A New Classic Amiga via Kickstarter

[royalcrown]

I guess I'll throw in my 2 cents as well.

All of our awesome Amiga hardware is going to die someday no matter how well we take care of it. What would be awesome is a system that can emulate all of the Amigas actually produced and sold. IMO I'd like to own a system with:

1. Hardware emulation of stock platforms via config file, with appropriate kickstarts stored in flash or selectable at boot.

(proper speed as well, no 300mhz A1000's)

2. The ability to use CF or SD as the HDD and FD out of the box (So IDE, or SATA for SCSI emulation). Can run .ADF

2. The ability to use actual Amiga keyboards and mice. Maybe have 2 usb for ppl that like newer mice/kb

4. Dip switch or Some way to toggle on and off RTG hardware emulation (picasso or spectrum).

5. HDMI output for video.

6. Small enough to fit in a classic case (for when our beloved hardware is all gone.

7. easy ways to hook up LED's for retro LED indicator goodness.


No PPC or MorphOS as those weren't officially released products. While they are fine and people are free to like them, they are guesses in the general direction that the hardware / software may have gone (yes I am aware that C= was working on the PPC version, but it was never FINALIZED and therefore we can't say what changes would've been made.)

From what I've seen (only seen), morph and all those seem too much like OSX  or linux with skins. There is still a lot of cheap apple hardware that can run that stuff, not so much good Amiga stuff left.

[royalcrown]

The latter sounds exactly like my Xotac Mini ITX box with a Lyra tacked on for real Amiga keyboard functionality.

Boots right into WB 3.1, never see the windows side at all.  Can use whatever Miggy config you like, from mild to wild.

Sure, but I like one off hardware, so the idea of dedicated hardware and selectable system via dip switch or flash ram sounds cool vs winuae auto booting.

[royalcrown]

I respect your opinion, but wedges belong with cheesecake and not computers...computers do not need aerodynamics :razz:

I've voted "other" for the following reasons:

1. there was never any AAA chipset produced, and it wasn't going to be backwards compatible with OCS/AGA so that would be pretty pointless.
2. I'd much prefer a wedge/keyboard case than a big box.
3. FPGA for the CPU and AGA chipset maybe, but then it would just be another Minimig so why bother.

So here's my "other" suggestion. Use FPGA for the graphics but make it reprogrammable from software. Initialise it with AGA core from ROM, but allow the user to change it.

Also add a standard PCIe graphics set from nVidia or some other vendor, so we can have the latest OpenGL graphics. Pipe the output of this through the FPGA graphics core so it can process the image including "GenLOCK" the AGA on top of it.

The CPU could be FPGA-based 68060-like (special Amiga friendly version!) or I suppose it could be an ARM or PowerPC chip with software emulation. But I like the idea of an FPGA at the moment because I'm thinking of making my own core.

I guess this is really a combination of 1 & 3.

[royalcrown]

Mist looks  to be an AMIGA / Atari ST FPGA emulator. Since Commodore and Atari don't mix, it will probably fight itself to the death and explode when switched on ! :quickdraw:

The name is an amalgum of Miggy and ST.

Tina = 68020 in fpga at ridiculous speeds:

http://www.tinaproject.it/about.html

I believe the goal is to speed up apps and games as to make them utterly unusable/unplayable

Too lazy to Google, what the heck are MiST and TiNA?  Really would be nice if some of these projects would actually make it through to completion (I'm still a bit bummed that Natami was canceled, especially).  :-/

[royalcrown]

It looks like the goal is to emulate the natami project.

Sorry forgot my "/ sarcasm" switch or "(_*_) smart ass" switch

[royalcrown]

FPGA has a great advantage with non-amigans if it be flashed as an atari, Sinclair, BBC, MSX etc.. even N64 is getting FPGA treatment these days. The way I see it, the more machines it can be flashed as, the bigger the market. Why build a retro machine any other way?

That is true, especially if it was easy to use the actual controllers. Even an FPGA recreation beats pure software emu for ease of use once set up, and it can fit in the original hardware (for those of us that prefer original plastic).

Maybe ALL the groups should get together and do the "MAME" of all FPGA emulators...hmmmm.

[royalcrown]

If there was some sort of MUltiple Logic Emulator (M.U.L.E *wink wink*) that emulated all the old school stuff 2600 - 7800, Nintendo, Sega) that:
1.Lets me load images and allowed use of actual controllers via usb adapter

2 hooks up to the tv,

3.and stays configured via flash or SD card config, so as to just turn it on and play

I'll buy on for myself and 2 more for my kids !