MiniMig with AGA

[amigadave]

I've got a list of people who have expressed interest.
As soon as the board is up and running and pricing is finalised I'll make an announcement and also mail people on my list to see if they are still interested.
/Mike

Will you also be selling bare boards to those who wish to assemble one themselves, like some of the MiniMig boards were sold, or just completely assembled boards?

[amigadave]

MiniMigAGA core demo running on the FPGA Arcarde board looks great.  Is it really that fast, or did someone speed up the video playback on that YouTube video?  :lol:

[amigadave]

The expansion board has a higher performance processor with local memory, for those who want a bit more speed...
Exact spec of processor to be determined.
64MByte of RAM on the base board at the moment.

Is the onboard RAM shared Chip/Fast RAM, all Chip RAM (but faster than the Chip RAM in a Classic Amiga), or configured Chip or Fast RAM via jumpers or software?

[amigadave]

The SDRAM is shared as follows:

0.5 MB for ROM (will be expanded to 2 MB)
2 MB for Chip RAM
1.5 MB for Slow RAM
8 MB for Fast RAM (Zorro II area)
48 MB for EXTRA Chip RAM (may also be configured as Fast RAM)

The memory is configured by the OSD menu.

MikeJ stated that there is 64mb RAM on the base FPGAARCADE board.  Is there also additional RAM on the expansion board?  I am guessing the above breakdown of RAM is for the base board, not the expansion board.

Edit:  Not that more than 64mb of RAM is needed for this type of project.

[amigadave]

Sorry to hear that you are having such troubles with the production where you are.  It is sad that it is so much cheaper and easier (for the most part) to have it done in China.  Just another step in making the rest of us just consumers and the producers are all in other countries.  Where is that going to lead all of us I am afraid to think about.

[amigadave]

Not sure if I will be able to afford one of the first 50, or if I will have to wait and hope that a second run will happen at a reduced price later.  All depends on how my eBay auctions for Amiga gear go during the next two to four weeks.  I also need to start saving money for the AmiWest 2010 Show trip in Oct.

But you can bet I will be doing everything I can to get one of these asap.  Great project Mike, hope everything works out for you very soon.

[amigadave]

Time to find some more spending money as I want one of these!

[amigadave]

@MikeJ,

Any chance that you can attend AmiWest 2010 Show in Sacramento this Oct. to show the FPGA Arcade board running (assuming that you will have a few boards running by then)?  It is going to be a great show and would be even better if you could be there showing everyone your work.

I hope you can attend.  I would love to see an FPGA Arcade board in person, running the Minimig AGA core & some games and other apps.

[amigadave]

@MikeJ,

Is there any chance that you will have a finished and running FPGAARCADE board available to demo at the AmiWest 2010 Show in Sacramento, CA in two weeks?

This year's show is going to be the biggest show they have ever had.  They are trying to find ways to make more room for the banquet dinner seating to accommodate the number of people that want to attend.

It would be great if you could be there to show off your work, or if that is impossible, find someone else that could show it for you and ship a board to them.  I am sure it will be a great hit at the show and it seems that you are getting it finished just in time.

[amigadave]

We have an enhanced version of the T68 core which has 32 bit IO and many 68020 enhancements. I also have my own CPU project which is bouncing along nicely. The video doesn't exist just yet, hopefully later today.
/Mike

Since you will not be able to show the FPGA Arcade at the AmiWest 2010 Show this weekend, perhaps you can convince the organizers of the show to play your soon to be finished video during the show on one of the two display screens at each end of the hall?

[amigadave]

I've posted a few more pictures now the boards are fully assembled.
MikeJ

Any case suggestions w/pictures?  And can you place something else in the picture to demonstrate the actual size again, once you have it in a case?

Great looking board Mike!  Looks like you might be ready to take orders before Christmas of this year and deliver not long after the first of the year (if all continues to go well).

Now all I need to figure out is which computer am I going to get rid of so I can justify replacing it with one of these.

Forgive me if these questions have already been asked and answered before, but ......

1. what is the power usage of the FPGAArcade?  Looking at the pics of the board, it appears to need a 15volt input, how many amperes, less than 1.0, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 amperes?

2.  Will you offer the board in kit form where everything is mounted except for the through-hole parts, so the buyer can finish putting it together and save a few dollars in the process?

3.  Have you determined what the price is going to be, or prices if you are offering it in more than one stage of completion?

4.  Have you contacted Colanto and asked them about a discounted bundle price for AmigaForever + FPGAArcade, so you could legally sell the FPGAArcade in a completed and loaded state, including the Amiga ROMs, for consumer type people that just want to buy a completed product and turn it on, instead of sourcing the ROMs themselves and setting up the SD card with ROMs and other copyrighted files?

Very cool project!  Good luck with what ever type of marketing you choose to do with it as a finished product and/or a kit project.

[amigadave]

There has not been a lot of reactions since the latest announcement from MikeJ.
 We are really close to the end now

Once he announces that it is finished and available for sale there will be a flood of interest in it.  The one thing I like about MikeJ's experience and the way he has gone about completing this project, is that he appears to be ready to produce the FPGA Arcade boards in a quantity that will be considered "Large" by third party Amiga standards.  If there is enough interest, I think MikeJ is ready to have hundreds of these boards manufactured, and he might even be able to interest some big retail outlets to make orders for them if he can get the price low enough and complete a case design to make it a more complete product.

Maybe I am way off in my thinking on this product's sales potential.