Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: straycat on February 10, 2008, 05:06:19 PM
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According to the website today the Minimig has been released!
http://www.acube-systems.biz/eng/index.php
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Someone made a booboo and released the info a day early :-D
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Please pardon my ignorance, but I just returned to the Amiga scene a couple of weeks ago. What exactly does the Minimig offer? What OS and software can be run on it? What kind of case would it fit in? :-?
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Check this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig).
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That helped, but it's still a bit too technical for me.
Will this run OS4 Classic? If it's emulating an A500, is it powerful enough to run the newer OS? And how would you use older disk-based software?
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No, it just is a reverse engineered vanilla OCS A500.
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IslDreamer wrote:
That helped, but it's still a bit too technical for me.
Will this run OS4 Classic? If it's emulating an A500, is it powerful enough to run the newer OS? And how would you use older disk-based software?
No OS4, that requires a PowerPC accelerator. Think of the minimig as nothing more than a really small and flexible Amiga 500, nothing more, nothing less. Games are played from a MMC flash card, using disk images (.adf). Many older games have been released into the public domain as ADF. If you own an original floppy, it will not work on the minimig. However finding a backup in ADF form online is quite easy.
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Shame there's nobody in the USA selling them. I've emailed Acube to see about ordering one.
Actually, I emailed them last earlier this month for a price and git a replt and then emailed them again to ask about cases and how to pay and got nothing but silence. I've emailed yet again and hopefully I'll get a reply...
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Thanks guys, that is very helpful.
So what's the advantage of something like this vs. running classic games and software in an emulated environment like WinUAE/AmigaForever? At least in the latter, you can emulate much higher-end machines.
I guess I fall into the camp that really appreciates and looks forward to running the classic machines (I just bought an A4000D a couple of weeks ago), but I expect any new hardware to help move the platform into the 21st century. (If only the warring companies controlling its future would get out of the way).
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IslDreamer wrote:
So what's the advantage of something like this vs. running classic games and software in an emulated environment like WinUAE/AmigaForever?
Geeky coolness of the hardware, and encouraging future commercial Minimig development. Also, not really an advantage but, the Minimig can be expanded to emulate other computer and consoles systems (especially those based on 68k processors, lots of systems with this processor).
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How many of you are going to buy one from acube?
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Ahhhh....
But the million dollar question:
While running an interlaced screen outputting to the VGA port, can we still get the eyeball-itching interlace flicker???
and can a HDD be added to make it runnable as an Amiga instead of just an .adf player?
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The Minimig has an onboard Flicker Fixer / Scandoubler
There's no IDE port yet so no, you can't hookup a harddrive.
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Krusher wrote:
The Minimig has an onboard Flicker Fixer / Scandoubler
There's no IDE port yet so no, you can't hookup a harddrive.
awesome!!
So the flicker will still be there then?
oh well....
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MaDDuck wrote:
Krusher wrote:
The Minimig has an onboard Flicker Fixer / Scandoubler
There's no IDE port yet so no, you can't hookup a harddrive.
awesome!!
So the flicker will still be there then?
oh well....
Actually, no flicker since Minimig has an Amber implementation.
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Really?
sounds impressive, I wasn't aware that could be done and still maintain 100% compatibility.
Hmmmmmmm
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That's the beauty of FPGA, you can add certain features without breaking compatibility.
btw: Minimig is NOT 100% compatible. Yet. There are a few things broken, however most things work.
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So some Amiga dreams do come true :-)
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Okay, I'm confused again. I now that Dennis did the MiniMig all on his own an it's all GPLed or something. What happened to the hardware that AI announced not too long ago that some non-Dennis was working on that AI was promoting as official or something? Not the AmigaOne. Wasn't there something else? Where did all that go?
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I think Im going to get one in the comming months even though I have six A500 in the closet.
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@cv643d
Six MM's will take up less space in your closet.
So will six M&M's, for that matter. Both, incidentally, don't melt in your hand.
