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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Steril707 on September 15, 2007, 02:50:04 PM
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I guess this has been asked a couple of times before, but reading some threads about the MiniMIG i am not much wiser.
Wouldn't it been less of a hassle just buying a plain old Amiga 500 (if you don't already have one anyway), instead of a new MiniMIG?
Am i missing something here?
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MiniMig is brand new so is less likely to fail than old equipment.
MiniMig is smaller than an A500 so can be more easily fitted in to your house.
MiniMig uses disk images on SD card, so no need for stacks of floppies.
MiniMig can be built in to any case you want.
MiniMig supports VGA monitors directly without the need for expensive scandoublers.
Anything else? ;-)
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moto
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Minimig would be the first Amiga "computer" released in years. It is the only one that looks promising. It is public domain, so I see no hold ups with A inc.
No more worrying if a classic will boot one more time. No more searching for expensive Amigas on ebay.
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I think you are thinking about this wrong, if you look at this device, it's a hardware emulator, a totally new device in an "FPGA" all in one chip. It's not an "Amiga" and though it can do a lot of the same things and run a lot of the same code.. If you looked at the three custom chips and the circuits I am sure you'd find them not really the same thing..
The important thing about this is that it isn't a "copy" of someone else's property. It solves a problem for you but it doesn't have the name "Amiga". It's a "minimig" and it just happens to be able to do most things the A1000 could do.
Why could A-inc hold it up anyway, as far as I have seen it doesn't violate any of their hardware designs or rights technically and not using any intellectual property. It's like a modern "clean room clone"..
I don't think we should be calling it Amiga, but it's name "Minimig". I don't think as a community we should call it an "Amiga" because that's giving a tip of the hat to a company that if they had anything to do with it's development we would have never see it come out..
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DonnyEMU wrote:
I think you are thinking about this wrong, if you look at this device, it's a hardware emulator, a totally new device in an "FPGA" all in one chip. It's not an "Amiga" and though it can do a lot of the same things and run a lot of the same code.. If you looked at the three custom chips and the circuits I am sure you'd find them not really the same thing..
I'm not sure that emulator is the correct term. An emulator, makes one device behave like a different one; whereas the MiniMig is hardware designed to replicate the behaviour of an A500. For all intents and purposes, it's a (not quite 100% compatible) A500 clone.
Hans
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MiniMig is smaller than an A500 so can be more easily fitted in to your house.
MiniMig uses disk images on SD card, so no need for stacks of floppies.
MiniMig can be built in to any case you want.
MiniMig supports VGA monitors directly without the need for expensive scandoublers.
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Isn't it part of the charm of that old hardware that they do things the way they do? And especially look the way they do?
Otherwise, shouldn't you just use UAE, if these things count for you?
I think i get the idea of being able to dodge the use of those old expensive scandoublers, but i am really not sure if i am convinced about the rest.
I like the idea of new Amigas getting built though... :-)
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@Steril707:
Minimig creates loads of possibilities for the talented coders. Remember, it could create a new scene of game-developers [homebrew] as the FPGA can hold just about any code (as long as it fits).
Minimig can set an example to Amiga Inc, especially when it's somewhat successfull. It should show them that they should have come from their hands years ago, producing nice little hardware.
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How about this...
Its just cool. :-D
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Minimig can set an example to Amiga Inc, especially when it's somewhat successfull
They do not care about succesful, they care about profitable and unless someone starts selling plug and play minimigs by the thousands that simply will not happen.
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little wrote:
Minimig can set an example to Amiga Inc, especially when it's somewhat successfull
They do not care about succesful, they care about profitable and unless someone starts selling plug and play minimigs by the thousands that simply will not happen.
Problem is, by that point it would be too late for them to join in. Cannot put the genie back in the bottle.
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Yes, off course it's an awesome feat that Dennis accomplished, there's no denying this.
I just want to understand why people here get all crazy about this.
