FPGA Replay Board

[Darrin]

I am assuming this is the non-complete list of the different FPGA amigas

Minimig  <---The start
Minimig AGA  <---has this been produced yet??
Chameleon (C64 cartridge, that has Ethernet and can run Amiga OS) <--- This is perhaps the most confusing to me.
C-One <--- isn't this developed as a c64 board
Multi Classic Computer (looks like it has a nice small package, but........)
FPGA Arcade  <---- in beta, can have emulated or a 680x0 daughter card (looks like everyone is excited about his one)
Natami <---- looks to be very complete (including floppy controller), can have emulated or a 680x0 daughter card
more???

The Minimig is tried and tested, but I'd tell everyone to make sure they buy the 4MB version and not the 2MB.  I have one with the extra ARM board (which provides faster hard file access and easier upgrading).

Minimig AGA and FPGA Arcade are the same thing.  I have one of the last beta boards and MikeJ is off to China this week to run off a batch of "gold" boards for general sale.  It will also run other cores to give you other classic computers and arcade machine games.  A 68060 board with USB and other features is in development and running.

C-One needs a "Minimig" module to act as an ECS Amiga and can even use a real 2.5" hard drive.  However development is dead, some of the boards are buggy and it has been superceded by the Chameleon64.  I have one of these gathering dust.

Chameleon64 recently got a "Minimig" ECS core with a 68020 processor.  I haven't had a chance to load the core onto my cartridge and test it yet, but others have it working with a hard file and it should outperform the original Minimig v1.1 boards and have extra RAM.  You will need to plug it into a real C64 to have joystick ports but I've seen mutterings about the possibility of an adapter to provide these in "standalone" mode.

Multi-Classic-Computer:  I've seen pictures of it and adverts for it, but I have no idea if it even exists.

The Natami should be an advanced version of the basic FPGA Arcade with the most of the features of the FPGA expansion board included along with some other goodies.  It looks to be an advancement of the classic A1200/A4000 chipset.

As I see it, we have choices for everyone available:

Minimig v1.1:  Cheap ECS/68000 board for classic A500 gaming.
Chameleon:  An advanced C64 for power users with the bonus of a ECS/68020 Amiga included.
FPGA Arcade:  An AGA/68020 A1200 replacement with a 68060 expansion card option to make it an A4000 replacement.  Has the ability to load other cores and reproduce classic arcade machines.
Natami:  The Amiga 5000!

Exciting stuff!!!

[Retro_71]

Chameleon: An advanced C64 for power users with the bonus of a ECS/68020 Amiga included.
FPGA Arcade: An AGA/68020 A1200 replacement with a 68060 expansion card option to make it an A4000 replacement. Has the ability to load other cores and reproduce classic arcade machines.
Natami: The Amiga 5000!

I am going to be soooo broke when this is done... (the 3 things i want the most and Darrin got 2 of them.... hate you.. :p lol )
Oh well just as long as the wife doesn't find out all is good!!!!
We never had it so good.. A very long time coming.

[mikej]

Minimig AGA and FPGA Arcade are the same thing.  I have one of the last beta boards and MikeJ is off to China this week to run off a batch of "gold" boards for general sale.  It will also run other cores to give you other classic computers and arcade machine games.  A 68060 board with USB and other features is in development and running.

The Natami should be an advanced version of the basic FPGA Arcade with the most of the features of the FPGA expansion board included along with some other goodies.  It looks to be an advancement of the classic A1200/A4000 chipset.

The FPGAArcade (Replay board) Amiga codebase has diverged significantly from the Minimig code - and will continue to do so as I am re-writing all of it to improve area and timing at the moment. It also has different video / audio / memory interfaces.
It has been tested with 1920x1080P (HDMI) and 24 bit 192KHz audio. The 68020 core is also new of course.

The Natami is a very interesting project, but I do not see a need for legacy interfaces like floppy and IDE. A large SDHC card on the Replay board will support 4 virtual floppy drives and two 4G hard disks - and the transfer rate probably out performs old IDE drives.

I may do a floppy interface to play with my Atari disk controller, but I really can't be bothered to dig out a drive. I would rather fix the remaining disk capture problems. I have been rescuing a lot of my old code from amiga/atari floppies recently and some of the disks are not readable after 20 odd years.

My aim is to get the cost down and end up with a board which can actually be produced. That's why it's so small (6 layer PCBs are expensive) and the features on the base board have been chosen for as wide an audience as possible while keeping the components used to a minimum. A lot of techniques used for "real products" have been used here, such as stress testing the memory to test the operating margins and high-speed measurements using 20Gig test kit to measure eye-patterns on DVI, clocks etc. Also, the entire board is impedance controlled to get good signal integrity.

