Minimig released for real!

[alexh]

It's not an nano-ITX compatible form factor.

Just live with the persepex cover

[alexh]

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

[alexh]

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.

[alexh]

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.

[alexh]

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+.

[alexh]

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.

[alexh]

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.

[alexh]

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.

[alexh]

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.

[alexh]

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)

[alexh]

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.