Some food for thought

[Gulliver]

Thanks again!

[murple]

The Minimig is kinda cool in that it is replicating the original hardware (more or less) rather than trying to build some new system as a "next generation Amiga." For people like me who only want to use Amigas as a vintage machine, the Minimig has potential to replace the Amigas when all the original machines become unmaintainable.

That said I will resist switching to non-Amiga hardware for as many years as possible. Hopefully we're talking decades. But its good to know it exists, and for some people it may be an excellent option.

[Jeff]

I am on your side and I own a LOT of classic machines, but what you describe reminds me a lot of UAE.  It is FAST, uses current technology, runs the OS just fine, ect. It doesn't have the same "feel" as a real classic machine to me though and probably doesn't behave well with older games.

Just food for thought. I'm not trolling:-D I am watching the Minimig and Clone-A projects too. I just figured I would let the Minimig projects stabalize a little more before I figure out how to order up.

Jeff

[Fester]

Well I'm off to check on the Clone-A site to see if they have more to say yet.....
Plaz

Speaking of Clone-A, I know we're all excited about the Minimig, but whatever happened to Clone-A?

Last I heard it had been demonstrated this spring, so what's holding it up? I didn't find any recent news except for the demo event news.

Fester

[koaftder]

Gulliver wrote:
On the Amiga platform we have managed to replace nearly every subsystem, update them andenhance them:

Processor -> we made accelerators
ram -> we made ram expansions
graphics chipset -> we made GFX cards
paula audio -> we made sound cards
serial, parallel, keyboard, joystick and mouse expansions -> we made USB adapters & IO xtenders
kickstart ->we made autobooting flash kickstarts
zorro expansion -> we made busboard adapters
IDE/SCSI -> we made faster compatible ide and scsi devices

So what do we need to accomplish the dump of our stock Amigas at this point?
It seems at this stage our amigas are like a very old dongle!
I wish it was possible to create a minimal cost, lets say, a semi-dumb, i guess zorro II busboard, in which we could just plug in all those subsystem cards and run workbench without a real Amiga. Of course we wont have AGA/ECS/OCS, but we could rely on Retargetable systems much like the Macrosystem´s Draco, once did.
In the end, is it too complicated to build such board? I mean what would be the minimum requirements be?
I think we will probably need to patch kickstart code to do it, but then it doesnt sound like a pipe dream.

Or you could just buy a pc.

[A1260]

i think someone should turn the table around.... amiga on a pci card. where the amiga pci card utilize the power of the new pc's... thats the way to go!

[koaftder]

A1260 wrote:
i think someone should turn the table around.... amiga on a pci card. where the amiga pci card utilize the power of the new pc's... thats the way to go!

Or you could just use uae.

[golem]

koaftder wrote:

A1260 wrote:
i think someone should turn the table around.... amiga on a pci card. where the amiga pci card utilize the power of the new pc's... thats the way to go!

Or you could just use uae.

When I first started browsing the web I can remember a webpage by Siamese Systems that was proposing an Amiga and 060 on a PCI card. I droolled at that but, yeah, UAE makes better sense if you gonna use a PC.

[A1260]

real hw is always better than emulated... and your dragged down with only having emulated 040 horsepowers.. no no no no nothing beating real hw!

[Doobrey]

golem wrote:

When I first started browsing the web I can remember a webpage by Siamese Systems that was proposing an Amiga and 060 on a PCI card. I droolled at that but, yeah, UAE makes better sense if you gonna use a PC.

Do you mean the Inside Out by Index Information?

[koaftder]

An amiga on a pci card would be cool as hell, no amiga geek could diss that. I think that UAE would probably give you some advantage in the compatibility department though, and it is faster than any amiga ever was.

[Jeff]

@Doobrey

I really wanted one of those. I remember waiting for it to come out, but sadly it went the way of the Boxer.

[Doobrey]

@Jeff
 I always wanted Index's Access but the last time one came up on Ebay, I had to work away from home and had no net access :boohoo:
 
 

[Jeff]

@Doobrey

Regarding the Access, they actually made a few of those I think. I wish I has purchased one when I had the chance. Now even if "The" broken one comes up on ebay it would go for an insane amount:-D I wonder if anyone finally fixed it?

The PCI card was dropped before a single production unit was even made as I recall. We'll never find one of those.

Jeff

[uncharted]

Gulliver wrote:

but then it doesnt sound like a pipe dream.

Amithlon essentially did this, although it used an emulated 68K processor rather than a real one.

[Fester]

Do you mean the Inside Out by Index Information?

Oh that would have been nice.