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weirdami wrote:
What happened to the hardware that AI announced not too long ago that some non-Dennis was working on that AI was promoting as official or something? Not the AmigaOne. Wasn't there something else? Where did all that go?
I think you are referring to the Vixxen, by ACK. Nothing has been shown, so it's now presumed to have failed or just been vapourware.
________
Michigan Medical Marijuana Dispensaries (http://michigan.dispensaries.org/)
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AI = Amiga Inc?, in that case it's not even worth the brain neurons it might occupy ;-)
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weirdami wrote:
What happened to the hardware that AI announced not too long ago that some non-Dennis was working on that AI was promoting as official or something? Not the AmigaOne. Wasn't there something else? Where did all that go?
Smoke and Mirrors
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Amiga Inc is actually KMOS, a company that started up about 1999 or so (the real date is purposely obscured to hide from creditors). They took over the contract with Acer that give exclusive rights to the Amiga name and IP. They have nothing to do with CBM or the original Amiga Inc. They have *never* produced anything "Amiga compatible." In fact their main product appears to be press releases. Pay not attention to them, you'll be happier that way.
:flame:
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@persia:
Well said! I especially liked the part "In fact their main product appears to be press releases"
:laughing:
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That's great news but what kind of box will this fit in?
I want to give one of these to my 8 year old kid brother so that he has something friendly to play games on and learn programming with but without a proper chassi that's like begging him to get electrocuted.
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You could give your brother 6-8 A500's for the price of one boxed minimig.
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Agreed, i could give him one of the A500s i have up in the attic but that would propel him instantly into floppy failure hell, just like it did for me, all those years ago. :D
According to that wikipedia article, the minimig is "nano-itx size". However, it seems that via's nano-itx only has ports at one end of the board. Because of that it looks like you wouldn't easily be able to fit the minimig board in any of the existing nano-itx cases on the market.
Any ideas?
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It's not an nano-ITX compatible form factor.
Just live with the persepex cover :)
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I expect some joker will install a minimig in the largest atx tower he can find.
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Surely there's a case lined up for this (or at least a recommendation to come from ACube what case to use)?
Seems to me like good marketing to have a case around a computer (or am I barking up the wrong tree?).
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Barking up the wrong tree me thinks. Tooling cost to make custom cases, even moulded plastic ones are very high.
It's not two bad as a perspex sandwich is it?
http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=15116&d=1193440340
http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=15117&d=1193440350
http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=15118&d=1193440414
If you want to put MiniMig in a case, illuwatar (?) is doing a different MiniMig PCB with headers instead of connectors.
http://www.illuwatar.se/project_pages/mini-minimig/mini-minimig.htm
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I think the perspex case looks pretty nice and lets you see the 'workings'...
Will the board come with the perspex case? If not will it be available from ACube?
Also doesn't the exposed sides leave the machine open to dust, liquid spills etc or am I just sounding like a 'soft end-user'?!
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I think Acube should clarify the Minimig is not a finished computer and cannot run out of the box. The amount of information on their website is too little and confusing to end-users (just look at the questions at this thread alone, all those questions have been answered before, but the information is scattered all around the 'net and in some part, outdated.
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Krusher wrote:
I think Acube should clarify the Minimig is not a finished computer and cannot run out of the box.
I suppose what I'm getting at is if you wanted to build an A1200 tower you could source a D-Box from Amigakit.com for example. There doesn't seem to be an similar thing for the Minimig yet. I can screw a motherboard into a case, find a spare keyboard and mouse but building custom cases is not really my thing. Perhaps it's just early days and someone will make something. Perhaps ACube reckon on the glass sandwich effect? Still like the look of the Minimig though, looking forward to some reviews!
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Thing is, the Minimig has it's own formfactor, you'd have to build a case from scratch. And you raise a point about the sandwhich case, dust is never a good thing for electronics.
I too like the looks, it's a clean design. I won't be ordering one soon though, too expensive for me and I already have an option on an original Amiga 3000 which will be mine in just under two weeks time.
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It isn't that hard to find options to put it in.
You could actually screw it to the inside of any computer case just as easily as he sandwiched it in between two pieces of plexiglass.
