Update PIC on Minimig

[Darrin]

@ yaqube:

Thanks for taking the type to type that.  I needed an idiots guide.  :-)

I'll try to update mine when I get home.

[Darrin]

So what's the option if the Acube boards can't be reflashed via the serial port?  Are we kind of buggered?

[Darrin]

@ koaftder,

Cheers, it looks like I'm spending $50 then.  

Unless someone decides to make some money by reflashing boards...

[Darrin]

@ Oliver & Alex,

It's nice of you guys to offer to help people out like this.  The good old Amiga community spirit in action.  :-)

@ Oliver:  My in-laws live in Perth (and I was there a couple of months ago).  If I make another trip any time soon then I may take you up on that offer otherwise I'll be buying a reprogrammer or a new PIC.

[Darrin]

Well, I'm glad I bought my board from Amigakit as I've been in contact with them and they assure me that if the PIC doesn't flash then it's covered by my waranty with then and they'll send me a new PIC!  You can't get better than that.  I'll send them the old one back in return if I can't upadte it.  :-)

Oh, and any new boards they sell will have the PIC already updated apparently.

[Darrin]

TheDaddy wrote:
I am going to the factory tomorrow to talk about my design.

They should tell me if it's possible to do it and add the things I want.

I have this feeling that since I haven't told them how many I need they might charge me a fortune! :-(

Please don't take this the wrong way.

Nobody can deny your enthusiasm for the Minimig, but I'm worried when I read about you using money for your car to produce a board when you haven't even researched the function of every pin and connection on the Minimig to ensure your design is practical.
I'm also concerned about how many of these boards you will actually need to sell and at what cost in order to recover your money.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that you're doing this, but you don't seem to be using "spare cash" and I'm afraid that you could end up seriously out of pocket on this venture.

Before you sign and commit to anything, take a big deep breath, get someone else to go over the figures with you and make sure that you're convinced that your play is viable.

[Darrin]

TheDaddy wrote:
So if you wanted to run some other system you'd have to reprogram the FPGA?

Is it an easy task?

And do you have to do it every time you want to run a particular system?

Thanks. :-)

As long as each core is happy to run with the code on the PIC, all you will need is a flash card for each system you want to emulate loaded with the "core" for that system, any ROMS required plus the software you want to use.

In theory, you could have an SD card marked "Amiga", another marked "Atari ST", etc.  You just insert the card for the machine you want to run and switch the Minimig on.

In theory.  :-)

[Darrin]

TheDaddy wrote:
It is surely a huge risk. Consider this; the prototype alone is going to be very expensive but as you said if peole like it and want their Minimig protected then they'll buy it and I SHOULD get at least the production costs back...

I appreciate your concern, it is very kind of you but I think it needs to be done. I have already spent 4 months on this, through research, sketches, travelling, phone calls and gathering the money so I can't stop now. I just hope people will appreciate the massive effort.

I will. Thank you Darrin. :-)

You're welcome.

OK, I feel better now.  I just didn't want to find you living under a bridge in a few months, drinking meths and eating raw pigeons to survive.  :-D

[Darrin]

mikej wrote:
Yes, absolutely. The FPGAARCADE board goes a step further and has a boot menu which allows you to pick a "platform", so it can be PACMAN, AMIGA, ATARIST, VIC20 etc etc (assuming you have the FPGA binaries for these platforms). I will try and back-port the AtariST code to the Minimig board when it is finished, but there a quite a lot of differences in the board.

My board also uses an AVR but it may be possible to port the firmware to the MiniMig PIC.
/Mike

Excellent.  I look forward to following the work on that project.  :-)

[Darrin]

boing4000 wrote:
Hello,

I finished a new FPGA core with some features and changes:

It's good to see you gettimg into the swing of the Minimig.  I'm afraid I'll have to stick to the old core because this damn LCD monitor needs it.   :-(

Any change you can knock up write support on the disk images and hard drive emulation before you go to bed tonight and then post the new core in the morning?   :-D

Now I'm home again I'll get back to testing some more games and add them to the list