The other big difference between the Natami and Replay board is the use of the ARM controller. Not only does this do the bridge to the SD card file system, it also acts as a boot and configuration controller - so you can choose your platform and options using the on-screen display.

You don't need to "reflash" like the Natami. You can take the SD card out, replace the core binary file, stick it in again and do a soft-restart of the system.

You can change from an Amiga to an Atari to a Spectrum without powering down.

Anyhow, I've got to finish the DRC (design rule checks) for the boards...
Cheers,
MikeJ

[jj]

I'll be in London Sunday, Swansea on Monday and Cardiff Tuesday. I'll try and pop in and visit AmigaKit...

Swansea and Cardiff eh
 
Not comig over for the play-offs are you

[girv73]

You can take the SD card out, replace the core binary file, stick it in again and do a soft-restart of the system.

Sold.

[amigadave]

Has anyone mentioned in this thread about laptop option? I think we have but I'll do it again. It's pretty skinny, it could maybe become mobile Amiga. With the right kinda of kit. Would have keyboard, screen, a place to mount it down, power supply, battery solution etc.

Oh, people are all over that apparently

http://www.mini-itx.com/2007/01/19/the-itx-laptop

We could do better though.

Yes, it has been asked before.  MikeJ said something similar to what I have written below.

Some additional work would need to be done to manage the laptop battery/charging and integrate it into the OS, or make some kind of BIOS with the battery management built-in to it that would take care of energy management & charging of the battery in the background without effecting any of the different computer, or arcade systems emulated.

[Darrin]

The FPGAArcade (Replay board) Amiga codebase has diverged significantly from the Minimig code - and will continue to do so as I am re-writing all of it to improve area and timing at the moment. It also has different video / audio / memory interfaces.
It has been tested with 1920x1080P (HDMI) and 24 bit 192KHz audio. The 68020 core is also new of course.

The Natami is a very interesting project, but I do not see a need for legacy interfaces like floppy and IDE. A large SDHC card on the Replay board will support 4 virtual floppy drives and two 4G hard disks - and the transfer rate probably out performs old IDE drives.

I may do a floppy interface to play with my Atari disk controller, but I really can't be bothered to dig out a drive. I would rather fix the remaining disk capture problems. I have been rescuing a lot of my old code from amiga/atari floppies recently and some of the disks are not readable after 20 odd years.

My aim is to get the cost down and end up with a board which can actually be produced. That's why it's so small (6 layer PCBs are expensive) and the features on the base board have been chosen for as wide an audience as possible while keeping the components used to a minimum. A lot of techniques used for "real products" have been used here, such as stress testing the memory to test the operating margins and high-speed measurements using 20Gig test kit to measure eye-patterns on DVI, clocks etc. Also, the entire board is impedance controlled to get good signal integrity.

The other big difference between the Natami and Replay board is the use of the ARM controller. Not only does this do the bridge to the SD card file system, it also acts as a boot and configuration controller - so you can choose your platform and options using the on-screen display.

You don't need to "reflash" like the Natami. You can take the SD card out, replace the core binary file, stick it in again and do a soft-restart of the system.

You can change from an Amiga to an Atari to a Spectrum without powering down.

Anyhow, I've got to finish the DRC (design rule checks) for the boards...
Cheers,
MikeJ

Thanks for the clarification Mike.

I think the big "pull" of the FPGA Arcade will be the simple way it just flips from being one machine to another which will also widen the market for it as it won't just be an Amiga.

[freqmax]

Can they play ocs, aga, rtg games?
What versions of ths AmigaoOS each can handle ?
How do you get floppies or .adf onto these things
How do you build a hard drive partition?
How do you get the Kickstart on these things?
Can one use these on a network?

Which kickstarts can etch of these things use.  1.3, 3.1, (a native 3.9 kickstart (not softbooted))?

What ports do each of these things have. joystick, serial, floppy, s-video, VGA, hdmi,  (example natami looks very complete)
what is the chipset (ie OCS/ECS, AGA, and RTG)
Which 680x0
Can one use whdload?

What is the Amiga experience?  somewhat subjective  (aka WinUAE is very cool, but isn't quite the experience as running an OCS game on an A500 or A2000)

I am assuming this is the non-complete list of the different FPGA amigas

Minimig comes with HDL sources.
FPGA Replay, sources predicted to be released at a later time.
NatAmi, closed in all ways.

Any version of Kickstart and AmigaOS you can get you hands on will run asfaik.
Floppies are saved as .ADF onto a SD-flashcard. And show up as ordinary  DFx: Swapping discs is done with an OSD menu.