There are places on the net that will manufacture aluminum cases to your specifications but leave room for a fan:
http://www.ziegeleng.com/
If there is something you think we should produce, CALL! We always listen to good ideas.
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A6000 wrote:
I expect some joker will install a minimig in the largest atx tower he can find.
**looks up** What?!??!?
**hides the SGI Crimson chasis under his desk**
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downix wrote:
A6000 wrote:
I expect some joker will install a minimig in the largest atx tower he can find.
**looks up** What?!??!?
**hides the SGI Crimson chasis under his desk**
SGI???
**tries to cover up his Onyx system
(http://legacy.ensight.com/news/images/smallSGI.jpg)
:lol:
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@straycat
Also doesn't the exposed sides leave the machine open to dust, liquid spills etc or am I just sounding like a 'soft end-user'?!
There's nothing to stop you making some sides and gluing them on.
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straycat wrote:
Will the board come with the perspex case? If not will it be available from ACube?
No and no. But you can order them from wizard66.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250181224669
Also doesn't the exposed sides leave the machine open to dust, liquid spills etc or am I just sounding like a 'soft end-user'?!
Yes, yes and yes.
Krusher wrote:
I think Acube should clarify the Minimig is not a finished computer and cannot run out of the box.
You need to copy kickstart (and a few ADF's) onto the SD card that comes with it, that's all.
Hardly rocket science.
The board is fully assembled, the PIC is programmed and (optionally) it comes with a PSU.
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alexh wrote:
Krusher wrote:
I think Acube should clarify the Minimig is not a finished computer and cannot run out of the box.
You need to copy kickstart (and a few ADF's) onto the SD card that comes with it, that's all.
Hardly rocket science.
It might be for people who don't own anything Amiga related anymore, at least you need Amiga Forever or an original ROM to be legal. Ok, there are ways around it if you do a good search here and there but that's not my point. They should post that kind of info on their website. For people who followed the Minimig it's easy to get it running, but imagine a newbe interested into it, buy it and to discover they can't use it?
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Krusher wrote:
at least you need Amiga Forever or an original ROM to be legal.
Amiga Forever ROM's wont work of course, cos they are encrypted (but you can just dump them in WinUAE using DumpROM to unencrypt them ;-))
Krusher wrote:
Ok, there are ways around it if you do a good search here and there
Dont even need a "good search" these days.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Amiga+kickstart+500+extended+rom
Krusher wrote:
imagine a newbe interested into it, buy it and to discover they can't use it?
Yeah right! There will be no "newbies" buying MiniMig's. I doubt there will be many oldies either. But you never know. I wish Acube all the best, if they get one or two ASIC developers on side (with free devkits, hint, hint, PM me, hint hint) and push the multi-platform angle they could make money.
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alexh wrote:
Krusher wrote:
at least you need Amiga Forever or an original ROM to be legal.
Amiga Forever ROM's wont work of course, cos they are encrypted (but you can just dump them in WinUAE using DumpROM to unencrypt them ;-))
imagine a newbe interested into it, buy it and to discover they can't use it?
Yeah right! There will be no "newbies" buying MiniMig's. I doubt there will be many oldies either.
Amiga Forever gives you the licence to use the roms.
And I already had people asking me about Minimig because they where interested but didn't know anything about it, they just expect it to work just like that (Oh so I just hook up a keyboard, mouse and monitor and I have a working Amiga? And then I go on about explaining it has no floppydrive port but an SD card for floppy images, and the rom situation....
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Krusher wrote:
Amiga Forever gives you the licence to use the roms.
Ah, now this is where the legal ground gets a bit shaky. I dont think their license extends to using them in anything other than Amiga Forever environment. That's the reason the AF ROM's are encrypted, in a vain attempt to prevent them being written back to EPROM and used in an Amiga. Using them with MiniMig... I think it might fall outside the terms of their license. (And thus your end user license)
I think the help-desk call that ACube will get the most is "Why doesn't MiniMig work with my monitor?", the answer of which will be "Cos your monitor doesn't support 50Hz vertical refresh!".
