TG68 - The Open Source Minimig CPU into the FPGA

[Belial6]

How much are the DE1 boards?  I know that I would be willing to pitch in to get one for Dennis so that the two of you could continue with the collaboration work you have been doing.  If they are not outrageous in price, we could probably get one paid for in donations.

[Belial6]

Ok, I just looked it up.  Is this the correct board?

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=83

If so, it is only $150.  If you (Dennis) and TobiFlex think this is the correct way to go for the MiniMig v2.0, please PM me.

[Belial6]

Cool.  You have mentioned that this is the board you would like to port to from the DE-2.  Have you already done this?  Do you have a DE-1 to port it to?

[Belial6]

The board you pointed to is over twice as expensive as the DE-1 board.  No doubt it is a great board, and offers greater flexibility, but my interest was in getting TobiFlex and Dennis on a single platform that could be a realistic board for end users to purchase.

TobiFlex has already ported from the presumably more powerful DE-2 board to the DE-1 board with that in mind.

[Belial6]

1) I don't think that it is even worth worrying about USB at this time.  In the future great, but today, it is not a concern.

2) I would leave the PS/2 port issue to TobiFlex.  He says he has already ported the code to the DE-1, so I would assume that he has a keyboard/mouse solution.

3) The MiniMig 1.0/1.1 is also a non-standard board, so we have not lost anything.

Really it comes down to the fact that Dennis and TobyFlex have actually produced something.  We can debate what we think would make a perfect design, but the DE-1 is cheap and available.  It also has at least one person who has proven himself by actually delivering something behind it, and it already runs the MiniMig.  I would rather have a working MiniMig in a DE-1 format than a hundred great ideas that are not being produced.

[Belial6]

I'm not sure what all of the debate is about.  TobiFlex says that he already has MiniMig running on a DE-1 board.  Earlier in this thread, he said it works, but he has a few tweaks that still need to be worked out.

I and one other user at least have offered buy Dennis a DE-1 board so that Dennis and TobiFlex can work from a common platform.  If Dennis responds back telling me that the DE-1 will not work, I will withdraw my offer.  If he says that it will work, and accepts the offer, I will buy a board that will be shipped to him.

No matter how much the rest of you argue about what the best board for the project is, only two people have really produced anything that would qualify them as proven experts.  One of the two (TobiFlex) has already stated his endorsement of the DE-1 board, which is inexpensive, and we have not heard from the other.

Now, I don't want to discourage any of you from proving your expertise by porting to an even better board with greater capabilities, but until the time that Dennis comes forward and says that TobiFlex is our of his mind, I am going to take TobiFlex at his word that the DE-1 is up to the job.  Even if he does, I will wait and see if TobiFlex could prove him wrong.

I don't think there is anyone out there that will complain if they can buy a professionally produced MiniMig for $150.

[Belial6]

@ChaosLord

Instead of guessing, why not just ask TobiFlex?  He has already ported MiniMig to the DE-1.

[Belial6]

@AmigaDave

TobiFlex has stated earlier in this thread that he has already ported MiniMig to the DE-1 and is just tweaking a few things before releasing it.  He also suggested that Dennis work on this board.

This is why I don't get what the debate is about.  Everyone arguing against this board are not arguing that the effort should be put somewhere else.  The effort has already been done by TobiFlex.  They are arguing that TobiFlex should just not release the code because they think a different, and generally WAY more expensive board would be better.  It makes no sense.

The other point that they are arguing is that Dennis should not be working on a common platform as TobiFlex, as both sweetlilmre and I have each offered to individually pay for the entire cost of a DE-1 board for Dennis.

I truly do not understand where these people are coming from.  Maybe they are just so used to not having access to new hardware, that they don't know how to deal with it.  Maybe they are worried that they will lose that little thing that makes them special if just anybody can buy Amiga compatible hardware.

[Belial6]

I did not mean to imply that Dennis and Tobiflex are arguing.  Tobiflex suggested the DE-1 board to Dennis.  As far as I know, Dennis has not stated his opinion on the DE-1 board one way or the other.  I do know that he has not responded one way or the other to my PM with an offer to just buy one for him.

It is other people that have argued that the DE-1 was unsuitable for the MiniMig.

Unfortunately, it looks like the DE-1 code is just that.  Code.  I am eagerly waiting for someone to compile everything so that I can download a zip file that can be unzipped to an SD card that I have put my own kickstart images on, and boot on the DE-1.  As soon that is available, I will order a DE-1 board for myself.

[Belial6]

So, from the software running on the machines point of view, the only difference is that the 68060 has floating point?

[Belial6]

@TobiFlex

I would love to help, and think the idea of the DE-1 is great.  Unfortunately, I have no experience with coding for FPGAs.  If I were to get one, is there any kind of testing I could do that would be helpful to you in your debugging.

The system still having bugs does not scare me.  I have been happy with my C-One, and I paid more for that than the price of a DE-1 board.

If there is any testing I could do, and I could get the bitstream (?) files from you, let me know, and I will get a DE-1.

Thanks

[Belial6]

That would be particularly cool if the touch screen could be connected as the mouse.  Then all we would need is a clamshell case with a keyboard in the bottom half and a battery.

This would give us a very small MiniMig laptop.  Although I'll be happy enough when I get a DE-1 here to play with.