Mini-Mig 2

[bloodline]

A6000 wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Why should the OEM take that kind of risk? There is no way they could sell 1000 boards at $300 each... I'm having a hard time justifying the actually quite reasonable cost of a MiniMig...

They want to make a reasonable to large profit, they cannot do that unless they sell a lot of boards, batches of 1000 gets lower component costs and enough boards to make their profit.

The high cost of a minimig is because their production quantities are too small.

But if they can't sell 1000, and to be realistic, they can't... then  the will lose more money than they could ever make.

Acube got it right with the MiniMig.

[freqmax]

@bloodline:
"No way could anyone justify a run of a 1000 FPGA boards for the Amiga community..."

You'r proberbly right. That's why one can make use of standard developer boards. Having an Amiga specific board isn't absolutely necessary.

This also why TobiFlex m68k cpu is so important. It's the key component besides Dennis chipset. That completly eliminates the need for a custom made board.

[ChuckT]

There are three solutions:  Have users pre-pay or develop a line of credit.  Sell other products alongside of it and make a profit.  This all depends as to whether you are developing a successful produced product.

Produce a reference manual opening it up to the next generation of programmers so they can write their own LOS (Language Operating System) for the unit.

[amigadave]

freqmax wrote:
@bloodline:
"No way could anyone justify a run of a 1000 FPGA boards for the Amiga community..."

You'r proberbly right. That's why one can make use of standard developer boards. Having an Amiga specific board isn't absolutely necessary.

This also why TobiFlex m68k cpu is so important. It's the key component besides Dennis chipset. That completly eliminates the need for a custom made board.

I disagree that 1000 Minimig2 boards could not be sold.  Too many here assume that the market is limited to only a part of the remaining Amiga community.  If packaged and marketed correctly to the general computer public, specially those feeling nostalgic at this time, I believe that many more than 1000 complete game machines (not just the bare boards or chip populated boards) could be sold.  Shink it as far as is practical, fit it into a joystick with multiple output ports, including composite NTSC & PAL switchable, VGA, stereo audio RCA jacks, and if practical and possible, HDMI.  Add a second joystick port, keyboard and mouse ports and expansion capability to possibly add ethernet and/or wifi if it can not be included in the original Minimig2 design.

I mean it could be a mainstream product if done right.  I know it is not going to compete directly against XBox or PS3 or Wii, but it is a different niche machine and can be successful if marketed to the right segment of society.  Yeah, not hundreds of thousands, but certainly a few thousands instead of a couple of hundred.

My 2 cents

[ChuckT]

A product has to have sustainability so that is why it should have some compatibility with things you can get today.  The problem is that if you have disks laying around and no way to get them onto a compact flash card because your Amiga is down then you really have to answer those questions for a potential buyer.

It needs a programmer's reference guide for the FPGA's if you want people to write programs for it.  You need to package it and make it more simple for people like formatting the first card or two for people.  Developing more tools for people like me to use with it and this adds to your marketing ability and profitability.

I'm looking to start up my own company in the future but there is a lack of "openings" if you will.  I'm looking for sustainability, people who I can trust and cooperation.  If the system could be opened up so that other platforms could run on the Minimig then maybe other people's products would sell the Minimig.

[trekiej]

After looking back at my original post, I had rather buy a Soft-Core CPU than a hard version.  The reason is that the soft version can be used in a FPGA that has more pins and eventualy in a package with other soft-cores.  I guess there could be a minimum on the number of pins used but not maximum.

edit:
  Putting MiniMig and the 68k core on the same chip reminds me of commodore DTV. It would not bother me to buy a twin joystick with a keyboard in the middle and a mouse to the right or left of the outer stick.  
 Putting the two on one chip and then making an ASIC out it, if necessary, to make it smaller and cheaper would be nice.  I feel some one mentioned the up front cost.  I guess the manufacturer would have to weigh the benefit of doing so.
I hope my point is clear.
What's next hard-core cpu porn?  :-D
okay that was cheesey.