Minimig released for real!

[Krusher]

alexh wrote:

Krusher wrote:
at least you need Amiga Forever or an original ROM to be legal.

Amiga Forever ROM's wont work of course, cos they are encrypted (but you can just dump them in WinUAE using DumpROM to unencrypt them ;-))

imagine a newbe interested into it, buy it and to discover they can't use it?

Yeah right! There will be no "newbies" buying MiniMig's. I doubt there will be many oldies either.

Amiga Forever gives you the licence to use the roms.

And I already had people asking me about Minimig because they where interested but didn't know anything about it, they just expect it to work just like that (Oh so I just hook up a keyboard, mouse and monitor and I have a working Amiga? And then I go on about explaining it has no floppydrive port but an SD card for floppy images, and the rom situation....

[alexh]

Krusher wrote:
Amiga Forever gives you the licence to use the roms.

Ah, now this is where the legal ground gets a bit shaky. I dont think their license extends to using them in anything other than Amiga Forever environment. That's the reason the AF ROM's are encrypted, in a vain attempt to prevent them being written back to EPROM and used in an Amiga. Using them with MiniMig... I think it might fall outside the terms of their license. (And  thus your end user license)

I think the help-desk call that ACube will get the most is "Why doesn't MiniMig work with my monitor?", the answer of which will be "Cos your monitor doesn't support 50Hz vertical refresh!".

Shame no-one got an NTSC build of MiniMig working (which would run at 60Hz), the changes were so minor! Or even better ECS support for 50/60Hz selection in early startup menu of Kickstart 2.04+.

[downix]

Krusher wrote:

downix wrote:

A6000 wrote:
I expect some joker will install a minimig in the largest atx tower he can find.

**looks up** What?!??!?

**hides the SGI Crimson chasis under his desk**

SGI???

**tries to cover up his Onyx system

 :lol:

I actually considered putting the MiniMig inside the Crimson (as I have a few empty bays atm) as a little joke at work.

[Krusher]

alexh wrote:

. Using them with MiniMig... I think it might fall outside the terms of their license. (And  thus your end user license)

You've got a point there, so people should buy a real rom then? Then again, I don't think anyone cares if you use an illegal rom on whatever platform/emulator thing you have. It's not as if the Minimig is sold with it.
Gray area though, and I wonder if some unnamed company is going to cause problems.

downix wrote:
...
I actually considered putting the MiniMig inside the Crimson (as I have a few empty bays atm) as a little joke at work.

Please let us know if you did, I like pranks like that  :lol:

[Caius]

Krusher wrote:
Gray area though, and I wonder if some unnamed company is going to cause problems.

Of course they will. They don't want to make anything related to the Amiga, they just don't want anyone else to do it either.

[freqmax]

@alexh:
I think once the userbase become wider than those with hardware/software/amiga wiz-powers. People with HDL knowledge but not electronics etc.. can fix those NTSC things and other features.
As it is now, only those with a substantial knowledge can even enter the "playfield".

Regarding 50Hz, isn't that a TFT controller board limititation?, can't recall any TFT module having that restriction.

[alexh]

freqmax wrote:
@alexh:
I think once the userbase become wider than those with hardware/software/amiga wiz-powers. People with HDL knowledge but not electronics etc.. can fix those NTSC things and other features.

There are 4 great engineers (at least) working on MiniMig (who have FPGA's) and non have worked on this issue. TobiFlex did his software 68k, FrenchShark has ideas of implementing AAA (WTF!!), RedSkullDC has done some work but not ready to release and I think Dennis is on hiatus.

I made the recommendations (code changes) for an NTSC MiniMig when the source first came out, but I dont have a board :-(

freqmax wrote:
Regarding 50Hz, isn't that a TFT controller board limititation?, can't recall any TFT module having that restriction.

No idea. But 80-90% of LCD's have a minimum refresh rate of 56Hz which rules out PAL MiniMig.

[Krusher]

Erm, isn't the Minimig supposed to spit out VGA refresh rates above the 60hz barrier? If not, people are going to be returning Minimigs !! (I missed your edited message, and I didn't know that..)

Most modern monitors hate anything below 60hz nowadays..

[alexh]

Krusher wrote:
Erm, isn't the Minimig supposed to spit out VGA refresh rates above the 60hz barrier?

No. The current release of MiniMig is PAL, thus video output is 50Hz. It's OCS so it cannot change to 60Hz in software.

http://home.hetnet.nl/~weeren001/downloads/minimig1_man.pdf

Dennis wrote:
Any monitor capable of displaying 50Hz display modes can be used.

[Krusher]

Ouch!

See, this is what I mean by lack of information on a website selling stuff. This is mandatory information.

Could it be doubled in the code?

[freqmax]

Guess we better fix 60 Hz mode.. Real Soon.

[alexh]

It would take less than half a day to convert a MiniMig into to an NTSC OCS Amiga (60Hz).

http://www.opencircuits.com/Minimig_NTSC

I am really surprised that there has been no MiniMig updates (from anyone) since it's release (except T68)

Now if ACube sent me a board (hint hint) ;-)

Krusher wrote:
Could it be doubled in the code?

Possibly, but most LCD monitors don't sync to 100Hz either.

[Krusher]

alexh wrote:
It would take less than half a day to convert a MiniMig into to an NTSC OCS Amiga (60Hz).

http://www.opencircuits.com/Minimig_NTSC

I am really surprised that there has been no MiniMig updates (from anyone) since it's release (except T68)

Now if ACube sent me a board (hint hint) ;-)

Krusher wrote:
Could it be doubled in the code?

Possibly, but most LCD monitors don't sync to 100Hz either.

The availabilty of a fully assembled Minimig now is possibly going to generate more interest, since not every coder is handy with soldering, especially the smd parts and the FPGA.

I know about the frequenty range of lcd monitors (mine only accepts up to 75hz) but there are tons of CRT's around that can handle 100hz and upwards.

[straycat]

I think the help-desk call that ACube will get the most is "Why doesn't MiniMig work with my monitor?", the answer of which will be "Cos your monitor doesn't support 50Hz vertical refresh!".

I don't think my fairly bog standard 3 year old Philips LCD monitor will work (I've had trouble with an old Powerbook Duo docking station in the past. I'm going to check my model on the Philips site this evening). I wonder how many LCDs will actually work? If I have to revert to an CRT monitor it seems quite a retrograde step for a new piece of hardware...

[Crumb]

@alexh

I guess that refresh could be multiplied by 1.5

You could show two frames (as the screen may be interlaced) twice and the next two ones just one time, then repeat with the rest of frames. It wouldn't be as smooth as a 50Hz display but I guess it could work well with just slight changes in the code.

It would just involve setting a flag to decide if the same frame must be shown twice or not.

something like this in the refresh loop. Of course, NTSC wouldn't need it:


loop() {
  refresh_screen();

  if ((PAL==true) && (show_frame_twice == true)) {
    refresh_screen();
    show_frame_twice = false;
  } else {
    show_frame_twice = true;
  }

}

[alexh]

Yeah, right. Simple as that, I'll make the changes now :-P

"refresh_screen()" Heh, I love it!

Sorry, but you asked for that.

Concept wise, yes, if there is enough BLOCK RAM available in the FPGA then scan rate conversion is a possibility. Scrolling will suck but at least it will work. The PicassoIV's scandoubler has scan rate conversion.

I favour the 60Hz NTSC approach first. A change of crystal and an hour or two of modding and testing (less with feedback from top Amiga programmers, Dennis and Toni Wilen etc.) should get it working.