Shame no-one got an NTSC build of MiniMig working (which would run at 60Hz), the changes were so minor! Or even better ECS support for 50/60Hz selection in early startup menu of Kickstart 2.04+.
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Krusher wrote:
downix wrote:
A6000 wrote:
I expect some joker will install a minimig in the largest atx tower he can find.
**looks up** What?!??!?
**hides the SGI Crimson chasis under his desk**
SGI???
**tries to cover up his Onyx system
:lol:
I actually considered putting the MiniMig inside the Crimson (as I have a few empty bays atm) as a little joke at work.
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alexh wrote:
. Using them with MiniMig... I think it might fall outside the terms of their license. (And thus your end user license)
You've got a point there, so people should buy a real rom then? Then again, I don't think anyone cares if you use an illegal rom on whatever platform/emulator thing you have. It's not as if the Minimig is sold with it.
Gray area though, and I wonder if some unnamed company is going to cause problems.
downix wrote:
...
I actually considered putting the MiniMig inside the Crimson (as I have a few empty bays atm) as a little joke at work.
Please let us know if you did, I like pranks like that :lol:
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Krusher wrote:
Gray area though, and I wonder if some unnamed company is going to cause problems.
Of course they will. They don't want to make anything related to the Amiga, they just don't want anyone else to do it either.
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@alexh:
I think once the userbase become wider than those with hardware/software/amiga wiz-powers. People with HDL knowledge but not electronics etc.. can fix those NTSC things and other features.
As it is now, only those with a substantial knowledge can even enter the "playfield".
Regarding 50Hz, isn't that a TFT controller board limititation?, can't recall any TFT module having that restriction.
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freqmax wrote:
@alexh:
I think once the userbase become wider than those with hardware/software/amiga wiz-powers. People with HDL knowledge but not electronics etc.. can fix those NTSC things and other features.
There are 4 great engineers (at least) working on MiniMig (who have FPGA's) and non have worked on this issue. TobiFlex did his software 68k, FrenchShark has ideas of implementing AAA (WTF!!), RedSkullDC has done some work but not ready to release and I think Dennis is on hiatus.
I made the recommendations (code changes) for an NTSC MiniMig when the source first came out, but I dont have a board :-(
freqmax wrote:
Regarding 50Hz, isn't that a TFT controller board limititation?, can't recall any TFT module having that restriction.
No idea. But 80-90% of LCD's have a minimum refresh rate of 56Hz which rules out PAL MiniMig.
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Erm, isn't the Minimig supposed to spit out VGA refresh rates above the 60hz barrier? If not, people are going to be returning Minimigs !! (I missed your edited message, and I didn't know that..)
Most modern monitors hate anything below 60hz nowadays..
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Krusher wrote:
Erm, isn't the Minimig supposed to spit out VGA refresh rates above the 60hz barrier?
No. The current release of MiniMig is PAL, thus video output is 50Hz. It's OCS so it cannot change to 60Hz in software.
http://home.hetnet.nl/~weeren001/downloads/minimig1_man.pdf
Dennis wrote:
Any monitor capable of displaying 50Hz display modes can be used.
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Ouch!
See, this is what I mean by lack of information on a website selling stuff. This is mandatory information.
Could it be doubled in the code?
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Guess we better fix 60 Hz mode.. Real Soon.
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It would take less than half a day to convert a MiniMig into to an NTSC OCS Amiga (60Hz).
http://www.opencircuits.com/Minimig_NTSC
I am really surprised that there has been no MiniMig updates (from anyone) since it's release (except T68)
Now if ACube sent me a board (hint hint) ;-)
Krusher wrote:
Could it be doubled in the code?
Possibly, but most LCD monitors don't sync to 100Hz either.
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alexh wrote:
It would take less than half a day to convert a MiniMig into to an NTSC OCS Amiga (60Hz).
http://www.opencircuits.com/Minimig_NTSC
I am really surprised that there has been no MiniMig updates (from anyone) since it's release (except T68)
Now if ACube sent me a board (hint hint) ;-)
Krusher wrote:
Could it be doubled in the code?
