FPGA Replay Board

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32-bit wide transfers, where?

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I am assuming that any extra ram will be put on to the expander card.

I assume someone elses wallet will get its expense expanded ..

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@espskog, I think something like 200 EUR were mentioned earlier.

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Unpopulated boards?

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-What are the main technical differences ?
68030 vs 68060 (no real-life difference)
32 vs 256 MByte memory
True Amiga vs New 3D graphics, audio channels etc.. (but unsupported)
PCI-slots on NatAmi.

-Do they offer the same functionality ?
NatAmi is intended to be a "new Amiga" rather than a compatible one.

-Are they meant to cover the same area of use ?
NatAmi is intended to have new functionality not found in real Amigas.

-A big price difference ?
"The "light" card without SVHS/composite is 200Euro."
No price for NatAmi, but proberbly higher.

-Production difference ? (Handmade / Machine made)
Fpgaarcade has the PCB factory made and the FPGA machine soldered. The rest of the components are hand soldered.

-What can A do that B does not ?
You can't under any circumstance tinker with NatAmi's HDL source code. Should it be released it's still locked to a specific FPGA vendor.
With FPGA Arcade ASFAIK, the HDL sources will be released for tinkering, hacking and feature proofing.

(I can be wromg )

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"if I have spare non-developer boards"

Maybe it was spare because it's unpopulated.  Unclear sentence. Anyway why get so excited over it..

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HDL isn't so particular to a particular FPGA vendor. There's not different versions of Verilog language from one company to another, nor different VHDL language from one vendor to another.

True, but they use AHDL which is vendor specific. It's way more work than just porting it. Should it ever be released.
And if the developers and board leaves the final smoke, takes a bad direction etc.. Then only Minimig/Fpgaarcade users can design a new board and just move on.

One should however note that the sources for FpgaArcade are still closed, asfaik.

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Could you release the PCB layout in 5 years for free?

Such that if anyone whishes to have a board done could do so at a time when getting in contact with the original maker might be hard.

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I figured the board is a bit complicated regarding manufacturing. But it's good to have a last resort should all things go murphy

Btw, how does it work in regards to the FPGA. Does the Chinese factory order those from Xilinx. Or you send it to them?, in case you send them, how do you make sure they aren't simply "lost" by the factory ?

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Exactly sell it with free open source Boot-ROM and OS. And get rid of the whole issue. Doesn't seem reasonable to be responsible for user actions.

(any link where to download this AROS m68k ROM?)

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in 30 September 2009, Hyperion was granted an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to AmigaOS 3.1

I hope McEwen suck on that really hard *grin*

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Selling the FPGA Replay Board with an OEM copy of AmigaForever would probably be the simplest solution, until the Kickstart replacement is completed.

The AROS m68k ROM is supposed to be completed at 2011-03-31, ie in 20 days. I guess the FPGA Replay Board won't be done in that time.

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If mikej posts dimensional specifications with a no guarantee disclaimer, it could be done.

There could be a market for a board that joins S/P-dif and DVI into an integrated HDMI signal

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Problem is that HDMI lawyer monsters will attack you..

So such board can't be sold.. but it can be etched

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Maybe it can be made to work rudimentary?

I think we can live without printer.device for some time

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Hmm.. Amiga Demo via SP-dif and HDMI on a 50" screen. Now that's quite a different experience than the enviroment under which they were created.