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Author Topic: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!  (Read 5592 times)

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Offline AmigaFreakTopic starter

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Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« on: April 13, 2011, 05:33:08 AM »
I'm buying a Minimig from AmigaKit very soon! - Does anyone have one / tried one?
-- Joshua E. Horn

"Um... I think my computer let out the blue smoke! What should I do?!?!?"
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2011, 06:03:55 AM »
I bought mine when they first came out (manufactured) from ACube and it is still going strong.

Here is some important advice:  BUY THE 4MB MODEL.

The extra RAM comes in very handy, especially if you want to run WHDLoad game packs from Workbench.  If you just want to run basic floppy disk games though then the basic board will be OK.

However, unless you have spare cash, you might want to wait a little longer and get a FPGA Arcade instead which has more RAM, a better (emulated) CPU, faster speeds and... AGA!

The Minimig from Amigakit is going to be a little cheaper though:

$177 (basic board)
$227 (with extra RAM)

The FPGA Aracde will be around EUR200 or $290 minimum when produced in bulk.

Both will need power supplies, SD Card, mouse, keyboard and don't forget to add shipping costs.
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2011, 06:08:10 AM »
Here's my Minimig running ClassicWorkbench 3.x:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/SDC10114.jpg

Here's how I installed it into a PS2 keyboard:


Here's another shot of it running Defender of the Crown on a more sensible monitor:
« Last Edit: April 13, 2011, 06:11:01 AM by Darrin »
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline AmigaFreakTopic starter

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2011, 06:23:06 AM »
Quote from: Darrin;631358
Here's my Minimig running ClassicWorkbench 3.x:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/SDC10114.jpg

Here's how I installed it into a PS2 keyboard:


Here's another shot of it running Defender of the Crown on a more sensible monitor:


Cool! - I'm getting one for sure! - How does one get WB to load off an sd card on the Minimig? - Is it just with the ADF? Can anyone explain it?
-- Joshua E. Horn

"Um... I think my computer let out the blue smoke! What should I do?!?!?"
 

Offline kolla

Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2011, 06:31:11 AM »
You create a file with a certain size on the SD card that you call something.hdf and then pick it to act as a hard drive from the minimig menu. Then you can pick the 3.1 installer adf to boot from, boot up and the something.hdf will show up as a new and empty hard drive that can be prepared with hdtoolbox, partitioned etc. like normal.
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
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MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
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Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2011, 06:45:06 AM »
Quote from: AmigaFreak;631360
Cool! - I'm getting one for sure! - How does one get WB to load off an sd card on the Minimig? - Is it just with the ADF? Can anyone explain it?


You can either just mount ADF images of workbench disks and boot from a Hard File.

A Hard File acts just like a regular hard drive (and you can create one using UAE and copy it to a SD Card).  Once you have your bootable Hard File on the SD Card you can partition and mount it using your Workbench floppies just like normal and install your Workbench to it.

There is also a 1GB Hard File image floating around on the net which contains a ClassicWorkbench ECS install (looking remarkably similar to mine) complete with a functioning WHDLoad setup and included games to test.  Just copy that file onto your SD Card along with teh latest cores, set the Minimig to boot from the Hard File and off you go.  :)

I use a 2GB SD Card on my system containing:
1GB ClassicWorkbench 3.x Hard File
20MB Workbench 3.1 Hard File
Kickstart 3.1 ROM
Kickstart 1.3 ROM
folder containing lots and lots of ADF images.
Latest Minimig core file.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2011, 06:48:19 AM by Darrin »
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline Lurch

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2011, 09:52:47 AM »
So looking through the compatibility list for games. Can't see ruff'n'tumble.... and cannon fodder doesnt work? :-/

Or is this list out of date?

Was tempted to buy but if I can't play my fav games :-(

http://www.minimig.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15
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Offline Derfs

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2011, 10:01:26 AM »
it says at the top of the list that it is out of date
 

Offline Kesa

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2011, 11:49:30 AM »
But fish CAN swim in shallow water.
Even my cat doesn\'t like me.
 

Offline drHirudo

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2011, 12:00:56 PM »
I consider buying C-One with minimig extender module. Is it better choice than the Minimig, because of the extra computers in the C-One - Commodore, Amstrad, Amiga?
Or better buy ChameLEON for my C64 and forget about the Minimig and C-One?

