has the correct holes drilled for a miniATX case mount.
there are tons of nice and cheap HTPC cases out there on NEWEGG. Fo the cost of the HTPC case you still come in cheaper than what you would pay for a custom tooled case design like my A500 or 520ST style.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 14, 2010, 10:12:43 PM
Very nice! I'll be releasing the mechanicals shortly, so you can see if the board will fit. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on March 14, 2010, 10:15:34 PM
Quote from: kolla;547574
I looked, wondering what was wrong with my browser, fired up the next browser, no... same thing. Ah, it's a game. Duh. :)
Have another look Kolla :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 14, 2010, 10:51:58 PM
Cool deal mike will draw all the port cutouts when I get it.
If anyone has any case suggestions please let me know.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: basman74 on March 15, 2010, 02:23:42 AM
Quote from: Crom00;547602
If anyone has any case suggestions please let me know.
Would be nice to see a tiny floppy disk 'facia' sculpted around the SD card slot :)
Valentin
_______________________
My retro-computer project (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Kl4uciERM)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on March 15, 2010, 06:24:28 AM
@Crom00, Nice case, best looking case in years ;-) I'm in for one. Gives that retro feeling one needs..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 15, 2010, 07:27:21 AM
Quote from: wizard66;547643
@Crom00, Nice case, best looking case in years ;-) I'm in for one. Gives that retro feeling one needs..
You get it Wiz... that's the goal. It's all about that Warm and Fuzzy retro feeling. Crack open a beer...(or milk and cookies) and play some games.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 15, 2010, 08:07:05 AM
I have an idea about making the cases. You would need to RP 4 pieces and use Silicon Rubber and possibly mold release.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: andy9841 on March 15, 2010, 10:05:43 AM
How about one in black?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 15, 2010, 11:02:54 AM
I just tried one of the RevA boards in a ATX case to check the hole alignement and the holes are in the right place, and the IO lines up.
So, should be good for mini-ITX box. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on March 15, 2010, 11:35:41 AM
Quote from: mikej;547659
I just tried one of the RevA boards in a ATX case to check the hole alignement and the holes are in the right place, and the IO lines up.
So, should be good for mini-ITX box. /Mike
Excellent news Mike!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 15, 2010, 03:04:19 PM
Quote from: trekiej;547651
I have an idea about making the cases. You would need to RP 4 pieces and use Silicon Rubber and possibly mold release.
But you would need a pressure pot to blow out any air bubbles... Otherwise you get wierd bubbles on the surface that will need lots of cleanup.
For those of you that have ever collected unlicensced garage resin kits... they are notorious for cleanup. Lots of sanding priming and painting. Then when you're done you have a nice photoshoot mueseum piece prototype but it's good for little else. Think of a nicely painted model kit when you were a kid. Sure it's plastic and painted but would you play with it? no you put it on display.
Belive me I've been through the ringer. To get a clean plastic case you have to tool it (steel mold) Or RP it with the most expensive method. An ABS injection color case is better in that it holds up to everyday use.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on March 15, 2010, 09:49:51 PM
Please keep us posted on it. Maybe, a big maybe, we could take up a collection. Maybe it is out of our range.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Captain Case on March 15, 2010, 10:03:50 PM
Quote from: yaqube;545392
The memory bus of the Minimig runs at 7.09 MHz so it was the simplest solution. The CPU can access the bus every clock cycle if it's not used by the chipset DMA.
The 16-bit opcodes are executed one per clock cycle. The performance could be even better if the data bus was 32-bit wide.
According to timing analysis results both these cores can run up to 20 MHz on Spartan-3E. I will try to run the CPU twice the speed of the memory clock. And with a prefetch buffer to improve memory throughput.
24 MHz SPI, no DMA.
:rtfm: At 7.1 MHZ the bus speed would be 14.2 Mb/sec, or twice the speed of the A1200 chipmem bus: From that limitation, I wouldn't expect any significant performance gain over the current speeds. The Sysinfo speeds as indicated by Yacube 1.85..2,5 x A1200 correspond to that. Could a future Minimig AGA core perhaps take a bigger slice out of the 133 MHz DRAM bandwidth of the FPGA- replay board to allow for greater speeds (perhaps up to 68040-25 level) in the future?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 15, 2010, 11:01:01 PM
Quote from: TheDaddy;547600
Have another look Kolla :-)
Any updates tonight? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on March 16, 2010, 02:28:32 AM
@Crom00 - Loriano has the hookup for plastics (because he does it for a living), maybe you two could collaborate or merge designs and base them on mini-itx form factor able to accomodate an internal power supply since MikeJ said the power hookup would be a 4 pin molex to the board... This would also go along with the ATARI ST theme, since it too had an internal power supply...
@MikeJ - Any chance of getting a metal backplane cutout for mini-itx made? This could help the case designers Crom00 and Loriano and lower the cost by one large pane of plastic... or give a whole host of standard mini-itx casing options to the mases that already exist and would only need a cutout metal backplane to be accomodate your board to them... Would seem to be pretty cheap to manufacture at any machine shop where they work with sheet metal.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheDaddy on March 16, 2010, 06:57:03 AM
Quote from: kolla;547750
Any updates tonight? :)
Hi Kolla,
Next update this week-end...hopefully something more visible :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on March 16, 2010, 09:08:47 AM
I'll second (third?) the backplate request. It would be nice to be able to put this in a case out of the box.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 16, 2010, 09:18:33 AM
When I have the board in my hand I'll see if I can find a metal vendor who can stamp them out. I am not sure how accurate my CAD models of the connectors are. If I can just send one to a chinese vendor and say "may me one that fits that" it would be great.
The PCBs are delayed slightly as some components are on long lead time. The bare boards are in China and I am not at the moment, so we need to get reunited :)
I'll let you know as soon as I know. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 28, 2010, 10:36:41 PM
Still waiting for some components... /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on March 28, 2010, 11:19:04 PM
Quote from: mikej;550084
Still waiting for some components... /Mike
Thanks for info :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on March 29, 2010, 08:27:42 AM
Quote from: mikej;550084
Still waiting for some components... /Mike
The waiting is killing me ;-) O well, nothing we can do about. Thanks for the update keep us posted (beter give me a E-mail to order LOL )
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 29, 2010, 10:10:31 AM
I don't know why but some parts are on lead times of 2 months! I'm trying to get enough samples to at least build the first few for testing while I wait for the rest of the bits. I'll keep you posted. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on March 29, 2010, 10:15:30 AM
Quote from: mikej;550151
I don't know why but some parts are on lead times of 2 months! I'm trying to get enough samples to at least build the first few for testing while I wait for the rest of the bits. I'll keep you posted. /Mike
What are you missing?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 30, 2010, 12:41:30 AM
A couple of semiconductors, mainly the DAC.I've got a few samples now.
I've released the schematic and board mechanicals
http://www.fpgaarcade.com
/MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on March 30, 2010, 01:50:30 AM
Quote from: trip6;547770
@Crom00 - Loriano has the hookup for plastics (because he does it for a living), maybe you two could collaborate or merge designs and base them on mini-itx form factor able to accomodate an internal power supply since MikeJ said the power hookup would be a 4 pin molex to the board... This would also go along with the ATARI ST theme, since it too had an internal power supply...
@MikeJ - Any chance of getting a metal backplane cutout for mini-itx made? This could help the case designers Crom00 and Loriano and lower the cost by one large pane of plastic... or give a whole host of standard mini-itx casing options to the mases that already exist and would only need a cutout metal backplane to be accomodate your board to them... Would seem to be pretty cheap to manufacture at any machine shop where they work with sheet metal.
In that case I suggest Loriano makes a mini A1000 case. I'd like the ability to slide a Solidtek ASK-3100SP mini keyboard under the case. I'm lucky enough to have a PS2 one.
That would be fantastic, thanks.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on March 30, 2010, 02:00:39 AM
MiniMigAGA core demo running on the FPGA Arcarde board looks great. Is it really that fast, or did someone speed up the video playback on that YouTube video? :lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 30, 2010, 09:42:19 AM
Quote from: bbond007;550310
In that case I suggest Loriano makes a mini A1000 case. I'd like the ability to slide a Solidtek ASK-3100SP mini keyboard under the case. I'm lucky enough to have a PS2 one.
That would be fantastic, thanks.
I need to update the dimension drawing. I'll remove the connector details and do a second drawing with the heights. I need this to make the ATX panel thingy.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on March 30, 2010, 09:53:48 AM
What connectors does it come with? Can you plug in an Amiga floppy?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 30, 2010, 10:33:58 AM
The main card has the following :
P1 2 pin RS232 select jumber for debug (ARM or FPGA) P2 2 pin 5V external power input P3 32 pin IO cable expansion 1 P4 9 pinD RS232 P5 Molex 12V/5V external power input P6 2.1mm 5V power input for wall adapter P7 32 pin IO cable expansion 2 P8 main SAMTEC board stacking connector. Lots of IO P9 3 pin ARM debug serial connector P10 2 pin ARM ERASE P11 2 pin ARM TST P12 micro USB (for updating ARM firmware) P13 6 pin FPGA JTAG debug P14 5 pin USB header (parallel with P12) P15 sub SAMTEC board stacking connector. Video+Audio+Joysticks P16 SD card P17 2 pin external ARM reset input P18 2 x 9pinD enhanced joystick inputs P19 2 pin soft reset input (parallel with S2 push button) P20 SVHS / composite video output P21 2 x 6pin PS2 inputs (mouse / keyboard) P22 DVI output (HDMI + analogue video for SCART/VGA) P23 3.5mm stereo audio output
There is also a patch area to the left of P3 which has some test points for wiring up extra IO.
I have a floppy connector on one of my expansion patch boards - you can see pictures of this board on the FPGAArcade website if you scroll down a bit.
I might add one to the release expansion board, it's easy to do and might be useful. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on March 30, 2010, 10:59:14 AM
Good stuff
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AmigaBlitter on March 31, 2010, 03:51:21 PM
Hello,
great work, mike
can we hope for future version aga/060 ?
Thank you best regards
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on March 31, 2010, 04:34:41 PM
Quote from: AmigaBlitter;550551
can we hope for future version aga/060 ?
Yes, we can.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on March 31, 2010, 05:56:19 PM
Quote from: yaqube;550559
Yes, we can.
I think Yaqube is holding back something :-) Tell us what do you have holding back from us !! you always suprize us with new stuff, just with the AGA support out of the blue..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Terminills on March 31, 2010, 06:01:44 PM
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on March 31, 2010, 06:02:47 PM
Quote from: wizard66;550566
Tell us what do you have holding back from us !!
I'll tell you when it's done :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yakumo9275 on March 31, 2010, 07:21:50 PM
Quote from: yaqube;550568
I'll tell you when it's done :D
C128 support!!! with SuperCPU
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: guest6931 on March 31, 2010, 07:35:37 PM
This project is very exciting!
Will the unit be able to support the following high-resolutions?
1920x1080 (1080p) 2048x1152
Thanks so much for your efforts!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: desiv on March 31, 2010, 07:46:14 PM
Quote from: yaqube;550568
I'll tell you when it's done :D
I figured, it just meant: You can always hope if you want to...
;-)
desiv
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: rkauer on April 01, 2010, 04:34:55 AM
Amiga.org does not have a quote contest, right?
OK, then I'm horny!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on April 01, 2010, 05:05:24 AM
Quote from: rkauer;550622
Amiga.org does not have a quote contest, right?
OK, then I'm horny!
Quote contest?
Not sure but did you notice this thread has had 29,890 views!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: rkauer on April 01, 2010, 05:21:55 AM
Oh, pluck!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Pyromania on April 08, 2010, 07:51:44 AM
Sell a boatload of these babys!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on April 13, 2010, 09:58:27 AM
The bare PCBs will be finished this week, I have been told.... /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on April 13, 2010, 01:46:51 PM
How is the software / firmware / softcores side of things progressing?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on April 20, 2010, 04:04:36 PM
Update: The PCB house has made a mistake with the impedance control in the board. They found this during testing and have almost finished re-making the first 60 boards.
It's not going to delay us (any more) as we are still missing the DACs....
Firmware is progressing. I am working on correcting some compatibility issues with the soft 68K core at the moment. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Asinine Monkey on April 23, 2010, 11:34:43 AM
A shame to hear about PCB mistake but very glad to see progress still being made.
Looking forward to the release Mike. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: whiteb on April 23, 2010, 02:50:43 PM
Quote from: mikej;554582
Update: The PCB house has made a mistake with the impedance control in the board. They found this during testing and have almost finished re-making the first 60 boards.
It's not going to delay us (any more) as we are still missing the DACs....
/Mike
This, ladies and gentlemen is what the option "Electronic Test" is for when you order a PCB run. (I think)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on April 23, 2010, 04:24:14 PM
Isn't that just for continuity?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on April 25, 2010, 04:45:45 PM
The boards are 100% electrically tested for continuity.
This PCB has controlled impedance on all layers, so when they make it they also do a test strip. The spacing is calculated by me and modified where necessary by the PCB people to get my desired impedance. After production they test it to make sure the boards are in spec. Sadly in this case they used the wrong layer stackup, so the boards were slightly out.
It happens, they have fixed it. No problem. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on April 28, 2010, 09:31:15 AM
Hurry up dag nam it!
The wait is killing me!
;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: sim085 on April 29, 2010, 12:30:03 PM
After reading part of this thread I still cannot understand what exactly is this. Is this a board for the MiniMig to have AGA support? or it is a board for the A500 to have AGA support?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: DrDekker on April 29, 2010, 12:41:27 PM
I'm under the impression it's a completely new Minimig with AGA - not an add-on for existing Minimigs.
A sort of Mega-Minimig.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on April 29, 2010, 12:47:55 PM
its neither. im pretty sure its a board that was developedd for something else that has had the minimig core made for it with extra stuff that this board allows.
Believe it was is developed as an arcade machine emulator, specfically 1942. Might be way out here though
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on April 29, 2010, 01:28:17 PM
An A1200 equivalent stand alone. It can be programmed for different arcade systems I understand.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on April 29, 2010, 02:04:28 PM
It's basically a retro 'machine' emulator. It can be many types of system, what is of interest to us is that it might turn out to be a faster, enhanced, bug-fixed version of the original AGA machines....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on April 29, 2010, 02:31:34 PM
Sheesh, people. This system has been on the boards for a couple years now. Go to the source if you really want to know more about this board.
http://www.fpgaarcade.com
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 04, 2010, 10:45:38 AM
Quote from: ferrellsl;555836
Sheesh, people. This system has been on the boards for a couple years now. Go to the source if you really want to know more about this board.
http://www.fpgaarcade.com
Thanks Ferrellsl.
I've attached a pic of the new PCB. I haven't actually got it in my hands yet though.
Basically the board was designed as a general platform for my retro projects, arcade games and computer systems. The Amiga core is ported to the board and I will maintain it. Jakub is working on AGA enhancements and I'm working on testing the soft CPU cores. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on May 04, 2010, 02:09:24 PM
Wow, it's happening. Damn it, everything is happening at once now, this X1000; I should part with some crap...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on May 04, 2010, 02:22:24 PM
It's happening at a time I can't afford it.
Dammit.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: recidivist on May 04, 2010, 02:50:37 PM
I am a bit of in awe at someone who can do a project like this,very impressive ,now the important question will be "how much will it cost ?".
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spihunter on May 04, 2010, 03:58:28 PM
This project is pretty awesome. Looking forward to seeing this in action! Put one of these on a PCI card so you can have this integrated into a PC?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on May 04, 2010, 05:26:32 PM
Would be nice if yaqube could do another video! *nudge nudge* ;) I would love to see some playing around with DeluxePaint, animation in highres laced full video overscan HAM8 for example, just to push the the limits... can it do that? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on May 04, 2010, 05:40:05 PM
Quote from: kolla;556644
Would be nice if yaqube could do another video! *nudge nudge* ;)
I will make another video clip when there is something worth showing. Now I'm busy doing other things. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: B00tDisk on May 04, 2010, 06:41:58 PM
Put a PCI bus on this bad boy and a couple of slots attached and you've got the Natami beat by a stretch!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on May 04, 2010, 07:47:58 PM
Quote from: B00tDisk;556653
Put a PCI bus on this bad boy and a couple of slots attached and you've got the Natami beat by a stretch!
How so? Also, don't you think that will increase the cost? Regardless, they are aimed at different markets with different needs.
I could see the NATAMI team purchasing one of these boards to test their cpu core.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on May 09, 2010, 11:57:30 AM
If you read on the website the boards are ready and he is off to China again to pick it up. I can't wait for this.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 10, 2010, 08:24:18 AM
If all goes to plan, I'll have the PCBs in my hand on Thursday this week. I'll see if all the connectors and things fit.... I'll post a piccy then. /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Everblue on May 10, 2010, 08:35:03 AM
Will this be avialable fully populated, ready to go? What price?
Cheers.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on May 10, 2010, 09:35:43 AM
@MikeJ How long have you worked on this project? Sorry, if this has been asked before.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 10, 2010, 10:24:54 AM
The board is only available fully populated, it is not really possible to build at home. The price will depend on the component costs, so I'll know very soon know when I have all the bits. I've got a good deal on the Xilinx - the boards will contain the larger device (1600e).
I decided to make my own board about two years ago and got the RevA board back in March last year. I had to do some other things for a while and there was a minor problem with the board so I couldn't take it to production. While updating it I decided to include the stacking connectors and composite video out on the main board. This was a bit of a layout challange. I started the PCB respin around September last year and have been working towards production since then.
The Atari ST softcore I started about 10 years ago !!!! /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on May 10, 2010, 10:43:03 AM
Wow, thanks for the reply. I wonder what the Amiga Engineers would say about putting an A1200 on a chip? The way things are looking, it seems to be a natural progression.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on May 10, 2010, 06:37:22 PM
Quote from: mikej;557510
I've got a good deal on the Xilinx - the boards will contain the larger device (1600e).
Nice to have a larger Xilinx chip, even more room for coding. So it can hold 4 times the minimig FPGA core. :-) great news
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on May 10, 2010, 06:44:27 PM
Yeah, a 68060 core and the SuperAGA chipset are now possibilities. I suppose that you could also run a 68K Macintosh core if someone wanted to develop one. There's already an Atari ST core and several arcade system cores. I'd like to see the Natami core converted to run on this as well as a 68K Mac core........a very high "cool factor".
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on May 11, 2010, 12:28:16 AM
Bump
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on May 11, 2010, 12:33:28 AM
Wow, those pics with the mini LCD attached, yum! It's like PSP gone Amiga. And then you could still hook it up to normal stuff: keyboard, mouse, LCD monitor... Gonna have to start sellin crack again.
:laughing:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on May 11, 2010, 12:40:34 AM
Yeah, imagine an A500, A1200-A4000, SuperAGA Amiga/Natami, Atari ST and a 68K Mac all in one handheld unit. And you select which system you want at the power up menu. Too cool!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on May 11, 2010, 04:15:20 PM
Oh, and don't forget all the stand-up arcade systems that it emulates too. I hope somebody will port the Natami core to this system too. Not sure I can afford to buy both a Natami and a Replay board.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 11, 2010, 07:40:32 PM
I'm packing and off to China in the morning. I'll pick up the PCBs and hopefully get time to source the missing parts. /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on May 11, 2010, 08:17:42 PM
Quote from: mikej;557826
I'm packing and off to China in the morning. I'll pick up the PCBs and hopefully get time to source the missing parts. /MikeJ
Have a nice trip Mike and bring the boards home :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 13, 2010, 02:36:45 PM
Quote from: wizard66;557839
Have a nice trip Mike and bring the boards home :-)
I'm in the Irish bar in Beijing, and I have a box with 60 PCBs in my hand :)
I shall try not to leave them in the pub :) photos tomorrow ... /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on May 13, 2010, 02:52:55 PM
Quote from: mikej;558251
I'm in the Irish bar in Beijing, and I have a box with 60 PCBs in my hand :)
I shall try not to leave them in the pub :) photos tomorrow ... /MikeJ
Hehehe LOL, we all like to see the pictures so don't get to drunk in the bar ;-) Take a beer from us all here you deserve it for all the hard work you have been putting up. I hope you also get the missing parts for building the boards, keep us posted, Cheers
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yakumo9275 on May 13, 2010, 02:53:05 PM
mm Guinness stained pcb's :) is Guinness corosive? I know Bushmills is ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on May 14, 2010, 12:41:19 AM
Quote from: yakumo9275;558255
mm Guinness stained pcb's :) is Guinness corosive? I know Bushmills is ;)
No, it's a preservative actually.....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on May 14, 2010, 03:04:15 AM
we want pictures of you drunk in a bar with these boards of yours in hand!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: recidivist on May 14, 2010, 04:55:56 AM
I see in the arcade forum a tentative price of 200 euros ?
This could get verrryyy interesstinng!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 17, 2010, 01:08:50 AM
Well, the connectors all fit nicely. You'll have to wait a bit for the photos, I can't get them off the camera at the moment... MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on May 17, 2010, 08:24:34 AM
Quote from: mikej;558937
Well, the connectors all fit nicely. You'll have to wait a bit for the photos, I can't get them off the camera at the moment... MikeJ
Exciting stuff!
Do you have an updated schedule for release, Mike?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: UncleSpam on May 17, 2010, 06:30:22 PM
Forgive my ignorance, but has the idea of implementing a DVI or HDMI port instead of VGA been given any consideration?
That way, it will be easy to go to any modern digital output and also VGA via simple adapters/cables.
Edit: My question was answered by searching the thread. DVI output = awesome!
Regards.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: spans on May 18, 2010, 05:11:59 PM
OMG, yes please do add me to the list, would deff buy an AGA Minimig. Very cool!!!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: mikej on May 21, 2010, 01:15:07 PM
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: tonyyeb on May 21, 2010, 01:17:50 PM
Quote from: mikej;559914
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
I'm not interested in that thanks.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: ajacocks on May 21, 2010, 01:34:16 PM
Quote from: mikej;559914
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
I would be interested. More output options are always welcome.
- Alex
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: Linde on May 21, 2010, 01:40:18 PM
I'll gladly do without.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on May 21, 2010, 03:17:18 PM
The DIY build option is cool. Easy enough to solder connectors on. It's just the surface mount stuff that's a pain.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: Crumb on May 21, 2010, 03:32:38 PM
Quote from: mikej;559914
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
DVI for me. Most of modern TVs have VGA/DVI/HDMI inputs.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: Lizard on May 21, 2010, 03:34:38 PM
DVI is also sufficient for me.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: bloodline on May 21, 2010, 04:13:49 PM
I'm not sure I have any SVideo or Composite compatible display devices any more... Hmmm, I might have an SVideo/Composite to Scart adaptor :)
Just stick with VGA/DVI IMHO ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: xyzzy on May 21, 2010, 07:20:30 PM
I'd rather have one with SVideo and composite out as well.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: TheGoose on May 21, 2010, 08:09:05 PM
Quote from: xyzzy;559995
I'd rather have one with SVideo and composite out as well.
+1 for the s-video.
It is an easy way to hook up to LCD TVs - with some decent image quality.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: spans on May 22, 2010, 11:49:42 AM
Quote from: mikej;559914
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
20-30 Euro for svideo? Yes please, the more connectivity the better IMHO.
Please do let us know when we can get our grubby hands on one of these, this could mean that I don't have to continue the old A4000, which at it's age worries me a lot...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: mikej on May 22, 2010, 01:22:28 PM
ok, I'll build half the first 60 with the svideo/comp option then. Final parts should get here tomorrow. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: trekiej on May 22, 2010, 01:25:48 PM
@ mikeJ I have an HP2009m monitor that has a resolution of 1600 x 900. How do you think the compatability would be with it?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: wizard66 on May 22, 2010, 10:39:42 PM
Like the full options on the board so all conections for me.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: bbond007 on May 22, 2010, 11:41:18 PM
Quote from: spans;560194
20-30 Euro for svideo? Yes please, the more connectivity the better IMHO.
I agree Composite and Svideo would be nice...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: Belial6 on May 23, 2010, 02:23:02 AM
I say it is a half dozone of one/6 of the other situation. Whichever you have left over is what I will go for. I could live without composit/svideo, and I could l live with the price increase. I'd be happy to just be able to put an AGA Minimig in a standard case.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: kolla on May 23, 2010, 02:27:21 AM
I also dont mind the extra cost for more connectors :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: Firedawg on May 23, 2010, 02:49:54 AM
Quote from: mikej;559914
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
Full option build for me!!!
The Dawg
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kmob on May 23, 2010, 08:31:48 PM
Full fat video out option here too :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bbond007 on May 23, 2010, 11:40:04 PM
Quote from: kmob;560447
Full fat video out option here too :)
Go for broke!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on May 24, 2010, 11:34:58 AM
I would be inclined to have a more video out options "just in case"
Would probably mainly run it from VGA/DVI though on an lcd.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on May 24, 2010, 11:39:05 AM
Have we got a price yet Mike? I need to know how much to put away from my salary this month!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on May 24, 2010, 12:48:36 PM
Quote from: tonyyeb;560548
Have we got a price yet Mike? I need to know how much to put away from my salary this month!
Just waiting for the assembly quote now, then I'll do the maths :) /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on May 24, 2010, 01:03:38 PM
Fab! Can't wait :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trekiej on May 24, 2010, 02:22:26 PM
Drum roll.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on May 28, 2010, 10:59:42 AM
I have a 16GB SD card from Transcend for use with the Minmig v.1.1+ARM Cont. Now I use two HDF Files from 4GB divided into 2 partitions (so two drives four partitions). The limit on fat32 is a partition of 4GB, will there be suport for NTFS format so we can use bigger partions on the Minimig and Replay ? Is it possible I realy like to now!! I know I have to use SFS on the amiga side and stuff. I have a lots of software I want "online" but the 4 giga HDF files are limited
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on June 02, 2010, 08:01:52 PM
@Mike J - Any status update? We are all eagerly awaiting these... But of course want to make sure they are complete... I hadn't read this thread in a while, so my vote would be for the extra connector. You can never have to many connectors!!!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on June 03, 2010, 12:30:09 AM
Quote from: mikej;560555
Just waiting for the assembly quote now, then I'll do the maths :) /Mike
It will be interesting to see what kind of price you can sell an FPGA AGA machine for in 2010. I reckon both Jens and the Natami boys will be watching with interest.
I'm interested to see how this thing will be developed in the next few years with FPGA revisions and software updates (the beauty of FPGA). Just look at how much the original MiniMig has matured from its inception and then extrapolate ;)
[note, big word day]
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on June 03, 2010, 01:29:21 AM
We could see all sorts of things emerge, an extended AGA chipset (more planes/resolutions/sprites), AGA but with no DMA contention, a built-in p96/cgfx compatible RTG graphics card and vga switcher or anything else we can squeeze in.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA ?
Post by: desantii on June 03, 2010, 05:37:54 AM
I would preffer VGA or HDMI, that is more than enough as most TVs have those inputs. DVI with audio would be cool!
Quote from: mikej;559914
If there was a 20-30 Euro extra price for the version with svideo/composite out, how many people would be interested? Before I get the chips, it would be useful to know if I should make all the boards with svideo option, or say half. (To get the basic board price down I made the svideo/composite a build option) Cheers, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Amiga_Nut on June 03, 2010, 11:46:59 AM
If it has RGB analogue output that would be great for me, I'd want to use it with a CRT screen and RGB scart is the best way for us in the EU :)
Anything else for me personally is just an extra bonus.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 03, 2010, 04:34:50 PM
It has analogue RGB out (nicely filtered as required). It also has DVI, which depending on the core and video timing, can be cabled directly into a HDMI TV input.
I have set up timing for most popular video standards, 576i, 488i, 576p, 488p (pal / ntsc interlaced/progressive), 1080i, 720p and a few others like 1280x1024 etc. The chip may do 1080P but it's pushing the FPGA IO timing a bit.
I am still waiting for placement dates, everybody here seems to be going on holiday and the first date I've got is mid July at the moment. I may take the parts back to China to get assembled. I'll keep you all posted. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on June 03, 2010, 04:45:55 PM
Quote from: xyzzy;562620
We could see all sorts of things emerge, an extended AGA chipset (more planes/resolutions/sprites), AGA but with no DMA contention, a built-in p96/cgfx compatible RTG graphics card and vga switcher or anything else we can squeeze in.
I think the NatAmi is doing a lot of this.
Personally I think that it is better to do enhancements that enhance existing software, than to add new features that require developer support.
Therefore a contention-less AGA would benefit people, and more resolutions would provide more options for software, but more planes or sprites or chunky bitmap modes would have to wait for software to be enhanced to use it. I guess the chunky modes could have a P96 driver created for them.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crumb on June 03, 2010, 07:05:51 PM
@Hattig
Quote
I guess the chunky modes could have a P96 driver created for them.
Although making a P96/CGX driver would be a great idea there are chances no one can do the task (lack of DriverDeveloperKit or simply skills).
Existing chips supported by P96/CGX are well documented (like CirrusGD5446 or Virge) so it could be possible to emulate the behaviour of the gfx chip so existing drivers work without changes. I hope implementing the gfx chip would not require a lot of accuracy, just the minimum to open screenmodes and make blitter work, the important part would be register compatibility, the rest could be reimplemented as developers choose.
Cirrus Logic Linux drivers seem to be more or less well commented so it's not hard to see the addresses of the registers and their functionality. I'm not saying making a complete svga chip with a FPGA is easy, but Amiga drivers probably don't require to have a perfect VGA chip emulation (no need of emulating segmented memory layouts, no need of some VGA registers and screenmodes unused by P96/CGX drivers...)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on June 03, 2010, 09:13:55 PM
How simple was the UAEGFX picasso96 "driver"? Totally alien to a real driver?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on June 04, 2010, 12:35:34 AM
While a custom p96 driver would be great (eg UAEGFX), to just do the WINUAE trick and boost chipram to 8mb and make it a faster would allow Ratte to develop some nice new drivers/modes. Even without any new modes you'd be able to run in 1024x768 and 256 colours....just try it in WINUAE if you want to see how it performs :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on June 04, 2010, 01:01:29 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;562730
While a custom p96 driver would be great (eg UAEGFX), to just do the WINUAE trick and boost chipram to 8mb and make it a faster would allow Ratte to develop some nice new drivers/modes. Even without any new modes you'd be able to run in 1024x768 and 256 colours....just try it in WINUAE if you want to see how it performs :)
I guess no one noticed in the NATAMI demo that they were running 16MB of chip ram...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mongo on June 04, 2010, 01:23:07 AM
Quote from: lou_dias;562732
I guess no one noticed in the NATAMI demo that they were running 16MB of chip ram...
I guess you didn't notice in the MiniMig AGA demo that it was running 50MB of chip ram...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on June 04, 2010, 02:26:41 AM
Quote from: mongo;562734
I guess you didn't notice in the MiniMig AGA demo that it was running 50MB of chip ram...
