Minimig PCB run - interest thread

[nBit7]

Q. Can you get SMT resistors of such wild values?

The values listed are the "preferred value" for 1% resistors as defined by an EIA standard.

http://www.pc-control.co.uk/resistor-eia.htm

[Crumb]

It would be nice if someone with fpga and pic coding skills added a "gayle" + hardfile support. It could work with the current design (even if hardfile would be a little slow) but could be useful with OS3.x :-)

[alexh]

Crumb wrote:
It would be nice if someone with fpga and pic coding skills added a "gayle" + hardfile support. It could work with the current design (even if hardfile would be a little slow) but could be useful with OS3.x :-)

As soon as MiniMig hardware arrives this will be one of the first changes. Should be viable.

Simultaneous Floppy Emulation and Hard File access might not be viable though.

We'll see.

[amigadave]

I didn't want to put this on the pre-order thread, as it states it is just to track the number of people that want a Minimig PCB.

Joel, can you tell us why only 5 assembled PCBs are available from this first production run and an unlimited number of bare boards?  Is it because you only have enough parts to complete 5 assembled boards and don't want to put up the money in advance to purchase more parts?  Or, is it because you are assembling the boards yourself and don't want to commit to doing the work on more than 5 boards at a time?

Is there any way we can increase the number of assembled boards?

Is there anyone else here on A.org that has the abilities to expertly complete the assembly of Minimig PCBs and components to make assembled Minimigs, so those of us that are able to receive bare Minimig PCBs can send them to you for assembly and get the completed boards back in a week or two?

I would like two completed Minimig computers, so I am trying to find any and all ways to obtain my goal.  Please send me a Pmail if you can help with the assembly of a completed Minimig.

I have a feeling there may be many others watching the Minimig threads that have similar needs for completing their projects.

[freqmax]

alexh:
Why would not simultaneous floppy and harddisc (file) access work?
Btw, Write operation is not even implemented atm :roll:

amigadave:
I know some local companys that can produce a minimig from drawings. But they cost a lot more than china. Otoh they are reliable and will deliver. And I can personally inspect the companies.
One prototype one-off board would proberbly go for around 220 EUR. (way less for many boards in a batch)
Assembly is approx 428 EUR start cost, and 7.5 EUR per board.
Considering this I prefer the China route  ;-)

[ptek]

Xenepp,

Does "pre-assembled" means "fully soldered and working" or will I need to do any soldering? I can put parts together but not soldering I melt everything.

[Fester]

amigadave wrote:
Is there any way we can increase the number of assembled boards?

Is there anyone else here on A.org that has the abilities to expertly complete the assembly of Minimig PCBs and components to make assembled Minimigs, so those of us that are able to receive bare Minimig PCBs can send them to you for assembly and get the completed boards back in a week or two?

What's involved? Is it just a matter of soldering the parts onto the board? I took surface mount soldering training classes years ago. I used to work in a computer factory applying engineering change orders under a microscope.

But I don't have any of that equipment now. I'd be willing to try and put one together as  a hobbyist and see if if it works...If so, perhaps I can help out?

Fester

[alexh]

freqmax wrote:
alexh:
Why would not simultaneous floppy and harddisc (file) access work?

There is only one interface to the MMC through the PIC and they would have to share.

[freqmax]

alexh:
One could implement a queue or semaphore that sends out one request to the MCU at a time. Floppy & Harddisc doesn't have to access the MMC simultaneously in the physical sense.

[FrenchShark]

A lot of people are asking for 020+ CPU and AGA.
I just had a crazy idea : for the Minimig v1.2, let's put a real 64 pin DIL 68000 in a socket.
Any A500 accelerator board that plugs into the 68000 socket can be used !!
For the 3.3V <-> 5V translation, we can use Pericom chips like the PI5C3384.
It might be interresting to put also 512KB or 1024KB of flash directly hooked up on the 68000 bus with the Flash's chip select being managed by the FPGA. That will free up the full 2MB of SRAM for Chip RAM use only.