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thanos wrote:
How about this...
Its just cool. :-D
And that is more than sufficient for me to want one. ;-)
But.... It also gives people who want to learn about FPGAs, and VHDL/Verilog something to play with that ends up being an Amiga. I can see grafting on new gfx modes, increasing the sound resolution or whatever.
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Thats true, that would be something like "Hardware homebrew"...
Nice thought...
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it's a hardware emulator, a totally new device in an "FPGA" all in one chip. It's not an "Amiga"
I disagree and agree with you.
Using your perspective of "hardware emulation" we could say that the first A1000 was simply a hardware emulation of this....Lorraine (http://encanta.avalonsoftware.org/info/historia/ferran/dib/lorraine_proto-2.jpg). The chipset inside the A1000 was just a hardware emulation of the original prototype that used TTL, eproms and wirewrap. I would concider the minimig's FPGA a logical technilogical progression to the outdated chipset in an A500 as the OCS chipset was to the proto boards of the Lorraine.
I do agree that I would not necessarily call it "Amiga". If you wish to reserve that title for hardware originally manufacuted by Commodore, that's totally ok with me. Calling it and Ami-clone would be much more acurate I think. There we agree.
Plaz
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Steril707: We have been waiting years for new hardware, and have seen countless hardware announced, then fail to make it to market.
At last we have some hardware that you can actually buy, hold in your hand, and even use !
We know its not the up to date market leader that we wished for in 1999.
Just google for things like: Amiga Walker, Amiga Boxer and what was that pci card Amiga :lol:
This one is here, and it works.
OK everyone, PARTY !!!!!!!!! :pint: :banana: :pint: :banana:
Well done Dennis, you've made a lot of people very happy :-D
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Oh, and I forgot... just imagine what COULD happen IF, say, Dave Haynie got one of these and started to play with it :-)
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Dave Haynie got one of these and started to play with it :-)
Well just send him one ;-)
I think the primary reason for Minimig is hardware decay. The number of working Amigas are finite. And they will become fewer by the day.
Imagine trying to replicate an Amiga without a working one to compare & test with..
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It's an Amiga reimplementation which can take cheapo Flash Card and PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse.
Also switch between 15/31Khz VGA output so you can use any old CRT monitor you have stored away or even those Amiga monitors (1084 etc.)!
No annoying floppy loading either. Though until HDD emulation on the Flash is sorted you will still have to do virtual disk swap.
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The great interest in the MiniMIG has several points:
1. Its small form factor opens new options for perhaps an Amiga compatible device in a joystick sized device.
2. As such devices are developed and produced in larger quantities, it may spark more interest from non-Amiga users that buy one to look backward and learn more about the Amiga history and the fanatic following that still exists after so many years beyond the Amigas supposed death. This may lead to a small increase in new Amiga enthusiasts.
3. More importantly, as others have stated, this project is just a beginning point for others to build on and branch off in as yet unknown directions. It is Open Source and could take off in the right hands. Don't laugh or discount this idea, nostalgia is very big right now and the buying power of middle age people everywhere is huge. Also the beginning point that Dennis has given us may lead to the REAL NG Amiga that most of us on these forums have been waiting for.
I am an optimist and don't think that the above is unrealistic.
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amiga_3k wrote:
Oh, and I forgot... just imagine what COULD happen IF, say, Dave Haynie got one of these and started to play with it :-)
I would expect Dave to enjoy playing with it, but unless he has a strong interest in Verilog code projects and has nothing better to occupy his time, I would expect more results from others that are actively working on such coding with FGPGAs.
This is in no way a slight against Dave Haynie, I just don't see him working on a MiniMIG size project.