;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on June 04, 2010, 02:27:38 AM
Quote from: mongo;562734
I guess you didn't notice in the MiniMig AGA demo that it was running 50MB of chip ram...
I guess you didn't notice the NatAmi is eventually supposed to have 256 Megs Chip and 256 Megs fast...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on June 04, 2010, 08:08:03 AM
The Replay board is supposed to be a multi-purpose board, not just amiga specific. 256MB of onboard ram would be overkill for many applications.
If more ram is needed it can be added via the expansion connector, on a cpu board for example.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on June 04, 2010, 08:11:01 AM
Quote from: alexh;562706
How simple was the UAEGFX picasso96 "driver"? Totally alien to a real driver?
The advantage of replicating the WinUAE hardware RTG card is that we have the source code to hand and know how its supposed to work.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on June 04, 2010, 09:03:10 AM
Quote from: mongo;562734
I guess you didn't notice in the MiniMig AGA demo that it was running 50MB of chip ram...
Err WOW, erm how much Ram is this beast coming with? :laughing: Dans gettin that warm fuzzy feeling
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 04, 2010, 09:06:18 AM
64MBytes. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on June 04, 2010, 09:39:04 AM
Quote from: xyzzy;562805
The advantage of replicating the WinUAE hardware RTG card is that we have the source code to hand and know how its supposed to work.
The WinUAE Amiga side P96 driver is closed source. Nevertheless the Minimig on the Replay board will have a true-colour RTG board and dedicated P96 driver (yes, I will write it). It won't happen before the 020 compatible CPU core is available (guess why).
The AGA chipset will be enhanced with chunky modes very soon. The chip memory bus access is already contention free but will be improved significantly in the near future.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on June 04, 2010, 10:14:48 AM
That sounds just great! Will the built-in chunky modes comply to any existing standard? Graffiti springs to mind.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on June 04, 2010, 10:38:38 AM
Quote from: Linde;562818
Will the built-in chunky modes comply to any existing standard? Graffiti springs to mind.
Yes, the memory organization of chunky display buffer will be linear (as expected). The memory organization of high/true colour modes will be decided during implementation.
BTW Graffiti doesn't use standard display memory organization.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on June 04, 2010, 11:24:46 AM
Quote from: yaqube;562812
The WinUAE Amiga side P96 driver is closed source. Nevertheless the Minimig on the Replay board will have a true-colour RTG board and dedicated P96 driver (yes, I will write it). It won't happen before the 020 compatible CPU core is available (guess why).
The AGA chipset will be enhanced with chunky modes very soon. The chip memory bus access is already contention free but will be improved significantly in the near future.
Cool this is what I (and loads of other people) wanted to hear. :)
How are coders (like myself) going to support these new chunky modes? Will it be as easy as a patch to the API (eg writeChunkyPixels) to use the new modes? In other words, patch the API so that it skips the internal C2P.
You should also have a word with Ratte (the guy behind HighGFX) to see if he can create some new WB screen modes for this sucker.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on June 04, 2010, 12:52:54 PM
Quote from: mikej;562809
64MBytes. /Mike
Wow. With the release specs plus the proposed updated CPU core and RTG I can see my old "real" Amigas getting sent to a dusty shelf.
The only thing missing is a USB port. Since purchasing a Deneb for my A4000 I don't think I can live without USB any more. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 04, 2010, 01:39:40 PM
Yaqube and I are in discussion about the first expansion board, which will contain USB and Ethernet as a minimum.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on June 04, 2010, 02:03:30 PM
Quote from: mikej;562834
Yaqube and I are in discussion about the first expansion board, which will contain USB and Ethernet as a minimum.
Excellent! :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on June 04, 2010, 02:13:08 PM
Quote from: mikej;562834
Yaqube and I are in discussion about the first expansion board, which will contain USB and Ethernet as a minimum.
/Mike
If you're trying to make me jiz in my pants then you've just managed it! :D
On a serious note (honest, I didn't jiz my pants), what would be the odds of getting Chris to port his excellent USB stack to your product and sell it included with the expansion board as he does with Deneb and Subway?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mongo on June 04, 2010, 02:16:33 PM
Quote from: Darrin;562838
If you're trying to make me jiz in my pants then you've just managed it! :D
On a serious note (honest, I didn't jiz my pants), what would be the odds of getting Chris to port his excellent USB stack to your product and sell it included with the expansion board as he does with Deneb and Subway?
His excellent USB stack is open source.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on June 04, 2010, 02:20:58 PM
Quote from: mongo;562839
His excellent USB stack is open source.
Really? I missed that. Still worth paying for though.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on June 04, 2010, 02:24:11 PM
Quote from: yaqube;562812
The WinUAE Amiga side P96 driver is closed source. Nevertheless the Minimig on the Replay board will have a true-colour RTG board and dedicated P96 driver (yes, I will write it). It won't happen before the 020 compatible CPU core is available (guess why).
The AGA chipset will be enhanced with chunky modes very soon. The chip memory bus access is already contention free but will be improved significantly in the near future.
Brilliant stuff, and good to know about the need to access lots of memory.
How's the performance currently?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on June 04, 2010, 02:56:54 PM
Quote from: mongo;562839
His excellent USB stack is open source.
Is it. Thought He had just written a version for AROS. So you could create your own version from the AROS versions.
Didnt think he released the whole thing as open source, but I could very well be wrong
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mongo on June 04, 2010, 03:44:06 PM
Quote from: JJ;562844
Is it. Thought He had just written a version for AROS. So you could create your own version from the AROS versions.
Didnt think he released the whole thing as open source, but I could very well be wrong
http://www.power2people.org/bounty_041.html
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on June 04, 2010, 03:52:25 PM
Quote from: mongo;562851
http://www.power2people.org/bounty_041.html
I stand corrected. Thanks for clarifying mongo
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on June 05, 2010, 03:15:11 AM
Quote from: mikej;562834
Yaqube and I are in discussion about the first expansion board, which will contain USB and Ethernet as a minimum.
BTW - chances are that the replay + expansion board will actually fit inside an A1200 or even A600 case - how about a keyboard controller for the A1200/A600 keyboards? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on June 05, 2010, 01:16:37 PM
Quote from: kolla;562980
BTW - chances are that the replay + expansion board will actually fit inside an A1200 or even A600 case - how about a keyboard controller for the A1200/A600 keyboards? :)
That would be a great way to reuse old cases. I'm sure I have an old A1200 case somewhere from when I put the mobo in a tower...
Actually I used it to install a Keyrah and it is on a shelf in my room!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 07, 2010, 01:15:59 PM
The only problem with getting it in a A1200 case would be the height of the IO connectors. You could order a board without the PS/2, Joystick and video connectors fitted and cable it instead I guess.
I have a 1200 case in the UK I'll pick up next month, so I'll see if it fits. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AJCopland on June 07, 2010, 02:10:45 PM
Hey Mikej, it must feel pretty good to be in the home straight now and so close to completion! Nice work mate! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on June 08, 2010, 12:02:44 AM
Quote from: mikej;563268
The only problem with getting it in a A1200 case would be the height of the IO connectors. You could order a board without the PS/2, Joystick and video connectors fitted and cable it instead I guess.
I have a 1200 case in the UK I'll pick up next month, so I'll see if it fits. /Mike
If this thing does take off you could always talk to AmigaKit to see if they are interested in funding a drop-in A1200 MB replacement option ;)
If you did go for the replacement 1200 MB option I wonder how much work it would be include a CardBus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card#CardBus) slot (eg update the PCMCIA)?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on June 08, 2010, 02:46:52 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;563387
If this thing does take off you could always talk to AmigaKit to see if they are interested in funding a drop-in A1200 MB replacement option ;)
That would be awesome, and I think you could easily make one to fit both A600 and A1200 cases. Regardless, this is something I would try to do myself. And yes, I could always use keyrah, but I'm not sure the USB on the expansion will handle USB keyboard/mouse well enough so that PS2 is not needed at all. I must admit that personally I would rather see the PS2 ports replaced with USB-1.1 ports alltogether, but I just assume PS2 is much cheaper and simpler to implement.
Quote
If you did go for the replacement 1200 MB option I wonder how much work it would be include a CardBus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card#CardBus) slot (eg update the PCMCIA)?
I think I'd rather put a USB card reader there, frankly, it's been years and years since I last saw a cardbus card now. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on June 08, 2010, 03:28:00 AM
Ohh... Man this is gonna be good... I cant wait until these boards are ready... 060 Expansion planned to run OS4 on, an Ethernet USB expansion planned... Is there anything else planned? Just kidding... Wow... I can hear the money draining out of my bank account already (but its so worth it)...LOL... Do you have a layaway plan?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Clyborg on June 08, 2010, 05:03:14 PM
Mikej,
I'm so glad you are doing this. It's been over 10 years since I shorted out my a1200 trying to install it in a tower kit. I skipped the orignal minimig because I wanted something as powerful as my A1200 w/ 030 50mhz mongoose accelerator. I'm really looking forward to purchasing your device. Nothing beats amiga OS.
Jason
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on June 08, 2010, 05:16:05 PM
Quote from: trip6;563424
060 Expansion planned to run OS4 on
OS4 does not run on 060, it requires PowerPC.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on June 12, 2010, 11:06:10 AM
Quote from: mikej;562834
Yaqube and I are in discussion about the first expansion board, which will contain USB and Ethernet as a minimum.
/Mike
Can you guy's concider to put a RTC on the expansion board if possible ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on June 12, 2010, 11:39:47 AM
Quote from: wizard66;564263
Can you guy's concider to put a RTC on the expansion board if possible ?
Yes, I'm currently working on it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on June 12, 2010, 11:44:17 AM
Quote from: yaqube;564268
Yes, I'm currently working on it.
Yaqube your the best ;-) (as always) looks like a nice expansion board, i'm in for one no matter what !! Keep us posted on your nice design for the replay addon board, I already have your ARM conntroller board for the Minimig and this is also a quality design product. Looking forward to this new replay addon board.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on June 12, 2010, 01:26:55 PM
I was thinking how the main board can communicate with the outside world. There's a debug serial port over which we could run PPP or SLIP, or we could use the ARM with its USB port to emulate a high-speed serial-over-usb link.
Secondly, i've been studying the schematics and I don't see any issues with plugging amiga mice into the joystick ports - the h/v pulse lines all go straight into the FPGA, and all three mouse buttons are accounted for.
However I think the ports will be only wired up to 3.3v according to the schematic.
Will this be a problem for autofire joysticks? Do they expect 5v for their electronics ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 14, 2010, 12:13:36 PM
Quote from: xyzzy;564274
Will this be a problem for autofire joysticks? Do they expect 5v for their electronics ?
The power to the joystick ports is by default 3V3. We had some discussion about this and felt it was the best compromise, and joysticks would work fine at 3V3.
You can move the ferrite from L17 to L16 to get 5V. I don't recommend fitting both at the same time :)
/Mike p.s. still waiting for assembly time.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on June 14, 2010, 12:29:21 PM
Quote from: xyzzy;564274
I was thinking how the main board can communicate with the outside world. There's a debug serial port over which we could run PPP or SLIP, or we could use the ARM with its USB port to emulate a high-speed serial-over-usb link.
Secondly, i've been studying the schematics and I don't see any issues with plugging amiga mice into the joystick ports - the h/v pulse lines all go straight into the FPGA, and all three mouse buttons are accounted for.
However I think the ports will be only wired up to 3.3v according to the schematic.
Will this be a problem for autofire joysticks? Do they expect 5v for their electronics ?
From the joysticks I've dismantled in my time autofire simply closed the joy button circuit... No special electronics at all.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: psxphill on June 14, 2010, 02:03:06 PM
Quote from: bloodline;564543
From the joysticks I've dismantled in my time autofire simply closed the joy button circuit... No special electronics at all.
Autofire generally uses a 555 timer. I'm not sure what joysticks you've taken apart, but they don't sound great. Unless the auto fire toggles on and off then it isn't auto fire & you can't do that with just a switch.
555's work best with higher voltages, so it might get upset with 3.3v If might work, you'll have to test it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Retro_71 on June 14, 2010, 03:36:47 PM
Pm sent and I have to order the expansion board when yaqube finishes that. total price for everything? also if V2 is done will there be a V3...V4 etc or just upgrades to the cores?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 15, 2010, 08:47:50 AM
Quote from: Retro_71;564556
Pm sent and I have to order the expansion board when yaqube finishes that. total price for everything? also if V2 is done will there be a V3...V4 etc or just upgrades to the cores?
There are no plans to replace the main board at the moment. I guess cost reduction, size reduction or a portable version could appear.
All cores (where humanly) possible will be updated and support the RevB and future boards - until they don't fit. Then they will be branched so you will have a RevB core which is upto date, but lacks some new features that RevC boards may support etc etc.
I really am trying to get pricing together, but until I get the assembly started it is tricky. What is also clear is the NRE costs are quite high and as future production boards will not have to pay this the price will come down if we get some volume.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Retro_71 on June 15, 2010, 12:45:42 PM
Thanks mate for the info. Well money is put aside for your board anyway.. along with Natami (when it appears) and a few other C64 Stuff. But look like your will be the first.. :D can't wait.
Keep up the Great work.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on June 16, 2010, 03:23:19 AM
Quote from: psxphill;564549
Autofire generally uses a 555 timer. I'm not sure what joysticks you've taken apart, but they don't sound great. Unless the auto fire toggles on and off then it isn't auto fire & you can't do that with just a switch.
555's work best with higher voltages, so it might get upset with 3.3v If might work, you'll have to test it.
We do not need joysticks with autofire anymore. A variable speed autofire can be integrated in the Minimig core.
Regards,
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on June 16, 2010, 04:25:21 AM
Mike J & Yaqube is this true?
Quote from: FrenchShark;564782
We do not need joysticks with autofire anymore. A variable speed autofire can be integrated in the Minimig core.
Regards,
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 16, 2010, 10:22:35 AM
Of course, no problem. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 20, 2010, 09:48:55 PM
Just a quick update. I'm still waiting for an assembly slot. I decided to get the prototypes built locally, for a quick turnaround ironically, but they are really busy. It's going to be early July before I get a working board.
I'm off to Glastonbury music festival so I'll be out of touch for a week or so.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: madcrow on June 24, 2010, 08:52:16 PM
While this AGA support is looking good, I was just wondering: is the source code avialable or is MiniMig offcially non-GPL by now?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on June 24, 2010, 09:32:18 PM
Quote from: madcrow;567026
is the source code avialable or is MiniMig offcially non-GPL by now?
The source code will be available when the boards are made.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on June 24, 2010, 11:06:59 PM
Sorry if this has been clarified earlier, I haven't the time to read through 31 pages, but will it be possible to connect an Amiga floppy drive to it and load from floppy?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on June 24, 2010, 11:30:12 PM
Go back to Page 22 #316. I asked the question already.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on June 25, 2010, 12:17:04 AM
Thank you Sir!
Looking forward to this project being made available.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 25, 2010, 12:32:03 AM
First, Congratulations yaqube for the AGA implementation!!
Oh and for the patience with the not-possible-sayers.. :D (68060/PA-7150 softcore with Hombre chipset next? :P )
A quick look at fpgaarcade.com seems to suggest there's no DB23 connector for a floppydrive (250 kbit/s?). BUT, if there's any wired 5V I/O one can just connect and change some code in the sources, synthesize ("compile") and should work. Because for an FPGA there's not really any dedicated "port" just loads of general I/O.
The connections seems to be: MMC, HDMI, CVBS, S-Video, 2x PS/2, 2x Joystick. 130-pin expansion. Debug232?, ?, VGA, 2x General I/O, Power
Any price indicators yet for the board?
As for what resolutions are possible, and other bitstream dependent applications. An DDR DRAM that is clocked at 200 MHz with an 16-bit width will give 6,4 Gbit/s ; For comparision an 68040@25 MHz will consume 0,8 Gbit/s ; video 1920x1080@60 fps 24 bpp = 3,0 Gbit/s ; audio 192 kHz 24 bit 6 channels = 0,03 Gbit/s ; ZorroIII = 1,2 Gbit/s ; PCI32/33 = 1,1 Gbit/s ; Ethernet 1G well.. = 1 Gbit/s ;)
There are some delays for each row switch and cas latency to take into account but with proper caching this will not be a problem. Good predictions on what memory sections that are worthwhile to cache will win performance points. Special care has to be taken for bitstreams that can't take disruption gracefully like video and audio. I hope the CPU and Ethernet etc.. don't mind waiting. DDR2 have the same amount of transfers per clock cycle as DDR1. And DDR3 have very long latencies from command given to data in/out, and very special electrical interfacing (same for DDR2). To counter this sub 2 ns clocks are possible (ie FAST). So for any Amiga project DDR1 makes the best pain/performance choice. If the 2,5 V and impedance matching causes problems SDR (1 transfer/clock) at 3,3 V could make a good choice.
(I saw the answer above now regarding the floppy drive answer (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=550351&postcount=316) but still can't find it at fpgaarcade. However as said, it's easy to fix.)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: psxphill on June 25, 2010, 04:25:31 AM
Quote from: FrenchShark;564782
We do not need joysticks with autofire anymore. A variable speed autofire can be integrated in the Minimig core.
Regards,
Frederic
What about megadrive & cd32 pads? Do they cope?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 25, 2010, 12:07:48 PM
Megadrive pads would go under, but CD32 pads have enough Commodore force in them to barely make it.. :P Looking here: http://www.softwolves.com/arkiv/cbm-hackers/1/1696.html MegaDrive works the same as C= joysticks, however maybe with a different pinout. So it should work. And CD32 well.. it's Commodore stuff. So should work too.
Please read up on basic electronics before asking.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: psxphill on June 25, 2010, 12:21:27 PM
Quote from: freqmax;567159
Megadrive pads would go under, but CD32 pads have enough Commodore force in them to barely make it.. :P Looking here: http://www.softwolves.com/arkiv/cbm-hackers/1/1696.html MegaDrive works the same as C= joysticks, however maybe with a different pinout. So it should work. And CD32 well.. it's Commodore stuff. So should work too.
Please read up on basic electronics before asking.
They all specify 5v, it was a 3.3v vs 5v question.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 25, 2010, 02:06:42 PM
Ohwell.. I took it as another pin mismatch so it won't work(tm).
Anyway I found a page about connecting the Sega joypad (http://www.xerxes3rd.net/staticpages/index.php?page=GenesisControllerOnXbox) to another console. He mentions "However, the newer Genesis controllers have a custom IC that adds the extra signals onto the same 9-wire cable. ". So the plain version should work out of the box. For the other one with an special IC one can use the following trick:
Then one just feed the +5V outputs of the joypad etc.. to this arrangement and connect the max 3,3V level to the FPGA. And ofcourse the joypad has to be feed with +5V supply.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on June 25, 2010, 06:42:03 PM
Quote from: freqmax;567171
Ohwell.. I took it as another pin mismatch so it won't work(tm).
Anyway I found a page about connecting the Sega joypad (http://www.xerxes3rd.net/staticpages/index.php?page=GenesisControllerOnXbox) to another console. He mentions "However, the newer Genesis controllers have a custom IC that adds the extra signals onto the same 9-wire cable. ". So the plain version should work out of the box. For the other one with an special IC one can use the following trick:
Then one just feed the +5V outputs of the joypad etc.. to this arrangement and connect the max 3,3V level to the FPGA. And ofcourse the joypad has to be feed with +5V supply.
That must be for the 6-button pads(+mode button)...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 26, 2010, 03:14:04 AM
There were some hints that in order to accomplish AGA, 32-bit memory is a requirement as well as an externally 32-bit CPU. If yaqube:s AGA with 68000 is real then it's obvious that an ordinary 16-bit external CPU is enough. Or is there any situation when despite coded for 68000 a 32-bit interface for the CPU is an required? And how about the memory?, 16-bit can provide the same amount of data, just need to double the MHz.. ;), or does the implementation use some 32-bit memory structure while keeping the CPU in 16-bit interface?
Regarding the CPU is there any benefits in implementing anything better than 68020 ..?, Because FPGA on-chip ram is quite scarce (~38 kB) so cache might be hard to implement. Maybe it's better to implement a plain 68020 and a steroid mode where certain functions are improved but still pretending to be 020 to software?, catch may be incompabilities.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on June 26, 2010, 11:04:58 AM
Only sprite and bitplane DMA could use 32-bit fetches (64 with burst), everything else in AGA is still 16 bit, including the blitter and chip registers.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 26, 2010, 12:21:19 PM
With bitplane DMA I assume you mean the framebuffer memory ..? Ie the transfer of the whole screen memory to the video DAC once per frame, x times per second.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on June 26, 2010, 02:11:03 PM
Yes. Although I believe the display DMA fetches one chunk of data from each bitplane in turn, ie 16/32 or 64 bits of data before fetching the same amount for the next bitplane.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on June 28, 2010, 11:45:40 AM
OK, I may be dreaming here but...
I'm dreaming of an Amiga laptop powered by the FPGA arcade...
I know some Chinese companies make hooky Mac-A-Like laptop's etc...
Surely once the Replay board is complete this dream would not be a million miles away?
Am I just dreaming here? Is this something other people would like to see?
And, back to reality!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 28, 2010, 12:20:53 PM
If you find a matching LCD + keyboard + box it sure will work. LCD is usually LVTTL or LVDS. Keyboard with small size might be worse, and a box fit for the purpose even worse.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on June 28, 2010, 02:40:02 PM
Then there is battery, battery monitoring etc.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on June 29, 2010, 08:51:41 PM
Quote from: freqmax;567740
If you find a matching LCD + keyboard + box it sure will work. LCD is usually LVTTL or LVDS. Keyboard with small size might be worse, and a box fit for the purpose even worse.
I've had the hi-res LCD/touch screen up and running with the board, there's a picture of it somewhere on the FPGAARCADE front page.
I'll stick up some pictures when I fire it up again. Looked nice! /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 30, 2010, 04:12:53 PM
@mikej, Is your on-pcb-flatscreen of LVDS type?
Regarding battery, it's not trivial.But doable. The thing about laptops is to get everything to fit inside a small box and get screen + keyboard + mousepad to align properly. Space is *tight*. Having something spread out in modules to work on the labbench is way simpler.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on June 30, 2010, 04:29:28 PM
Quote from: freqmax;568183
The thing about laptops is to get everything to fit inside a small box and get screen + keyboard + mousepad to align properly.
Sometimes I have an urge to gut a netbook and make a replacement mainboard with an FPGA :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on June 30, 2010, 04:35:58 PM
yaqube, You'r not alone.. "fine laptop there".. *Evil grin* ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: pyrre on June 30, 2010, 04:54:19 PM
Quote from: bloodline;564543
From the joysticks I've dismantled in my time autofire simply closed the joy button circuit... No special electronics at all.
Some auto-fires also had some sort of trigger circuit. (at least one joystick i had, had a trigger circuit..)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on July 01, 2010, 12:24:12 PM
Quote from: yaqube;568191
Sometimes I have an urge to gut a netbook and make a replacement mainboard with an FPGA :D
I wonder if its possible to identify a common (maybe older) laptop that would serve as a doner... Dell D600 or one of the other common Dell's maybe?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 02, 2010, 09:19:04 AM
What hinders you from identifying a donor laptop?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on July 03, 2010, 08:49:48 PM
Quote from: freqmax;568560
What hinders you from identifying a donor laptop?
I'm a programmer with over 15 years experience in many different languages... Unfortunately, I'm only a novice when it comes to playing around with the HW side of things. Especially when it's something as complicated as this.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 04, 2010, 02:39:17 AM
There's nothing that makes me love a Minimig more than playing with a real Amiga...
I've just spent my second day trying to get my towered A4000 with a Mediator4000, Deneb, PowerFlyer4000, CF Card Reader, 80GB hard drive, CD ROM, ZIP drive, Indivision, Virge Graphics card and Soundblaster all work in harmony with OS3.9 and all the little programs and drivers you have to install. I've lost count of how many times I've wiped the hard drive and started the install from scratch again.
I've finally got the Virge card working with a widescreen LCD in 800x600 24 bit mode using P96. ANything above that is "out of range". The P96 preferences says it can't find a monitor driver so I can't edit any screen modes apart from what appears in the screen mode prefs...
How long before that Minimig AGA is ready? :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 05, 2010, 07:40:45 AM
It's a 800 x 480 panel and 24 bit lvttl.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 05, 2010, 10:19:27 AM
"How long before that Minimig AGA is ready?"
Xilinx have pushed out the Spartan3 delivery again, should arrive this week. Production is scheduled for the week after, but as I haven't got the FPGAs yet they can't start kitting the job, so it may slip. One problem in Sweden is everything shuts down for a month in the summer...
I have found a production partner in China now, so after the first 60 boards the components will be sourced and assembled in China, so costs will be lower and lead times will be shorter.
I wanted to get the first ones built locally so I can see if all the bits fit - it's much easier the handle production problems when you can see the board :) /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 05, 2010, 06:01:55 PM
The Xilinx's (FPGAs) have just arrived!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on July 05, 2010, 10:21:27 PM
Quote from: mikej;569111
The Xilinx's (FPGAs) have just arrived!
Good news Mike ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on July 06, 2010, 12:12:52 AM
Party time! \o/
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 06, 2010, 02:36:17 AM
Could you make a video where you solder those FPGA chips?
Chips so cool I got to wear shades .. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 06, 2010, 05:03:08 AM
Quote from: mikej;569111
The Xilinx's (FPGAs) have just arrived!
Yay!!! :)
Meanwhile, I've got my A4000 tower looking very nice using the "Classic Workbench" download package (after much mucking about on UAE - thank got for the Deneb card and the fact that I could copy my old OS3.9 to a 8GB memory stick, patch the Classic workbench on UAE, copy it back to the stick and then transfer it to my real Amiga).
Just need to install KG's WHDload games packages now...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on July 06, 2010, 07:09:06 AM
Quote from: freqmax;569152
Could you make a video where you solder those FPGA chips?
Chips so cool I got to wear shades .. ;)
I second that, that would be great.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 06, 2010, 09:56:36 AM
Well, I can post a picture of the chip package :)
I certainly won't be soldering 60 of these, the machines will be doing that!
If I can, I'll film the production.... /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 06, 2010, 02:49:45 PM
Quote from: mikej;569194
Well, I can post a picture of the chip package :)
I certainly won't be soldering 60 of these, the machines will be doing that!
If I can, I'll film the production.... /Mike
Amigas rolling off an assembly line again... :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on July 06, 2010, 04:13:11 PM
Quote from: Darrin;569230
Amigas rolling off an assembly line again... :D
C'mon man! My A1200's are dying. Quirky keyboards, 030 cards, yellow cases, need a new A1200 class machine to compliment my MiniMIG.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 06, 2010, 04:24:52 PM
Quote from: Crom00;569235
C'mon man! My A1200's are dying. Quirky keyboards, 030 cards, yellow cases, need a new A1200 class machine to compliment my MiniMIG.
It's just a shame that there's no way to connect an existing A1200 keyboard to this new AGA Minimig as I (and I'm sure others have) an empty shell of an A1200 (containing a Keyrah) that would make a perfect case.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on July 06, 2010, 04:44:19 PM
Quote from: Darrin;569236
It's just a shame that there's no way to connect an existing A1200 keyboard to this new AGA Minimig
Yes - a real shame it is - you hear, Yaqube? :lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on July 06, 2010, 04:45:50 PM
Still on track, great!
Sooo, the Spartan 3 FPGA are discontinued I see. Did that make them cheaper? There will be a limited quantity? Would it be easy to move on to a newer kit board if need be?
Oh I'm sucha a worry wart...:lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on July 06, 2010, 04:54:20 PM
I wonder what if any affect the release of these boards will have on the price of the ACUBE minimigs? Will the ACUBE minimig prices drop, do you think?
@Mike J - great news these boards are near completion.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on July 06, 2010, 05:06:10 PM
Quote from: Darrin;569236
It's just a shame that there's no way to connect an existing A1200 keyboard to this new AGA Minimig as I (and I'm sure others have) an empty shell of an A1200 (containing a Keyrah) that would make a perfect case.
Actually I complain but the biggest issue is simply connecting the A1200 to a modern display. I use the indivision but it's a sem half assed solution as the thing even after warming up displays some glitches.
Funny enough a $90 15" LCD monitor from CVS pharmacies produces an NTSC/PAL composite flicker free display.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on July 06, 2010, 05:09:17 PM
Quote from: Crom00;569241
Funny enough a $90 15" LCD monitor from CVS pharmacies produces an NTSC/PAL composite flicker free display.
Huh, what's the brand?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: broken on July 06, 2010, 05:14:57 PM
Quote from: TheGoose;569242
Huh, what's the brand?
Same here. Wouldn't mind know about this display as well.
Especially if its a 4x3 display. Though likely its 16x9.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on July 06, 2010, 05:35:40 PM
Quote from: broken;569243
Same here. Wouldn't mind know about this display as well.
Especially if its a 4x3 display. Though likely its 16x9.
The brand is "Craig" it's a shite brand but it has the following cool features:
less than 2 lbs 15" Composite, component, VGA, Stero audio inputs. 12v powerr supply external (can run off batteries if you have the right adapters) Remote 16:9 native aspect ration 4:3 switchable. Builtin speakers just a few degrees swivel. I do live streaming and it makes for a perfect monitor in that this fits in an office cart tote along with the Tricaster and 3 HV30 cameras. This is used a a field monitor by HV30/30/40 Canon cam enhusiasts with DOF adapters.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: cicero790 on July 06, 2010, 05:39:44 PM
The LCD monitor Dell 2001FP does a decent job of displaying composite. Picked it up on the local ebay for a small sum. Perhaps something to look for. Its also one of these screens that can be tilted. Great for reading pdf's (Not with the Amiga perhaps.) Sorry for the sidetrack. Here some specs
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on July 06, 2010, 05:41:27 PM
Quote from: Crom00;569241
Actually I complain but the biggest issue is simply connecting the A1200 to a modern display. I use the indivision but it's a sem half assed solution as the thing even after warming up displays some glitches.
And what does this have to do with Minimig AGA?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: broken on July 06, 2010, 05:45:09 PM
Quote from: Crom00;569244
The brand is "Craig" it's a shite brand but it has the following cool features:
do you have the Model number handy?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on July 06, 2010, 05:53:41 PM
Quote from: kolla;569246
And what does this have to do with Minimig AGA?
Don't mean to go too far off topic but this is a realted topic when you consider the case that MiniMIG AGA is modern hardware solving the unique probelm some of us face in getting classic hardware to display on modern monitors.
Well using a MINIMIG AGA will solve these display quirks as it connects to a modern display. The whole PAL/NTSC issue North Americans face will be a thing of the past. Just make sure your monitor does 50hz VGA and you're set.
Wish I could get a SCART enabled monitor here in the usa but no luck.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on July 06, 2010, 07:11:20 PM
Or for a fraction of the price of a MiniMig AGA board (when they arrive) you could get an Indivision AGA, ECS, CD32 (or any other scandoubler). Not to mention having better compatibility in the short term.
