Favourite FPGA Amiga poll

[Darrin]

I have to say:  FPGA Arcade because I have one, unfortunately my bloody work means I've only had about 3 hours to play with it.  I expect this to become my main "Amiga" and I look forward to the 68060 expansion board.

The Minimig v1.1 is also a bloody great machine and if you're an OCS/ECS games player then I highly recommend it.  Also, you no longer need the ARM controller for HDF support although it does speed things up a lot and it makes updating the core a hell of a lot easier.  I also recommend that unless you only like 1 or 2 disk floppy games that you pay the extra and get the 4MB model.

I have the C-One with the extender board and it never lived up to expectations on the Amiga side.  Expect to see it on eBay sometime soon.

The new Chameleon64 also has a Minimig core and an update was released the other day.  Unfortunately work has meant that I haven't had a chance to try the Amiga core (and it co-exists on the same SD card as the C64 core).  According to the update:  "This new core bypasses the chipset emulation if the CPU wants to talk to fastmem... The result is a display of almost 80MHz in Sysinfo (which is a measuring error), 4.65 MIPS and a whopping 8.4-fold speed over the standard A500 (these numbers are more accurate). This core almost catches up with a 25-MHz A3000!  The CDTV remote control joystick emulation now gives the correct directions."  So, an Amiga with an infra-red joystick!  ;-)

NATAMI:  Looks good on paper.  I like the PCI slot.

[Darrin]

You need to add the Chameleon64 to your poll choices.  :-)

[Darrin]

Definitely second that idea. The price is nice.

Bang for buck it is certainly a nice piece of hardware for classic Commodore fans.  I bought it purely as a "C64 on steroids" and the Minimig core release was a surprise bonus.  I hope we see additional cores released like the VIC-20, PET, etc.

The beauty of it is the fact that it plugs into a real C64/C64C (doesn't work on a C128) to give you a "real" keyboard and access to the tape drive and floppy drives/plotters/printers as well as the joystick ports.

For those without an actual C64 then a PS2 mouse and keyboard can be connected to the expansion cable and something was mentioned about a joystick dongle for standalone mode.  Meanwhile the infra-red Amiga CDTV controller can be assigned as a joystick if necessary.

People say there haven't been any new Amiga models since the A1200/A4000.  I disagree, we have plenty of new models available and more on the way.

[Darrin]

@Darrin: When you buy the 4MB Minimig, what you get is the normal 2MB minimig with the piggyback 4MB expansion, right? Or does a 4MB Minimig really exist?

Yes, it is the 2MB board with the extra 2MB soldered onto the other chips.  Amigakit offer the board with the extra RAM installed and tested.

They also offer an upgrade service.  I originally had a 2MB board and I sent it to them to have the extra RAM fitted as my soldering skills suck (I have 4 RAM chips at home that will upgrade 2 Minimigs).

[Darrin]

The minimig is a great idea, but it isn't a step ahead. You can get similar performance on classical hardware for the same price.

A new old-stock A500 with a 68000 running at 60MHz, 2MB CHIP RAM, 1.5MB FAST RAM, Hard Drive, Flicker Fixer, 4 floppy drives, ROM Switcher for 3.1/1.3, PS2 mouse adapter,  all for the same price as a Minimig?  Where can I buy it?