Harddrives use a imagefile just like a software based emulator. But on SD-card.

Partitioning ought to be possible the usual way from the Amiga enviroment.

Kickstart is saved as a file on the SD-card and loaded at boot into a part of the DRAM memory which is then "write protected" because the FPGA controls all the signaling. Which also why the same memory chip can show up as chip or fast ram, or even ram disc depending on configuration.

The FPGA Replay have the option of networking with the daughterboard for the MC68060. Personally I would preferred the transceiver chip on the mainboard

FPGA Replay has 2x joystick, PS/2 mouse+keyboard, S-Video, Composite-video, DVI analog and digital, SD-slot, DC +5V input via circular-DC-plug or Molex-4p or 2-pin 100 mil pinhead, I/O expansion slot, PCB pads for misc I/O, RS232.

There's USB and Jtag as well. But I suspect they are only for debugging, at least the last one . Can you clarify MikeJ?

The CPU is an 68020 with enchantments that will outdo even A4000 asfair. Especially a 256 byte instruction and data cache does the trick.

WHDLoad should work. But someone else maybe knows more?

As an FPGA implements the hosted computer on circuit level it will be as responsive. The screen output might pose a challenge, especially if refresh rates differs with an non-integer quote. The sound also pose a challenge as the amiga-side sample rate may differ in the same way with an non-integer number, and the volyme control is also (misused) as extra D/A bits. The analog RC-filter that dims the power-led on the original amiga may be implemented as an digital filter which may differ in characteristics. In the same way SID 6581 is hard to reproduce.

[Darrin]

Swansea and Cardiff eh
 
Not comig over for the play-offs are you

Yes.  I've got tickets to both home matches.  

Are you going?

[jj]

Nah, even though I am a Cardiff boy Married to a Swansea girl, my Father is from London so i have always been a goooner

[Darrin]

Nah, even though I am a Cardiff boy Married to a Swansea girl, my Father is from London so i have always been a goooner

LOL.  Well I'm looking forward to the matches although if one or both teams makes it to the final then I won't be able to stay for it.  I wonder what the chances of today's first leg against Notting Forest are of being shown on American TV?

[Darrin]

WHDLoad should work. But someone else maybe knows more?

I can confirm that it does indeed work as I use it on my Minimig v1.1.  I've built a hard file to test it on the FPGA Arcade, but haven't had a chance yet.  There is no reason why it shouldn't work.

[jj]

LOL. Well I'm looking forward to the matches although if one or both teams makes it to the final then I won't be able to stay for it. I wonder what the chances of today's first leg against Notting Forest are of being shown on American TV?

 
Not very likely.  Though I am sure that you can find it on the net somewere.
 
My predictions for the first two rounds
 
Nott forrest 0 - Swansea 2
Reading 2 - Cardiff 1
 
 
Not sure about the second legs yet

[Darrin]

Not very likely.  Though I am sure that you can find it on the net somewere.
 
My predictions for the first two rounds
 
Nott forrest 0 - Swansea 2
Reading 2 - Cardiff 1
 
 
Not sure about the second legs yet

Fox Soccer Plus has shown quite a few Cardiff and Swansea games throught the year "Live from Cardiff in England!" so there is hope.

Yep, I feel the Swans should win today too.  Cardiff need to find their form again fast.

[golem]

 
My predictions for the first two rounds
 
Nott forrest 0 - Swansea 2

I'm going to this tonight. It's going to be tough but hopefully Forest can give you a bashing.

[Belial6]

Yes, it has been asked before.  MikeJ said something similar to what I have written below.

Some additional work would need to be done to manage the laptop battery/charging and integrate it into the OS, or make some kind of BIOS with the battery management built-in to it that would take care of energy management & charging of the battery in the background without effecting any of the different computer, or arcade systems emulated.

The best way to handle a battery would be to make it a self contained unit.  More like a UPS than a laptop battery.  The only information that the battery really needs to give the system is it's charge level and whether it is currently plugged in or not.

I started to type how to accomplish this really cheaply, but thought... I can't be the first to think of it.  So, quick google, and... http://www.bixnet.com/5v7libapa.html.

There is at least one battery system already made and ready to go as a laptop battery solution for MiniMig/FPGAArcade/Etc....

Just leave a space in your case for this battery and your set to go.  The only thing better that could be achieved by the community building their own solution would be to get data out of the unit via a low speed serial so that the computer could display remaining power and do a safe shutdown.  I would not be surprised if there were a similar device already on the market that had a port to send the charge data.