Quote from: Crom00;569241
I use the indivision but it's a sem half assed solution as the thing even after warming up displays some glitches.
User error when you fitted it? There are now several guides on how to correctly fit the Indivision AGA and make a proper connection especially on difficult HP Lisa chips.
There are too many people using this product without problems for it to be a general problem.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on July 06, 2010, 07:32:18 PM
Quote from: alexh;569255
User error when you fitted it? There are now several guides on how to correctly fit the Indivision AGA and make a proper connection especially on difficult HP Lisa chips.
There are too many people using this product without problems for it to be a general problem.
Where are these guides?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mongo on July 06, 2010, 07:43:25 PM
Quote from: TheGoose;569238
Still on track, great!
Sooo, the Spartan 3 FPGA are discontinued I see. Did that make them cheaper? There will be a limited quantity? Would it be easy to move on to a newer kit board if need be?
Oh I'm sucha a worry wart...:lol:
Only the XC3S50 is discontinued.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on July 06, 2010, 07:51:40 PM
Quote from: mongo;569259
Only the XC3S50 is discontinued.
For those that were interested inthe CRAIG monitor: 15.6 inch Model # clc501 dc 12.v 3a power supply max36w power consumption
It's a NTSC HDTV tv too... requires aerial ant.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on July 06, 2010, 08:18:40 PM
I would be currious to know what the majority of these FPGA Arcade systems will be used for. I'm starting to wonder if the Amiga comunity will be purchasing the majority of them.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on July 06, 2010, 11:02:29 PM
Quote from: RMK305;569263
I'm starting to wonder if the Amiga comunity will be purchasing the majority of them.
Hardly a problem though, is it? :lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: JimS on July 06, 2010, 11:35:40 PM
Quote from: RMK305;569263
I would be currious to know what the majority of these FPGA Arcade systems will be used for. I'm starting to wonder if the Amiga comunity will be purchasing the majority of them.
I've been wanting to learn FPGA programming... at least to the "goofing around with it" level. The FPGA arcade board seems to me a good choice, being optimized to be an Amiga as well as other systems from that era.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on July 07, 2010, 12:41:15 AM
Can't wait to see this thing in Action, I hope it will grow to eventually replace the need for real hardware and offer a nice alternative to emulation.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 07, 2010, 02:23:59 AM
Regarding A1200 keyboard use. It's likely easy to replicate the A1200-MPU-input interface in FPGA, or in a MCU like ATtiny..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 07, 2010, 10:04:42 AM
The FPGA is a Spartan3E - these are still available. Connecting a A1200 keyboard would no problem.
Most interest in the board is actually from the arcade game community where it is used as a multigame JAMMA card - or with the vector output board as a multi-vector game which hasn't been done before, to my knowledge. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 07, 2010, 10:45:19 AM
How is the longterm availability of the Spartan-3E PQ208 chips..? Any suitable replacement in terms of price/capacity and non-BGA package?
What is the pinout of A1200 keyboard before going into that MPU?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 07, 2010, 12:31:35 PM
BGA packages are far better electrically, and they are actually easier to assemble than fine pitch QFPs. The next generation board, if I do one, will be Spartan6 and DDR2/3.
I haven't got the Amiga data with me, but if I remember correctly the keyboard is 5V, gnd and serial clock/data - so you can probably wire it up to the PS2 connector and modify the interface block which handles mouse/kb to also handle the Amiga protocol. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on July 07, 2010, 01:34:25 PM
Even though my Amiga 1200 with 68030 (with 64 meg ram) in a rack is going great, just wondering what speed this system is going to be running at?
eg would it be as fast as a 68030 50mhz or even faster?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on July 07, 2010, 01:52:56 PM
Quote from: mikej;569341
I haven't got the Amiga data with me, but if I remember correctly the keyboard is 5V, gnd and serial clock/data - so you can probably wire it up to the PS2 connector and modify the interface block which handles mouse/kb to also handle the Amiga protocol.
In case of any A600 or A1200 the keyboard is connected with a flat cable to the MCU on the mainboard. These keyboards are totally passive (simple switch matrix) but require a lot of I/O lines to handle.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 07, 2010, 02:40:42 PM
ah yes, I was thinking of the ST keyboard which has the MCU on the keyboard.
There are 30 odd IOs to the Amiga Keyboard, so you would need to wire it up to the main expansion connector if you wanted to do this. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 07, 2010, 06:06:54 PM
Quote from: mikej;569350
ah yes, I was thinking of the ST keyboard which has the MCU on the keyboard.
There are 30 odd IOs to the Amiga Keyboard, so you would need to wire it up to the main expansion connector if you wanted to do this. /Mike
So in reality, the only way we could expect to use the A1200 or A600 keyboards is if someone makes a piece of hardware to accept the keyboard ribbon and does all of the work to adapt it to a PS2 connector.
Were "big box" Amiga keyboards just as simple, or would it be easier to produce a PS2 adapter for the A1000/2000/3000/4000 keyboards?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 07, 2010, 06:20:37 PM
Just put a ATmega or any other MCU that has enought GPIO pins connected to the keyboard and it can do both keyboard matrix decoding and PS/2 communication.
Hint: This is a not a problem, 32-bit 68020 core + DDR2 handling is ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on July 07, 2010, 06:23:02 PM
Sheesh, just get a modern PS2 or USB keyboard with PS2 connector and remap the keys for an Amiga. Amigans have a way of over complicating the hell out of everything.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 07, 2010, 06:40:52 PM
Quote from: ferrellsl;569380
Sheesh, just get a modern PS2 or USB keyboard with PS2 connector and remap the keys for an Amiga. Amigans have a way of over complicating the hell out of everything.
You're missing the original point.
I use a PS2 keyboard quite nicely on my Minimig v1.1 (the minimig is actually in the keyboard).
What we're looking at is reusing old A1200 shells that are left over from tower conversions or have dead mobos and giving them a new lease of life as cases for this new Minimig.
Throwing on of these Minimigs into an A1200 case and then snaking a PS2 keyboard out of the side will look a but "funky". Bastardising the A1200 keyboard to put in a PS2 keyboard seems criminal (but might be the only option). If I go that route then I'll use a black PS2 keyboard and spray the A1200 plastic casing black to match.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: downix on July 07, 2010, 07:09:36 PM
Quote from: Darrin;569384
You're missing the original point.
I use a PS2 keyboard quite nicely on my Minimig v1.1 (the minimig is actually in the keyboard).
What we're looking at is reusing old A1200 shells that are left over from tower conversions or have dead mobos and giving them a new lease of life as cases for this new Minimig.
Throwing on of these Minimigs into an A1200 case and then snaking a PS2 keyboard out of the side will look a but "funky". Bastardising the A1200 keyboard to put in a PS2 keyboard seems criminal (but might be the only option). If I go that route then I'll use a black PS2 keyboard and spray the A1200 plastic casing black to match.
The A1200's keyboard interface is not a difficult thing to adapt to the Minimig. If there were a decent market, could make custom minimig boards. If not, can do an A1200 to PS/2 adaptor. Either way, piece of cake electronically. Anyone with 15 minutes could whip up the schematics needed based on the numberous PS2 to Amiga adaptor schematics from Aminet.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: sbeehre on July 07, 2010, 08:09:01 PM
I know id be keen on a custom Minimig AGA board which i could put into my a1200 case!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 07, 2010, 08:27:09 PM
Quote from: downix;569386
The A1200's keyboard interface is not a difficult thing to adapt to the Minimig. If there were a decent market, could make custom minimig boards. If not, can do an A1200 to PS/2 adaptor. Either way, piece of cake electronically. Anyone with 15 minutes could whip up the schematics needed based on the numberous PS2 to Amiga adaptor schematics from Aminet.
If you ever get bored then put me down for one (assuming you have a spare 15 minutes). ;)
Perhaps with more and more Minimigs getting into the hands of Amiga users then a market for these adapters will appear to the point where somebody will consider making them.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mongo on July 07, 2010, 08:58:23 PM
Quote from: downix;569386
The A1200's keyboard interface is not a difficult thing to adapt to the Minimig. If there were a decent market, could make custom minimig boards. If not, can do an A1200 to PS/2 adaptor. Either way, piece of cake electronically. Anyone with 15 minutes could whip up the schematics needed based on the numberous PS2 to Amiga adaptor schematics from Aminet.
The keyboard controller for the A1200 is not on the keyboard, it is on the motherboard. PS2 to Amiga adaptor schematics won't help you at all.
An A500 keyboard, on the other hand, would be easy to use with a MiniMig.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on July 07, 2010, 08:59:17 PM
The projects on aminet are typically about hooking PS2 keyboards to A1200s, not turning A1200 keyboards into PS2 ones. What is needed is something akin to the Keyrah, and IMO it would make perfect sense to put this on the expansion board that Yaqube is making, but I have no idea whether it is feasable or not.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 08, 2010, 01:41:12 AM
What are people willing to pay for A1200 keyboard to PS/2 adapter?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 08, 2010, 01:54:51 AM
Quote from: freqmax;569430
What are people willing to pay for A1200 keyboard to PS/2 adapter?
A Keyrah goes for $41 on AmigaKit.com, so that's a good ballpark for me.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: aperez on July 08, 2010, 02:52:04 AM
A Keyrah is hideously overpriced. The Custom-looking Motorola MPU which is on the A1200 used a bog-standard Motorola 68HC05 MCU.
See http://www.amiga-stuff.com/hardware/68hc05.html for more info.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 08, 2010, 03:03:03 AM
Quote from: aperez;569435
A Keyrah is hideously overpriced. The Custom-looking Motorola MPU which is on the A1200 used a bog-standard Motorola 68HC05 MCU.
See http://www.amiga-stuff.com/hardware/68hc05.html for more info.
Maybe, but the question was "what am I willing to pay". I was willing to pay $41 for a Keyrah, and I'd be willing to pay $41 for a A1200 keyboard ribbon to PS2 adapter. Now, what others are willing to pay is another matter.
Amigas are not a cheap hobby.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: aperez on July 08, 2010, 03:34:11 AM
In this case, the microcontroller in question can be had for £2.08
See http://uk.farnell.com/freescale-semiconductor/mc68hc705j1acpe/8bit-mcu-68hc705-dip20/dp/1200547 in the UK
These can also be purchase directly from Digikey in the US for $4/ea. See http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/1081847-ic-mcu-4mhz-1-2k-otp-20-dip-mc68hc705j1acpe.html
Whether or not the contents of the (typically flash EEPROM) could be read back is another matter.
The 68HC05C9A that Commodore employed had a mask ROM area, where their code lived. The closest part number to it is http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=68HC05C9A
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 08, 2010, 04:53:02 AM
Quote from: aperez;569439
In this case, the microcontroller in question can be had for £2.08
See http://uk.farnell.com/freescale-semiconductor/mc68hc705j1acpe/8bit-mcu-68hc705-dip20/dp/1200547 in the UK
These can also be purchase directly from Digikey in the US for $4/ea. See http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/1081847-ic-mcu-4mhz-1-2k-otp-20-dip-mc68hc705j1acpe.html
Whether or not the contents of the (typically flash EEPROM) could be read back is another matter.
The 68HC05C9A that Commodore employed had a mask ROM area, where their code lived. The closest part number to it is http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=68HC05C9A
Let me know when you have a finished product. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on July 08, 2010, 08:06:53 AM
So what sort of speed are we looking for this fpgaarcade Amiga, is it going to be as fast or faster than a 68030 at 50mhz or not? :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on July 08, 2010, 03:32:22 PM
Quote from: tasmanian guy;569453
So what sort of speed are we looking for this fpgaarcade Amiga, is it going to be as fast or faster than a 68030 at 50mhz or not? :-)
Nope it's not faster then a 030 50Mhz.
The softcore speeds are:
TG68K @ 7.09 MHz : 4.27 x A500 / 1.85 x A1200 TG68K.C @ 7.09 MHz : 5.81 x A500 / 2.52 x A1200
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 08, 2010, 03:50:16 PM
Quote from: kolla;569398
The projects on aminet are typically about hooking PS2 keyboards to A1200s, not turning A1200 keyboards into PS2 ones. What is needed is something akin to the Keyrah, and IMO it would make perfect sense to put this on the expansion board that Yaqube is making, but I have no idea whether it is feasable or not.
To be honest, I wouldn't add it to the board as some people won't want it and as a stand-alone unit it could also be used with a PC (WinUAE, etc), Minimig v1.x and the C-One. All of which equals a larger market for sales.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on July 08, 2010, 05:18:18 PM
Quote from: wizard66;569497
Nope it's not faster then a 030 50Mhz.
The softcore speeds are:
TG68K @ 7.09 MHz : 4.27 x A500 / 1.85 x A1200 TG68K.C @ 7.09 MHz : 5.81 x A500 / 2.52 x A1200
To be fair, yaqube did say he would try 14.18MHz with a memory buffer (cache?). That would be 5x A1200, which would be akin to a 70MHz '020 / 90MHz 68000.
I don't know if the A1200 speeds were with fast RAM or not, but looking at the numbers I think not.
Any more information? It's not really the most important thing, it's already ~a 45MHz 68000, which beats the old Supra28 A500 accelerator!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 08, 2010, 06:18:17 PM
It's a bit hard to say how fast it will go. The current TG68K will need to gain a simple cache in front of the DRAM to speed things up otherwise it is locked to the memory cycle time.
I have got about half way through a new 68K implementation which is table based and pipelined. It runs well at the moment, but it is not complete. It currently runs at over 40MHz with a two cycle pipeline and instruction prefetch. I am running it against the real 68K to make sure it is well behaved.
It is a background project, I'm not sure I'll ever get a chance to finish it at the moment. If I do, I will see how fast it runs on a small Virtex6 (high performance part). /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on July 08, 2010, 08:07:42 PM
Quote from: Darrin;569501
To be honest, I wouldn't add it to the board as some people won't want it and as a stand-alone unit it could also be used with a PC (WinUAE, etc), Minimig v1.x and the C-One. All of which equals a larger market for sales.
I don't quite see why anyone would object to an A600/A1200 ribbon adapter being there, but ok.
One thing there problably is a market for, is a slim case for A1200 keyboard + keyrah, like the case that came with Infinitiv towers.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tasmanian guy on July 08, 2010, 10:38:54 PM
Okay so it probably wont be as fast as a 68030 at 50mhz, but how much ram can you expand it up to? I saw the 50 meg chip ram demonstration, which could be very handy, as you can never have too much chip ram :-)
It is a pity we can't make an Amiga clone with a 68060 and PowerPC for those that have yet to cross to Amiga OS 4 cheaper than the Amiga X1000 or a Sam.
I suppose WINUAE will suffice for cpu power hungry apps. Off topic but I've just discovered Dark Basic Professional, what a great program! Reminds me of AMOS in terms of being easy to get quick results.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 09, 2010, 09:50:24 AM
The expansion board has a higher performance processor with local memory, for those who want a bit more speed... Exact spec of processor to be determined. 64MByte of RAM on the base board at the moment.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on July 09, 2010, 10:00:38 AM
Quote from: mikej;569614
The expansion board has a higher performance processor with local memory, for those who want a bit more speed... Exact spec of processor to be determined. 64MByte of RAM on the base board at the moment.
Is the onboard RAM shared Chip/Fast RAM, all Chip RAM (but faster than the Chip RAM in a Classic Amiga), or configured Chip or Fast RAM via jumpers or software?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on July 09, 2010, 10:47:37 AM
Quote from: amigadave;569615
Is the onboard RAM shared Chip/Fast RAM, all Chip RAM (but faster than the Chip RAM in a Classic Amiga), or configured Chip or Fast RAM via jumpers or software?
The SDRAM is shared as follows:
0.5 MB for ROM (will be expanded to 2 MB) 2 MB for Chip RAM 1.5 MB for Slow RAM 8 MB for Fast RAM (Zorro II area) 48 MB for EXTRA Chip RAM (may also be configured as Fast RAM)
The memory is configured by the OSD menu.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 09, 2010, 03:50:17 PM
I assume the softcore 68000 is using 32-bit adress bus?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on July 09, 2010, 04:04:41 PM
Quote from: freqmax;569643
I assume the softcore 68000 is using 32-bit adress bus?
Your assumption is correct. Otherwise there was no support for more than 16 MB of RAM.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: MarkTime on July 09, 2010, 04:11:43 PM
All classic hardware is slow by today's standards. I understand the interest in retro computing, but I don't understand going through any worry about the speed of the thing.
If I purposely bought a 386SX-16mhz machine, just for the retro experience, I wouldn't then search out a 386SX-25mhz upgrade. If I wanted more speed, I'd just buy a 3.33Ghz core i7.
So if I were going to get an AGA based Amiga, I think I'd just go with stock. In fact, insist on it . That was the most common experience with the Amiga, and I'd just enjoy that.
But beyond the users talking about speed? of the machine, for whatever reason, somehow even the developers have managed to put themselves into this curve - and more or less, in a shortened time period going through the same machinations - starting with relatively stock, getting 2x improvement on that, working on some more improvements.
What? Didn't Amithlon solve this already - don't you get 100x performance over a stock Amiga - with AGA as well?
What am I missing here?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 09, 2010, 05:31:43 PM
Quote from: yaqube;569645
Your assumption is correct. Otherwise there was no support for more than 16 MB of RAM.
OS3.9 needed a 68020 or better to run on a real Amiga, is it capable of running on this softcore CPU?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bungle on July 11, 2010, 11:06:50 PM
Whats wrong with a USB to PS2 convertor ? Then just use Keyrah ? I mean most USB keyboards you buy nowadays come with a little crappy USB to PS2 Why wouldn't that work ?
Bungle
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 13, 2010, 10:16:46 AM
The USB to PS2 "convertor" is passive, the keyboard does the prototcol switch. but yet, it should work. I'll try one. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on July 13, 2010, 12:27:32 PM
Good luck finding USB keyboards and mice that still support the PS/2 protocol.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 13, 2010, 12:37:50 PM
Microcontroller with ~30 GPIO pins that interface to the A1200 keyboard matrix and PS/2-Minimig/FPGAarcade in the other. Done!
Btw, anyone seen a non-BGA S-ATA to LVTTL/LVDS bridgechip or similar that can interface to an Xilinx Spartan FPGA ..? S-ATA = 1500 Mbit/s ; USB2 = 480 Mbit/s
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on July 13, 2010, 04:29:37 PM
Quote from: yaqube;569618
The SDRAM is shared as follows:
0.5 MB for ROM (will be expanded to 2 MB) 2 MB for Chip RAM 1.5 MB for Slow RAM 8 MB for Fast RAM (Zorro II area) 48 MB for EXTRA Chip RAM (may also be configured as Fast RAM)
The memory is configured by the OSD menu.
MikeJ stated that there is 64mb RAM on the base FPGAARCADE board. Is there also additional RAM on the expansion board? I am guessing the above breakdown of RAM is for the base board, not the expansion board.
Edit: Not that more than 64mb of RAM is needed for this type of project.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on July 13, 2010, 04:37:22 PM
Quote from: lou_dias;570137
Good luck finding USB keyboards and mice that still support the PS/2 protocol.
With the exception of high end gaming boards or ones with built in trackpads, most of the keyboards and mice I've seen in the mid to low range price spectrum still come with the green ps/2-usb converters with them.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on July 13, 2010, 04:50:33 PM
Quote from: freqmax;570140
Btw, anyone seen a non-BGA S-ATA to LVTTL/LVDS bridgechip or similar that can interface to an Xilinx Spartan FPGA ..? S-ATA = 1500 Mbit/s ; USB2 = 480 Mbit/s
You mean one of these? This board has two Samsung SATA 3G PHY's (i.e. 3000 Mbit/s too) (http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/3813/samsungsata.jpg) They are just PHY so you need your own SATA controller to program into the FPGA.
Choose a newer FPGA and you can use the RocketIO to pretend to be a SATA PHY (i.e. no extra SATA chip)
Economically though, you'd be much better off looking for a microcontroller ASIC which has both of these functions and some sort of DMA capable I/O. There are 10's of them out there.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: tonyyeb on July 13, 2010, 04:57:40 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the planned expansion board and the features of the main board, there wont be much the NatAmi will have over this, if and when it is released?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wawrzon on July 13, 2010, 05:11:53 PM
@tonyyeb as if said expansion board for the fpgaarcade was already available. this project here has also been postponed many times. while natami dev board works with an 060 the same applies to them. so dont get too excited just now.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 13, 2010, 07:01:02 PM
True, but we are on a roll now. Besides, I have parts for 60 boards in a box under my desk which is too much inventory not to get the boards made in a hurry.
I am still waiting for production :(
(The Chinese firm could do it tomorrow and I have agreed a quote for the next batch, but the parts are already in Europe so it doesn't make sense to send them back to China.)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 13, 2010, 07:09:43 PM
@alexh, What is the chip code for those?
(like XC3S400S for a certain other chip ;))
I know about RocketIO, I think one of the Xilinx FPGA even has 12 of them. For that super-raid ;), But the catch is BGA..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 14, 2010, 01:27:09 AM
Quote from: bungle;569936
Whats wrong with a USB to PS2 convertor ? Then just use Keyrah ? I mean most USB keyboards you buy nowadays come with a little crappy USB to PS2 Why wouldn't that work ?
Bungle
IIRC Jens stated that the Keyrah will not work with a USB-PS2 adapter.
I just tested it with my Minimig V1.1 using the adapter and the keyboard did not function. I then removed the adapter and plugged it into a PC PS2 port and (after loading the drivers) it worked. I'll take a guess and suggest that perhaps whatever the Keyrah needs for power to work isn't supplied over the PS2 port (remember that the Keyrah is more than just a keyboard adapter - it also supplies two Amiga joystick ports).
Either way we need something else (and should something else come along we'll also need an alternative for the now non-existant PC "F12" key).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on July 14, 2010, 01:44:01 AM
Quote from: Darrin;570216
IIRC Jens stated that the Keyrah will not work with a USB-PS2 adapter.
I just tested it with my Minimig V1.1 using the adapter and the keyboard did not function. I then removed the adapter and plugged it into a PC PS2 port and (after loading the drivers) it worked. I'll take a guess and suggest that perhaps whatever the Keyrah needs for power to work isn't supplied over the PS2 port (remember that the Keyrah is more than just a keyboard adapter - it also supplies two Amiga joystick ports).
Either way we need something else (and should something else come along we'll also need an alternative for the now non-existant PC "F12" key).
Well, supplying power shouldn't be much of an issue...
Did I miss a link to a keyrah?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 14, 2010, 02:33:56 AM
I suggest the discussion regarding A1200 keyboard, PS/2 etc.. continue here: "A1200 Keyboard to PS/2 or other interface.. (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53643)".
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on July 21, 2010, 02:57:40 PM
Hi Mike, do you have any further updates or news on the production, if not I will have to uncrate one of my samsung P&P machines and offer to do the assembly for you... :D
Quote from: mikej;570179
True, but we are on a roll now. Besides, I have parts for 60 boards in a box under my desk which is too much inventory not to get the boards made in a hurry.
I am still waiting for production :(
(The Chinese firm could do it tomorrow and I have agreed a quote for the next batch, but the parts are already in Europe so it doesn't make sense to send them back to China.)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 21, 2010, 03:52:45 PM
spans, Your physical location "may" be useful .. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on July 21, 2010, 04:24:14 PM
Quote from: freqmax;570181
But the catch is BGA..
I'll never understand why BGA is such a stigma on the bigger chips. OK, you can't really do them yourself at home in your kitchen, so why not have a pro assemble them like Mike does?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 21, 2010, 04:52:37 PM
BGA connectivity can't be verified easily without X-ray machines. Pro-production involves setup-fees, transportation delays, risk of misscommunication etc.. Even if you can outsource the job, doesn't mean it's particular convenient.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on July 21, 2010, 06:08:14 PM
Quote from: wizard66;569497
Nope it's not faster then a 030 50Mhz.
The softcore speeds are:
TG68K @ 7.09 MHz : 4.27 x A500 / 1.85 x A1200 TG68K.C @ 7.09 MHz : 5.81 x A500 / 2.52 x A1200
Hello,
where did you get those numbers ? From Tobias on A1k.org ? The TG68 seems to be twice faster than the MC68000. I had to slow it down to 3.5 MHz to make Battle Squadron runs with no graphics bugs. But, I still get Turrican II main screen animation running too fast. Maybe, I have to go down to 1.75 MHz :-).
Regards,
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 22, 2010, 02:01:11 AM
Guess TG68 ain't cycle compatible then? might be something that has to be fixed.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on July 22, 2010, 05:16:25 AM
Maybe there can be a speed step down key sequence built into the firmware in order to step down the speed of the processor on the fly for compatability. Would this be possible Yaqube and Mike J?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 22, 2010, 09:11:38 AM
trip6, Speed is not the problem. Phase alignment and in particular syncing with other signals is.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on July 22, 2010, 10:43:51 AM
BGA's can be problematic even for experienced assembliers with professional equipment, as the BGA device is covering the pads and solder area, it can be difficult to observe good quality soldering, and also the device itself, may not settle evenly or (flat) if the thermal profile is not correct, you can experience "outgassing" or "void"; which is where a bubble of gas is formed and is located inside the soldered area, so even if you have tested a BGA and it passes, there may be very weak solder joints which may fail in the near future, also briging (shorts) are also difficult to find without x-xay eqipment. If lead free solder is not cooled down fast enough after reflow it can form large grainy solder joints, again working at test, but very weak and will fail sometime, probably soon.
Repairing these faults will lead you having to re-ball the device if it is not damaged and if can be re-used, and this also has a few quirks within the process. The introduction of lead free soldering also made soldering generally more demanding, as to achieve good solderability you nornally need to take a board and components over 120 degrees C, this can be tough on the components themselves which can have a max temperature of only 150 deg C. the upshot of this is that you have to have tight controls over most processes now-er-days, especially when it is applied to BGA's.
Removing BGA's alone can be a nightmare, especially with fine pitch, and thin and delicate pads..
(falls off soap box) [ QUOTE=billt;571352]I'll never understand why BGA is such a stigma on the bigger chips. OK, you can't really do them yourself at home in your kitchen, so why not have a pro assemble them like Mike does?[/QUOTE]
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on July 25, 2010, 01:56:03 PM
It's a bit quiet here !!! any word about the production date ? This waiting is killing me ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 25, 2010, 07:57:03 PM
I think Bill McEven has some production plans.. :P ;-))
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on July 25, 2010, 08:15:49 PM
Quote from: freqmax;572037
I think Bill McEven has some production plans.. :P ;-))
Oh noooo.. LOL don't make jokes about serious stuff like this ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on July 25, 2010, 10:48:45 PM
I've been on holiday the last week, back on it end of this week. Production is moving ahead as far as I know ...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: FrenchShark on July 27, 2010, 12:27:54 AM
I have seen the board in Essen. The PCB is very small. The Minimig core runs great and the Kickstart thinks it is a 020 @ 14 MHz. Good job ! I also have a nice talk with Jakub about possible optimization. Mike can you make one with an Altera FPGA ? I do not like Xilinx tool and neither Jakub :-). BTW, Quartus II Web edition 10.0 is out and it finally runs on Linux !
Frederic
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on July 27, 2010, 02:18:23 AM
Quote from: FrenchShark;572215
I have seen the board in Essen. The PCB is very small. The Minimig core runs great and the Kickstart thinks it is a 020 @ 14 MHz. Good job ! I also have a nice talk with Jakub about possible optimization. Mike can you make one with an Altera FPGA ? I do not like Xilinx tool and neither Jakub :-). BTW, Quartus II Web edition 10.0 is out and it finally runs on Linux !
Frederic
So it will run OS3.9?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Ragoon on July 27, 2010, 10:18:50 AM
No, the TG68 does not support 68020 opcode. It has some 68020 features like the 32 bits address bus and pack/unpack instructions but it has not a 32 bits data bus and does not support new address modes.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on July 27, 2010, 11:26:39 AM
Quote from: Ragoon;572250
No, the TG68 does not support 68020 opcode. It has some 68020 features like the 32 bits address bus and pack/unpack instructions but it has not a 32 bits data bus and does not support new address modes.
That's not true. The newest TG68 core already supports all 020+ address modes and some 020+ specific instructions. It's still a work in progress and in the future it will be fully compatible with the 020 instruction set.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Ragoon on July 27, 2010, 01:48:51 PM
Quote from: yaqube;572260
That's not true. The newest TG68 core already supports all 020+ address modes and some 020+ specific instructions. It's still a work in progress and in the future it will be fully compatible with the 020 instruction set.
That's good news! Is it the Mikej's project (the 68k pipelined implementation)? So now your version supports the full extension word format. Is it compatible with one byte aligned data? Have you added a 68020's style cache to save some bus cycles?
And thank you for your contribution on the Minimig ( soon we shall call it fatmig :-) ).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on July 27, 2010, 02:02:44 PM
How much work/time is remaining on the softcore 68020 before it's workable?
Maybe 020 software doesn't really use that many 020 specific instructions?
Hope MMU / FPU softcores follows ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on July 27, 2010, 02:32:23 PM
Quote from: Ragoon;572274
Is it the Mikej's project (the 68k pipelined implementation)?
No. Mike is working on a cycle exact version of the plain 68000. The work is far from complete.
Quote
So now your version supports the full extension word format.
It's not my version. All work has been done by Tobias. I'm only testing it.
Quote
Is it compatible with one byte aligned data?
Not yet.
Quote
Have you added a 68020's style cache to save some bus cycles?
It's on the way. Should be done soon. The plan is to get double 4-way set associative (so like a 040 or 060) burst enabled snooping cache.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on July 27, 2010, 02:37:42 PM
Quote from: freqmax;572276
How much work/time is remaining on the softcore 68020 before it's workable?
The answer is unknown (or maybe the answer is 42 :D).
Quote
Maybe 020 software doesn't really use that many 020 specific instructions?
It strictly depends on the software. It's already possible to run some 020 specific programs.
Quote
Hope MMU / FPU softcores follows ;)
Unfortunately there is no such plan.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: balrogsoft on July 30, 2010, 01:33:58 PM
Hi.
I'm considering to buy a minimig, but after seen fpgarcade, it's a awesome project!, i read some pages of this huge post, but i have some questions, when fpgarcade will be available? will be mounted (my soldering skills are bad) and what will be the price expected?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: brianb on July 30, 2010, 04:28:24 PM
Quote from: balrogsoft;572715
Hi.
I'm considering to buy a minimig, but after seen fpgarcade, it's a awesome project!, i read some pages of this huge post, but i have some questions, when fpgarcade will be available? will be mounted (my soldering skills are bad) and what will be the price expected?
It will be available sometime in the future ;-) , the boards will be populated (at least the surface mount stuff), and no price has been mentioned AFAIK.
