FPGA Replay Board

[Duce]

I'd love specs on the daughtercard as well.  I'll buy one of these in a heartbeat if I can run my BBS on it - needless to say the Ethernet option has me very interested.

[Duce]

Thank you much for the link, Amigadave.

Stoked on getting one of these to run the BBS.

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Just curious, and apologies if it's already been stated:

How long after the mainboard release until the daughtercard is due?  I need ethernet available.

[Duce]

Me for a mainboard, daughterboard and 060.  Expressed interest ages ago and got on a list but never heard another word back.

[Duce]

What's the expected ETA on the daughterboard, Mike?

I'm not a gamer at all on the Amiga side, and the reason I want the fpga arcade is because of the daughterboard.  I plan on running my BBS on the machine, and for that I absolutely need ethernet - the mainboard is a paperweight to me without ethernet, since I do virtually no gaming on the Amiga.

With ethernet on the daughterboard, I can simply install the OS, apps, and BBS software on the memory card and use SAMBA to pull my BBS files off my Windows HS 2011 to serve up to the callers.  Works a treat on my current SAM 440ep rig with a SSD on it.

[Duce]

FPGA Arcade with the daughterboard setup should be able to pretty much be able to replace a full system (USB, Ethernet, '060 socket) from what I understand.  By full system I mean a kitted out legacy machine with accel, ethernet, USB addons.

Bare board supports memory cards just fine.

[Duce]

Hell, I didn't even get an email back when I showed interest a few years ago with cash in hand

[Duce]

Hehe, no worries Mike - just deliberately giving you the gears.

Mainly interested in the full meal deal anyways with the daughterboard, since I want to use it to run my Amiga powered BBS and I need Ethernet.

[Duce]

If you can't identify basic computer ports, I sincerely worry about how you are planning on spending your money.

PS:  The one screened "ETHERNET" is probably an RJ-45 network port.  The 3 on the top left are USB (also labelled).  That big square thing is a 68060 CPU.

[Duce]

The "pleasure" of it crashing like a real A500?  Dancing LED lights and clicky floppy drives?  Really?  No.  Really??

I'd recommend you do your homework on the Minimig if you think it's simply a commodity solution running UAE.  It's not.  Think of it as the little brother of the FPGA Arcade solution if you like - there's not a heck of a lot different about the two in approaches.

I'm overjoyed at the thought of having an FPGA Arcade with '060 and daughterboard to use as my main, stable legacy Amiga replacement.  No more cobbled together A1200 with doo-dads sticking out the sides, no flaky, slow PCMCIA ethernet cards - onboard ethernet, USB.  Just great stuff.  That being said, I don't do any Amiga gaming in the least - which is why the Minimig itself held zero appeal to me.

Crapped out floppy drives, noisy, hot, hideously slow SCSI hard disks aren't something I'll miss in the least.

[Duce]

In a world of cheap, great performing, reliable SATA - SCSI *is* crap, IMHO.
Most people would kill for native SATA on their Amigas.

I just ordered 2 2 TB SATA drives.  $99 each.
Refurb 73 GB SCSI drive is $150.

So yeah, I do prefer SATA where it is an option.

As for drives on the FPGA, my intentions with it are to simply network it to my NAS box via SAMBA/SMBFS and use the onboard card for the OS.  I don't need RTG myself, but I do see your point on that one.

[Duce]

FPGA Arcade doesn't have onboard SATA, no.  Which is why I was going to go the ethernet route to my NAS box for file storage, but USB to SATA adapters (or just a simple USB based external HD) would always be an option for the thing I guess.

Used the adapters in the past with pretty good luck.

[Duce]

I don't know why people cringe so much at the word emulation.  It's not a bad word and emulation whether done in software like UAE or hardware like Minimig or FPGA Replay are good ways to enjoy the retro experience without old hardware.

Agreed.  If it's enjoyable, it works for me.

I dare say things like AF, Amikit and UAE have got people that have not been in the Amiga scene back into it after many years away from it.  I know myself if I hadn't found AF in 2007/2008, I likely would have never got back into the Amiga scene as heavily as I have.

Free UAE (or cheap Amiga Forever) vs. spending countless amounts of cash on the "real" hardware goes a long, long way.  A lot of people have no interest in fiddling around with legacy hardware that can generally only be found second hand and in hit or miss condition.

[Duce]

Most decent USB keyboards will have a USB port for the mouse (or other device of your choosing) on them.

I haven't owned a USB keyboard in the last 6 years that hasn't.

[Duce]

Haha, I thought I was the only one that got suckered into the Atrix and dock package.    Seemed like a hell of a good idea at the time, I guess.

Looking forward to getting my email, Mike.  Will be nice to run my BBS on the FPGA Arcade with the daughterboard.  I'm probably one of the few people that plays zero games on the Amiga so really looking forward to seeing how well this works as a 24/7 BBS machine.