Thanks to everyone for your posts, this thread has certainly swelled rapidly! To make myself clear, let me reiterate that the main aim of adding Blizzard PPC support for the Minimig is to run Classic OS4 unmodified. Just to allow everyone to run OS4 easily, without resorting to scavenging for old and expensive hardware.
It's easy to get carried away and conjure plans of complete new PPC boards, but the current situation is that even though such boards already exist, OS4 does not run on them. And personally, what I'd like is to get cheap, readily available hardware in Amiga users' hands capable of running the existing OS4.
Without wanting to sound like a troll, I firmly believe if Dennis had asked the Amiga community's opinion and views before starting out on the MiniMig, he would've been either discouraged or disenchanted by the pervasive negative atmosphere of this community, and he wouldn't have even started on his project! Without pointing any fingers (hey, I called him a fraud myself!) everyone's finding fault with each others' ideas, and it's simply depressing. Fortunatly, Dennis started posting when the MiniMig was virtually ready, and gave this veritable ace in preserving the Amiga in our hands. Now, are we going to build positively on this or just trample over it with our over sized egos and remain empty handed as usual, at the mercy of any organization who'd fancy taking us Amiga users for a ride?
As AndrewBell pointed out, another solution might be virtualisation on an existing PPC platform, namely the Apple Mac. Software development is certainly less time consuming and a more widespread skill then hardware development. So Andrew's idea is certainly more viable in the short term. On the other hand, adding Blizzard PPC emulation to the MiniMig would provide an affordable open platform for the current OS4, and also provide Classic Amiga support to run games and other hardware hitting software. In other words, a new Amiga which is truly compatible with old software, and truly carries on the Amiga name, not an anonymous PPC board which has to run UAE just like an ordinary PC to be Amiga compatible!
While I wouldn't dare minimizing the task, maybe simply reverse engineering the Blizzard libraries and probing the A1200 expansion bus would yield enough clues for the emulation. After all, how did Hyperion and the MorphOS team port their respective operating system to run on these boards without intimate knowledge of their workings. Indeed, Hyperion could (maybe unofficially) land a helping hand in the development of the PPC Minimig, since it would obviously be in their interest!
Some community members over here (Crom00) beleive that the existing MiniMig can be mass produced at low cost, and are actively working on the idea. So how much a minimal PPC processor, additional RAM and maybe an additional FPGA would add to the total cost? Certainly not enough to make it more expensive then the SAM440 or the now defunct A1, and cheaper to what Blizzard PPC cards are being sold for!
Look at this thread, I've proposed an idea, which although it might be impossible to realize, is still an idea in my opinion worth discussing. I've asked for technically minded members to reply with how this could be done in practice, and what has this thread turned into? Pointless bickering over who said what, who misunderstood what and who misquoted who. For Pete's sake, grow up and move on! If this is really what the current Amiga community has to offer, well, draw your own conclusions folks.
Maybe even if we get our hands dirty, and try to build the PPC MiniMig, it won't work out, and maybe a technical, legal or commercial hurdle will prove insurmountable at the end. But when the years go by, and Amiga Inc, ACK or someone else comes round peddling their latest vapor ware and empty promises to this battered, betrayed community yet again, we might hold our heads high and claim we at least tried to develop real, independent hardware to keep the Amiga alive, rather then swallow each and every lie and hope foolishly ad infinitum
Thanks to anyone reading through this long rant!
Cheerio; Jethro Tull