The project has been kind of slow but i don't believe it's vaporware. Just a pet project they work on when time permits. Doesn't help it's a pretty ambitious project...
It is a very interesting project and hopefully something may materialize later this year...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 02, 2010, 04:04:02 PM
Back from holiday so I will harass the production company. It's certainly talking longer than I expected, but we are in the home straight now. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on August 02, 2010, 05:07:16 PM
Have you determined a price yet? Have all of the first run boards been spoken for?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on August 21, 2010, 09:44:37 AM
Hey Mike... Any news?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 22, 2010, 10:27:37 PM
I'm talking to another couple of SMD assembly companies here trying to get a slot. It's daft, I could get 100+ made tomorrow in China, but I have the prototype parts at home and I need to get the first 10 then 50 made to prove the board is ok. It is frustrating. I can't finalize a price either until the assembly costs are nailed down - it is really really expensive to set this up. Again, as soon as I know you guys will know. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on August 22, 2010, 10:40:03 PM
Well Mike having tried to do a run of MiniMigs you have my support. Will buy one for sure when it's available.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on August 22, 2010, 10:47:38 PM
Sorry to hear that you are having such troubles with the production where you are. It is sad that it is so much cheaper and easier (for the most part) to have it done in China. Just another step in making the rest of us just consumers and the producers are all in other countries. Where is that going to lead all of us I am afraid to think about.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 22, 2010, 11:18:55 PM
Replay RevB Pricing.
The exchange rates are all over the place, and until I get production scheduled and the boards in my hand these prices are subject to change.
The NRE costs for production are much higher than I expected, so I have to recover some of these costs over the first 50 boards.
So, the full card (with SVHS/Composite out) is looking like 220Euro today. The "light" card without SVHS/composite is 200Euro. Thats about the same as a Minimig with the memory upgrade, and what I've been saying all along.
The bad news is I have to pay sales tax here on the first boards, so thats an additional 25%. I'll include a EU plug power supply for the first 50 boards :)
Being totally honest up-front, boards after the first 50 will be at least 25% cheaper and sales tax will be payable on import if you are outside the EU so thats another 25%.
From the quotes I've been getting from China we should be able to get down to 150 Euros for the fully loaded board for production quantities, assuming there is enough interest after the first 50.
I have all the parts for the first 50 so they are going to happen for sure, after that I'll set up a list - if we get to 50 or more we'll do another run.
I'll mail all of you who have expressed an interested with a firm price when the board is finally ready for shipping.
Let me know what you think. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on August 22, 2010, 11:31:10 PM
Well within acceptable price range for me at least :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Lizard on August 22, 2010, 11:50:04 PM
Also acceptable for me. Can't wait to get one. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Lando on August 23, 2010, 12:42:45 AM
150 Euros is a great price, a definite must-have purchase.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on August 23, 2010, 06:36:36 AM
Price is well within the acceptable range... I'd be happy with either the first run or a later one.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on August 23, 2010, 06:58:51 AM
Hi Mike,
I send the parts of to china with DHL express (shiping cost divided over the forst 50 board). You can get the boards there for around 150€ thats a lot cheaper then in europe. And the production can start tomorrow you say ;-)
I think this is quicker and cheaper, but I will be in for one if you decision is to produce it localy.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 23, 2010, 08:53:05 AM
True, but I don't want to commit all the parts for 50 boards without testing a few first. Locally, I can get 10 made, test them and hopefully build the rest immediately.
If I got everything set up in China (set up cost is more expensive, per board cost a lot cheaper) then if there was a pcb issue I would have 50 scrap PCBs and have to pay the NRE again to fix the issue.
Cheers, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on August 23, 2010, 09:01:09 AM
Sorry to hear you are having problems, it must be very frustrating to say the least... All of the prices you have quoted here are well within my budget... I just blew 90 euro's on an ARM controller for my minimig to tide me over till this baby's ready! :crazy:
I get the impression that everybody on this thread is sat on the edge of their seats in anticipation. I for one can't wait!
Keep pushing on!
Quote from: mikej;575723
Replay RevB Pricing.
The exchange rates are all over the place, and until I get production scheduled and the boards in my hand these prices are subject to change.
The NRE costs for production are much higher than I expected, so I have to recover some of these costs over the first 50 boards.
So, the full card (with SVHS/Composite out) is looking like 220Euro today. The "light" card without SVHS/composite is 200Euro. Thats about the same as a Minimig with the memory upgrade, and what I've been saying all along.
The bad news is I have to pay sales tax here on the first boards, so thats an additional 25%. I'll include a EU plug power supply for the first 50 boards :)
Being totally honest up-front, boards after the first 50 will be at least 25% cheaper and sales tax will be payable on import if you are outside the EU so thats another 25%.
From the quotes I've been getting from China we should be able to get down to 150 Euros for the fully loaded board for production quantities, assuming there is enough interest after the first 50.
I have all the parts for the first 50 so they are going to happen for sure, after that I'll set up a list - if we get to 50 or more we'll do another run.
I'll mail all of you who have expressed an interested with a firm price when the board is finally ready for shipping.
Let me know what you think. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on August 23, 2010, 10:05:27 AM
Quote from: mikej;575723
Let me know what you think. /Mike
Sounds good to me.
Thanks for all the hard work Mike, and also a big thanks to Jakub and all the other people involved in this project.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Asinine Monkey on August 23, 2010, 10:57:16 AM
Quote from: mikej;575723
Let me know what you think. /Mike
Given what I've spent on a "new" Amiga 1200, and all the associated bits I've since bought for it, your estimated price is more than acceptable. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on August 23, 2010, 11:05:06 AM
Not sure if I will be able to afford one of the first 50, or if I will have to wait and hope that a second run will happen at a reduced price later. All depends on how my eBay auctions for Amiga gear go during the next two to four weeks. I also need to start saving money for the AmiWest 2010 Show trip in Oct.
But you can bet I will be doing everything I can to get one of these asap. Great project Mike, hope everything works out for you very soon.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikealex on August 23, 2010, 11:18:57 AM
Hello Mike! Chiming in just to say I would be interested in the second batch of boards. It's really an amazing project and I'm happy to see it coming to fruition. Thanks a lot for your hard work Mike.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on August 23, 2010, 11:21:10 AM
Hi Mike, very keen to support you in any way that I can, yes please put me down for one of the 1st or 2nd batch runs Sir!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on August 23, 2010, 11:49:02 AM
Quote from: mikej;575781
True, but I don't want to commit all the parts for 50 boards without testing a few first. Locally, I can get 10 made, test them and hopefully build the rest immediately.
If I got everything set up in China (set up cost is more expensive, per board cost a lot cheaper) then if there was a pcb issue I would have 50 scrap PCBs and have to pay the NRE again to fix the issue.
Cheers, Mike
Fair enough, I can see this problem, nobody wants to waste 50 boards ;-) Just make the board localy then the prize looks okey for me. I don't mind spent the extra euro's for the first batch. (I JUST GOT TO HAVE IT) Heat up the solder irons. :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Greg.0 on August 25, 2010, 04:59:50 PM
Hi Mike, Hi All,
I watched the wrong thread until now : http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35270&page=17
So the price for one of the 50 first run boards should be 200€ (Without Video Out) + 50€ for a EU sale with shipping and power supply ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on August 25, 2010, 08:12:56 PM
Maybe 1-2 boards could be made locally at higher cost to iron out any layout bugs ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 25, 2010, 10:09:58 PM
As things stand today, correct - although shipping is additional. Within the EU it is not much, the board is very small and light ;) /Mike
Quote from: Greg.0;576224
Hi Mike, Hi All,
I watched the wrong thread until now : http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35270&page=17
So the price for one of the 50 first run boards should be 200€ (Without Video Out) + 50€ for a EU sale with shipping and power supply ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: DyLucke on August 26, 2010, 12:15:04 AM
I'll wait to see one in order to decide if i should buy it or not. I hope somebody will hang some videos on the web about what is Minimig AGA capable.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 26, 2010, 10:01:55 PM
Good news, looks like I have found a company which can build these quite soon...I'll keep you posted. /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Richard42 on August 26, 2010, 10:21:47 PM
Hi Mike; I emailed you a few weeks ago about this project. I have cash sitting in the bank waiting for the availability of this gadget. :) I would actually really like to get involved with some FPGA development myself, but just have no time at this point in my life.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on August 27, 2010, 12:32:02 AM
@mikej, In what country?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Rod_cl on August 27, 2010, 04:08:25 AM
I would like one board... Would you ship one to Chile?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on August 27, 2010, 05:16:35 AM
Can't wait. So it's a double speed+ A1200 in a Mini-itx board? Keep us posted if you have any of the first batch left over.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 27, 2010, 09:16:36 AM
Quote from: Rod_cl;576430
I would like one board... Would you ship one to Chile?
I'll ship anywhere. The proto's (54) will be built in Scandinavia so I can assist with any issues. After that we'll see. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: gaula92 on August 27, 2010, 11:04:42 AM
@Mikej: I'm very interested on the FPGAARCADE board, but... will it be mass-produced after those protos are sold and tested? Or should I get a proto, just in case?
regards
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on August 27, 2010, 12:48:23 PM
Prototypes Qty < 5 54 sounds like production.. :P
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on August 27, 2010, 01:20:15 PM
Quote from: freqmax;576470
Prototypes Qty < 5 54 sounds like production.. :P
Think BIG, live LARGE! :D
With Xmas coming up, a large batch produced at "bulk quantity" prices could be an attractive stocking stuffer if they could find a way around the Kickstart ROM issue and bundled it with a bunch of the "free" games (Cinemaware's stuff, etc).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Clyborg on August 27, 2010, 04:37:19 PM
I want one!
Jason
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on August 27, 2010, 04:52:55 PM
Time to find some more spending money as I want one of these!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: motrucker on August 27, 2010, 05:24:51 PM
I see some of my old classic Amiga stuff is going to hit the auction block - I want one of these too!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on August 27, 2010, 06:01:16 PM
Quote from: Darrin;576474
Think BIG, live LARGE! :D
With Xmas coming up, a large batch produced at "bulk quantity" prices could be an attractive stocking stuffer if they could find a way around the Kickstart ROM issue and bundled it with a bunch of the "free" games (Cinemaware's stuff, etc).
My consideration is mainly that any PCB layout bugs, presuming components are OK. If there is any layout mismatch even simple things like footprints. Then correcting 54 boards by hand is no easy task.... Thats why I think no more than 5 should be produced initially to make sure gerbers, pcb manufacture process and components are up to the job. Also things like heat issues, interference, stability etc.. may also screw up things.
Real production starts in the quantity of 1000s of boards. That's the usual minimum quantity to buy directly from manufacturers.
The kickstart-ROM I guess will have to be "found" by users ;), the alternative is to make a clone that present the same API, fits the ROM size, is bit-bang compatible at certain addresses, and runs on 68000/68020.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on August 27, 2010, 06:45:59 PM
Quote from: freqmax;576520
The kickstart-ROM I guess will have to be "found" by users ;), the alternative is to make a clone that present the same API, fits the ROM size, is bit-bang compatible at certain addresses, and runs on 68000/68020.
I wouldn't be surprised to find some sort of torrent file posted containing all you need to extract to the SD Card to get a kick-bottom games collection and Hard File along with any other necessary ROMs/Cores/etc. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on August 27, 2010, 07:05:42 PM
Actually a BSD licensed AmigaOS clone that can run natively on 68000 would be really useful for a project like this.
It should have the same binary API, fit the same ROM area as the original, and implement certain sections such that some bitbang tricks will still work.
There really is a need for both v1.3 compatible w 68000, and v3.x compatible w 68020.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on August 27, 2010, 07:07:57 PM
I have a couple techy questions about the FPGA Arcade board.
What FPGA doe sit use?(Sorry if I missed that)
Do you have any external signal connections in place for self-reconfiguration? I know some FPGAs have an internal system for this, but for example Spartan3 was not internal, the SelectMAP group of pins must be connected to other programmable I/Os by PCB design. I think Virtexes and Spartan6 do this internal to chip, not sure what Altera and other brands have as equivalent. Just curious.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on August 27, 2010, 07:24:08 PM
Quote from: freqmax;576528
Actually a BSD licensed AmigaOS clone that can run natively on 68000 would be really useful for a project like this.
It should have the same binary API, fit the same ROM area as the original, and implement certain sections such that some bitbang tricks will still work.
There really is a need for both v1.3 compatible w 68000, and v3.x compatible w 68020.
Why BSD licensed? Other than that, the goals for AROS fits the bill, but the M68k port is not up to date and needs quite a bit of work before it'd be suitable, and the binary compatibility isn't there yet, but at least most of the AmigaOS API is implemented.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on August 27, 2010, 07:26:22 PM
Quote from: freqmax;576520
The kickstart-ROM I guess will have to be "found" by users ;),
Or they can just buy Amiga Forever.
And I'm sure Cloanto would be open to a deal with Mike to have it pre-installed if their license allows them to do that.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on August 27, 2010, 07:47:49 PM
Quote from: vidarh;576532
Or they can just buy Amiga Forever.
That prompts for a question, for yaqube I suppose - will the minimig core for FPGAArcade support cloanto's keyfile?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 27, 2010, 11:34:22 PM
Quote from: freqmax;576520
My consideration is mainly that any PCB layout bugs, presuming components are OK. If there is any layout mismatch even simple things like footprints. Then correcting 54 boards by hand is no easy task....
10 boards are built first. If they check out ok then the remaining boards are built while the SMD machines are still configured.
The differences to the RevA board are fairly small and I have already checked out all the footprints for the new bits (I have the PCB in front of me). The RevB board was always designed to be a low-risk change from the RevA...hopefully.
MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 27, 2010, 11:36:46 PM
Quote from: billt;576529
I have a couple techy questions about the FPGA Arcade board.
What FPGA doe sit use?(Sorry if I missed that)
.
It's a Xilinx Spartan3e 1600. It can re-configure itself by talking to the ARM controller which will reload it from the SD card.
/MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: pampers on August 27, 2010, 11:51:40 PM
Sorry if that was mentioned before but will that board have a 68020 emulation as well? Does it depend on hw of sw side of minimig?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on August 28, 2010, 07:33:19 AM
Quote from: kolla;576533
That prompts for a question, for yaqube I suppose - will the minimig core for FPGAArcade support cloanto's keyfile?
The keyfile just needs to be eor'd byte for byte with the kickstart, so it'd be easy to support, but it's just as easy to do so with a tiny script.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on August 31, 2010, 09:32:34 PM
Good news.
The solder paste stencils have been ordered. These are expensive and needed for real production. The placement machines are being programmed.... /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Brosol on August 31, 2010, 11:49:11 PM
How well would Mp3 playing be on the FPGA Arcade board...eg CPU usage, etc
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on September 01, 2010, 12:53:27 AM
It's a shame one of the few remaining Amiga 'players' aren't involved with this promising product (eg AmigaKit, ACube, Vesalia, Jens) to get it out quickly and market it properly.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on September 01, 2010, 03:05:16 AM
At least Jens has his own A-Clone in, so his interest may be affected ;)
The FpgaArcade board is not ready yet anyway. Like Minimig were at its release.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on September 01, 2010, 03:25:26 AM
Isn't the Clone A project retired? I thought I remember reading there were some legal issues? So is anyone going to find out if Amiga Inc still exists or if they own the Amiga chipset and OS?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on September 01, 2010, 09:08:00 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;576986
It's a shame one of the few remaining Amiga 'players' aren't involved with this promising product (eg AmigaKit, ACube, Vesalia, Jens) to get it out quickly and market it properly.
I have been approached by several distributors actually.
They don't add any value at the moment, until the design is complete and stable there is no point marketing it - there is quite enough vapor-ware in this industry already. I'm not interested until we have a product.
There is no problem ramping this to high volume production once we have the prototypes.
It is a generic platform, so next we have to decide what platforms will be available at launch. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: slestebe on September 07, 2010, 11:33:05 PM
Price is not a problem for me. I want one.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on September 08, 2010, 12:14:15 AM
@mikej
Sorry for using a cliché, but kudos for keeping it real - the last thing this project needs at this point is hype :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on September 27, 2010, 02:43:55 PM
Hi All, just a quick question, Hi Mike, have any of the boards been produced yet, very keen to see one in action for real??
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on September 27, 2010, 07:52:23 PM
Should happen this week. The missing connector I have been waiting ages for arrived today.
I am packing the kit of components now. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on September 27, 2010, 07:54:23 PM
Quote from: mikej;581573
Should happen this week. The missing connector I have been waiting ages for arrived today.
I am packing the kit of components now. /Mike
Good news. This is going to be a long week. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on September 28, 2010, 02:07:54 PM
Soldering-iron-hell? :P
Cookies in the oven..;) http://circuitbox.net/electronics/reflow/
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on September 28, 2010, 08:38:37 PM
Quote from: mikej;581573
Should happen this week. The missing connector I have been waiting ages for arrived today.
I am packing the kit of components now. /Mike
The Stress is killing me ;-) Nice going MikeJ. We all look out to your product.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yssing on September 28, 2010, 11:53:17 PM
One word should be enough..WOW!!
This is going to be great.. :) Really great.. This is the next thing for me to buy. gotta stop spending money on ebay.. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on September 29, 2010, 01:53:10 PM
OMG, better start being really really good to the wife, and checkout interflora ...lol
Great work Mike, just sorting a desk out now, not that I am keen or anything!
Quote from: mikej;581573
Should happen this week. The missing connector I have been waiting ages for arrived today.
I am packing the kit of components now. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: fishy_fiz on September 29, 2010, 02:39:56 PM
Im sure this has been covered many times already, but Ive only casually been following minimig. Hypothetically if I bought one today, what would I have in amiga terms ? Are the currently available systems ocs/ecs still, or is aga available to the end user already ? Also, I see on Amigakits site there's mention of a 50mhz mode ? I was actually under the impression the cpu was a "real" 68000 cpu? Long story short, Im interested in a minimig, but impatient :) What would I lose if I bought one today vs. waiting for (going by this thread what appears to be) a new version? Also, what upgrade options are availalbe, both now, and planned in the future ? Thanks.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on September 29, 2010, 04:01:32 PM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;581885
What would I lose if I bought one today vs. waiting for (going by this thread what appears to be) a new version? Also, what upgrade options are availalbe, both now, and planned in the future ? Thanks.
The FPGA Arcade board has a lot of benefits compared to the traditional Minimig PCB. Larger capacity FPGA, so it can hold more stuff. I think it has a larger video DAC for true AGA to the monitor, I think Minimig only has outputs for ECS color to the monitor. (more digital RGB to the DAC than Minimig) For that matter, Minimig looks to have a VGA port, FPGA Arcade looks like DVI. Hopefully the digital DVI stuff is connected to something too. Sounds like FPGA Arcade will have cores for other platforms as well, I'm nto sure if Minimig has anything other than Amiga core. It sounds like Yacube is waiting for FPGA Arcade release before he releases his AGA extension to Minimig.
If it was me, I'd wait for an FPGA Arcade board.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on September 29, 2010, 04:50:57 PM
@MikeJ,
Any chance that you can attend AmiWest 2010 Show in Sacramento this Oct. to show the FPGA Arcade board running (assuming that you will have a few boards running by then)? It is going to be a great show and would be even better if you could be there showing everyone your work.
I hope you can attend. I would love to see an FPGA Arcade board in person, running the Minimig AGA core & some games and other apps.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on September 29, 2010, 05:02:02 PM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;581885
Im sure this has been covered many times already, but Ive only casually been following minimig. Hypothetically if I bought one today, what would I have in amiga terms ? Are the currently available systems ocs/ecs still, or is aga available to the end user already ?
You need to wait for the FPGA Arcade (or Natami) for AGA.
Quote
Also, I see on Amigakits site there's mention of a 50mhz mode ? I was actually under the impression the cpu was a "real" 68000 cpu?
It's a Freescale (formely Motorola Semiconductor) 68000 model (don't remember which exact version), so yes, it's a real one. But it can be clocked much higher than the measly 7.16MHz of the early Amigas. The speedup in real terms isn't as dramatic as the MHz speedup sounds, as AFAIK it's still hamstrung by the memory architecture and the fact it's still a 68000 (e.g. lots more cycles for a lot of stuff than an equivalently clocked of the other chips in the family).
You effectively get a somewhat souped up A500 with no expandability to speak off. It's a great little thing to have, but it depends what you want it for. If you want to run A500 games in the living room, it's perfect (I have mine hooked up to a 42" LED TV - perfect for Lotus Turbo Challenge :) ). If you want a replacement for an AGA machine or any big box Amiga with typical expansions it's not really suitable.
I'd hold off at least a little bit, though, to see what reactions are to the FPGA Arcade. Or be prepared to buy both...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: fishy_fiz on September 29, 2010, 05:04:41 PM
Thanks for the response, but the thing is I have no interest in other cores. My only interest in minimig (or similar) is in having new "amiga" hardware. I have no classic system at the moment and am right now in the process of trying to buy one, but as Im sure a lot of you are aware classic amiga gear isnt really available in large supplies, which is why minimig is currently on my radar. Additionally all I really need is something akin to a moderately upgraded system ('020 + fast type speeds or thereabouts, more would be nice, but not essential). AGA would be preferable, but not absolutely necessary. I guess another big factor for me is it's pretty much now, or never. I wont have the money in a few weeks, so I want something now, or in the very near future. Also, being that almost without fail when I consider pointing out things, but decide against it, the thing Im thinking gets suggested, I should point out that I want a dedicated "amiga" system, so UAE or it's variants wont fill the gap for me (already have amithlon + aros machines, so I can run amiga software, it's just not what Im chasing).
edit: between the time I first started typing the post and finishing it another response came along that clarified things, so unless anyone wanted to elaborate and/or fill any gaps in info they think are missing, the info I was looking for has been given to me. Thank you to those that helped me here :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on September 29, 2010, 05:09:46 PM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;581907
Additionally all I really need is something akin to a moderately upgraded system ('020 + fast type speeds or thereabouts, more would be nice, but not essential). AGA would be preferable, but not absolutely necessary.
I guess another big factor for me is it's pretty much now, or never. I wont have the money in a few weeks, so I want something now, or in the very near future.
From the sounds of it, Minimig really isn't suitable for you, I think - chances are you'll find it too slow and limited. FPGA Arcade sounds like a better fit if you can hang in there a bit longer...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on September 29, 2010, 06:26:49 PM
The current gate setup will provide a 32-bit 68000 and AGA. So souped up A500. But if you look into the details, you get ~50 MB ramdisc. And most importantly it's possible to take the programmer software (Xilinx ISE) and make it 68020 + 32-bit AGA without any hardware changes.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on September 29, 2010, 06:32:19 PM
Have we discussed what the sound will be like on this thing? How the Paula is reinterpreted? Seems all the excitement is focused on AGA.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on September 29, 2010, 06:38:51 PM
There isnt any sound :)
I would imagine if its running the minimig core it will be very similair to that
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on September 30, 2010, 11:02:57 AM
Not quite. The board has a high quality Wolson DAC (WM8729) with a decent analogue supply. This supports 192KHz at 24 bit audio.
The core is modified to drive the DAC, and will be expanded later for more bit-depth hopefully. Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on September 30, 2010, 06:39:16 PM
Ok, that sounds like some audio love, hope it works out good.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on October 01, 2010, 01:25:09 AM
Quote from: mikej;582052
Not quite. The board has a high quality Wolson DAC (WM8729) with a decent analogue supply. This supports 192KHz at 24 bit audio.. Mike
Mmm a 24bit Paula to go with the new chunky and HAM10 modes would be lovely.
Then all we need is someone to hack (patch) the OS to take advantage of the updated hardware features ;)
I know, I know......one day.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: minator on October 01, 2010, 01:46:58 AM
Quote from: mikej;582052
Not quite. The board has a high quality Wolson DAC (WM8729) with a decent analogue supply. This supports 192KHz at 24 bit audio.
The core is modified to drive the DAC, and will be expanded later for more bit-depth hopefully. Mike
I'm wondering how will this compare with the original.
I don't know exactly how Commodore did it but I assume the Amiga had 4 DACs. However these were not fixed frequency, they would have ran at the frequency of the sampling output which was variable. Then there's analogue effects of the output and any filtering to consider.
How are you getting around that?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 01, 2010, 08:44:33 AM
Essentially we model the analog mixing and filtering digitially in the FPGA now. For now, the four outputs are multiplied together, a simple low pass digital filter applied and then clocked out to the DAC at a fixed sampling frequency.
You can stop and start the data clock to the DAC, so I can send a new sample whenever the Amiga values are updated - so we can approximate the timing of the original DAC.
This will be something which is improved over time, both in new features and more closely emulating the original output. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 05, 2010, 09:53:46 PM
The PCB assembler just sent me this :
"I am actually preparing the setup on the pick&place tonight. It's almost done, as I have all the component packages in the vision library already. So when I get the packet with the components, I'll be ready to load the feeders and start the production. From the optimization process, it looks like approx 6 minutes assembly per board, on the slowest of my machines. I will most likely run the boards on friday, and I will shoot a little video of the process"
The components seem to be taking quite a while to get there, but hopefully tomorrow. I'll post a video of the assembly when I get it.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on October 05, 2010, 09:57:45 PM
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 05, 2010, 11:31:03 PM
Quote from: mikej;583107
The PCB assembler just sent me this :
"I am actually preparing the setup on the pick&place tonight. It's almost done, as I have all the component packages in the vision library already. So when I get the packet with the components, I'll be ready to load the feeders and start the production. From the optimization process, it looks like approx 6 minutes assembly per board, on the slowest of my machines. I will most likely run the boards on friday, and I will shoot a little video of the process"
The components seem to be taking quite a while to get there, but hopefully tomorrow. I'll post a video of the assembly when I get it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on October 07, 2010, 11:14:04 AM
Whoohoo!
Is it Friday yet? ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on October 07, 2010, 03:49:37 PM
Nice Going looks like the boards are comming to live this week ;-) I hope the production run of the first 10 boards go without any problems. My cash is burning a hole in my pocket, I realy look forward to this board. Keep up the good work MikeJ...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on October 07, 2010, 04:31:31 PM
Best of luck with this! It's getting to the exciting stage. Looking forward to the photos of the board running something AGA!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Greg.0 on October 07, 2010, 05:03:05 PM
It's really impressive to see a video of the assembly. I remember that for the 1541 Ultimate of Gideon Z.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 07, 2010, 08:00:04 PM
Everything has arrived at the production site, so they should be built tomorrow... Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on October 07, 2010, 08:46:52 PM
Great news. I look forward to seeing these board running. Just out of interest, what has the response been like from other communities? This now feels more like an Amiga product than anything else.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 07, 2010, 08:51:12 PM
I do post here more than other groups, but the interest has been high from the Atari and arcade game bunch as well.
oh, If you haven't been yet, visit my mates page http://www.harryfew.com
I put a link on the fpgaarcade page and he is very excited to go from 2 hits a month to hundreds a day :)
He lives in China and is helping me with sourcing there. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 07, 2010, 08:58:26 PM
Quote from: mikej;583466
I do post here more than other groups, but the interest has been high from the Atari and arcade game bunch as well.
oh, If you haven't been yet, visit my mates page http://www.harryfew.com
I put a link on the fpgaarcade page and he is very excited to go from 2 hits a month to hundreds a day :)
He lives in China and is helping me with sourcing there. /Mike
One thing we keep forgetting is the other cores that will be available/developed. What's the situation with them?
(I've given Harry another hit) :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on October 07, 2010, 10:32:29 PM
@Greg.0, where is the assembly video of fpgaarcade?
As for cores I only know of 32-bit address 68000 and AGA with 16-bit interface to CPU. My guess is 68020 or better and full 32-bit AGA might be a first "next project". Then there are all those nonimplemented chipsets to clone.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on October 07, 2010, 10:36:26 PM
@MikeJ,
Is there any chance that you will have a finished and running FPGAARCADE board available to demo at the AmiWest 2010 Show in Sacramento, CA in two weeks?
This year's show is going to be the biggest show they have ever had. They are trying to find ways to make more room for the banquet dinner seating to accommodate the number of people that want to attend.
It would be great if you could be there to show off your work, or if that is impossible, find someone else that could show it for you and ship a board to them. I am sure it will be a great hit at the show and it seems that you are getting it finished just in time.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on October 07, 2010, 10:57:59 PM
Quote from: amigadave;583482
@MikeJ,
Is there any chance that you will have a finished and running FPGAARCADE board available to demo at the AmiWest 2010 Show in Sacramento, CA in two weeks?
This year's show is going to be the biggest show they have ever had. They are trying to find ways to make more room for the banquet dinner seating to accommodate the number of people that want to attend.
It would be great if you could be there to show off your work, or if that is impossible, find someone else that could show it for you and ship a board to them. I am sure it will be a great hit at the show and it seems that you are getting it finished just in time.
I'd second that....it would be one of the stars of the show if it could make it there :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 08, 2010, 01:26:39 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;583487
I'd second that....it would be one of the stars of the show if it could make it there :)
I bet they could raffle it and send Mike a cheque for a tidy sum instead of mailing it back. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 08, 2010, 08:00:37 AM
Quote from: freqmax;583480
@Greg.0, where is the assembly video of fpgaarcade?
As for cores I only know of 32-bit address 68000 and AGA with 16-bit interface to CPU. My guess is 68020 or better and full 32-bit AGA might be a first "next project". Then there are all those nonimplemented chipsets to clone.
We have an enhanced version of the T68 core which has 32 bit IO and many 68020 enhancements. I also have my own CPU project which is bouncing along nicely. The video doesn't exist just yet, hopefully later today. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 08, 2010, 08:02:08 AM
I will be in China again next week. If the board gets here before I leave again then I can test it. If it all works out, it is possible.
I agree it would be great but the timing is tight. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Greg.0 on October 08, 2010, 09:27:51 AM
@freqmax, I'm waiting patiently for the video too ! Sorry for the misunderstanding. I talked about this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxX-aabjl94&p=8DE05C0F2C5ED845&playnext=1&index=19). (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxX-aabjl94&p=8DE05C0F2C5ED845&playnext=1&index=19)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on October 08, 2010, 11:56:44 AM
@mikej, "many 68020 enhancements" enough to make it run 020 code without hickups?
Deep pipelenes, giant cache etc.. has to be a later problem ;) Btw, one could possible use the onboard DRAM as L1/L2 cache as the speeds are enough I suspect.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 08, 2010, 12:39:42 PM
Quote from: freqmax;583569
@mikej, "many 68020 enhancements" enough to make it run 020 code without hickups?
Deep pipelenes, giant cache etc.. has to be a later problem ;) Btw, one could possible use the onboard DRAM as L1/L2 cache as the speeds are enough I suspect.
As long as OS3.9/Classic Workbench AGA runs on it then I'll be happy. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on October 08, 2010, 01:05:28 PM
Does all versions of AmigaOS 3.x run on 68000 or is a more capable cpu required?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 08, 2010, 01:11:00 PM
Quote from: freqmax;583576
Does all versions of AmigaOS 3.x run on 68000 or is a more capable cpu required?
