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Author Topic: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!  (Read 5589 times)

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Offline drHirudo

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #14 from previous page: 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?

Offline mikej

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #15 on: April 13, 2011, 03:15:40 PM »
Quote from: alexh;631426


FPGA Arcade looks interesting if it can get enough developers and get the price down.


Come on then Alex, ready when you are.... want one?

/Mike
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #16 on: April 13, 2011, 03:25:48 PM »
Quote from: alexh;631426
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.


I thought your free Minimig from ACube was unused and on a shelf and, due to your PIC, only flashed to run the original core from around 3 years ago?

The price of the Minimig is just a reflection of the limited production run and the fact that it is NEW and comes with a waranty.  Of course you can save money by looking for an A1200 on eBay and hoping that "as is"="working"...
The A1200 isn't exactly 100% compatible either with older software.  I dare say there are games that the Minimig will run that the A1200 will choke on.
Only 4MB of RAM (which can be user configured between Chip and Fast)?  Compared to the A1200 with only 2MB of Chip RAM?
The Hard Drive emulation without the ARM board seems to be OK with current users.
Now add the following advantages:
68000 running at turbo speeds (currently around 50MHz?)
Minimig uses ADF files rather than 25 year old corrupted floppy disks.
Minimig doesn't have a 25 year old floppy drive with misaligned heads.
Minimig uses a cheap PC keyboard.
Minimig uses a cheap PC mouse.
Minimig has a built in Scan Doubler.

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 It is obsolete hardware these days and once again overpriced for it's capabilities.


Yep.  My broken C-One and Extender Card will end up on eBay when I get a chance.

Quote
FPGA Arcade looks interesting if it can get enough developers and get the price down.


200 Euros isn't bad for an new AGA Amiga with a turbo 68020ish CPU, lots of RAM, Scan Doubler and a warranty.
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 #17 on: April 13, 2011, 03:29:39 PM »
Quote from: drHirudo;631433
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?


Yep, definately get a Chameleon rather than a C-One now.

The D64 and T64 support is still being worked on, but I have loaded some D64 and T64 games using the same plug-ins from my old MMC Replay cartridge.

One downside of the Chameleon is that you can't use real cartridges with it, even if you have a multi-cartridge expander.  However, you can load (some/available) cartridge images.
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 Iggy

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #18 on: April 13, 2011, 04:18:08 PM »
Quote from: mikej;631436
Come on then Alex, ready when you are.... want one?

/Mike

Sounds neat. I'd like one once you're past the beta stage. How do I arrange it?
"Not making any hard and fast rules means that the moderators can use their good judgment in moderation, and we think the results speak for themselves." - Amiga.org, terms of service

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Offline alexh

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #19 on: April 13, 2011, 04:34:56 PM »
Quote from: Darrin;631439
I thought your free Minimig from ACube was unused and on a shelf and, due to your PIC, only flashed to run the original core from around 3 years ago?
It still is :(


Quote from: mikej;631436
Come on then Alex, ready when you are.... want one?
I think I'd need to prove that I would actually do something for it before I'd get one.

What is available from a developer point of view? Anything more than the main FPGA pin-map, board schematics and I/C datasheets?
« Last Edit: April 13, 2011, 04:39:36 PM by alexh »
 

Offline AmigaFreakTopic starter

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #20 on: April 13, 2011, 08:05:33 PM »
Thanks for the input everyone! :)

My parent's have allowed me to pay less rent this coming month, (I live at home to save money) so I can go ahead and buy the Minimig. I'm gonna order the SD card with it so that I'll have one when it gets here.

Does anyone have a good idea of a case for it? - I'm thinking of making one out of Plexiglass. The actual case that AmigaKit sells for it is out of stock. (And I don't want to spend 50+ for it) Plexiglass at Home Depot is like $10-15 for a small sheet, which makes more sense.

I'm so excited!!!
-- Joshua E. Horn

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

Offline mikej

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #21 on: April 13, 2011, 08:28:12 PM »
Quote from: alexh;631455
What is available from a developer point of view? Anything more than the main FPGA pin-map, board schematics and I/C datasheets?

Complete shell design.
Contains flexible video timing generator, clock code, joy/ps2/keyboard handling, audio driver, memory controller and interface to ARM controller. It also has the OSD generator as well.

You put your code in the hole in the middle and run the batch build script.
It's not quite ready yet, but nearing completion.
I'll use it as a wrapper for all the arcade games.
/MikeJ
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #22 on: April 13, 2011, 09:41:12 PM »
Quote from: alexh;631455
It still is :(


I don't know if you missed a reply I made to you in one of the other threads here, but I have a flashable PIC (the one I used before installing my ARM board).  You can have it if you want it.
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 #23 on: April 13, 2011, 09:42:12 PM »
Quote from: AmigaFreak;631489
Thanks for the input everyone! :)

My parent's have allowed me to pay less rent this coming month, (I live at home to save money) so I can go ahead and buy the Minimig. I'm gonna order the SD card with it so that I'll have one when it gets here.

Does anyone have a good idea of a case for it? - I'm thinking of making one out of Plexiglass. The actual case that AmigaKit sells for it is out of stock. (And I don't want to spend 50+ for it) Plexiglass at Home Depot is like $10-15 for a small sheet, which makes more sense.

I'm so excited!!!


It is small enough to put in a cigar box.  :D
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 #24 on: April 13, 2011, 09:51:26 PM »
Quote from: Darrin;631506
It is small enough to put in a cigar box.  :D


Now that's an interesting idea! - The HEB down the street gives cigar boxes away for free. I used to grab them to store stuff in. :)
-- Joshua E. Horn

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Offline Darrin

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Re: Buying a Minimig from AmigaKit!
« Reply #25 on: April 13, 2011, 10:30:15 PM »
Quote from: AmigaFreak;631508
Now that's an interesting idea! - The HEB down the street gives cigar boxes away for free. I used to grab them to store stuff in. :)


The flip-up lid will be handy to access the mobo for "reflashing" and a few holes cut/drilled will take care of the cables.  Perfect! :)
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.