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to me minimig is a symbol of sorts. like AROS, morphos, uae, pci stuff, usb stuff and numerous others we the amiga fans have kept our computer alive for years.
while the company has done practically nothing for us we have kept going. the company could have dont this years ago, they could have made one with aga, rtg and ahi audio. but they are to interested in... actually i dont know what they are interested in.
but our amigas are dying. we like hardware, as fun as emulators are we like our miggies. but bad capacitors, dying psus and oxidation are taking them one at a time. plus those that are killed :madashell:
in one form or another amiga is a survivor
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KThunder wrote:
to me minimig is a symbol of sorts. like AROS, morphos, uae, pci stuff, usb stuff and numerous others we the amiga fans have kept our computer alive for years.
while the company has done practically nothing for us we have kept going. the company could have dont this years ago, they could have made one with aga, rtg and ahi audio. but they are to interested in... actually i dont know what they are interested in.
but our amigas are dying. we like hardware, as fun as emulators are we like our miggies. but bad capacitors, dying psus and oxidation are taking them one at a time. plus those that are killed :madashell:
in one form or another amiga is a survivor
Amen! This community is bigger and better than any of the companies that have carried the Amiga name, Commodore included.
If nothing else, the MiniMig has reawaken the love I have for this machine. And for hardware tinkering in general.
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I like the idea of new Amigas getting built though... :-)
And that's just it, a new Amiga would be built with new hardware, barcelona cpu, a few gigs of Ram, a terrabyte hard drive, optional blue ray/HD drive (stand DVD burner). A new Amiga is not going to be anything like an old Amiga. The last thing I want in a real computer is a floppy drive and a serial port.
Essentially a 21st Century Amiga using 21st Century Technology.
Think of Minimig as a 20th Century Amiga using 21st Century Technology.
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Don't discout the serial port, it's really still important these days for hardware tinkerers like myself. Loading up stuff into Microcontrollers for instance, or all kind of cartridge flashloaders still use serial connections.
It's a shame these ports get more and more omitted on modern hardware designs, although so many people still use them on a daily basis. :angry:
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Plaz wrote:
Using your perspective of "hardware emulation" we could say that the first A1000 was simply a hardware emulation of this....Lorraine (http://encanta.avalonsoftware.org/info/historia/ferran/dib/lorraine_proto-2.jpg).
No we couldnt.
Plaz wrote:
The chipset inside the A1000 was just a hardware emulation of the original prototype that used TTL, eproms and wirewrap.
No it isnt. The logic which was inside the A1000 OCS chips was identical (albeit with bug fixes, enhancements etc.) with that of the lorraine. The same schematics were probably used for both. After all the same people created both. MiniMig, the logic will be different. It is a re-interpretation.
Plaz wrote:
I would concider the minimig's FPGA a logical technilogical progression to the outdated chipset in an A500 as the OCS chipset was to the proto boards of the Lorraine.
Not true, the MiniMig is a re-interpretation of the OCS chipset based on the HRM and some inspired guess work.
Imagine it like the translation of a book. The Lorraine and A1000 chips were written in the same language (Schematics), by the same authors at approximately the same time and copied almost 1:1.
Minimig was translated from ENGLISH (HRM) to VERILOG by a different author, some 25 years later, some parts of the ENGLISH were vague and open to interpretation, there is going to be translation errors, not to mention parts which do not have any direct translation and the author has to normalise the process.
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Emulation means to emulate -- to try to be as close to another entity as possible. MiniMig definitely places in that category. By this definition, however, just resynthesizing a chip core would count as making a new machine that emulates the previous version. People no longer make process masks by hand, like they did in the 80's. Read "On the Edge" if you want to know what it means to make real hardware. ;-)
Whether emulation is really an issue or not depends on how compatible you need the thing to be. Obviously, it will never perfectly emulate all of the undocumented/screwball features of OCS, so, as with WinUAE, MiniMig will never properly run ALL Amiga software in existence.
My interest in the Amiga is mostly with the OS and design philosophy, so I have no interest in owning a MiniMig, and I also have a hard time understanding why people would want it other than sheer novelty value. However, there's no denying that it's a wonderful piece of engineering.