3.5 and 3.9 require a 68020 or better.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on October 08, 2010, 02:09:14 PM
So I guess the litmustest of the softcore cpu is if it can run AmigaOS 3.9..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Methanoid on October 12, 2010, 10:25:44 AM
No serial ports? How will I use this to put my old BBS back online :(
Looks awesome though and use of ITX profile (half sized ITX) is a smart move. Many cases available straight away.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on October 12, 2010, 10:30:32 AM
Quote from: Methanoid;584197
No serial ports? How will I use this to put my old BBS back online :(
USB->Serial adapter.
:)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 12, 2010, 10:32:10 AM
There is a 9 pin RS232 serial port on the back of the board, connected to the ARM and the FPGA with a jumper. It is really intended for ARM software debug, but can be cabled out to the back panel if needed. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Methanoid on October 12, 2010, 07:44:44 PM
Quote from: mikej;584200
There is a 9 pin RS232 serial port on the back of the board, connected to the ARM and the FPGA with a jumper. It is really intended for ARM software debug, but can be cabled out to the back panel if needed. /Mike
OK, add me to the long list of people who wanna buy one. I'll try very hard not to ask "when can I buy one".... but I might fail ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 19, 2010, 04:21:03 AM
Well, sadly the board will not make it to AmiWest. I'm in Taiwan at the moment and I didn't receive the boards back from production before I left. In fact they have been very quiet so I'm a bit concernced.
I'll have to send the boys round when I get back ... /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on October 19, 2010, 05:50:51 AM
So you didn't order a particle accelerated quantum computer? lol
Okay seriously, looking forward to one and I'm very patient.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on October 19, 2010, 06:29:04 AM
Quote from: mikej;585634
Well, sadly the board will not make it to AmiWest. I'm in Taiwan at the moment and I didn't receive the boards back from production before I left. In fact they have been very quiet so I'm a bit concernced.
I'll have to send the boys round when I get back ... /Mike
That's a shame, oh well....hopefully we'll see them soon :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on October 19, 2010, 08:34:45 AM
Quote from: mikej;583552
We have an enhanced version of the T68 core which has 32 bit IO and many 68020 enhancements. I also have my own CPU project which is bouncing along nicely. The video doesn't exist just yet, hopefully later today. /Mike
Since you will not be able to show the FPGA Arcade at the AmiWest 2010 Show this weekend, perhaps you can convince the organizers of the show to play your soon to be finished video during the show on one of the two display screens at each end of the hall?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on October 19, 2010, 10:05:42 AM
Use a generic FPGA development board. Then it's possible show the AGA features at least?
And there's one home too asfair ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on October 19, 2010, 01:40:53 PM
Quote from: mikej;585634
Well, sadly the board will not make it to AmiWest. I'm in Taiwan at the moment and I didn't receive the boards back from production before I left. In fact they have been very quiet so I'm a bit concernced.
I'll have to send the boys round when I get back ... /Mike
Hmmm, I hope that there is no f****up with the production of the first ten boards, but the silents is nog a good sign indeed. I hope you will get some explanation soon from them ! This is a bit of a disapointment ;-( Hope to here soon from you again when you get back @homebase.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 19, 2010, 02:51:35 PM
They just mailed me, they got a big order in which took priority - they are basically doing me a bit of favour building such a small number.
Scheduled for tomorrow now apparently. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Firedawg on October 20, 2010, 05:57:07 PM
Quote from: mikej;585677
They just mailed me, they got a big order in which took priority - they are basically doing me a bit of favour building such a small number.
Scheduled for tomorrow now apparently. /Mike
Hey Mike,
When can we pre-order these babies?:)
The Dawg
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on October 20, 2010, 07:31:10 PM
Quote from: mikej;585677
They just mailed me, they got a big order in which took priority - they are basically doing me a bit of favour building such a small number.
Scheduled for tomorrow now apparently. /Mike
Big order? I can't believe this! We probably got bumped for the new i-Toilet run.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on October 21, 2010, 12:04:47 AM
Quote from: TheGoose;585919
We probably got bumped for the new i-Toilet run.
I already got one of those, but it's made by Hitachi, not Apple.
Really am looking forward to seeing these boards.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Tripitaka on October 21, 2010, 12:40:48 AM
I don't have time to read this whole thread again but I'de just like to say. Don't forget to post the news item when the AGA minimig is done. Please.....pretty please.....with cherries. I've been waiting for this one and as I've said before, Minimig AGA, Natami or Clone A, the first one gets the cash.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: spans on October 28, 2010, 12:31:17 PM
Quote from: mikej;585677
They just mailed me, they got a big order in which took priority - they are basically doing me a bit of favour building such a small number.
Scheduled for tomorrow now apparently. /Mike
Hi Mike, don't want to ad stress to a stressful situation, erm but any news on the boards?? would be great before xmas, and I could use that as the excuse to get past the Boss (missus) !! Who can't understand why I collect all these boxes:laughing:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 28, 2010, 03:29:29 PM
Quote from: spans;587636
Hi Mike, don't want to ad stress to a stressful situation, erm but any news on the boards?? would be great before xmas, and I could use that as the excuse to get past the Boss (missus) !! Who can't understand why I collect all these boxes:laughing:
When my wife questions me on why I need "yet another computer", I usually draw her attention to her shoe collection and ask her why she needs "yet another pair of shoes". :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on October 30, 2010, 07:24:00 PM
The production company is expecting to ship them to me on Monday. They are partly assembled at the moment. It's only a few boards, so they have to squeeze them in around other things. The good news is as soon as I have tested them we will kick off the ramaining 50 odd of the first run.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: matthey on October 30, 2010, 08:02:45 PM
Quote from: Darrin;587664
When my wife questions me on why I need "yet another computer", I usually draw her attention to her shoe collection and ask her why she needs "yet another pair of shoes". :D
That's going to cost you the price of a MiniMig in shoes too :P.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on October 30, 2010, 08:32:16 PM
Quote from: matthey;588213
That's going to cost you the price of a MiniMig in shoes too :P.
That's why my wife never gets to know how much the hardware I buy costs...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on October 30, 2010, 08:37:56 PM
Good news Mikej, keep us posted, i hope that testing the first boards go without trouble. So the remaning board will come out the production like hot cakes... :-))
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Heiroglyph on October 30, 2010, 08:39:11 PM
I don't complain about art supplies, she doesn't complain about computer hardware.
It's a great arrangement but it severely drains the bank account ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 30, 2010, 11:50:44 PM
Quote from: matthey;588213
That's going to cost you the price of a MiniMig in shoes too :P.
LOL. I'm currently spending 3 weeks working in Fort Worth, TX driving around 16 land rig while the wife is currently visiting an old nurse friend of her's in England. I think I've just earned a new Minimig. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 30, 2010, 11:53:23 PM
Quote from: vidarh;588217
That's why my wife never gets to know how much the hardware I buy costs...
I never forgot having a chat with an old friend of mine about how his wife didn't want to let him buy a new A1200. I explained that I just told mine the base price and then bought a CPU card and hard drive "on the side" and slipped them in while she was at work. Unfortunately I wasn't aware that my ex-wife was standing quietly in the doorway listening. Boy, did I get an arse-chewing (and no sex) that night! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on October 31, 2010, 01:27:07 AM
Great story...And that Darrin old chap is why I am not married. Women complain about that electroncis and stuff but sit em down in front of a 47" LCD with Oprah or a telenovela on and they're cool with it. The moment you connect an A1200 to it they recoil in horror as if you're raping a panda.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on October 31, 2010, 01:31:37 AM
Quote from: Crom00;588261
Great story...And that Darrin old chap is why I am not married. Women complain about that electroncis and stuff but sit em down in front of a 47" LCD with Oprah or a telenovela on and they're cool with it. The moment you connect an A1200 to it they recoil in horror as if you're raping a panda.
:roflmao:
I'm so stealing that turn of phrase :D
Also, good news on the boards Mike, looking forward to it all.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 31, 2010, 02:50:52 AM
Quote from: Crom00;588261
Great story...And that Darrin old chap is why I am not married. Women complain about that electroncis and stuff but sit em down in front of a 47" LCD with Oprah or a telenovela on and they're cool with it. The moment you connect an A1200 to it they recoil in horror as if you're raping a panda.
LOL. You should have listened to what my wife had to say when I replaced the 42" plasma in the living room with a 46" and then carted off the 42" to my "man cave" to use as a "montor". :D
I haven't forgot about testing that PAL CD32 either, I just need to get some time off work and clear some space. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on October 31, 2010, 03:29:56 AM
I can play Amiga games on my 61" monitor any time I like. But I am not married. :razz:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on October 31, 2010, 03:35:05 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;588285
I can play Amiga games on my 61" monitor any time I like. But I am not married. :razz:
Well I can have sex whenever I want, but I'm not single!
Oh, hang on, I mean I have to have sex every time she wants, but then I'm not single. :p
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 01, 2010, 02:04:09 PM
Maybe some people should upgrade their wife? :P (just in time for the fpgaarcade board ;) )
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on November 01, 2010, 02:25:51 PM
Get a real Amiga and run the wife as an emulation that you can pause whenever it gets on your nerves. Better yet...just press f12 and reset.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: espskog on November 01, 2010, 04:11:03 PM
Quote from: Crom00;588481
Get a real Amiga and run the wife as an emulation that you can pause whenever it gets on your nerves. Better yet...just press f12 and reset.
My girl was benched in front of the SX64 playing Hunchback and digs old retro games. I think that is priceless :-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on November 01, 2010, 04:45:20 PM
Quote from: Crom00;588481
Get a real Amiga and run the wife as an emulation that you can pause whenever it gets on your nerves. Better yet...just press f12 and reset.
I had a pause button on my old A500 with one wire soldered straight onto the right pin on the CPU and the other straight onto a GND pin on the side bus...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on November 01, 2010, 04:57:00 PM
Quote from: Crom00;588261
Great story...And that Darrin old chap is why I am not married. Women complain about that electroncis and stuff but sit em down in front of a 47" LCD with Oprah or a telenovela on and they're cool with it. The moment you connect an A1200 to it they recoil in horror as if you're raping a panda.
LOL - Always wondered what the face was about. :lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 02, 2010, 09:00:28 PM
Latest update, the boards have been shipped back to me so I hope to get them before the weekend :)
There is a video of the production as well, but I haven't got it yet. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TheGoose on November 02, 2010, 09:51:08 PM
Oh boy! Happy for you Mike.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on November 02, 2010, 09:56:02 PM
Quote from: mikej;588879
Latest update, the boards have been shipped back to me so I hope to get them before the weekend :)
There is a video of the production as well, but I haven't got it yet. /Mike
Looking forward to the video, of the production process ;-) When your boards check out okey, what's the estimeted time to produce the other boards, I mean do you have to wait for a open slot again or is all set to go @ your signal?
This are good times for us all fellow amigain's I Love this project..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on November 04, 2010, 01:31:26 PM
Quote from: mikej;588879
Latest update, the boards have been shipped back to me so I hope to get them before the weekend :)
There is a video of the production as well, but I haven't got it yet. /Mike
Thats really great news Mike! Can't wait to see one of these in action!
Anybody want to buy an A1200 with Blizzard 030? ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 09, 2010, 10:16:49 PM
checks watch... looks at calendar... checks watch again... chews fingernails... paces up and down... checks watch...
;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on November 09, 2010, 10:51:16 PM
Quote from: mikej;588879
Latest update, the boards have been shipped back to me so I hope to get them before the weekend :)
There is a video of the production as well, but I haven't got it yet. /Mike
Good to hear, how long after you get the boards will they be available to purchase? Are you going to be selling them from your site directly?
Also, any update on how the AGA and 68020 FPGA reimplementation’s are coming along?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 09, 2010, 10:53:27 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;590613
Good to hear, how long after you get the boards will they be available to purchase? Are you going to be selling them from your site directly?
Also, any update on how the AGA and 68020 FPGA reimplementation’s are coming along?
I think teh first important question is:
"Do the boards work?". ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: madcrow on November 10, 2010, 11:47:44 PM
Back in June, someone said that the source code for Minimig-AGA would get released once the boards were made. Now that the boards have been made, is that still the plan, or has the Minimig project decided to go proprietary with this latest round of functionality?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yakumo9275 on November 11, 2010, 02:59:29 AM
Quote from: madcrow;590849
Back in June, someone said that the source code for Minimig-AGA would get released once the boards were made. Now that the boards have been made, is that still the plan, or has the Minimig project decided to go proprietary with this latest round of functionality?
these boards are not minimig boards.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 11, 2010, 06:05:20 AM
Quote from: yakumo9275;590892
these boards are not minimig boards.
Who said they were?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Joeled on November 11, 2010, 06:55:23 AM
Great news!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 11, 2010, 07:25:09 PM
Not received the boards yet :( I'm chasing it....
Yes, you can order from my site when the board has been tested. Open source always.
I'll update you when I know myself! Cheers, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yakumo9275 on November 11, 2010, 08:10:35 PM
Quote from: kolla;590906
Who said they were?
madcow did, the post above mine you quoted
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on November 11, 2010, 09:46:38 PM
I wouldn't get too worked up over the use of the word MiniMig. Just as some might call an official (can it be official?) MiniMig an Amiga, I suspect that the term MiniMig will be used as common vanacular for any of the FPGA based Amiga compatibles.
I know, I look forward to the day when I can genericaly refer to this hobby's hardware as MiniMigs, and it's software as AROS. I look forward to the day that 'Amiga' can be considered the old company that original built hardware fixed MiniMigs and wrote the original version of AROS.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 11, 2010, 10:21:54 PM
Quote from: yakumo9275;590993
madcow did, the post above mine you quoted
Ah well... he wrote "the boards", referring to the FPGAArcade boards, and "the source code for Minimig-AGA" referring of the Minimig-AGA source code for the FPGAArcade. Nothing about some Minimig-AGA boards as far as I could understand.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 11, 2010, 11:04:28 PM
Quote from: mikej;590988
Not received the boards yet :( I'm chasing it....
Yes, you can order from my site when the board has been tested. Open source always.
I'll update you when I know myself! Cheers, Mike
Cheers for the update Mike. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 15, 2010, 11:12:24 AM
Boards are on the delivery truck according to tracking :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 15, 2010, 11:18:02 AM
Quote from: mikej;591886
Boards are on the delivery truck according to tracking :)
Just in time for the new 68k build of AROS!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 15, 2010, 11:24:19 AM
Quote from: bloodline;591887
Just in time for the new 68k build of AROS!
I'm seriously considering getting one of these to hack AROS 68k on.
http://acp.atari.org
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 15, 2010, 11:48:54 AM
Quote from: nicholas;591893
I'm seriously considering getting one of these to hack AROS 68k on.
http://acp.atari.org
I've looked at these before. The Coldfire is a really bad fit for Amiga... Ok we can now build AROS for the coldfire, so we can get AmigaOS functionality, but that doesn't magically make Amiga programs coldfire capable... There is a really good link on the Coldire wiki page that lists the differences between the coldfire and the 68k... It's pretty horrific... Coldfire software should run on a 68k, the reverse isn't true :(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 15, 2010, 11:51:47 AM
68K compatibility on coldfire has improved in more recent cores, but you are still left with trap-and-emulate for various operations. Not sure what happened to those instructions where they were implemented but with different behaviour to the 68K; they were the real killer.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 15, 2010, 12:01:35 PM
Quote from: Karlos;591903
68K compatibility on coldfire has improved in more recent cores, but you are still left with trap-and-emulate for various operations. Not sure what happened to those instructions where they were implemented but with different behaviour to the 68K; they were the real killer.
Sadly the mul instruction is still not 68k compatible... How can you trap that? :(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 15, 2010, 12:05:46 PM
Quote from: bloodline;591902
I've looked at these before. The Coldfire is a really bad fit for Amiga... Ok we can now build AROS for the coldfire, so we can get AmigaOS functionality, but that doesn't magically make Amiga programs coldfire capable... There is a really good link on the Coldire wiki page that lists the differences between the coldfire and the 68k... It's pretty horrific... Coldfire software should run on a 68k, the reverse isn't true :(
Good lord, don't stop him porting AROS to this board - look at them running some form of Atari ST TOS operating system, we must stop their suffering.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: TCMSLP on November 15, 2010, 12:09:09 PM
Whatever happened to the Elbox Dragon Coldfire?
http://elbox.com/news_04_12_17.html
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 15, 2010, 12:27:59 PM
Quote from: bloodline;591902
I've looked at these before. The Coldfire is a really bad fit for Amiga... Ok we can now build AROS for the coldfire, so we can get AmigaOS functionality, but that doesn't magically make Amiga programs coldfire capable... There is a really good link on the Coldire wiki page that lists the differences between the coldfire and the 68k... It's pretty horrific... Coldfire software should run on a 68k, the reverse isn't true :(
Getting it running on these boards would be my first priority, 68k binary compatibility would come much later, if at all.
When you take into consideration that i've not written a line of 68k assembly for nigh on 15 years it would take quite a long time indeed! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 15, 2010, 12:33:54 PM
Quote from: Karlos;591903
68K compatibility on coldfire has improved in more recent cores, but you are still left with trap-and-emulate for various operations. Not sure what happened to those instructions where they were implemented but with different behaviour to the 68K; they were the real killer.
The ACP guys are more qualified than I am to answer that. They've obviously come up with some way around it though. Quite what compatibility issues and/or performance hit their solution entails I'm not sure.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on November 15, 2010, 12:48:36 PM
Quote from: TCMSLP;591907
Whatever happened to the Elbox Dragon Coldfire?
As far as we know it had low compatibility and poor performance with a large percentage of software so they canned it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on November 15, 2010, 12:56:04 PM
They only managed to get it running about same speed as 040/25 with some software as far as I remember.
Still waiting for the Shark, AOS4 been out for ages now :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 15, 2010, 09:53:14 PM
Got the boards! I'll put some pics up on http://www.fpgaarcade.com asap.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: chusete on November 15, 2010, 10:20:54 PM
Congratulations Mike! Nice card!
I want one! Will be available for Christmas?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 15, 2010, 10:23:26 PM
:banana::banana::banana:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on November 15, 2010, 10:42:43 PM
Can some kind soul wack the pics into this thread (I'm blocked from http://www.fpgaaracade.com) :(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 15, 2010, 10:54:58 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;592051
Can some kind soul wack the pics into this thread (I'm blocked from http://www.fpgaaracade.com) :(
Only one pic so far.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on November 15, 2010, 11:00:07 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;592051
Can some kind soul wack the pics into this thread (I'm blocked from http://www.fpgaaracade.com) :(
Is that the URL you're trying because there is a typo in it.
http://www.fpgaarcade.com/
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on November 16, 2010, 12:29:37 AM
Cool thanks.
No blocked at work (can't view anything 'game' related or any hard-core porn sites).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 16, 2010, 03:01:57 AM
Quote from: mikej;592027
Got the boards! I'll put some pics up on http://www.fpgaarcade.com asap.
Excellent!
dancing bananas, pancakes with syrup, cheap hookers, etc, etc. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: hceline on November 16, 2010, 03:34:11 AM
One question; How much room would there be left on the FPGA when the minimig core is loaded? Is there enough space for minimig + an extra cpu softcore (or two)?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 16, 2010, 09:43:42 AM
Quote from: hceline;592135
How much room would there be left on the FPGA when the minimig core is loaded?
The AGA Minimig core with the TG68.C V4.0 (partial 020 compatibility) takes about 60% of the FPGA.
Quote
Is there enough space for minimig + an extra cpu softcore (or two)?
The aforementioned CPU core takes about 20% of the FPGA.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on November 16, 2010, 10:32:37 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;592099
Cool thanks.
No blocked at work (can't view anything 'game' related or any hard-core porn sites).
Exactly the same here, filters mega restricted here
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Franko on November 16, 2010, 10:39:43 AM
Quote from: JJ;592172
Exactly the same here, filters mega restricted here
If I had to work for a living and my boss blocked me from accessing stuff on the net I'd tell him where to stuff his job... :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on November 16, 2010, 11:10:43 AM
There are unblocked pcs availiable to use in the canteen. Annoying as it is I think its fair enough people should be working not looking at games etc on the net.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 16, 2010, 01:10:24 PM
Hurrah! Good news everybody :-)
Quote from: yaqube;592167
The AGA Minimig core with the TG68.C V4.0 (partial 020 compatibility) takes about 60% of the FPGA.
The aforementioned CPU core takes about 20% of the FPGA.
So plenty of room for expansion! :-) An entire AGA Amiga in around 1 million gates?
How is the TG68.C V4.0 in terms of performance on the Xilinx XC3S1600E?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: hceline on November 16, 2010, 01:40:08 PM
Quote from: yaqube;592167
The AGA Minimig core with the TG68.C V4.0 (partial 020 compatibility) takes about 60% of the FPGA.
The aforementioned CPU core takes about 20% of the FPGA.
Wonderful, thanks!
I want one of these; How much will they cost and what do I do to order one?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 16, 2010, 02:06:49 PM
Well, if this ain't porn, I don't know what is :D
@yaqube How about a new youtube video anytime soon? Personally I'd love to see how it works with DPaint animations and big HAM8 images. On my A1200/060 with Indivision I can edit images in HAM8 and 1024x768, but the amount of chipram quickly becomes a limiting factor. It looks really nice though, and I'd love to use DPaint more for image editing, and for animation of course.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 16, 2010, 02:39:20 PM
Quote from: kolla;592202
How about a new youtube video anytime soon?
I'm still thinking about a new one. But cannot promise that it will be graphics oriented.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 16, 2010, 02:54:40 PM
Quote from: Hattig;592192
How is the TG68.C V4.0 in terms of performance on the Xilinx XC3S1600E?
SysInfo reports 3.29 MIPS and speed 2.59 times higher than a stock A1200.
The CPU core is clocked at 14.18 MHz but it's being slowed down to 7.09 MHz whenever it wants to access memory bus (and it wants it almost all the time so only multi-cycle instructions like multiplication, division and shifts/rotations operate any faster). It will change when there is a cache implemented.
Also the CPU core has only 16-bit wide data bus so the performance could be improved in the future by implementing direct long-word transfers but it entirely depends on Tobias.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on November 16, 2010, 03:34:44 PM
Quote from: mikej;592027
Got the boards! I'll put some pics up on http://www.fpgaarcade.com asap.
Congratulations MikeJ
Now this board's looks sexy, I hope all works out fine completing the boards, looks like you have to put on all tru hole components first. I'm still in for one of your lovely boards (Money burns in my wallet from the start of this project).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: unknown1 on November 16, 2010, 06:51:05 PM
Quote from: yaqube;592216
SysInfo reports 3.29 MIPS and speed 2.59 times higher than a stock A1200.
The CPU core is clocked at 14.18 MHz but it's being slowed down to 7.09 MHz whenever it wants to access memory bus (and it wants it almost all the time so only multi-cycle instructions like multiplication, division and shifts/rotations operate any faster). It will change when there is a cache implemented.
Also the CPU core has only 16-bit wide data bus so the performance could be improved in the future by implementing direct long-word transfers but it entirely depends on Tobias.
I think this implementing cache and the wide data bus is more important that dual cores at the moment. Finish the job on what we have before starting a MAJOR job like dual cores.
Can't wait to see it available.
Makes me want to get the A1200 out of storage and working again, hopefully it hasn't sustained too much water damage when the roof caved and was repaired! Of course I would have to hide it in the barn, no more computers in the house! the wife says!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on November 16, 2010, 07:19:53 PM
Mike,
Just noticed the web site says a JAMMA version is in development. Would you be able to install any JAMMA ROM on this board, plug it straight into the cab or supergun and start playing the game?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 16, 2010, 08:29:19 PM
Yes, there is a JAMMA daughter board which has finished layout. I'll get it made when I have finished tested the main board. It will let you plug the board into a the cab directly.
You will still need the "core" for the game in question as well as the ROMs. You can think of the game core as the hardware of the original board, and the ROM as the software.
Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on November 16, 2010, 08:35:20 PM
Ah, I was hoping that this would replace the mainboard altogether. What then is the advantage of the JAMMA board you are making as opposed to the standard JAMMA board for a game?
Thanks,
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Clyborg on November 16, 2010, 08:41:44 PM
Grats Mike!!
I still want one!!
Jason
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 16, 2010, 08:57:02 PM
"Ah, I was hoping that this would replace the mainboard altogether. What then is the advantage of the JAMMA board you are making as opposed to the standard JAMMA board for a game?"
Yes, it will replace the original main board, all that is required is the Replay board and it's Jamma adapter. For example, if you want to run the pacman game you need the FPGA core which behaves like the original hardware and the ROMs which contain the software.
I'm also doing a vector output for games such a Asteroids. Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on November 16, 2010, 09:01:07 PM
So each JAMMA game out there will need an FPGA core written for it to work on the hardware? Sorry for not fully grasping this first time around :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 16, 2010, 09:17:07 PM
"So each JAMMA game out there will need an FPGA core written for it to work on the hardware?"
Yes, as the FPGA core models the original hardware. Different games which ran on the same/similar hardware can use the same core, like frogger/scramble.
MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on November 16, 2010, 09:21:00 PM
I understand. I'd be interested to see if anyone writes cores for the likes of the Simpsons or Robocop.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 16, 2010, 09:35:26 PM
I've posted a few more pictures now the boards are fully assembled. MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Lizard on November 16, 2010, 10:16:11 PM
Very nice, thanks for the update. Can't wait to order one of these boards.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 16, 2010, 10:24:13 PM
Looking good so far. Board is powered up, all supplies working well. FPGA configured over JTAG and running so clocks are working. Next step is to configure the ARM but I need to find my micro-usb cable for that first... /MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on November 16, 2010, 10:34:51 PM
Quote from: mikej;592301
I've posted a few more pictures now the boards are fully assembled. MikeJ
Any case suggestions w/pictures? And can you place something else in the picture to demonstrate the actual size again, once you have it in a case?
Great looking board Mike! Looks like you might be ready to take orders before Christmas of this year and deliver not long after the first of the year (if all continues to go well).
Now all I need to figure out is which computer am I going to get rid of so I can justify replacing it with one of these.
Forgive me if these questions have already been asked and answered before, but ......
1. what is the power usage of the FPGAArcade? Looking at the pics of the board, it appears to need a 15volt input, how many amperes, less than 1.0, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 amperes?
2. Will you offer the board in kit form where everything is mounted except for the through-hole parts, so the buyer can finish putting it together and save a few dollars in the process?
3. Have you determined what the price is going to be, or prices if you are offering it in more than one stage of completion?
4. Have you contacted Colanto and asked them about a discounted bundle price for AmigaForever + FPGAArcade, so you could legally sell the FPGAArcade in a completed and loaded state, including the Amiga ROMs, for consumer type people that just want to buy a completed product and turn it on, instead of sourcing the ROMs themselves and setting up the SD card with ROMs and other copyrighted files?
Very cool project! Good luck with what ever type of marketing you choose to do with it as a finished product and/or a kit project.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 16, 2010, 10:40:14 PM
PS/2 connectors... awww crap... I think I threw away all my old PS/2 keyboards and mice... I thought USB would see me through :( at least there is a DVI connector (I only have DVI monitors here now...)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: unknown1 on November 17, 2010, 02:11:08 AM
Quote from: bloodline;592311
PS/2 connectors... awww crap... I think I threw away all my old PS/2 keyboards and mice... I thought USB would see me through :( at least there is a DVI connector (I only have DVI monitors here now...)
I notice most of the Amiga stuff uses PS/2 instead of USB, is PS/2 just a standard serial port where USB is a complex serial port?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on November 17, 2010, 04:43:54 AM
Pretty much.
I know I would like to see a project come around that was a USB GamePad/Mouse/Keyboard to PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse and 9 pin joystick adapter. Even better would be to have headers that would take different adapters to output to different systems.
Something like what the X-Arcade does, but instead of having the interface permenently built into the controller, have it as an adapter so that we could use any controller, as well as mice and keyboards.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on November 17, 2010, 05:01:07 AM
Quote from: bloodline;592311
PS/2 connectors... awww crap... I think I threw away all my old PS/2 keyboards and mice... I thought USB would see me through :( at least there is a DVI connector (I only have DVI monitors here now...)
Dont forget these are prototypes. Also, look to the left of the sd card slot on the unpopulated board on the big picture. Right beside the pins for the jtag connector is a set of pins marked "usb". :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: countzero on November 17, 2010, 05:20:45 AM
usb to ps/2 converters can be found for almost nothing everywhere ...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on November 17, 2010, 05:31:15 AM
Are you talking about the passive converters that only work with mice and keyboards that switch into PS/2 mode?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: benJamin on November 17, 2010, 09:26:23 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;592099
No blocked at work (can't view anything 'game' related or any hard-core porn sites).
So, soft-core porn is OK?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on November 17, 2010, 09:37:58 AM
Quote from: benJamin;592398
So, soft-core porn is OK?
In that case FPGA Arcade ought to be ok - all those hot pics of bare naked PCB's
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 17, 2010, 12:32:36 PM
It might be a good idea to clearify what memory modules that are suitable for the board. And maybe the softcore needs to take into account different sizes and data widths in memory modules.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 17, 2010, 09:16:36 PM
"It might be a good idea to clearify what memory modules that are suitable for the board."
Doesn't need any, it has onboard 32MByte of RAM.
"what is the power usage of the FPGAArcade?" 5V input, depends on FPGA usage but 1A is more than enough. The polyfuse is 2A to allow power for the expansion boards.
"Will you offer the board in kit form where everything is mounted except for the through-hole parts" no, fully assembled only. Option for no coded/SVHS to save cost.
"3. Have you determined what the price is going to be, or prices if you are offering it in more than one stage of completion?" look a few pages back for pricing info.
"4. Have you contacted Colanto and asked them about a discounted bundle price for AmigaForever + FPGAArcade" No, but it is on my list once the board is up and running :) Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Fransexy_ on November 17, 2010, 09:30:52 PM
Quote from: mikej;592569
"It might be a good idea to clearify what memory modules that are suitable for the board."
Doesn't need any, it has onboard 32MByte of RAM.
Only 32? :-(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Dazxy2001 on November 17, 2010, 09:50:32 PM
A truly superb project, I had to part with my Amiga collection a while back and have been toying with getting a Minimig, but after seeing this project Im going to hold off a little to see how things progress, or may even just buy both..... more grovelling to the wife.... Great to hear that there will be no additional soldering required as no doubt myself and a few others havent got the confidence to use a soldering iron on intricate circuitry. Eagerly awaiting the production versions becoming available... well done!!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 17, 2010, 09:55:56 PM
"Only 32? :-( " Sorry, it's 64MByte. The schematic is correct, my memory isn't :) /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on November 17, 2010, 11:05:00 PM
Quote from: benJamin;592398
So, soft-core porn is OK?
