MIST - Atari ST / Amiga fpga CLONE

[ferrellsl]

Looks like a nice system.  Definitely better than a Minimig and better in some ways than MikeJ's fpga Replay board.  It sort of fits in between the Minimig at the bottom and Mike's board at the top in terms of capabilities and options.  Anybody have one yet who cares to comment about it?  I'd like to hear more before I buy this board or MikeJ's board.

Check it out here: http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96

[ferrellsl]

I was impressed by the USB ports on the MIST which aren't present on either the Minimig or the Replay board.  Finding PS2 keyboards and mice isn't as easy these days as one would think.  And unlike the Minimig, the MIST doesn't use a real 68K CPU but a soft-CPU in the fpga that leaves the door open for higher speeds and more varieties of CPUs as well. Thanks for the info about Lotharek.  I hope that in 3 years his skills have improved!

[ferrellsl]

That's a good question.  Lotharek's page seems to imply that there's up to 14 MB of chip RAM but I'm that sounds a bit odd.  I'm thinking it's actually 16 MB total RAM with 2 MB set aside for chip RAM.  Lotharek mentions that his board is using Minimig cores so it should be able to use the AGA core as long as there's enough room on the fpga.....not sure about that.

Edit----
I checked the Google hosted site for MIST and there's quite a bit more info.  The board maxes out at 16 MB of RAM.  The Minimig core takes up 2 MB so the remainder is used for Amiga FAST RAM and/or chip RAM.  Still not sure if it can use the AGA core.  It probably can but that's assuming you will lose more chip/FAST RAM to hold the larger AGA core.
I would like to see a 32MB or greater board.  I can't imagine that adding additional RAM would increase the overall price by a great deal.

[ferrellsl]

@ ChaosLord

Radwaniyah, Iraq mate.  Care to ship me a few?

[ferrellsl]

@psxphill

If raw horsepower was my only concern I wouldn't even be looking at an fpga Amiga now would I?