Where are all the Minimigs?

[hamtronix]

dont know why amigakit peeps dont put them together to sell...

[mihcael]

Crom00 had pursued a production run of fully assembled minimigs in China but the minimum production run is 1000 units, so this has been put on hold i guess!!

I dont think 1000 would be that far out of reach considering the 100 odd PCB's that have been sold, the interest is there!

Just need to get someone like DiscreetFX to help out with the upfront cots!!

[sdyates]

@taunusand

Perhaps it is something acube could look into. There is no doubt that there is a big market around this.

[Belial6]

Well, TobiFlex has created a 68000 FPGA CPU and ported the whole thing to the DE-1 FPGA development board.  So, it seem that all we need is for someone with some technical skill to compile the whole thing together in an end user usable package so that we can order DE-1, install the software, and start playing.

[ChaosLord]

Amiga games look UGLY :vomit: on the DE-1 since the DE-1 is missing most of the colors.  I don't think Discreet FX wants to damage its reputation by selling defective merchandise.

[Belial6]

Have you run MiniMig on the DE-1?

What Discreet FX wants is irrelevant to running MiniMig on the DE-1.  They don't make the MiniMig FPGA design.  They don't make TobiFlex's 68000 design, and they don't make the DE-1.

I am sure that there are a lot of people that would be happy with reduced colors to actually have a MiniMig.  Also, as I understand it, there is no reason that the DE-1 couldn't have a simple mod that would direct graphics to a port that could handle all of the colors.

[mihcael]

I don't think Discreet FX wants to damage its reputation by selling defective merchandise.

What defective merchandise?

The minimig i used was near perfect!!

[ChaosLord]

@Michael
You used a real Minimig.  You did not use a DE-1 minimig with  braindamaged color output.

[mihcael]

my post with DiscretFX mentioned was about the minimig.

And how much of an issue would the colour output be?
It would only effect how many colours can be output at one time, wouldn't bother the majority of OCS games

[Andeda]

amazing wrote:
wizard66 sells the pic programmed for the ones that doesnt have a programmer.

I would like to buy an own programmer because i may have use for it in the future.
do you guys know any cheap but working programmer that will program the PIC18LFxxx?

[alexh]

It's too much money up front for any small company to take the risk. Coupled with the possibility that MiniMig is in violation of copyright. It's not going to happen any time soon.

Add in the minor incompatibilities and the low capability of the v1.x design and you dont have a great product.

Shame cos it's so close to being viable.

[freqmax]

It's not a minimig it's just a "FPGA developer platform based on MC68000". I think as long as that claim is made and nothing else it would be hard to touch legaly.
And one could include a simple parallel port setup to program the PIC18. That way NO "software" is present.

[alexh]

freqmax wrote:
It's not a minimig it's just a "FPGA developer platform based on MC68000". I think as long as that claim is made and nothing else it would be hard to touch legaly.

But there would be a small chance the MiniMig source code and all the binaries could be forced off the net, and with nothing to load onto it ;-)

It's been too long now. If any company was seriously considering a "jump-n-run" with the MiniMig 1.x boards they would have done it by now.

$50k for 1000 units (MOV) is too much for an individual or a small company to gamble with.

A design partner with someone like TerASIC is perhaps the best idea.

[Colin_Camper]

Coupled with the possibility that MiniMig is in violation of copyright.

Assuming that the board is shipped without KS or OS and that Dennis did not glimpse the original OCS ASIC designs......(They got lost while he was still in diapers! :-D )
 
Could you specify exactly how the minimig could possibly be in violation of copyright?

[amazing]

Andeda wrote:

amazing wrote:
wizard66 sells the pic programmed for the ones that doesnt have a programmer.

I would like to buy an own programmer because i may have use for it in the future.
do you guys know any cheap but working programmer that will program the PIC18LFxxx?

ther's a guy on ebay selling them..they called willem programmer..

[alexh]

Colin_Camper wrote:
Could you specify exactly how the minimig could possibly be in violation of copyright?

It is a translation of the copyrighted & published work "Amiga Hardware Reference Manual", English to Verilog.

As a homebrew project I doubt there is anyone left who cares enough to bother, but as a fully commercial project no company could take that risk.