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Amiga OS could be useful as a handheld. Or in embedded context. After all there's plenty of software. And it doesn't need MMU.
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Why the interest in the MiniMIG?
It is cool, but still just an A500-ish spec' machine, if you get a kick out of this kind of thing, Minimig will no doubt appeal to some degree.
Personally, Id prefer something a bit more powerful as a hobby box.
I think Minimig is something for the remaining Amiga hardware enthusiasts to cling to, beyond that, it isnt going to reach a much wider audience due to expense, low performance and difficulty of setup. Anyone wanting to play Amiga games will probably use UAE and anyone wanting to play with FPGAs will use any one of the cheap, powerful and well supported off-the-shelf solutions.
It is still cool though, in a niche-y/geeky kind of way. Amiga nuts with a penchant for build-yer-own, where the journey is the fun will love it.
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Is anybody here knowledgable in the field of FPGAs?
I wonder how Dennis was able to rebuilt the functionality of the Amigas' custom chips. Is there any official documentation existing about Paula, Denise etc?
I guess i don't know enough about Emulation at all yet, but i think this whole Hardwarehomebrew thing is quite interesting, and i would to get into that a little bit.
So, whats a good starting point...? :-)
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Minimig has lower power requirements compared to a Commodore Amiga or PC emulation.
Power consumption is something that is important in todays world, and something that I think most have not even considered about Minimig.
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Nobody has mentioned the fact that the disk access is read only. Is that still true? If so it seems pretty useless for anything other than just playing games.
And while I'm not sure I want yet another computer on my desk... I may eventually get one.. AFTER I see how the compatibility is. Where's the compatibility list?
Where is all of this stuff?
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Steril707 wrote:
Is anybody here knowledgable in the field of FPGAs?
I wonder how Dennis was able to rebuilt the functionality of the Amigas' custom chips. Is there any official documentation existing about Paula, Denise etc?
I guess i don't know enough about Emulation at all yet, but i think this whole Hardwarehomebrew thing is quite interesting, and i would to get into that a little bit.
So, whats a good starting point...? :-)
I am.
And yes, Commodore released a complete set of docmentation called the ROM Kernel Hardware Manuals. I happen to own a set myself. The documentation is pretty thurough, and the errata is also well documented as well.
A good startng point is to buy a starter kit from one of the big FPGA companies, I recommend Xilinx myself.
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No it isnt.
Yes it is. And you contridict your self with your own statement. It was identical but had differences? There were large technical differences. Recreating (emulating) the Lorraine's TTL and wirewrap proto boards in maskable roms was a technical step forward.
Not true, the MiniMig is a re-interpretation of the OCS
We'd have to ask Dennis to know for sure, but I think it was his intention to imitate(emulate) not re-interpet.
After all the same people created both.
Well if we're going to be nit-pick today... no again. The Los Gatos/Lorraine team had personnel differences from the Commodore Amiga 1000 team. Jay Miner being the most obvious difference. Does that make a difference to us?
there is going to be translation errors,
And the first OCS chip set was perfect?.... Not.
Can we just agree that minimig is a clever clone and a technical advance and leave it at that?
Plaz
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Apart from the "advance" bit.
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I'm personally interested in Minimig because of the ability to load adfs from flash media. This makes it's easy to shift them from your computer to Minimig. I don't think that's actually possible to do on a stock A500. So, you're limited to sourcing second-hand games which could be something of a lottery as time ain't kind to floppies.
And, of course, the Amiga itself could die. Some Amigas are over twenty years old at this point!
However, Minimig is not, and may never be a consumer-oriented item. There is also Clone-A in the works, which may turn out to be a better solution for those of us who aren't electrical engineers.
I found my limit was modding my saturn...
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Hmm, i think i really start seeing the possibilities with the MiniMIG...
I wonder how this particular project might turn out in a few years from now.
Any predictions?