Possibly, but most LCD monitors don't sync to 100Hz either.
The availabilty of a fully assembled Minimig now is possibly going to generate more interest, since not every coder is handy with soldering, especially the smd parts and the FPGA.
I know about the frequenty range of lcd monitors (mine only accepts up to 75hz) but there are tons of CRT's around that can handle 100hz and upwards.
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I think the help-desk call that ACube will get the most is "Why doesn't MiniMig work with my monitor?", the answer of which will be "Cos your monitor doesn't support 50Hz vertical refresh!".
I don't think my fairly bog standard 3 year old Philips LCD monitor will work (I've had trouble with an old Powerbook Duo docking station in the past. I'm going to check my model on the Philips site this evening). I wonder how many LCDs will actually work? If I have to revert to an CRT monitor it seems quite a retrograde step for a new piece of hardware...
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@alexh
I guess that refresh could be multiplied by 1.5
You could show two frames (as the screen may be interlaced) twice and the next two ones just one time, then repeat with the rest of frames. It wouldn't be as smooth as a 50Hz display but I guess it could work well with just slight changes in the code.
It would just involve setting a flag to decide if the same frame must be shown twice or not.
something like this in the refresh loop. Of course, NTSC wouldn't need it:
loop() {
refresh_screen();
if ((PAL==true) && (show_frame_twice == true)) {
refresh_screen();
show_frame_twice = false;
} else {
show_frame_twice = true;
}
}
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Yeah, right. Simple as that, I'll make the changes now :-P
"refresh_screen()" Heh, I love it!
Sorry, but you asked for that.
Concept wise, yes, if there is enough BLOCK RAM available in the FPGA then scan rate conversion is a possibility. Scrolling will suck but at least it will work. The PicassoIV's scandoubler has scan rate conversion.
I favour the 60Hz NTSC approach first. A change of crystal and an hour or two of modding and testing (less with feedback from top Amiga programmers, Dennis and Toni Wilen etc.) should get it working.
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No need to change crystal, just alter clock_dcm.v to output NTSC colour frequency.
I looked around on TFT specifications, seems 50 Hz is more doable than 100 Hz. As some of them actually supports 50 Hz. The upper limit seems to be 75 Hz for many screens. However I belive there are 100 Hz capable screens. And the onboard RAM could be used as frame buffer if the video output can't be scanned twice the normal rate.
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freqmax wrote:
No need to change crystal, just alter clock_dcm.v to output NTSC colour frequency.
Give me the DCM values to produce an NTSC colour frequency from a 4.433619 MHz PAL crystal (which is what ships on a MiniMig)
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Frequency 3.575499 MHz with multiply=25 division=31
Ie 4.433619*(25/31)
If 0.001 MHz deviation works out alright.
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How many DCM's are there in the XC3S400-4PQ208C? Four?
Can you cascade them?
MiniMig (NTSC) uses the following clocks:
3.579545 MHz
28.63636 MHz
7.15909 MHz
0.715909 MHz
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30550
I am not sure the DCM instantiated in MiniMig has all possible I/O. Making these clocks (within tolerance) may be possible.
http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug331.pdf
I dont really have a working knowledge of these things.
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I think it's possible to cascade DCMs. And XC3S400 & XC3S500E both have 4x DCMs.
These clocks can be done without DCM (provided the 28MHz):
28.63636 MHz / 8 = 3.579545 MHz (colour clock)
28.63636 MHz.. (agnus)
28.63636 MHz / 2 = 7.15909 MHz (m68k cpu)
28.63636 MHz / 40 = 0.715909 MHz (E clk)
The key issue is timing, thus the colour coding schemes which another person mentioned is quite irrelevant as output is direct RGB.
I don't think the colour frequency crystal is needed at all actually. One could simple hookup to the MCU crystal and thus eliminate one crystal + associated passives.
I think a pure HDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_description_language) solution is doable if the slight timing deviation is tolerable.