The AGA chip RAM is 4x faster than the ECS/OCS chip RAM (32-bit access with double CAS). The ECS/OCS chip RAM runs at 3.5 MHz or 280ns access time. If you have a 16-bit SRAM with an access time of 70ns or less, you can be as fast as the AGA chip RAM.

[narmi]

Xenepp wrote:

As I said before there are two flavors of order, bare PCB or pre-assembled, but the pre-assembled boards are going to be limited to 5 per run. There is no limit to bare PCBs obviously.

 -Joel

Is there any chance you might sell kits?  i.e. board + all parts?  I don't mind doing the assembly myself, but sourcing parts for just one board is not easy or cheap.

[alexh]

freqmax wrote:
One could implement a queue or semaphore that sends out one request to the MCU at a time. Floppy & Harddisc doesn't have to access the MMC simultaneously in the physical sense.

Of course.

Primarily it is dependant on: Data Rate.

Something that you cannot change (without altering the clocking, or the data bus width)

If you cannot get the data from the MMC fast enough to interleave floppy disk & hard disk accesses (not necessarily 1:1) and keep compatibility then you wont be able to do it. Maybe I am worrying over nothing...

Secondly it is dependant on how much room is left in the PIC and how much room / block RAM is left in the FPGA.

[mike-]

Make it fit inside a coffee cup ;P

I dont have a spare 68000, however i do have a spare 060.

So i'll be twisting my brain to see if i can make it work..

I can get full 68060@75's sorta cheap btw. I'll have 7 next month, if anyone is interested pm me.

-Mike
http://amigaweb.net

[Xenepp]

Joel, can you tell us why only 5 assembled PCBs are available from this first production run and an unlimited number of bare boards? Is it because you only have enough parts to complete 5 assembled boards and don't want to put up the money in advance to purchase more parts? Or, is it because you are assembling the boards yourself and don't want to commit to doing the work on more than 5 boards at a time?

Is there any way we can increase the number of assembled boards?

Well I raised the limit to 10 but yes, it's due to the time I can invest into assembling these myself. The more there are the longer it would take and the less enthusiastic I'd be to do another run ;-)

If I could invest more time and do more I would, believe me. I'll be doing more runs though once this one's over so I hope everyone will get a Minimig that wants one in time.

 -Joel

[freqmax]

I checked the MCU firmware:
http://www.opencircuits.com/Minimig_Board_v1.0_mcu_firmware

And these changes seems to be needed in order to allow an harddisc emulation:
Define "struct adfTYPE dh0;"
Update User() to handle selection 'dh0' aswell. Current implementation decides you ALWAYS want 'df0' :-)

Make HandleFpgaCmd() to take more parameters and make them variable size per request.
Modify ReadTrack() such that it doesn't presume 11 sectors per track.
Make a SectorToFpga() function that don't stuff sector header formatting into the transfered sector.

The rest is to make the FPGA to present the SPI transfered sectors to appear magicly from the Gayle ide controller.
What part would impose a data rate limit faster than is currently available? Even hardware banging floppy loaders can't get around that each track-to-track move needs 3 ms. Which should allow one to send a harddisc sector in between if so required.

[Belial6]

Hardfile support would be great, but that should be able to be done without any hardware changes, right?

Now that I am on the list for a 1.1 board, I can indulge in a little future dreaming.  I don't have the board yet, so only a little dreaming....

Of all the things people want for v1.2+, the one that I think would be the biggest benefit would be adding a USB port.  Almost any hardware can be had to run off of a USB bus.  Everything from CD drives, to hard drive, to mice, to video capture cards.  It might not be the best interface for any particular piece of hardware, but it is the most... universal.  With a USB port, drivers become the only problem to add new hardware to the MiniMig.

I'm not saying that in the long run, other interfaces wouldn't be great.  The more the merrier after all, but given the jump start that I expect the MiniMig to give to the hobby, USB would bring the most benefit with the least effort.

The second biggest boost for our hobby would be getting AROS fully running, and compatible enough to run most Amiga software.