I have to spend my time doing something....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 18, 2010, 12:26:30 AM
Quote from: mikej;592579
"Only 32? :-( " Sorry, it's 64MByte. The schematic is correct, my memory isn't :) /Mike
Damn, your memory is fading badly! You forgot to mention the built in Radeon 7200 RTG emulation using Picasso 2010, the 5 Zorro IV slots & 5 PCI slots on the bottom of the mobo and the softcore 3GHz PPC core for running OS4.3.
... and 10 A1200 type clock ports.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: unknown1 on November 18, 2010, 05:38:13 AM
Finally found mikej's posting on pricing back on page 40!!
Quote from: mikej;575723
Replay RevB Pricing.
The exchange rates are all over the place, and until I get production scheduled and the boards in my hand these prices are subject to change.
The NRE costs for production are much higher than I expected, so I have to recover some of these costs over the first 50 boards.
So, the full card (with SVHS/Composite out) is looking like 220Euro today. The "light" card without SVHS/composite is 200Euro. Thats about the same as a Minimig with the memory upgrade, and what I've been saying all along.
The bad news is I have to pay sales tax here on the first boards, so thats an additional 25%. I'll include a EU plug power supply for the first 50 boards :)
Being totally honest up-front, boards after the first 50 will be at least 25% cheaper and sales tax will be payable on import if you are outside the EU so thats another 25%.
From the quotes I've been getting from China we should be able to get down to 150 Euros for the fully loaded board for production quantities, assuming there is enough interest after the first 50.
I have all the parts for the first 50 so they are going to happen for sure, after that I'll set up a list - if we get to 50 or more we'll do another run.
I'll mail all of you who have expressed an interested with a firm price when the board is finally ready for shipping.
Let me know what you think. /Mike
Sounds reasonable to me...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on November 18, 2010, 11:22:33 PM
Can I ask a stupid question.
This board is meant to fix in a standard PC Mini-IT type case but the ports don't appear to all on the same side so how will this work?
Also are we going to have another ACube situ with a lack of metal with holes in type deal?
;)
This thread is almost at 100k views (currently 99,022), that's pretty damn impressive don't ya think?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 19, 2010, 09:55:10 AM
All the important ports are in the ATX window at the back. On the side is the micro-usb used for updating the ARM firmware, and maybe connecting USB peripherals in the future. There is a header on the board so you can cable this off to a back panel if you want.
The serial port is on the other side, but this is primarily used for debug and not necessary normally.
Power is on the other side as well. If it is a case you would use either the molex or the two pin 5v pin header for power input.
The holes line up with the ATX case spec (well, the two that can do do, but it's quite solid).
I'm talking to some manufactures about a IO panel for the atx/itx cases.
Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 19, 2010, 10:24:15 AM
The newest Minimig AGA core has just got a 16-bit AHI support for the Replay's Audio DAC. The playback is DMA driven with very versatile sampling frequency selection. Some other improvements are planned for the future. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 19, 2010, 10:30:42 AM
That's good news! I didn't even know that the Replay had a different audio mechanism. Does it mix with the standard Amiga audio output?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Gulliver on November 19, 2010, 10:32:05 AM
Great, now its time to hack a Picasso96 gfx driver!!! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 19, 2010, 10:53:47 AM
Rather a Picasso96 re-implementation.. as drivers are likely to already exist.
However I suspect the softcore CPU, and other basic functions need more work before other stuff can be dealt with efficiently.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 19, 2010, 10:59:02 AM
Quote from: Hattig;593007
That's good news! I didn't even know that the Replay had a different audio mechanism. Does it mix with the standard Amiga audio output?
The Replay is equipped with 24-bit Audio DAC (capable of 192 kHz sampling rate) but right now only 16-bit precision is used. It may change when the CPU core is fast enough to mix channels in the Hi-Fi mode with reasonable rate but I'm rather sceptical if it's of any use as the noise floor of the board isn't as low.
Quote
Does it mix with the standard Amiga audio output?
The standard Amiga audio output is mixed with the 16-bit AHI output.
Quote from: Gulliver;593010
Great, now its time to hack a Picasso96 gfx driver!!! :)
I think I have enough information to write a new one from scratch. Only time is the limit. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 19, 2010, 11:18:29 AM
Can the DAC also do sampling in? Of course that would require a Mic input...
Good work, btw, both yaqube and mikej. It's much appreciated.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 19, 2010, 11:32:40 AM
Quote from: Hattig;593022
Can the DAC also do sampling in? Of course that would require a Mic input...
No, a DAC connot sample incoming signal. That's the task for an ADC (or a codec which integrates DACs and ADCs).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 19, 2010, 01:15:09 PM
I think he meant if the Replay Audio implementation can record (sample) as well. Ofcourse it would require an physical ADC. A stopgap fix could be to (mis)use an LVTTL input for 1-bit sampling.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 19, 2010, 01:22:49 PM
Quote from: freqmax;593043
Any link that describe the "Replay" hardware in detail?
Only schematics (http://www.fpgaarcade.com/common/fpgaarcade_replay_b01_schematic_a2.pdf) available.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 19, 2010, 01:40:31 PM
I think I got temporarly confused with the Action Replay.. didn't recall any audio capabilty there.. ;)
Looking at the schematics I can see 5 possible solutions: (0) Resistor + Zener protect a single LVDS configured pin. Misused for 1-bit clipped sampling. (1) Connect an ordinary I2S ADC (possible integrated ADC/DAC) to free FPGA pins. (2) Use the ARM controller AT91SAM7S256-AU-001 (http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/6175s.pdf) "ADC..BUS[3:0]" which is connected to the AD4-7 multiplexed ADC inputs capable of 583 ksps. Provided there's time and codespace for this ..? (3) Connect the ARM USB port to a PC which is used for input. (4) Use some I/O on the FPGA as USB port, and connect an ordinary USB-audio device.
Is there any BOM (parts list), netlist (connection dump), gerber (layout) files available?
Thx for the link btw.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 19, 2010, 02:47:29 PM
Quote from: yaqube;593018
I think I have enough information to write a new one from scratch. Only time is the limit. :D
Looks like my joke about "Picasso 2010" wasn't too far off the mark! Picasso 2011? ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 19, 2010, 02:56:55 PM
Darrin, When did you write that joke? ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 19, 2010, 03:11:38 PM
Quote from: freqmax;593077
Darrin, When did you write that joke? ;)
LOL. and we still have 42 days to go... :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on November 19, 2010, 03:21:21 PM
@Yaqube
Quote
The Replay is equipped with 24-bit Audio DAC (capable of 192 kHz sampling rate) but right now only 16-bit precision is used. It may change when the CPU core is fast enough to mix channels in the Hi-Fi mode with reasonable rate but I'm rather sceptical if it's of any use as the noise floor of the board isn't as low.
Am I to understand that this is just 1 DAC, capable of a single audio channel of output?
Wouldn't there need to be 2 DACs for stereo output?
If it is DMA driven then why does the CPU need to do mixing?
Quote
The standard Amiga audio output is mixed with the 16-bit AHI output.
This is hardware mixed in FPGA code, correct?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 19, 2010, 03:52:52 PM
Chaoslord, I think he simple used DAC in the general sense, not in "a DAC" sense. And DMA only transfers, doesn't process. But the FPGA could be configured to do something in "hardware".
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 19, 2010, 04:37:47 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;593081
Am I to understand that this is just 1 DAC, capable of a single audio channel of output?
That was a little bit misleading, actually it's one stereo DAC IC containing two separate DACs, each for left and right channel.
Quote
If it is DMA driven then why does the CPU need to do mixing?
Because it supports only one (stereo) channel. To off load the CPU we need more hardware channels. It's really frustrating to see the CPU fully loaded mixing four audio channels with decent rate when the same job can be done by Paula with almost no CPU load. Definitely we need more hardware channels.
Quote
This is hardware mixed in FPGA code, correct?
Yep, the four Paula native audio channels and two 16-bit ones are down-mixed in hardware.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on November 19, 2010, 04:44:27 PM
Quote from: yaqube;593091
That was a little bit misleading, actually it's one stereo DAC IC containing two separate DACs, each for left and right channel.
Because it supports only one (stereo) channel.
What format does the DAC IC take? 1 word left + 1 word right, repeat. ?
That is the DAC IC reads 1 DMA stream of data to produce 1 stereo ouput?
While Paula reads 2 distinct DMA streams of data to produce 1 stereo output.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 19, 2010, 05:10:24 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;593093
What format does the DAC IC take? 1 word left + 1 word right, repeat. ?
Exactly, the words the DAC is fed can contain up to 24 meaningful bits. For further details please have a look at the DAC's datasheet (http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/documents/uploads/data_sheets/en/WM8729.pdf).
Quote
That is the DAC IC reads 1 DMA stream of data to produce 1 stereo ouput?
Not exactly, the DAC is fed with the data stream from the I2S controller (located in the FPGA). This stream contains down-mixed data from Paula's audio channels and from the AHI stereo channel (the AHI sound is provided by the extra DMA controller).
Quote
While Paula reads 2 distinct DMA streams of data to produce 1 stereo output.
Actually Paula reads 4 mono channels and down-mix them to form two channels for stereo output (two mono channels go to the left and two to the right). This stereo output is further down-mixed with stereo output from AHI sound module and is sent to the DAC IC. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Everblue on November 20, 2010, 03:38:41 PM
Is it possible to pre-order one of these yet? Or its still a way off?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 20, 2010, 05:47:33 PM
Quote from: yaqube;593047
Only schematics (http://www.fpgaarcade.com/common/fpgaarcade_replay_b01_schematic_a2.pdf) available.
Page 2, are the ARM's ADC inputs just tied to the ground? Why not use them for audio sampling?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 20, 2010, 07:25:26 PM
The ARM ADC inputs are connected. Four to the rear "cable" connector and four to the main board stacking expansion connector.
I imagined the rear connector being used for joystick/buttons/analog joypad etc but you could use them for line level audio.
The expansion board could contain a decent mic input if there was demand. I want to keep the feature set on the main board to a basic level to keep the main board cost down.I imagine a number of expansion boards for different applications could appear.
The schematics and top/bottom component placement are available. Detailed mechanical drawings will also be available.
I'm not taking any pre-orders just yet - until we have got these boards tested and Yaqube has had a play. Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 20, 2010, 07:37:57 PM
Mike,
Could you give us a quick summary of what cores should be available to run on this board when it is tested and ready for bulk production and what others are under development?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Everblue on November 21, 2010, 07:50:55 AM
I guess at this point its wise to hold off purchase a minimig and wait for this!
By the way, can PAL games be forced to output @ 75hz or 100hz to add compatability with more monitors while retaining smooth scrolling?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 21, 2010, 03:20:20 PM
If the memory transfer capacity is up to it. And vertical scan is a multiple of 25 Hz. Ie let minimig write to a display area #0 ,let the monitor read #1. Then swap when vertical sync:s occour at the same time.
Don't forget that the same memory transfer capacity is needed for feeding instructions to the cpu, samples to paula, floppy transfers, harddisc dma etc.. as well.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 21, 2010, 07:47:15 PM
For composite/VHS outputs you get real NTSC/PAL exactly like the original machine which will drive 15K linescan monitors. In the same way,the RGB analog out of the DVI can be connected to RGB monitors or SCART connectors.
You can cable the DVI output to HDMI (50/60Hz Progressive or Interlaced) and modern TVs will be fine with this.
For "computer" monitors the best way is for the cores to support higher resolution (1280x720) resolution for example. I'm looking at various frame buffer options, but they will add a frame of latency. This may be fine. T
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: trip6 on November 22, 2010, 01:58:10 AM
Great... When doing this please keep in mind game compatability and testing with various side scrolling and overhead scrolling games.
Quote from: mikej;593448
For composite/VHS outputs you get real NTSC/PAL exactly like the original machine which will drive 15K linescan monitors. In the same way,the RGB analog out of the DVI can be connected to RGB monitors or SCART connectors.
You can cable the DVI output to HDMI (50/60Hz Progressive or Interlaced) and modern TVs will be fine with this.
For "computer" monitors the best way is for the cores to support higher resolution (1280x720) resolution for example. I'm looking at various frame buffer options, but they will add a frame of latency. This may be fine. T
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 23, 2010, 01:49:49 AM
Quote from: Darrin;593280
Mike,
Could you give us a quick summary of what cores should be available to run on this board when it is tested and ready for bulk production and what others are under development?
any cores at all?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 23, 2010, 11:18:32 AM
Proberbly only one: m68k/32 + AGA
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on November 23, 2010, 12:26:25 PM
I bet some of the other cores from fpgaarcade.com have been ported over - VIC-20, Atari ST, and also a lot of other open source FPGA game console/computer cores.
He's probably going to surprise us with a big list once everything is running 100% correctly.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 23, 2010, 01:54:08 PM
In any case, "missing" cores can be designed at will.. Like 386SX, CGA and Beep in stereo! :P
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yakumo9275 on November 23, 2010, 01:59:22 PM
I'm interested in the coco3 fpga port and c64 ports ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Richard42 on November 23, 2010, 03:32:04 PM
Quote from: yakumo9275;593825
I'm interested in the coco3 fpga port and c64 ports ;)
I would also love to see Coco2/Coco3 cores.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Phipscube on November 23, 2010, 07:03:25 PM
I'm really looking forward to this being released, and I must admit i've been holding off buying a Minimig purely on wanting the AGA version. But when I was over at R3play the other weekend with a group of the guys over on Amibay, I saw Skilgannon's Minimig in the flesh and its such a sexy little thing. And as he said "why wait, just buy them both!" :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 23, 2010, 08:21:15 PM
Sorry for the delay, I've been a bit busy. Board is up and running, no problems as yet.
There will be quite diverse core support, a fair number of people are interested in supporting it.
All the system on fpgaarcade have been ported (including VIC20) I am working on Star Wars, BBC B and Atari ST.
We also have C64, spectrum, zx81, apple 1, cray 1(!) and lots of home games consoles being worked on.
I'm involved with the visual6502 project who are doing die scans of original chips and I'm converting these into VHDL - so we will get even more accuracy going forward for these retro systems.
Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: fishy_fiz on November 23, 2010, 08:33:37 PM
Quote from: yakumo9275;593825
I'm interested in the coco3 fpga port and c64 ports ;)
Hell yeah, bring on the coco3 :) Coco1 was my 1st ever computer. My brothers friend had a Coco3 and I used to love it whenever he'd stay the night and bring his coco3. Gantlet2 (no typo, the coco had many games that were clones to the point of more or less being conversions (always wondered how they got away with it)) was very cool. More or less on par with the Atari ST and Amiga versions that were released sometime later.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: joemango on November 23, 2010, 08:58:48 PM
Mike,
Kudos for all your work. I've been a MAME hound since the days of Dave's Arcade Classics and an Amigan since the Power Stick. (never could find the coleco version of that one...)
What are the prospects of a daughterboard adapter that would interface the Replay with the new AmigaOne Xorro slot or a PCI-e slot for yummy super transputer goodness? I'm not sure if the spartan3e and the xena are similar in spec, but the C++-to-vhdl angle is cool.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on November 23, 2010, 09:02:19 PM
Hopefully we'll see an Amstrad CPC (+) core too :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: joemango on November 23, 2010, 09:50:55 PM
One thing I'd love to see is a hardware implementation of MAME as a whole. It seems that it would be fairly straightforward to use the MAME framework and swap IC modules around to create the proper mix of hardware for a certain range of machines, no? I accept that it will (may?) never run all the arcade stuff from 1992 or so forward, but one can dream.
This board is SO much more than an Amiga. My teeth are sweating at the prospect of finally getting one. Please add me to your email list, mike. joemangoatgmaildotcom.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 23, 2010, 10:09:20 PM
Quote from: xyzzy;593930
Hopefully we'll see an Amstrad CPC (+) core too :)
Somebody is working on that as well. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 23, 2010, 11:37:53 PM
Quote from: mikej;593923
Sorry for the delay, I've been a bit busy. Board is up and running, no problems as yet.
There will be quite diverse core support, a fair number of people are interested in supporting it.
All the system on fpgaarcade have been ported (including VIC20) I am working on Star Wars, BBC B and Atari ST.
We also have C64, spectrum, zx81, apple 1, cray 1(!) and lots of home games consoles being worked on.
I'm involved with the visual6502 project who are doing die scans of original chips and I'm converting these into VHDL - so we will get even more accuracy going forward for these retro systems.
Best, Mike
Thanks Mike. Great news.
So that gives us:
Amiga AGA Videopac/Odyssey2 Adventure Vision console ColecoVision console Commodore VIC-20 Bally Professional Astrocade Scramble Frogger Asteroids Deluxe Pacman Lady Bug Space Invaders Galaxian
With the following under development: Star Wars BBC B Atari ST Commodore 64 Spectrum ZX81 Apple 1 Cray 1 Amstrad CPC various home games consoles.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 24, 2010, 12:54:48 AM
I hope the effort is concentrated on getting the boards free of bugs out the door ;)
Core:s, especially 8-bit ones shouldn't even be a challenge.
Maybe the visual6502 projekt takes a look at the m68k die. It certainly could be nice to have decoded.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 24, 2010, 06:04:49 PM
Since the spartan 3e wont give use speeds beyond 20Mhz (or so I read in a prior post) wouldn't it make sense that someone worked in porting the DCTV hardware (that would allow high color resolutions without requiring lots of memory or bandwidth) and hopefully someone would write a RTG driver for it. The Phillips CDi used such screen modes for its gaming library, who knows, maybe some programmers will find it attractive to write ports of games to such a low spec system (but with high color output). That bundled with the AHI sound system should be a nice combo IMO.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: gaula92 on November 24, 2010, 06:30:43 PM
Quote from: mikej;593923
We also have C64, spectrum, zx81, apple 1, cray 1(!) and lots of home games consoles being worked on.
THIS Cray-1 ??? --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1
This thing looks like it came out of TRON!! WOW!! I'll be careful not to work with it while it has some digitaliser attached, I don't like hi-speed motorcycles... I can't wait to put my hands on a thing like this, running on my room in FPGA!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 24, 2010, 07:28:51 PM
Quote from: little;594100
Since the spartan 3e wont give use speeds beyond 20Mhz
Actually there is a hope it will work at 28 MHz. I have it currently running at that speed and with a very small cache (for code only) of 16 bytes it outperforms an 030@25MHz.
I'm working on the implementation of a more sophisticated cache subsystem. I expect the performance to be improved a little bit.
Quote
wouldn't it make sense that someone worked in porting the DCTV hardware (that would allow high color resolutions without requiring lots of memory or bandwidth)
Sometime ago I wrote a software decoder for DCTV encoded images just to find out how it worked. Initially I wanted to implement this decoder into the Minimig AGA but I think it's not worth the hassle. Let's better spend that time on a real RTG frame buffer implementation.
Quote
and hopefully someone would write a RTG driver for it.
I can bet nobody will. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on November 24, 2010, 07:30:49 PM
@little
No need for that. Just modify/extend the existing Minimig core to add the additional resolutions and colors. That's how AGA was added to what was essentially an A500 softcore. That's the beauty of a softcore on the Minimig (or FPGAArcade). Now that AGA and additional chipram are available, it won't be long before some enterprsing coder figures out how to add Super-AGA to the same core....and maybe 030 or higher CPUs. It may require a larger FPGA, but it's possible.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 24, 2010, 08:46:39 PM
Quote from: yaqube;594118
Actually there is a hope it will work at 28 MHz. I have it currently running at that speed and with a very small cache (for code only) of 16 bytes it outperforms an 030@25MHz.
That is great news! :)
Quote
Let's better spend that time on a real RTG frame buffer implementation.
+
Quote from: ferrellsl;594119
@little Now that AGA and additional chipram are available, it won't be long before some enterprsing coder figures out how to add Super-AGA to the same core
On the surface it sounds cool to create a new framebuffer, AGA+, etc. but the problem I see with that approach is that by creating new hardware, hardware that effectively only a few have access and that no one has ever worked with before, you reduce exponentially the number of people that can write code for it. It might sound easy enough to say "We will simply expand UAE to emulate it also", the problem being that emulation of low level features is either imperfect or way too complicated/slow. The only solution I can think for such dilemma would be that the AROS 68k port implements all the required low level tinkering so that there is no need to make calls directly to the hardware, so a program written for x86 aros would work in 68k aros using the new audio/video hardware, totally transparent to the original programmer.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 24, 2010, 09:14:15 PM
Results for 28 MHz clock and 256-byte instruction cache. Maybe the speed gain is not impressive but I have yet another option to try. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: RMK305 on November 24, 2010, 09:56:23 PM
Any speed gain is impressive, no matter how small.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 24, 2010, 10:08:45 PM
Very cool - the speed is comparable with the ACA-630 and ACA-1230/28 - woohoo :) I can't help thinking about how neat it would be to see AROS/m68k in its current "infant" state try to boot on this :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on November 24, 2010, 10:10:21 PM
@little
No one is creating new hardware by extending the Minimig cores. And backward compatibility is being maintained with previous real-hardware Amigas by both the Natami team and MikeJ on his FPGAArcade board. It sounds like you may be a bit unclear as to what an FPGA really accomplishes. The A500 core on a Minimig is simply a complete A500 recreated in software and loaded onto the FPGA chip. New "virtual" hardware can be created as needed just by modifying the existing core and loading it onto the FPGA. Therefore everyone who owns and uses a Minimig can load the core-system of their choosing, whether it's an Atari, C64, A500, A500 AGA, etc....
And no one is concerned about x86 Aros running 68K Aros programs because x86 AROS was never intended to have binary compatibility with 68K AROS. x86 AROS uses a variant of UAE to run classic Amiga software and it works just as well, maybe even better than WinUAE since it's integrated almost seamlessly into Wanderer/Zune (the AROS GUI shell). The AROS devs ARE shooting for 68K AROS and classic-Amiga compatibility, which is well underway with the Kickstart replacement bounty.
And if you find that there's an application that doesn't behave well on one of the modified AGA/SuperAGA Minimig cores, then just revert back to a stock A500 softcore on your Minimig....problem solved.
As for programmers/developers being discouraged and not writing new applications for the FPGA Amigas and their proposed "extensions", well, it may be news to some, but that already happened about 10 years ago. Viable commercial software development for the Amiga is dead. Same can be said for next generation "real" Amiga hardware such as the X1000 and the Natami and Minimig. The Amiga is and will remain a system for hobbyists. No one is gonna get rich these days on ANYTHING Amiga, least of all programming for it. But at least with a Minimig, Natami, or FGAArcade people can buy something to relive better times and still have the option to write software for a system that'll be around a lot longer than classic A1200s, A500s, etc. Most classic Amiga users will admit that their systems are running on their last legs, held together with Scotch tape and a prayer.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 24, 2010, 10:52:40 PM
Quote from: yaqube;594140
Results for 28 MHz clock and 256-byte instruction cache. Maybe the speed gain is not impressive but I have yet another option to try. :D
I think this is very impressive for a core that was merely a 68000 core a short time ago. Is this with the 16-bit data bus still? Would there be any advantage to implementing a data cache?
5x faster than a stock A1200 and faster than an A3000 is not to be sniffed at.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on November 24, 2010, 11:04:41 PM
I'm sorry if this has been answered already, but what is missing from m68k/32 for it to be 68020 compatible? I love the speed benchmark results :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 24, 2010, 11:16:58 PM
To run the majority of the software. The most popular hardware platforms ought to be targeted (A500 and A1200 is my guess).
As for the CPU, maybe something else in the design could be boosted to improve performance.
And FPGA:s don't run any software. Their gates are configured after reset to interact in a specific manner. And imperative languages C++ etc.. translated to VHDL will be a serious compromise.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 24, 2010, 11:30:33 PM
Quote from: ferrellsl;594161
@little
No one is creating new hardware by extending the Minimig cores.
Huh? The moment you speak about something better than AGA it is new hardware, plain and simple. Do not confuse the fact that you can program the FPGA to recreate an amiga with the fact that you can add hardware to said computer that never existed before.
Quote
And no one is concerned about x86 Aros running 68K Aros programs because x86 AROS was never intended to have binary compatibility with 68K AROS.
I apologize for not saying this before (I thought it was quite obvious but this proves the opposite), I was never talking about x86 binaries running in 68k hardware, I merely was talking about recompiling the source to run them in 68k.
Quote
And if you find that there's an application that doesn't behave well on one of the modified AGA/SuperAGA Minimig cores, then just revert back to a stock A500 softcore on your Minimig....problem solved.
Let me spell this clearly, if someone writes a game with 24bit graphics and sound for AROS x86 and manages to recompile it for AGA/ECS/OCS it will look/sound bad. Even if AROS is successfully ported to 68k said game will still look god awful in an improved AGA core if the OS does not know how to access the improved graphics/sound hardware. Asking a programmer to make a game for a hardware platform with a user base below a thousand is sheer madness.
Quote
The Amiga is and will remain a system for hobbyists.
No question about it, but hobbyists are the kind of people like the idea of getting some OSS software and recompiling it to run in this supposedly dead platform.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 24, 2010, 11:38:27 PM
The question is for whom the platform is dead for ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on November 24, 2010, 11:40:08 PM
@little
And again, I say no new hardware is being created at all by modifiying an FPGA core. FPGA cores are software VHDL code. There is absolutely NO hardware being created when someone modifies a core. Please do some more study about FPGAs before you start spreading misinformation. Creating new hardware would be adding additional ICs, capacitors, resistors, etc. That does not happen when someone modifies a softcore. That's why it's called a "soft" core.
No, you are confusing the goals of AROS 68K and classic Amiga. The goal of AROS 68K is to run classic Amiga software completely unmodified. The target program will look and operate identically on an Amiga that's running AROS 68K or OS3.X. In fact, it will be running on identical hardware. Instead of OS 3.X on your Amiga, you simply choose to run Aros 68K instead. Or if you have an FPGA based Amiga, you can do the same there as well. Run AROS, or run OS3.X or less. The software application is still using Amiga hardware, but you can opt for an FPGA Amiga as well.
And I haven't seen nor heard of anyone here asking a programmer to make a 24-bit game for a classic Amiga.....No one here will disagree with you that asking such a thing is madness. Gunnar is actually making one for the Natami though, now that you mention it.
And who is developing ANY 24-bit screen mode games for classic Amigas anyway? (Answer: Nobody) And why would they? There's simply no market for it, and the CPU horsepower for such a game on a classic Amiga doesn't exist. So your argument makes no sense. So the FPGA devs are supposed to keep their next generation Amiga hardware and softcores stunted/handicapped for software that doesn't even exist? The entire point of next generation hardware is to move forward with greater capabilities while retaining the ability to run older classic software if you choose to do so.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 25, 2010, 12:09:43 AM
Quote from: ferrellsl;594191
@little
And again, I say no new hardware is being created at all by modifiying an FPGA core. FPGA cores are software VHDL code. There is absolutely NO hardware being created when someone modifies a core. Please do some more study about FPGAs before you start spreading misinformation. Creating new hardware would be adding additional ICs, capacitors, resistors, etc. That does not happen when someone modifies a softcore. That's why it's called a "soft" core.
You don't know how thankful I am for clarifying that for me, for a moment I thought this (http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/142283-vbxe-2/) was a piece of hardware.
Quote
No, you are confusing the goals of AROS 68K and classic Amiga. The goal of AROS 68K is to run classic Amiga software completely unmodified. The target program will look and operate identically on an Amiga that's running AROS 68K or OS3.X. In fact, it will be running on identical hardware. Instead of OS 3.X on your Amiga, you simply choose to run Aros 68K instead. Or if you have an FPGA based Amiga, you can do the same there as well. Run AROS, or run OS3.X or less. The software application is still using Amiga hardware, but you can opt for an FPGA Amiga as well.
You heard it first, AROS 68k will not have new capabilities, nor fix any bugs/incompatibilities, don't you feel reassured now? :)
Quote
And I haven't seen nor heard of anyone here asking a programmer to make a 24-bit game for a hardware platform with a user base below a thousand.....No one here with disagree with you that asking such a thing is madness.
So what would be the point then of improving AGA at all if no one is going to benefit from the extra features? You have already said that AROS will not support the AGA and I can assure you that AmigaOS 3.1 (even 3.9) cannot support said hardware.
Quote
And who is developing ANY 24-bit screen mode games for classic Amigas anyway? (Answer: Nobody) And why would they? There's simply no market for it, and the CPU horsepower for such a game on a classic Amiga doesn't exist.
It is called freeware and it existed even when my amiga 1200 was brand new :)
Quote
So your argument makes no sense. So the FPGA devs are supposed to keep their next generation Amiga hardware and softcores stunted/handicapped for software that doesn't even exist? The entire point of next generation hardware is to move forward with greater capabilities while retaining the ability to run older classic software if you choose to do so.
I salute you, I haven't met someone with tea and no tea at the same time in quite a while.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on November 25, 2010, 12:13:32 AM
There are lots of ways AGA can be improved. The most obvious one is eliminating the "SuperHiRes 8-bitplane" DMA slowdown, others include speeding up blitter operations. Hopefully 1280x512 would become totally useable.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on November 25, 2010, 12:28:31 AM
@little
As I said earlier, please educate yourself further as to the difference between hardware and software. A "softcore" is software code loaded into a FPGA. It's called "soft" for a reason. The FPGA discussed in the context of this thread IS the hardware. It IS the new computer in its entirety, minus the softcore, as far as Natami and Minimig go anyway. Adding new screen modes to an Amiga softcore on a Minimig or Natami does not involve adding ANY new hardware components at all, no ICs, no resistors, no boards, etc....your link to an Atari hardware page has nothing to do with anything here. That is simply a new hardware video card made to be inserted into an existing Atari. It just happens to use an FPGA chip to emulate the ICs and other components normally found on mass produced video cards. Developers and hobbyists use FPGA chips for a variety of reasons. The Natami developers chose an FPGA because obtaining real Motorola 68060 chips was too expensive and impractical. It also gives them the ability to create "new" or enhanced CPUs in software...as well as new video and audio capabilities without having to constantly design and redesign new hardware whenever a change or extension is made.
Where have I said that AROS 68K won't support AGA? It'll support AGA, SuperAGA and other modes/extensions as they are developed.
Huh?? AROS 68K will have all kinds of enhancements available to it as long as you run it on next generation hardware such as a Natami, Minimig or FPGAArcade board. It also will run just fine on a classic Amiga.
Neat trick. Post us a video of you running a 24-bit color freeware game on your classic Amiga. I'm sure the resolution is crappy and the frame-rate abysmal. I can take my old software or your freeware game and it'll run better on the next gen FPGA based systems. That's the point of next generation hardware. Even better trick, show us a list of developers who are currently writing 24-bit color games for classic Amigas.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on November 25, 2010, 02:01:01 AM
Quote
Adding new screen modes to an Amiga softcore on a Minimig or Natami does not involve adding ANY new hardware components at all, no ICs, no resistors, no boards, etc....
