MINIMIG HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY & NEW TURBO MODE!

[Belial6]

Darrin wrote:

I have plans for printer support on the Minimig

I don't know what you have planned, but I would love to see the parallel and serial ports virtualized inside the FPGA, then connected with as few pins as possible to something like the PIC18F67J60.  Then we could run either a similar board to turn the Ethernet back into real parallel and serial for stand alone use, or we could run a server app on our PCs that would let us take care of the printer side of things.

This would allow for stand alone use, but when used with a PC, it would give us the huge benefit of being able to write a server app on the PC side that would turn the output of the Amiga into something usable by modern equipment.

It might seem like an expensive way to get printer support, but given that it would allow any interface to be added with no additional hardware, it seems it would be worth it.  How many pins are on the FPGA would also become a non-issue for adding new functionality, as only the connection to the PIC18F67J60 would exist.

[Belial6]

So, I looked up Siamese, and as far as I can tell, it is a commercial hardware solution that is out of production?  Am I missing something?

Obviously, I would never tell someone that they shouldn't work on the projects that they want, but I am still hoping someone will pop up with an Ethernet 'virtual port' add-on, as I would like to see something that COULD act on it's own, and it is unlikely that I would ever dedicate a full PC to running as a MiniMig card.  An app on my server, sure.  A full PC just for the MiniMig no.

[Belial6]

Darrin wrote:
Interesting, but if I was to take a soldering iron to my Minimig then it would never boot again.  :-D

Don't take a soldering iron to your MiniMig.  The spare IO are pins that are sticking up out of the board.  Just make a plug that is wired to an Ethernet jack.

@Freqmax:

That is actually a better idea.  My thought was that you could probably get away with fewer IO lines if you serialized the data going to the Ethernet chip, but failed to take into consideration that by doing the Ethernet in the FPGA, you would only need a 4? wires and an rj-45 jack to upgrade the MiniMig.  There is a lot of value to an upgrade that can be had for less than $5 at a local Radio Shack.  The only question would be whether the FPGA has enough space for it.

While I'm sure that most of us recognize the value of having Ethernet built into the MiniMig, I think there would be huge value in virtualizing ports across that Ethernet.  Not only would it make the spare I/O pin count irrelevant, but it would allow peripherals to be placed anywhere on the network, and would allow all sorts of tricks to be played on the other side.  Things like translating the printer output into something usable by a modern printer before spooling to the real thing.  Another cool thing about doing it this way is that you wouldn't need to install anything special on the MiniMig.  As far as it was concerned everything would be just as if it was plugged into an actual A500.

[Belial6]

Ok, so does that put using something like the PIC18F67J60 back as the beast way to expand the MiniMig?  Or is there a simpler way to get Ethernet down to 3 or less data pins?

[Belial6]

Whatever gets Ethernet on the MiniMig with the smallest hardware investment possible.  I just want to see Ethernet combined with the virtualization of ports over that Ethernet connection.

Can SPI be done on the pins left on the header?

Boing400 said:

As in Dennis' schematics to find:
Pin 1-2 is permanent VCC = +3V3
Pin 3 Spare-I/O in/output User0
Pin 5 Spare-I/O in/output User1
Pin 7 Spare-I/O in/output User2
Pin 9 SPI_Dout (hardwired to PIC Pin 15)
Pin 4, 6, 8 and 10 is GND

That only leaves 3 data pins, and SPI appears to need 3 + one enable line for each device.  So, 4 for Ethernet.  Although, pin 9 being for SPI_Dout and hardwired to PIC Pin 15, implies that SPI is already implemented.  Does that mean we only need 1 of the User pins?

If the problem with that is that the three non-Enable lines are not exposed to the expansion header, then perhaps it would behoove us to try and talk Yaqube into exposing them from his board, as Pin 9 being PSI_Dout, implies that SPI lines have been run to the PIC socket that Yaqube will be plugging his board into.

[Belial6]

So, Boing4000 says there are not enough pins.  You say there are?  Are you suggesting that the 15/31 kHz pins could be repurposed to give us the pins we need?

Would this allow us to do a simple cheap network upgrade?

[Belial6]

boing4000 wrote:
Be aware that Minimig just have 1.5MB of available RAM and this will limit the TCP/IP apps to be used. Gegesis will take a lot of RAM to work, I tried it using an A1200 with 2MB Chipram and PCMCIA Nic with the famous NetBootDisk. After booting in CLI with genesis 577912 byte was already used by the TCP/IP Stack. No application was started, in Minimig would be a maximum of 917 kb free memory left.

You are missing the point.  The point isn't to put an ethernet card on the MiniMig.  The point is to virtualize physical ports across an ethernet connection.  You don't even need to to have a TCP/IP stack on the the MiniMig to accomplish this.  something like this http://hackaday.com/2008/09/25/web-server-on-a-business-card-part-2/ puts the entire TCP/IP stack in a pic.  The MiniMig could then have an IDE port coded into the FPGA.  Instead of sending the command to a real hard drive, the commands would be sent over Ethernet.  You would then have the choice of building a receiver board that converts the tcp/ip stream back into IDE and connects to a real hard drive, OR run a app on the file server in the basement that reads and writes to a hard drive.  The benefit to this is that you would be able to add an unlimited number of ports to your MiniMig, and never have to worry about available pins again.  You could virtualize IDE, Serial, Parallel, PCMCIA, Video card, Sound Card, or anything else you attach to a real Amiga.  The only limit would be the speed of your connection to the Ethernet add-on, and the speed of the bandwidth of the Ethernet itself.

In fact, if the OS can even tell that the Ethernet is connected, the system is broken.  If you want to run network applications, you would want a virtualized Ethernet card written in the FPGA that runs over the real connection just like every other virtualized device.

By doing it this way you get:

*4 pins for unlimited number of device
*Ability to connect devices at a distance
*Ability to share devices with other computers (like hard drives and printers)
*Ability to process output on remote computer before actual use.  i.e., data printed to the virtual serial port can be massaged into something usable for a modern peripherals.
*Ability to use modern peripherals.
*Ability to add new devices with firmware upgrades only.
* No need to worry about a tcp/ip stack running on the MiniMig.

[Belial6]

Yes, you should order one today.  So far significant improvements have been made via firmware updates only.  There are other boards being worked on, but the majority of the boards out in the wild are exactly like the ones that Acube sells.

There is a replacement board in the works for the PIC controller on the MiniMig.  It is specifically being designed to be a drop in replacement for the PIC, so if and when it comes out, it will be an upgrade to the existing board.

There is also the C-One.  It was originally an FPGA reimplementation of the C64.  Recently, Individual computers has released an upgrade board for it. (bundled with the upgrade is the only way it is currently available)  The C-One has had the MiniMig core ported to it.  The biggest difference being that 68k processor is also implemented in the FPGA.

As it now stands, the MiniMig 1.1 will never be more than a very good A500 replacement.  In theory, the C-One could be upgraded to an A1200 or more.  The C-One is more expensive than the MiniMig though.  I believe that Jens has said that the A-Clone (Individual Computers future product) is going to have AGA graphics, so I would guess it will be an A1200.  This is currently speculation though, as the product has not been released.

To sum up.  The MiniMig, as it stands today, is a fine A500 replacement, so it is definitely worth it.