Offline Dwyloc

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2011, 12:23:53 PM »
Quote from: drHirudo;631405
I consider buying C-One with minimig extender module. Is it better choice than the Minimig, because of the extra computers in the C-One - Commodore, Amstrad, Amiga?
Or better buy ChameLEON for my C64 and forget about the Minimig and C-One?


Apart form the reports that the minimig core for the C-One does not work very well as a result of timing problems with the emulated cpu.

So I would stick with the tried and tested 4MB Minimig.
Sam440ep 667mhz 512megs OS4.1
Minimig, 4MB RAM, ARM add-on board
Amiga 1200 Eyetech mk4 Tower, Blizzard 1240 040/40 32MB Fast ram, IDEFix Express mk2, mediatorSX pci, Voodoo3 PCI, PCI network card, OS3.9 BB2.
 

Offline Dwyloc

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2011, 12:29:50 PM »
Quote from: Lurch;631386
So looking through the compatibility list for games. Can't see ruff'n'tumble.... and cannon fodder doesnt work? :-/

Or is this list out of date?

Was tempted to buy but if I can't play my fav games :-(

http://www.minimig.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15

I can confirm that Cannon fodder works well on the 4MB mimimig,
as I play it a lot but you need to use the whdload version and disable writecache.

The floppy version cant save on the minimig or WinUAE as it uses a custom disk write system that does not work with adf images so you cant save if you play from floppy.  So I would consider it to be unplayable on a 2MB mimimig as you cant save.


I don't know about ruff'n'tumble as its not a game I have ever played, but most games I have tried work without problems with the current mimimig core.
Sam440ep 667mhz 512megs OS4.1
Minimig, 4MB RAM, ARM add-on board
Amiga 1200 Eyetech mk4 Tower, Blizzard 1240 040/40 32MB Fast ram, IDEFix Express mk2, mediatorSX pci, Voodoo3 PCI, PCI network card, OS3.9 BB2.
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2011, 01:31:14 PM »
Quote from: drHirudo;631405
I consider buying C-One with minimig extender module. Is it better choice than the Minimig, because of the extra computers in the C-One - Commodore, Amstrad, Amiga?
Or better buy ChameLEON for my C64 and forget about the Minimig and C-One?


I have a C-One too.  The experience of the Minimig cores was... interesting.  The last update resulted in a core that had very dodgy joystick detection while the previous version was fine.  Some people could get the Amstrad core to work, others couldn't.  Then the clip holding the RAM in place snapped so that was the end of that.  From the C-One Yahoo group it appears that development has stopped in favour of the Chameleon.

I have a Chameleon and it is currently a work in progress and updates to the core are frequent.

If you want an "Amiga" experience then Minimig is currently the way to go until the FPGA Arcade and Natami are released.
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline alexh

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2011, 02:15:58 PM »
You're much better off buying a real Amiga A1200 and a TV which can use it.

You'll save lots of money for lots of extra goodies.

MiniMig v1.1 is overly expensive for what it is.
It will never be able to be an A1200 (it is stuck at ECS).
It is not 100% compatible (yet).
It only has 4Mbytes RAM.
Without the ARM module hard disk emulation is not great.

C-One was a great experiment 8 years ago. It is obsolete hardware these days and once again overpriced for it's capabilities.

FPGA Arcade looks interesting if it can get enough developers and get the price down.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2011, 02:19:16 PM by alexh »
 

Offline drHirudo

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2011, 03:06:50 PM »
Quote from: Darrin;631421
I have a C-One too.  The experience of the Minimig cores was... interesting.  The last update resulted in a core that had very dodgy joystick detection while the previous version was fine.  Some people could get the Amstrad core to work, others couldn't.  Then the clip holding the RAM in place snapped so that was the end of that.  From the C-One Yahoo group it appears that development has stopped in favour of the Chameleon.

I have a Chameleon and it is currently a work in progress and updates to the core are frequent.

If you want an "Amiga" experience then Minimig is currently the way to go until the FPGA Arcade and Natami are released.

So better go for the ChameLEON? It's cheaper as well. My C64 does not load from tapes for some reason (Cassette drive, Interface, Faulty tapes...). Using Memory cards will bring new life to it. Looks like the C-One is unavailable without Minimig. Looks like the Chameleon can become more than a Commodore expansion some day. ChameMIGY may be?