Wrong. Minimig has a suxxy 12-bit DAC and is totally incapable of displaying AGA gfx modes. So a minimig would need a new 24-bit DAC to support AGA modes. Natami already has the correct DAC. Have a nice day :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on November 25, 2010, 02:05:41 AM
Quote from: ferrellsl;594191
And who is developing ANY 24-bit screen mode games for classic Amigas anyway? (Answer: Nobody)
So I am a nobody if I develop a 24-bit screen mode game for Classic Amigas? Thanks. You really know to make Amiga devs feel loved.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 25, 2010, 02:16:27 AM
One can still make AGA with 12-bit suxxy D/A. The difference is slightly worse picture.
The real show stopper is the number of configurable gates (400k vs 1200k).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on November 25, 2010, 02:24:41 AM
Quote from: freqmax;594229
One can still make AGA with 12-bit suxxy D/A. The difference is slightly worse picture.
The difference is dramatically, tremendously worse.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 25, 2010, 02:43:11 AM
It's important that the D/A is able to change the RGB color channels faster than the next pixel needs to show up. Other than that the difference is in the dithering levels available and S/N ratio.
A resistor D/A ought to have no problem with response time, but have worse S/N ratio than a chip D/A.
Btw, I heard some weird people think that it's possible to implement a whole Amiga in a little fpga chip. How ridiculus :P
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 25, 2010, 03:23:45 AM
Quote from: freqmax;594229
The real show stopper is the number of configurable gates (400k vs 1200k).
IMO they should already go with the 1600k FPGA.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 25, 2010, 03:31:12 AM
There's another catch there.. the tool (http://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController?langId=-1&storeId=500201&catalogId=500201&action=products&N=0&mfr=XLX&hrf=http://www.xilinx.com/onlinestore/design_resources.htm&term=EF-ISE-LOG-NL) to use it cost like 3000 USD/year.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on November 25, 2010, 03:40:16 AM
@chaoslord
OK, so I was mistaken about the Minimig, but I'm 100% correct about the Natami and other FPGA based solutions. Adding new screenmodes and other capabilities is a matter of updating the softcore, no hardware mods necessary. That's exactly how Yaqube was able to increase the maximum available chipram on a Minimig from 2 MB to around 50.
As for my remarks about the lack of game development for classic Amigas, I don't care if classic game developers feel loved or not. (Strike out that last sentence. I DO think I love you!!) My point is that there's almost zero demand for classic games and almost zero amount of accompanying classic development. No development that anyone could make a living from anyway. If you still develop classic software for little or no money, I laud your efforts. You are to be commended. It's really too bad. I hope that next gen hardware such as the Natami and FPGAArcade will spur development a little, but I have to be realistic. The Amiga has long since passed the point of no return from being a hobby OS. And it's great to relive the Amiga's glory years whether I use WinUAE, a real classic or an FPGA based system. I don't think any other computer users from our era can even relate, except maybe the Atari fans.....maybe they can relate just a little bit even if their hardware was/is inferior to the Amiga! LOL
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: JimS on November 25, 2010, 03:58:04 AM
Quote from: gaula92;594108
THIS Cray-1 ??? --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1
This thing looks like it came out of TRON!! WOW!! I'll be careful not to work with it while it has some digitaliser attached, I don't like hi-speed motorcycles... I can't wait to put my hands on a thing like this, running on my room in FPGA!
Actually, Tron came out of it. ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 25, 2010, 05:04:06 AM
Quote from: freqmax;594238
There's another catch there.. the tool (http://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController?langId=-1&storeId=500201&catalogId=500201&action=products&N=0&mfr=XLX&hrf=http://www.xilinx.com/onlinestore/design_resources.htm&term=EF-ISE-LOG-NL) to use it cost like 3000 USD/year.
If I understand correctly said tool is required for the virtex and spartan 6. AFAIK the biggest spartan 3e model has 1600k (and not 1200k) gates and last time I checked the price was not too high (of course YMMV).
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: smerf on November 25, 2010, 07:43:31 AM
Quote from: Cammy;544291
Holy crap, that's impressive! I love the way you just increased the ChipRAM so that gigantic image would load. Wow!
Hi,
@cammy,
Yes that is impressive, and with a few more instructions maybe we can have the new expensive minimig board roll over and play dead. Yes I think that the minimig board that duplicates the A500 was a good school project but I saw something the other day walking through a flea market, an Amiga 500 game console that came with 50 Amiga games all embedded in a joystick. It ran off of a couple of double A batts and you could carry it around take it over your friends house and play the 50 Amiga games on it, you could even order a flash card with another 50 games for $49.95.
Now that was impressive.
smerf
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: smerf on November 25, 2010, 07:54:10 AM
Quote from: xyzzy;594206
There are lots of ways AGA can be improved. The most obvious one is eliminating the "SuperHiRes 8-bitplane" DMA slowdown, others include speeding up blitter operations. Hopefully 1280x512 would become totally useable.
Hi,
Ever try a modern day graphics card with Amiga Forever.
Talk about improvement with no slowdown and you don't even have to eliminate the superhires 8 bitplane.
Oh wow: 1280 by 512 usable, good grief what will they think of next for the next new hardware for the Amiga.
Amiga Forever runs at 1280 x 1020 with no problems. Oh no I am really going to make you all angry at me I should be thinking slow expensive buggy new hardware for our favorite machine when Cloanto's new 2010 package runs everything great when you have a newer PC machine. Not a 386 or 486 you know something modern. We are up to 6 cores, and single cores that run 200 times faster than a 68060 miggy. I know lets step it up to a 1.86 ghz ppc chip. (10 year old tech) wow super frog will really fly then.
smerf
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 25, 2010, 08:52:28 AM
Quote from: smerf;594255
Hi,
@cammy,
Yes that is impressive, and with a few more instructions maybe we can have the new expensive minimig board roll over and play dead. Yes I think that the minimig board that duplicates the A500 was a good school project but I saw something the other day walking through a flea market, an Amiga 500 game console that came with 50 Amiga games all embedded in a joystick. It ran off of a couple of double A batts and you could carry it around take it over your friends house and play the 50 Amiga games on it, you could even order a flash card with another 50 games for $49.95.
Now that was impressive.
smerf
And you didn't buy it? You didn't take photos to post here?
Most likely some Chinese company took the Minimig VHDL and made an ASIC with it. Or it's emulated on a fast ARM SoC.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 25, 2010, 09:02:54 AM
Quote from: smerf;594257
Hi, Ever try a modern day graphics card with Amiga Forever.
Talk about improvement with no slowdown and you don't even have to eliminate the superhires 8 bitplane. Oh wow: 1280 by 512 usable, good grief what will they think of next for the next new hardware for the Amiga.
Amiga Forever runs at 1280 x 1020 with no problems. Oh no I am really going to make you all angry at me I should be thinking slow expensive buggy new hardware for our favorite machine when Cloanto's new 2010 package runs everything great when you have a newer PC machine. Not a 386 or 486 you know something modern. We are up to 6 cores, and single cores that run 200 times faster than a 68060 miggy. I know lets step it up to a 1.86 ghz ppc chip. (10 year old tech) wow super frog will really fly then.
smerf
I don't think you even understand why people would want Minimig or FPGAArcade, yet wouldn't mind a few issues with the chipsets fixed (mostly sped up).
Amiga Forever is just emulation. It is neat, and useful with the RTG graphics. I have absolutely no interest in it however, I've tried it in the past, but it's just not interesting to me. Having a full reimplementation of the hardware, at a hardware level (FPGA), is far more interesting. I can't explain why, it just is!
Hopefully the video output on FPGAArcade can (or will eventually) clock higher than AGA, allowing higher resolutions than what AGA could drive. In addition adding a chunky mode and a RTG driver would be useful for 3D and desktop uses.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 25, 2010, 10:17:19 AM
Just to clarify the specs. The Replay board hardware supports 24 bit and 16 bit video modes. It has a output filter / cable driver to get decent analogue output.
The FPGA is a Spartan3e1600 which is fully supported by the free toolset and around 3x larger than the original Minimig board.
Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on November 25, 2010, 10:39:05 AM
Quote from: ferrellsl;594239
@chaoslord
OK, so I was mistaken about the Minimig, but I'm 100% correct about the Natami and other FPGA based solutions. Adding new screenmodes and other capabilities is a matter of updating the softcore, no hardware mods necessary.
That is because the D/A on the Natami is already 24bit capable. There is nothing to stop you from adding the registers to the original minimig in principle, the problems start when you attempt to use/display them. If those "other FPGA based solutions" share the same or similar limitations to their D/A, they will suffer the same issues as the original minimig.
That is all.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 25, 2010, 10:44:23 AM
Quote from: Linde;594180
I'm sorry if this has been answered already, but what is missing from m68k/32 for it to be 68020 compatible?
The main source of incompatibility is the lack of support for bitfield instructions and word/long word access at odd addresses.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: skurk on November 25, 2010, 11:39:21 AM
Quote from: smerf;594255
(...) but I saw something the other day walking through a flea market, an Amiga 500 game console that came with 50 Amiga games all embedded in a joystick. It ran off of a couple of double A batts and you could carry it around take it over your friends house and play the 50 Amiga games on it, you could even order a flash card with another 50 games for $49.95.
Are you sure about those specs, and that you're not confusing it with the C64DTV?
I've seen similar devices (like the Speedlink (http://www.speedlink.com/?p=2&cat=313&pid=18089&paus=1)) which is a USB joystick and an emulator for Windows, along with some games on a CD.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 25, 2010, 01:14:08 PM
.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: jj on November 25, 2010, 01:53:38 PM
Quote from: xyzzy;593930
Hopefully we'll see an Amstrad CPC (+) core too :)
+ 1
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 25, 2010, 06:38:50 PM
Just a small update. The CPU core is still clocked at 28 MHz but this time with two separate 256-byte instruction and data caches. :D
That looks awesome and begs the ambitious question, how big a cache can be added? Would it have about the same performance as the coldfire if you add the same size caches (let's say 16kb instruction and 8kb data cache like the 5207)?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 25, 2010, 07:12:07 PM
:banana: :banana: :banana:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on November 25, 2010, 07:37:07 PM
Quote from: yaqube;594342
Just a small update. The CPU core is still clocked at 28 MHz but this time with two separate 256-byte instruction and data caches. :D
We're going to have to wrap you in cotton wool and assign 10 armned guards to watch your every move just to make sure you never have an accidient! :D
Great work!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on November 25, 2010, 07:48:40 PM
Great work Yacube !
Looks like you beat the blizzard 1230@50 with this atempt. Your speed: 18,65 times A600 Blizzard 1230: 16.69 times A600
Bring out the beer for this man ;-)
Can you please say something about the HDF read/write speeds you get :-) Is there a gain in speed for hdf read/write ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 25, 2010, 07:50:59 PM
Is there any performance optimimum like for the instruction cache where 16-bytes gives a significant boost, but 256-bytes only gives 7% more performance increase. The idea with data cache seems a full success.
Maybe prefetch could be useful ? , because every RAM-fetch from memory require a significant setup time. So reading a few extra bytes in advance might be benefitial?
How is compatability? any software that screws up on this m68k/32 + AGA combination? There's both instruction compatibility and cycle compatibility for tight software loops?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 25, 2010, 08:40:10 PM
Quote from: freqmax;594351
Is there any performance optimimum like for the instruction cache where 16-bytes gives a significant boost, but 256-bytes only gives 7% more performance increase.
It heavily depends on application. The 16-byte cache gives significant boost because it's one line of 16 bytes and actually acts as a prefetch buffer. Data from memory are always transferred as a burst of 4 32-bit words (which gives 16 bytes). After initial transfer latency the successive words can be accessed at no delay.
Quote
Maybe prefetch could be useful ? , because every RAM-fetch from memory require a significant setup time. So reading a few extra bytes in advance might be benefitial?
It's been already done. When I added the data cache I also implemented an extra instruction cache prefetch. The speed gain is 18%.
Quote
How is compatability?
The work is far from complete but there exist some programs which work. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 25, 2010, 08:43:13 PM
Quote from: wizard66;594350
Is there a gain in speed for hdf read/write ?
The hdf read speed has increased by 5% to 2000 KB/s.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on November 25, 2010, 08:51:30 PM
Keep the benchmark p0rn coming... I can't wait to get hold of one of these..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on November 25, 2010, 10:33:04 PM
Very impressive Yaqube my good man, you just beat my Blizzard Mk4 1230!
How much further to you think this can go...we need more speed dammit!
:)
Can the clock go any higher than 28Mhz?
As you well know the main performance inhibitor in a classic AGA machine is not actually the speed of the CPU but the slow CHIPRAM access. Because this AGA implementation doesn't suffer from this hindrance, in real-world terms (eg WB usage) how much faster will this thing be at 10 MIPS than a real AGA machine also at 10 MIPS?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on November 26, 2010, 12:25:48 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;594369
Because this AGA implementation doesn't suffer from this hindrance, in real-world terms (eg WB usage) how much faster will this thing be at 10 MIPS than a real AGA machine also at 10 MIPS?
I just hope to be able to animate with DPaintIV AGA in 256 colours and HAM8, in fast high resolution native screenmodes (like those on Indivision AGA with Ratte's super modes) with a seemingly endless supply of chip ram :lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 12:39:36 AM
Just increasing the frequency is likely not as efficient as optimizing the data flows in the m68k/32 soft-core.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Lizard on November 26, 2010, 10:06:45 AM
Quote from: mikej;588879
Latest update, the boards have been shipped back to me so I hope to get them before the weekend :)
There is a video of the production as well, but I haven't got it yet. /Mike
Did you get that video yet? Very nice to see this progressing so nicely.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 26, 2010, 10:55:03 AM
Quote from: yaqube;594342
Just a small update. The CPU core is still clocked at 28 MHz but this time with two separate 256-byte instruction and data caches. :D
Your work has piqued my interest with hardware description languages... Though I don't think I will be able to get my head around it, I'll stick with microcntrollers and software :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 11:43:50 AM
.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 26, 2010, 11:53:26 AM
"Did you get that video yet?" No, they haven't sent it to me yet, they wanted to do some editing. I'll ask again. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 12:28:44 PM
I hope the boards arrive ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 26, 2010, 01:14:03 PM
"I hope the boards arrive" I have 10 boards already on test!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 01:24:12 PM
What's the status on the tests so far?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 26, 2010, 04:11:57 PM
All good so far. One minor issue with the perfomance of one of the linear power regulators (LDO) is not as good as the prototype part (a different one). The reverse leakage is too high and the board will not always turn off. I have modded one board and have some different LDOs on order which should fix it.
Main power is fine, FPGA is booted and running ok so beer all round really. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 04:17:38 PM
What do you mean with reverse leakage ..? Is that the only issue? ie the LDO has too much reverese leakage wich prevent the board from turning power off?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Hattig on November 26, 2010, 04:25:00 PM
Quote from: freqmax;594463
What do you mean with reverse leakage ..? Is that the only issue? ie the LDO has too much reverese leakage wich prevent the board from turning power off?
Reverse Leakage? Because Amigas are so old, you can have catheter problems? :-o
Thanks for the update MikeJ. We'll be wanting a picture of you running SimCity 2000 AGA soon :p
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on November 26, 2010, 04:29:39 PM
So far yes.
This is sort of complex, but here is the full story.
The main reason for the RevB board is that the DAC has a leakage problem. If you have a DVI/HDMI connection, sufficient current leaks back from the monitor and powers the 3.3V supply.
To fix this, a 5V to 3.3V LDO was added to this board as Chrontel recommend. For the prototype it worked well. I couldn't get the part I wanted for the first 10 boards so I used a microchip part.
It's not a good idea to run the main power through the slide-switch only the 5V supply goes through the switch and the high current DC-DCs are driven from the 5V input with the enable line driven from the 5V switch supply. This is a good simple low cost approach, but has the problem that if there is any leakage from the low voltage supplies back onto the 5V line then the DC-DCs will not turn off.
So, the board is a bit of a zombie. You turn it on. It goes on, You turn it off .... it stays on.
Most LDOs will turn off the FET when the input voltage drops below a certain threshold. This one does not, so I get about 1.6 V fed onto the 5V line. This is enough on some boards to keep the DCDCs running.
The other LDO I have works fine so I just need to fit a different one.
The differences to the RevA board are minor and there are 7 of those running for over a year now perfectly stable.
Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 04:56:00 PM
Maybe a Zener diode could solve this in combination with some resistor current limiter? Or a plain scottchy diode in series with the 3,3 V regulator or somewhere in the power supply chain? Diodes have a constant voltage drop which makes it easier to calculate with in a constant voltage circuit.
I suppose the DAC problem is only affecting the analog part of the DVI connection? (no analog provision in HDMI)
Btw, an auto power off from software would be neat ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on November 26, 2010, 07:46:39 PM
I was thinking more along the lines of remodulating the secondary plasma injectors with an inverted tachyon pulse. Oh, and a level 2 diagnostic, that should do it.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 08:59:32 PM
xyzzy, Why do you feel the need to divert from the topic in such trolling way rather than focus on what's useful ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: golem on November 26, 2010, 09:07:25 PM
Quote from: freqmax;594534
xyzzy, Why do you feel the need to divert from the topic in such trolling way rather than focus on what's useful ?
I thought his quip was quite funny. Easily amused I guess )
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on November 26, 2010, 09:51:27 PM
Quote from: freqmax;594534
xyzzy, Why do you feel the need to divert from the topic in such trolling way rather than focus on what's useful ?
He was just making a joke. Lighten up. Just because this is an Amiga forum doesn't mean it can't be fun too! LOL
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on November 26, 2010, 10:14:21 PM
Thank you :)
Keep calm and carry on, everybody. Normal service will resume shortly.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 26, 2010, 10:16:52 PM
Quote from: yaqube;594342
Just a small update. The CPU core is still clocked at 28 MHz but this time with two separate 256-byte instruction and data caches. :D
Clock for clock, that makes your implementation about twice as fast as a real 68020/68030 :D
Nice work!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 26, 2010, 10:19:05 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594550
Clock for clock, that makes your implementation about twice as fast as a real 68020/68030 :D
Nice work!
A guy in his bedroom makes a CPU better than Motorola's entire CPU dev team could make in the 80's... makes you think... ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 26, 2010, 10:21:18 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594424
Your work has piqued my interest with hardware description languages... Though I don't think I will be able to get my head around it, I'll stick with microcntrollers and software :)
I was thinking I should learn VHDL or Verilog or something too. When you think of all those "I wish I had XYZ for my old machine" moments...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 26, 2010, 10:23:52 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594554
I was thinking I should learn VHDL or Verilog or something too. When you think of all those "I wish I had XYZ for my old machine" moments...
I just don't think I could grasp it... I'll have to look at some example code and see how it map to hardware... but I can't do stuff like this without a strong visualization of what is really happening.
-edit- What does this project use? VHDL or Verilog?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Tension on November 26, 2010, 10:25:23 PM
Is this thread really this long?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on November 26, 2010, 10:38:44 PM
http://www.fpga4fun.com is a very good site to learn the basics.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Franko on November 26, 2010, 10:48:55 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594559
I just don't think I could grasp it... I'll have to look at some example code and see how it map to hardware... but I can't do stuff like this without a strong visualization of what is really happening.
-edit- What does this project use? VHDL or Verilog?
Erm... It looks like a Robot's shopping list to me... :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 26, 2010, 10:48:56 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594559
I just don't think I could grasp it... I'll have to look at some example code and see how it map to hardware... but I can't do stuff like this without a strong visualization of what is really happening.
-edit- What does this project use? VHDL or Verilog?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ChaosLord on November 26, 2010, 10:55:40 PM
Quote from: Tension;594561
Is this thread really this long?
No.
It is actually quite a bit longer than this. :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 26, 2010, 11:12:32 PM
* VHDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHDL), tough!, you have to eat shit initially but you can do the bit-flank-bang any way you want in the end. Get used to Cobol fingers(tm). Modeled after ADA thanks to DoD .. Doh!..
* Verilog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog), Modeled on the C language, Shoot from the hip! Fast way to bit-flank-bang heaven with limitations in advanced level.
Then there's the C++/C whatever to VHDL/Verilog translator. BUT interpreting programming languages is the wrong tool for the job. A shortcut that can make you suffer the brick wall.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 26, 2010, 11:13:04 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594574
Looks a bit like ADA :)
Apparently that's what it was based on :-/ I've been looking over various VHDL tutorials for the last 15min and nothing is grabbing me... I think I'm just so ¨C¨ ingrained now... I can basically make sense of the listings, but I can't visualize it :(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 26, 2010, 11:16:06 PM
Quote from: freqmax;594579
* VHDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHDL), tough!, you have to eat shit initially but you can do the bit-flank-bang any way you want in the end. Get used to Cobol fingers(tm). Modeled after ADA thanks to DoD .. Doh!..
* Verilog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog), Modeled on the C language, Shoot from the hip! Fast way to bit-flank-bang heaven with limitations in advanced level.
Then there's the C++/C whatever to VHDL/Verilog translator. BUT interpreting programming languages is the wrong tool for the job. A shortcut that can make you suffer the brick wall.
Ok, yeah a few min with Varilog and stuff it making MUCH more sense...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Franko on November 26, 2010, 11:24:29 PM
@ bloodline
Here are some library pictures to help you visualize it... (well the library bit at least)... :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 26, 2010, 11:31:14 PM
@Franko
I've just read through the Verilog 1 Day tutorial and it all seems to make sense, it's very C like except with concurrency... I don't know how one begins with VHDL though...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Franko on November 26, 2010, 11:35:46 PM
@ bloodline
Hmmm... never heard of VHDL, what's is stand for ? my guess is Very Hard Difficult Language !!!
(PS:Could someone start a new poll please, having that one stuck their about me all this time is like having some sort of wanted or warning poster about me and we're starting to get a bit paranoid... ta... :))
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 12:07:54 AM
Yeah, verilog looks like the ideal starting place. I guess once you are familiar with descriptions of hardware constructs, picking up VHDL may be a bit easier.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yssing on November 27, 2010, 01:14:33 AM
Ill stick to what I know for now.. :) php,c and basic.. Personally I can do with out to much headache.. :)
I do admire those who know VHDL.. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on November 27, 2010, 09:43:43 AM
Quote from: Karlos;594550
Clock for clock, that makes your implementation about twice as fast as a real 68020/68030 :D
Actually it's not mine, the whole CPU core was designed by Tobias. I only added caches to allow it to work at full speed. Despite it's not complete yet the job done by Tobias is excellent.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 27, 2010, 10:21:39 AM
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: joemango on November 27, 2010, 12:14:13 PM
Quote from: ferrellsl;594161
@little
No one is creating new hardware by extending the Minimig cores. And backward compatibility is being maintained with previous real-hardware Amigas by both the Natami team and MikeJ on his FPGAArcade board. It sounds like you may be a bit unclear as to what an FPGA really accomplishes. The A500 core on a Minimig is simply a complete A500 recreated in software and loaded onto the FPGA chip. New "virtual" hardware can be created as needed just by modifying the existing core and loading it onto the FPGA. Therefore everyone who owns and uses a Minimig can load the core-system of their choosing, whether it's an Atari, C64, A500, A500 AGA, etc....
And no one is concerned about x86 Aros running 68K Aros programs because x86 AROS was never intended to have binary compatibility with 68K AROS. x86 AROS uses a variant of UAE to run classic Amiga software and it works just as well, maybe even better than WinUAE since it's integrated almost seamlessly into Wanderer/Zune (the AROS GUI shell). The AROS devs ARE shooting for 68K AROS and classic-Amiga compatibility, which is well underway with the Kickstart replacement bounty.
And if you find that there's an application that doesn't behave well on one of the modified AGA/SuperAGA Minimig cores, then just revert back to a stock A500 softcore on your Minimig....problem solved.
As for programmers/developers being discouraged and not writing new applications for the FPGA Amigas and their proposed "extensions", well, it may be news to some, but that already happened about 10 years ago. Viable commercial software development for the Amiga is dead. Same can be said for next generation "real" Amiga hardware such as the X1000 and the Natami and Minimig. The Amiga is and will remain a system for hobbyists. No one is gonna get rich these days on ANYTHING Amiga, least of all programming for it. But at least with a Minimig, Natami, or FGAArcade people can buy something to relive better times and still have the option to write software for a system that'll be around a lot longer than classic A1200s, A500s, etc. Most classic Amiga users will admit that their systems are running on their last legs, held together with Scotch tape and a prayer.
Yeah. We know. How long did it take you to type that?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 12:31:58 PM
Quote from: yaqube;594637
Actually it's not mine, the whole CPU core was designed by Tobias. I only added caches to allow it to work at full speed. Despite it's not complete yet the job done by Tobias is excellent.
Damn fine work by all involved, then :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 12:56:42 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594665
Damn fine work by all involved, then :)
Alright, I'll rephrase my statement... TWO guys in their bedrooms built a better CPU than Motorola's entire CPU dev team in the whole 80's...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 01:20:03 PM
Out of curiosity I downloaded the VHDL source for the TG68K. My first reaction was, "Is that it? It's so small!"
When you consider the size of your typical software emulation implementation, it looks dinky :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Fats on November 27, 2010, 01:24:56 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594669
Alright, I'll rephrase my statement... TWO guys in their bedrooms built a better CPU than Motorola's entire CPU dev team in the whole 80's...
Probably most people are able now to make a car in their garage that performs better than the early Ford (or Citroen deux-chevaux for the Europeans) in their garage. This does not mean that the original work was not a magnificent peace of engineering.
greets, Staf.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 02:01:36 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594671
Out of curiosity I downloaded the VHDL source for the TG68K. My first reaction was, "Is that it? It's so small!"
When you consider the size of your typical software emulation implementation, it looks dinky :)
I think the fact that the languages have defined microblocks ( I think I'm using the term properly) for basic operations (arithmetic, logic, data moving), these things have been preoptimised for performance. All one really needs to do in the TG68 core is decode the instruction, set the flags and pin signals correctly etc... Not to say that this isn't a huge achievement, just that the boring shuffling of bits is handled at a lower level, which saves a lot of space.
The whole tone of this post sounds negative and wrong... Try and reread it with a smile, as it's supposed to sound positive and excited...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 02:03:55 PM
Quote from: Fats;594673
Probably most people are able now to make a car in their garage that performs better than the early Ford (or Citroen deux-chevaux for the Europeans) in their garage. This does not mean that the original work was not a magnificent peace of engineering.
greets, Staf.
Hey Staf, I was not being serious in my post. The FPGA tools do a lot of the hard implementation work that simply had to be done by hand in the 80s... Also it's easier to build something that you know is going to work as it's based on a preexisitng idea, than to build something from scratch :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on November 27, 2010, 02:10:36 PM
Quote
The A500 core on a Minimig is simply a complete A500 recreated in software and loaded onto the FPGA chip.
FPGAs don't run software. They are not processors themselves.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 02:11:50 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594679
I think the fact that the languages have defined microblocks ( I think I'm using the term properly) for basic operations (arithmetic, logic, data moving), these things have been preoptimised for performance. All one really needs to do in the TG68 core is decode the instruction, set the flags and pin signals correctly etc... Not to say that this isn't a huge achievement, just that the boring shuffling of bits is handled at a lower level, which saves a lot of space.
Viewed in those terms, so does any software implementation. You know, things like data move, logic and arithmetic tend to have operators in C ;)
Quote
The whole tone of this post sounds negative and wrong... Try and reread it with a smile, as it's supposed to sound positive and excited...
:lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 02:22:06 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594687
Viewed in those terms, so does any software implementation. You know, things like data move, logic and arithmetic tend to have operators in C ;)
Exactly! C v's ASM
Quote
:lol:
I know, sometimes I basically suck...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 02:51:13 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594554
I was thinking I should learn VHDL or Verilog or something too. When you think of all those "I wish I had XYZ for my old machine" moments...
20MIPS Z80 clone for your speccy? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 02:52:04 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594690
Exactly! C v's ASM
I know, sometimes I basically suck...
Fnarr fnarr! ;)
(http://s1.hubimg.com/u/1962660_f260.jpg)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 02:58:42 PM
All those years of PL-SQL and Turbo Pascal are flooding back to me.
Ada is nice! :)
ADA... and there was Karlos mocking my contentment with Obj-C!!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 03:03:31 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594701
ADA... and there was Karlos mocking my contentment with Obj-C!!
heheh
We all have our deviancies I guess Matt! :)
You're lucky that you'll only get it on tha interwebs, I'll have to put up with his mockery in person quite often! :/
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 03:07:51 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594702
heheh
We all have our deviancies I guess Matt! :)
You're lucky that you'll only get it on tha interwebs, I'll have to put up with his mockery in person quite often! :/
Don't be so sure, the interwebs are a positive haven from the torment of the real world... but I bring it upon myself as someone not necessarily wishing to conform. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 03:10:56 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594704
Don't be so sure, the interwebs are a positive haven from the torment of the real world... but I bring it upon myself as someone not necessarily wishing to conform. :)
Not wishing to conform probably explains why I'm a minority within a minority within a minority. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 03:17:41 PM
Like most languages, ADA is what it is. Each language syntax is a jigsaw, pieces of which may be ugly and confusing, but overall build a recognisable whole where every piece has it's place and it all fits together snugly.
Objective-C, on the other hand, is like taking pieces from two wholly different, unrelated jigsaws and ham-fisting them together until they fit the same shape as the cover on the box, but is clear to anybody looking at them that they've been crudely mashed together without any real thought as the inherent incompatibilities between the two; you've got strange gaps, and overlapping bits that are bent completely out of shape. Overall it still works but it isn't pretty.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 03:19:18 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594709
ham-fisting
The mind boggles!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 03:19:35 PM
:roflmao:
I think you're trying to tell me something... I just can't quite put my finger on it...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 03:28:39 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594711
The mind boggles!
:roflmao:
I'm making up the verb from the adjective:
Quote
ham-fisted, ham-handed: (Informal) lacking dexterity or elegance; clumsy
Ham-fisting, in Karlos-speak is to perform any action "in a manner that lacks dexterity or elegance, clumsily"... Not to fist someone with a Ham...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 03:38:35 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594718
:roflmao:
I'm making up the verb from the adjective:
Ham-fisting, in Karlos-speak is to perform any action "in a manner that lacks dexterity or elegance, clumsily"... Not to fist someone with a Ham...
Who knows what sort of thing they get up to in "that London"?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2010, 03:40:46 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594721
Who knows what sort of thing they get up to in "that London"?
Where was the goatse guy from, anyway?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 03:44:34 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594721
Who knows what sort of thing they get up to in "that London"?
The very reason I moved here 11 years ago ;)
It's hard to feed any perversions on the Isle of Wight :(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: xyzzy on November 27, 2010, 03:47:42 PM
Quote from: Karlos;594671
Out of curiosity I downloaded the VHDL source for the TG68K. My first reaction was, "Is that it? It's so small!"
