Just got my Minimig!

[slobu]

Ordered it from Vesalia http://www.vesalia.de/e_minimig.htm

They were prompt and even double checked if I ordered the correct AC adapter for my country.

Made a case from a random metal backplate of some sort, some brass standoffs and part of a CD jewel case.  Used a box cutter on the CD jewelcase to allow clearance for some of the ports so it ain't pretty.  Covered up some of the stress marks/cracks I made to the plastic with the Minimig logo from the packaging.  All in all, a functional albeit amateur case.

Used a 5v AC adapter from a set of cheap PC speakers.

They really do mean FAT16 only.  I tried a FAT32 4gb SD card and the drive LED just blinked furiously at me.  Not immediately gonna bother trying to format the 4gb card FAT16 as a 1gb card worked just fine.

Space Harrier 2 worked fine.  I think James Pond 2 needed a joystick so I'll try a Sega Genesis joystick I've got lying around later.

Vesalia apparently already had the firmware that allows read AND write access to .ADF files.  Thank goodness as the whole process of flashing the firmware sounded like an adventure.

It's worth it just to not have to buy a scan-doubler or real Amiga Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse.  If you can live with Amiga 500 specs I fully recommend picking up a Minimig.  Oh, yeah, and have enough Tinkerer in you to make your own case.

[slobu]

I can certainly understand the view that actual hardware isn't needed.   But, in my experience, WinUAE speed is off and the sound is off and the interface is confusing.. and it's still running under Winblows.  On most machines I have contact with WinUAE is still slooow.

Minimig has a few compatibility issues, but it's running much more like the real thing than any other solution I've seen.  I had a jumbled box of dozens of Amiga disks before this: now I have a single SD card.  Making a case wasn't as much of a pain as I thought it'd be.  My backup plan was to jury-rig the Minimig into a standard case and use a panel from Front-X for keyboard/mouse/video.  http://www.frontx.com/