A few noob Minimig questions :)

[Ohno]

Happy new year!!  :-D

1. Is Minimig an emulator on a board, or its really an Amiga (500?) clone?

It tries to copy the original Amiga 500 chips, but it does so in a 'reprogrammable chip' which can be updated in the future. So it tries to clone an A500 on a hardware-level, but it probably still is an emulator technically.

2. How good is Minimig - would one be able to see the difference between it and a real Amiga 500 when running the same game side by side?

There's currently still a blitter bug that shows up in a couple of demos and games. The good thing is that it's open source and more people can look at it and try to fix that bug. When the bug is fixed you can install the upgrade to make the minimig better. Apart from that bug I really got the Amiga feeling back using the MiniMig. I haven't compared them side by side though. I like the MiniMig better: It is smaller, supports off-the-shelve keyboards and mice and it can be connected to a standard flatscreen monitor.

3. How's the scrolling in games on the minimig? Usually from what I see, this seems to be the hardest bit to get right in emulation.

Excellent. Usually emulators have an OS underneath that step in once every while causing interrupts in scrolling smoothness (yes I know.. not everyone agrees to this, but in my experience the MiniMig runs far smoother than WinUAE does).

4. What resolution and frequency will the Minimig output (good to know if using an LCD monitor)?

Don't know exactly, but if I'm not mistaken it has an internal scandoubler meaning it'll now run on pretty much any modern TFT monitor. [EDIT]: My monitor does occasionally have troubles auto-adjusting to games in overscan mode.

5. Last but not least - I want the minimig to replay all the games I loved when I was a kid (and who does not), will this serve the purpose alright... in other words, should I get a minimig, should it be right time to put all my classic amiga stuff in a box in the attic ?

The MiniMig doesn't run every game yet and the blitter bug shows up in a couple of other games. It is not yet a full replacement, but it seems from the discussions here that a lot of people are working on improving and extending the MiniMig project.

[Ohno]

One more thing, should there be an upgrade to the Minimig, say to fix the blitter bug, wil I have to buy a new minimig, or the chips can be  upgraded by software?

It's just a file with a specific name on the MMC card. When the MiniMig starts up the file is read into the FPGA, so it can be easily updated with new software.

[Ohno]

Can you identify the demos/games which aren't working?
Ideally, post them on the net somewhere?

Hi Red, check out the page alexh mentions.
I added the entries with the prefix 'Onno: '.

I haven't had time lately to use the MiniMig much (working on several projects at once all with tight deadlines). If I have some more time I will continue adding new entries to the list.