When you consider the size of your typical software emulation implementation, it looks dinky :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 04:43:14 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594724
The very reason I moved here 11 years ago ;)
It's hard to feed any perversions on the Isle of Wight :(
Unless one is a paedo.... or was that Jersey or Guernsey?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 04:54:32 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594744
Unless one is a paedo.... or was that Jersey or Guernsey?
Yeah, Jersey.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 05:01:09 PM
On a more related note, I've dug out my RKRM's and various 68k books to get the old synapses firing in nostalgia mode.
AROS 68k source here we come.
This VHDL stuff is looking very tempting though, anyone suggest a first-timers FPGA kit to buy or perhaps shuld I just get one of MikeJ's boards?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on November 27, 2010, 05:34:58 PM
Quote from: Franko;594585
(PS:Could someone start a new poll please, having that one stuck their about me all this time is like having some sort of wanted or warning poster about me and we're starting to get a bit paranoid... ta... :))
Time for one that goes "Is Franko paranoid, or are we really out to get him?" then.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on November 27, 2010, 05:42:45 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594669
Alright, I'll rephrase my statement... TWO guys in their bedrooms built a better CPU than Motorola's entire CPU dev team in the whole 80's...
Well, cache greatly improves performance on any cpu but back then perhaps the bottlenecks were elsewhere...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 05:48:27 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594750
On a more related note, I've dug out my RKRM's and various 68k books to get the old synapses firing in nostalgia mode.
AROS 68k source here we come.
Well, that's the point of AROS! Shame others don't get get stuck in and have some fun!
Quote
This VHDL stuff is looking very tempting though, anyone suggest a first-timers FPGA kit to buy or perhaps shuld I just get one of MikeJ's boards?
I think MikeJ's board is probably the best option... that way, if you find yourself totally stumped and bored with VHDL... at least you will have a new Amiga... :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: little on November 27, 2010, 05:49:05 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594750
This VHDL stuff is looking very tempting though, anyone suggest a first-timers FPGA kit to buy or perhaps shuld I just get one of MikeJ's boards?
IMO it would be better to get the fpgaarcade board, not only it is cheaper, but anything meaningful you achieve could be tested by others people.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 08:24:41 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594756
Well, that's the point of AROS! Shame others don't get get stuck in and have some fun!
I think MikeJ's board is probably the best option... that way, if you find yourself totally stumped and bored with VHDL... at least you will have a new Amiga... :)
There's some real hardcore Amiga coders (68k and C) on this site and I personally a couple of them. As you say it's a crying shame they haven't helped out so far. :(
Being under NDA/no-compete from certain PPC dedicated software houses might be the problem though.
MikeJ's board does look rather tempting, moe tempting than a MorphOS licence key for my Christmas pressie (If you are reading this love!)
Quote from: little;594757
IMO it would be better to get the fpgaarcade board, not only it is cheaper, but anything meaningful you achieve could be tested by others people.
I'm sold. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 08:28:29 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594773
MikeJ's board does look rather tempting, moe tempting than a MorphOS licence key for my Christmas pressie (If you are reading this love!)
I'm not getting you a Replay... ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 08:31:08 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594776
I'm not getting you a Replay... ;)
loooooooooooooool
Go on, I'll show you round Maida Vale Islamic Centre (http://www.ic-el.com/) if you do. ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 09:11:44 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594779
loooooooooooooool
Go on, I'll show you round Maida Vale Islamic Centre (http://www.ic-el.com/) if you do. ;)
Kind offer, though I expect I'd get about as much out of the visit as you would from one of Dawkins (http://richarddawkins.net/) more boring lectures... :lol:
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 09:20:22 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594798
Kind offer, though I expect I'd get about as much out of the visit as you would from one of Dawkins (http://richarddawkins.net/) more boring lectures... :lol:
Oh it's a beautiful building Matt, Grade A (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=142945915733873&set=a.155204441174687.36261.142945875733877) listed.
Much nicer than Finsbury or Regents Park I might add too and no one will try to kill you for being a "filthy infidel" either! :lol:
I love Dawkins lectures, or should I say I like rebutting his points. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 09:26:14 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594802
Oh it's a beautiful building Matt, Grade A (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=142945915733873&set=a.155204441174687.36261.142945875733877) listed.
Much nicer than Finsbury or Regents Park I might add too and no one will try to kill you for being a "filthy infidel" either! :lol:
Only Finsbury park mosque is horrible, mind... But the whole area is a horrible place.
Quote
I love Dawkins lectures, or should I say I like rebutting his points. :)
:) I think he'd actually like that!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 09:32:24 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594805
Only Finsbury park mosque is horrible, mind... But the whole area is a horrible place.
North London is mostly a horrible place mate! ;)
The most "horrible" thing you'd probably find at our place is the sight of 3,000 or more grown men sobbing like babies! :lol:
Quote
:) I think he'd actually like that!
I should hope so too, he wouldn't be much of an academic if he didn't. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on November 27, 2010, 09:34:42 PM
Quote from: nicholas;594809
North London is mostly a horrible place mate! ;)
The most "horrible" thing you'd probably find at our place is the sight of 3,000 or more grown men sobbing like babies! :lol:
That's why I live in West london :)
Quote
I should hope so too, he wouldn't be much of an academic if he didn't. :)
Indeed, and I would lose all respect for him.
Anyway... back on topic, I am also thinking about the Replay board now... I'm really not keen on VHDL, but FPGAs are starting to make my development gland itch!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: nicholas on November 27, 2010, 09:39:58 PM
Quote from: bloodline;594811
Anyway... back on topic, I am also thinking about the Replay board now... I'm really not keen on VHDL, but FPGAs are starting to make my development gland itch!
Ditto, not been this excited about anything development related in many many years!
VHDL I can cope with after over a decade of PL-SQL. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on November 28, 2010, 02:02:59 AM
I'm not suprised that a 1-2 persons in their home can beat a commercial development department. Usualy those institutions are hampered with red-tape, clueless managers that doesn't get the task at hand etc.. Ofcourse the original creators had to do things in hardware without any good simulation tools. But the former still applies, even now.
lou_dias, Cache helps, but the 16-byte cache is way smaller than the original 68030 256-byte cache. Increasing from 16 to 256 bytes gives cirka 7% more performance. But cost lots of matrix estate. So not worth it. So any performance from cache on the TG68 comes really from another section. The only noteworthy is that the data cache gave TG68 a 2x boost. I suspect there are other parts that can be optimized. But one has to stay compatible too. As soon as some software uses tight I/O loops with external hardware or multimedia chips there might be a problem otherwise.
I see a common problem with both VHDL and Verilog. They both want to be imperative language look-alike. Personally I don't like ADA, but like the ability to do serious flank setups in VHDL. The problem with imperative and even functional language is that they are designed with a sequential processing in mind. A language which is centered around a logic array configuration would be far superior.
(wonder when those new linear regulators show up at mikej ;) )
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Popstar on November 28, 2010, 10:54:54 AM
Loving this project! I am definitely going to get one of these. Is there any chance for an x86 IBM compatible like the Zet (http://opencores.org/project,zet86)? Would love to play King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry in CGA mode again.
P.S. I would of course get it for the AGA Amiga part, but any part of my fond computer memories that can be fitted into this beauty is a Win.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: benJamin on December 01, 2010, 10:50:37 AM
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: vidarh on December 01, 2010, 11:19:15 AM
Quote from: freqmax;594890
The only noteworthy is that the data cache gave TG68 a 2x boost. I suspect there are other parts that can be optimized. But one has to stay compatible too. As soon as some software uses tight I/O loops with external hardware or multimedia chips there might be a problem otherwise.
It'd be nice to have a cycle exact version to fall back on, but I wouldn't worry too much otherwise - anything using loops for timing would fail on any number of Amiga models and with most accelerators too, and presumably wouldn't take advantage of the extra performance anyway. If it's easy enough to fall back on a plain 68000 version for particularly badly coded stuff but use a nicely optimized one for workbench etc. that'd be ideal.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on December 01, 2010, 11:32:49 AM
Quote from: vidarh;595862
It'd be nice to have a cycle exact version to fall back on, but I wouldn't worry too much otherwise - anything using loops for timing would fail on any number of Amiga models and with most accelerators too, and presumably wouldn't take advantage of the extra performance anyway. If it's easy enough to fall back on a plain 68000 version for particularly badly coded stuff but use a nicely optimized one for workbench etc. that'd be ideal.
A good question is if one of the unused SR flags could be used to toggle cycle exact mode at runtime... I'm not sure if that would require separate logic paths though? Anyway the flag could be clear for cycle exact mode and set for single/reduced cycle mode.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Gulliver on December 04, 2010, 02:08:16 AM
I am sorry if it has been asked before (if that is the case please point me to the apropiate post). I want to know about the fpgaarcade´s power consumption, how much is it?.
Thanks
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on December 04, 2010, 10:15:50 AM
Quote from: Gulliver;596882
I want to know about the fpgaarcade´s power consumption, how much is it?
The current consumption of the Replay board running the latest Minimig AGA core with a mouse and keyboard connected is 600 mA (max). It seems 1 A is more than enough for the base board.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Gulliver on December 04, 2010, 10:56:15 AM
@yaqube Thank you for your answer! :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 06, 2010, 12:48:00 PM
@yaqube, volts?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Gulliver on December 06, 2010, 12:54:48 PM
Quote from: freqmax;597382
@yaqube, volts?
He mentioned long ago 5 volts.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 06, 2010, 01:55:25 PM
Just wanted to be sure. The board uses regulators. So the input voltage can vary with the same power.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 06, 2010, 06:45:20 PM
The input voltage must be regulated 5V and cable of supplying 1A or more. The 5V is used directly, the lower voltages are generated internally. There is a polyfuse (2A) and over voltage/reverse protection. Ideally the 5V would be generated as well, but that would need another DC-DC and increase the cost.
You can also power it through the molex (ata hard disk power) connector from a PC power supply, assuming you have frigged the power on line. Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 06, 2010, 10:15:51 PM
Assuming a cable area of 0.205 mm² (cat.5) which gives 0,188 ohm/meter and 5 V with a 5% tolerance. Ohms law U=R*I gives the maximum cable length to be 2,2 meters. Quite tight.
I hope the next board at least has space to populate it with onboard 5 V regulation.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on December 07, 2010, 12:35:57 AM
Quote from: freqmax;597472
Assuming a cable area of 0.205 mm² (cat.5) which gives 0,188 ohm/meter and 5 V with a 5% tolerance. Ohms law U=R*I gives the maximum cable length to be 2,2 meters. Quite tight.
I hope the next board at least has space to populate it with onboard 5 V regulation.
Are you talking about the length of copper wire between the board and the AC/DC converter that plugs into the wall outlet? Or the total combined circuit length of the board itself? To a FPGA board-designing geek, your question is probably quite obvious, but to a novice like me, it isn't as clear. LOL
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 07, 2010, 05:59:22 AM
Quote from: freqmax;597472
Assuming a cable area of 0.205 mm² (cat.5) which gives 0,188 ohm/meter and 5 V with a 5% tolerance. Ohms law U=R*I gives the maximum cable length to be 2,2 meters. Quite tight.
I hope the next board at least has space to populate it with onboard 5 V regulation.
Why would you run cat.5 cable from the PSU plugged into the wall to the dc power jack? Personally I would use somewhat chunkier cable, like the one which comes attached?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: the_leander on December 07, 2010, 08:16:16 AM
Quote from: mikej;597515
Why would you run cat.5 cable from the PSU plugged into the wall to the dc power jack?
For the lulz?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 07, 2010, 11:56:36 AM
I just used the cat.5 as an example to demonstrate that onboard regulators have an advantage as all wires inherently will loose some voltage. The important factors is the conductor diameter and voltage tolerance.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: ferrellsl on December 07, 2010, 05:25:01 PM
Quote from: freqmax;597541
I just used the cat.5 as an example to demonstrate that onboard regulators have an advantage as all wires inherently will loose some voltage. The important factors is the conductor diameter and voltage tolerance.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
And what appliances need a power cable longer than 2.2 meters anyway? Get an extension cord!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Terminills on December 07, 2010, 05:27:31 PM
Quote from: ferrellsl;597593
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
And what appliances need a power cable longer than 2.2 meters anyway? Get an extension cord!
My wisp client does(currently it's a 75' run)... but then again it uses poe. =D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on December 16, 2010, 02:50:55 PM
Are we nearly there yet?
:D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Louis Dias on December 16, 2010, 03:02:43 PM
2 more weeks!
:-)
But seriously, even without "feature creep" these things take time. Considering Commodore bailed in '93/94, you'd think patience would be the order of the day in this community...
FYI: In a few weeks this thread will be 2 years old!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on December 16, 2010, 03:37:36 PM
Sure, im as patient as anything... just wondering if there are any more snippets of info... like that video, or anything really.
:D
Quote from: lou_dias;599181
2 more weeks!
:-)
But seriously, even without "feature creep" these things take time. Considering Commodore bailed in '93/94, you'd think patience would be the order of the day in this community...
FYI: In a few weeks this thread will be 2 years old!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 16, 2010, 10:30:25 PM
Testing going well, no problems yet apart from the audio connector being a bit close to the DVI connector which means you can't use really fat DVI cables. I've mounted the jack at a slight angle which helps. Right angle audio plugs also works.
I never received the production video, I'll chase it.
I'll get a video of the board running some demos up ASAP. /Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on December 16, 2010, 10:48:28 PM
^_^
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: guest6931 on December 16, 2010, 10:52:36 PM
Can't wait to see the demo!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on December 16, 2010, 10:56:07 PM
Quote from: mikej;599317
Testing going well, no problems yet apart from the audio connector being a bit close to the DVI connector which means you can't use really fat DVI cables. I've mounted the jack at a slight angle which helps. Right angle audio plugs also works.
It's the little things like that which make you go "Doh!" :D
Quote
I'll get a video of the board running some demos up ASAP. /Mike
Great stuff. Thanks for the update Mike.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 17, 2010, 01:00:28 AM
Didn't think of that (tm) ;-)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: logikstate on December 17, 2010, 08:10:24 AM
Thanks for the update Mike.
Would be great to see some videos :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 17, 2010, 09:59:28 AM
"Didn't think of that (tm) ;-) "
Not quite true, the decision to move the connectors and fit everything on the back was not taken lightly, and was modelled quite carefully.
It is a pain but not a real problem, especially as you can use the RCAs on the other board, or a right angle audio plug.
The only cable I have which doesn't fit is the DVI to HDMI cable which is about 2cm wider than the DVI connector :(
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on December 17, 2010, 03:03:50 PM
Quote from: mikej;599451
"Didn't think of that (tm) ;-) "
Not quite true, the decision to move the connectors and fit everything on the back was not taken lightly, and was modelled quite carefully.
It is a pain but not a real problem, especially as you can use the RCAs on the other board, or a right angle audio plug.
The only cable I have which doesn't fit is the DVI to HDMI cable which is about 2cm wider than the DVI connector :(
What about using a DVI-DVI cable off the board and then plugging a DVI-HDMI cable into that?
As you say, right-angle RCA jacks are hardly a show stopper. I have a bunch of old ones and I'm sure Radio Shack has enough of them to stretch around the world. :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 17, 2010, 08:11:04 PM
There are hundreds of things to get correct, and check in the project. Some things are bound to screw up, that's project-life ;) On the next board revision the plug(s) may be relocated provided its possibe route and space to put a new connector.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on December 17, 2010, 08:33:01 PM
I would still like to see a board where ALL of the connectors are cabled out, so that placement of the board in any case become extremely simple.
This board is a huge leap forward in making things easier though, so I am not complaining. Not even a little.
I just have this nasty little habit of looking at what we have today, and thinking about how the next revision can be even better.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 17, 2010, 09:00:27 PM
Cabling out DVI and other high frequency connections might be hard to accomplish without signal degradation.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on December 17, 2010, 09:11:09 PM
OK, excuse my ignorance on this, as my electronics knowledge is ham fisted and brutish, so high frequency stuff would certainly be my undueing.
If cabling things out causes that much trouble, how is it that we can cable our screens out several feet from our motherboards without problems? Often with adapters thrown in the mix...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 17, 2010, 09:16:00 PM
Every impedance alteration or significant cable length causes a bump in the signal path and thus deteriorates the signal. The less, the better.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Belial6 on December 17, 2010, 10:38:08 PM
I get that, but when your already talking about a 3 to 6 foot cable, how much of a difference can an extra 3 inches make?
If cabling out the connector is going to make or bread a digital signal, there has to be more to it than cable length. I am trying to understand what that is...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 18, 2010, 12:49:25 AM
Impedance alteration translates to a road bump. So not only length matters.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on December 18, 2010, 02:40:01 AM
Doesn't an expensive golden DVI cable make up for that? :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 18, 2010, 10:45:03 AM
It will deliver the trashed signal with less degredation than a bad cable will.
Read up on entropy.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: psxphill on December 18, 2010, 01:30:54 PM
Quote from: freqmax;599657
It will deliver the trashed signal with less degredation than a bad cable will.
Read up on entropy.
It's not that bad, pure digital signals can take some degredation. Especially at reasonably short lengths.
However the solution would be to replace the dvi-d connector on the board with an hdmi connector.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 18, 2010, 03:00:08 PM
That would block the use of DVI-only monitors. HDMI-to-DVI adapters are non-standard. Another quick solution is to solder leads to the connector pads rather than to mount a connector to the PCB.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 18, 2010, 03:10:40 PM
I did look at HDMI connectors originally but you need to license them and it's quite expensive. I am working on another project which uses display port, but it's not so handy for TVs.
For the first boards I may offer a soldered on in-line socket on a short lead as a solution. Cheers, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 18, 2010, 03:20:29 PM
Could one leave pads to solder a HDMI encoder & connector. To eliminate the license issue?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AmigaEd on December 18, 2010, 03:57:42 PM
Quote from: mikej;599451
"Didn't think of that (tm) ;-) " The only cable I have which doesn't fit is the DVI to HDMI cable which is about 2cm wider than the DVI connector :(
I've noticed this trend with a lot of cables lately, where the plastic around the perimeter of the connector is several times greater than it needs to be. We have even run into this issue with some industrial products at my work.
I think this may stem from two fronts...
The first is some engineer at "Clone Tronics" focusing on trying to make a dimensionally correct pin-out for a "clone" connector, but then is just guessing at the housing dimensions.
The second is the lack of clarity in connector and bus standards to begin with. (An example that comes to mind is the PCI bus standard.)
Anyway, the progress sounds great! Looking forward to seeing more!
Regards, AmigaEd
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: billt on December 18, 2010, 06:33:44 PM
Quote from: mikej;599729
I did look at HDMI connectors originally but you need to license them and it's quite expensive. I am working on another project which uses display port, but it's not so handy for TVs.
For the first boards I may offer a soldered on in-line socket on a short lead as a solution. Cheers, Mike
What exactly needs licensing? The connector itself on your board, or the protocol it uses? Couldn't you use a connector, and only allow its use with DVI connector (DVI protocol) and leave out anything HDMI specific? Or is anything using the HDMI connector using enough of the HDMI protocol etc. to get hit by licensing? And if you leave out HDCP?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: bloodline on December 18, 2010, 07:18:48 PM
Quote from: billt;599767
What exactly needs licensing? The connector itself on your board, or the protocol it uses? Couldn't you use a connector, and only allow its use with DVI connector (DVI protocol) and leave out anything HDMI specific? Or is anything using the HDMI connector using enough of the HDMI protocol etc. to get hit by licensing?
I thought you only need a licence if you advertise that it supports HDMI and/or use the official logo?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 18, 2010, 08:30:28 PM
It's cheaper licensing with logo.
Anyway, is licensing for putting the connector on the PCB. Or is it enough with a HDMI encoder chip to be liable to the license ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 18, 2010, 09:27:16 PM
when I looked into it, it looked like you couldn't even mount the connector or mention HDMI without being a member of the cartel.
I certainly couldn't buy any chips which supported it. I am trying to design out the Chrontel part and do the DVI/HDMI coding directly in the FPGA with a DAC chip for the analog part.
I would still need to use a DVI connector, but I could use HDMI protocol (including audio) on it.
One option is to go for a smaller SD card, but the connectors are not so robust.
/Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 18, 2010, 10:13:52 PM
Can you just put the encoder chip and pads but no connector on the board?
Also, did you find the exact licensing conditions, ie when you'r liable to license. (ie "protection money" :P )
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: kolla on December 19, 2010, 10:09:56 AM
I though the licensing for HDMI was due to the more or less implied support for HDCP. Anyways, I really struggle to see what kind of signal problems we're talking about in regards to DVI, it is digital after all. It reminds me of those Hi-Fi freaks that claim their sound systems works so much better when ipod is connected via über-expensive USB cable - hence my comment about golden DVI cables.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on December 19, 2010, 01:33:14 PM
Digital signals just have a higher tolerance. No need to decrease the S/N margin.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on December 19, 2010, 10:50:05 PM
Quote from: billt;599767
What exactly needs licensing? The connector itself on your board, or the protocol it uses? Couldn't you use a connector, and only allow its use with DVI connector (DVI protocol) and leave out anything HDMI specific? Or is anything using the HDMI connector using enough of the HDMI protocol etc. to get hit by licensing? And if you leave out HDCP?
http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/terms.aspx
$10,000 per year is the killer
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: zylesea on December 19, 2010, 11:45:37 PM
Quote from: mikej;600017
http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/terms.aspx
$10,000 per year is the killer
Alternatively 5000 p. a. + 1 per sold device. Not that much better though...
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Methanoid on December 30, 2010, 01:13:47 PM
@MikeJ, Any more news? This is the single piece of hardware (any format) I want to buy in 2011. Already put aside money for it!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on January 02, 2011, 10:25:20 PM
Quote from: Methanoid;602833
@MikeJ, Any more news? This is the single piece of hardware (any format) I want to buy in 2011. Already put aside money for it!
So far so good. DVI/Analog and sVHS video out work well. I haven't managed to run up the minimig code yet but Jakub and I are looking at that. I will test the composite and audio at work tomorrow with the expensive test kit. Then it's just the DRAM stress tests left to go.
I haven't had as much time over the holiday as I hoped and I had some problems porting my boot loader to the larger ARM device I am using now, for some strange reason.
/MikeJ
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: DaNi on January 11, 2011, 10:45:05 AM
have support on a future the minimig for load CDTV and CD32 isos? (.cue+iso)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: alexh on January 11, 2011, 11:42:01 AM
Quote from: mikej;600017
http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/terms.aspx $10,000 per year is the killer
I think that is why there is currently a shift in the PC world towards Display Port?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on January 11, 2011, 12:30:14 PM
I at least appriciate the weak encryption in HDMI .. :P
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Greg.0 on February 15, 2011, 03:59:55 PM
There has not been a lot of reactions since the latest announcement from MikeJ. We are really close to the end now :)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: djkoelkast on March 06, 2011, 06:11:52 PM
Well, just use DVI in stead of HDMI. I'd really love to own a Minimig AGA!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: amigadave on March 06, 2011, 08:55:20 PM
Quote from: Greg.0;615723
There has not been a lot of reactions since the latest announcement from MikeJ. We are really close to the end now :)
Once he announces that it is finished and available for sale there will be a flood of interest in it. The one thing I like about MikeJ's experience and the way he has gone about completing this project, is that he appears to be ready to produce the FPGA Arcade boards in a quantity that will be considered "Large" by third party Amiga standards. If there is enough interest, I think MikeJ is ready to have hundreds of these boards manufactured, and he might even be able to interest some big retail outlets to make orders for them if he can get the price low enough and complete a case design to make it a more complete product.
Maybe I am way off in my thinking on this product's sales potential.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: mikej on March 07, 2011, 06:48:03 AM
Volume is certainly no problem.
I have received another snapshot from Jakub, who is well ahead of me on the firmware front. The board is up and running well. I'm going to do a bit of filming this evening and get some vids up on youtube. Best, Mike
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Pyromania on March 07, 2011, 06:49:48 AM
Over 128,000 views in this thread alone. I would say there is a lot of interest.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Firedawg on March 08, 2011, 05:13:07 PM
Quote from: mikej;620137
Volume is certainly no problem.
I have received another snapshot from Jakub, who is well ahead of me on the firmware front. The board is up and running well. I'm going to do a bit of filming this evening and get some vids up on youtube. Best, Mike
Very much anticipated project completion! Much respect to Mike and Jakub for their time and effort. Thanks Guys!!!:)
The Dawg
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Greg.0 on March 11, 2011, 10:30:18 AM
Great News !
I'm sure there will be many people interested by your board. Many many many... And I hope in many different community !
Regards,
Greg
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Retro_71 on March 11, 2011, 01:16:07 PM
I have always said I would buy this board and natami when they are ready.. looks like i will have one of my wishes soon... :D Great news
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Crom00 on March 11, 2011, 01:59:20 PM
Quote from: Pyromania;620139
Over 128,000 views in this thread alone. I would say there is a lot of interest.
Yes I really hope his takes off and shows the IP holders that A) You can make Amiga hardware B) There is interest in the Amiga Brand when you actually have shipping hardware
Hope he sells them by the truckload!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on March 11, 2011, 03:29:30 PM
If you lock it down good someone else will make something better ;)
It should be possible to do some other implementations like Atari-ST/Falcon, Macintosh, 80386+VGA+SB, DEC Alpha, PDP-16, SGI, CDTV, SNES, Sega 16, etc..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Bundi on March 11, 2011, 10:59:08 PM
Quote from: freqmax;599657
It will deliver the trashed signal with less degredation than a bad cable will.
Read up on entropy.
You mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bueZoYhUlg
?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: EvilGuy on March 12, 2011, 12:51:01 AM
Quote from: Crom00;621176
Yes I really hope his takes off and shows the IP holders that A) You can make Amiga hardware B) There is interest in the Amiga Brand when you actually have shipping hardware
They know this already, they just think that there should be a step c,
C) Charge the world for it, make sure its three generations behind and incompatible with all of your existing software.
Note: I'm *not* applying C) to MiniMigAGA!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: yaqube on April 01, 2011, 11:15:09 PM
Finally I have had some time to make tests with my new Replay expansion board. I was very curious how fast the 060 rev. 6 can run. It was able to run very stable from 3.3V with a very small heat sink and fan at over 100 MHz.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Derfs on April 01, 2011, 11:47:19 PM
amazing, a A1200 with a 100MHz '060.. (equivalent of course)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on April 02, 2011, 12:13:40 AM
Quote from: yaqube;626686
Finally I have had some time to make tests with my new Replay expansion board. I was very curious how fast the 060 rev. 6 can run. It was able to run very stable from 3.3V with a very small heat sink and fan at over 100 MHz.
What's the difference between "very stable" and "completely stable"? ;)
You know you're drowning us in our own drool! :D
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Linde on April 02, 2011, 12:42:36 AM
I guess that the difference is just a matter of a lot of time
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on April 02, 2011, 04:20:48 AM
Quote from: yaqube;626686
Your computer is an Amiga 1200
Yeah, right ;)
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on April 03, 2011, 02:43:03 PM
Quote from: yaqube;626686
Finally I have had some time to make tests with my new Replay expansion board. I was very curious how fast the 060 rev. 6 can run. It was able to run very stable from 3.3V with a very small heat sink and fan at over 100 MHz.
Nice going Yacube this is speed indeed ;-) CPU/MMU/FPU all snorring like a cat. I also have a 060 rev.6 waiting for your board :-) Let the games begin boys and girls. I'm installing OS3.1 and MWB on my FPGAArcade right now pics will follow.. I can't get my 68020 cache stabele I have version AYQ101127 and have to disable in the menu so i'm running on 6xa600 speed for the moment. The faults i get when enableing the cache in the menu are reboots/ kickstart errors (red screens) freezes and screen dropouts. Disableing the cache will give a rock stable Replay/Minimig core.
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: NovaCoder on April 03, 2011, 02:58:16 PM
Quote from: yaqube;626686
Finally I have had some time to make tests with my new Replay expansion board. I was very curious how fast the 060 rev. 6 can run. It was able to run very stable from 3.3V with a very small heat sink and fan at over 100 MHz.
Yes 100Mhz is no problem, just ask the Atari boys ;)
After this board has been fully developed (FPGA + 060 add-on) it may be able to put any expanded (non PPC) A4000 to shame....
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on April 03, 2011, 03:28:33 PM
Okey, Here are some pictures from my FPGAReplay board with WB3.1 and MagicWB installed. My board is not in a case Yet but i'm working on that. I will play around with this install for a few day's ;-) ps. and afcourse Intel is ouside again LOL
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Karlos on April 03, 2011, 03:31:59 PM
Quote from: yaqube;626686
Finally I have had some time to make tests with my new Replay expansion board. I was very curious how fast the 060 rev. 6 can run. It was able to run very stable from 3.3V with a very small heat sink and fan at over 100 MHz.
What? No, I always sit with a cushion covering my lap. Doesn't everybody?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on April 03, 2011, 04:19:08 PM
Quote from: wizard66;627239
I have version AYQ101127
No source code ?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on April 03, 2011, 04:57:04 PM
Quote from: freqmax;627262
No source code ?
Nope nothing!! this is a beta i think..
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: AJCopland on April 03, 2011, 05:11:20 PM
Quote from: mikej;620137
Volume is certainly no problem.
I have received another snapshot from Jakub, who is well ahead of me on the firmware front. The board is up and running well. I'm going to do a bit of filming this evening and get some vids up on youtube. Best, Mike
I'm gnawing my own feet off in anticipation of this getting released! :D
It would be great if you and Yaqube could release the 060 add-on board as well, either as something we could buy from you/Yaqube or as a community project that we could organise getting made.
Andy
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: freqmax on April 03, 2011, 05:27:34 PM
@AJCopland, I think mikej is fully busy with work + the base board.
Btw, when will he be back from the China trip?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: Darrin on April 03, 2011, 05:42:51 PM
Quote from: wizard66;627254
Okey, Here are some pictures from my FPGAReplay board with WB3.1 and MagicWB installed. My board is not in a case Yet but i'm working on that. I will play around with this install for a few day's ;-) ps. and afcourse Intel is ouside again LOL
Nice one.
Mine is still "in the post" (I guess it takes longer to ship to the USA), but I'm still on a business trip so I won't be home for another 2 weeks anyway.
What's the maximum screen resolution you've tried with it and how do interlaced screens look?
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: HenryCase on April 03, 2011, 05:53:00 PM
Quote from: Karlos;627255
What? No, I always sit with a cushion covering my lap. Doesn't everybody?
Hahahahahaha!
Title: Re: MiniMig with AGA
Post by: wizard66 on April 03, 2011, 06:08:02 PM
Quote from: Darrin;627293
Nice one.
Mine is still "in the post" (I guess it takes longer to ship to the USA), but I'm still on a business trip so I won't be home for another 2 weeks anyway.
What's the maximum screen resolution you've tried with it and how do interlaced screens look?
For now the resolution is with mulisync prod. 640X480