FPGA Replay Board

[freqmax]

Biggest reason why I will never own Minimig because it is completely burned in my brain and will not change is nothing more than UAE running on ARM. However, FPGA is completely custom based, real chipset, in my opinion the new and latest Amiga upgrade had Commodore continued in the line of 68k Amiga. Is why I did preorder for FPGA and did not spend a dime buying Minimig even if it is out already for sale.

Minimig is a re-implemention in FPGA just as MikeJ's FPGA Replay. The difference is that the CPU is in ASIC and RAM is less etc.

A cobbled together A1200 gets to use 128MB (possibly 256MB) Radeon gfx cards which there is no way to do with the Replay.

The FPGA can interface directly to PCI 33/32 and other interfaces can be handled by added suitable transceiver chip or upgrading FPGA with onboard ones (Rocketport etc).

If you don't like your SCSI hard drive you are allowed to buy a new quiet, cool, fast SCSI hard disk for your old Amiga.  Or you could just get a cheap silent slow SD card like a lot of ppl do.  Or you could use a new slow IDE drive.

Your SCSI controller is likely faster and smoother than whatever Replay has to offer. (Which I cannot remember right now.)

Complaining about SCSI is a really silly thing to do.

The present drives are almost all either horrible expensive SAS drives which will not interface with Amiga or S-ATA ones that will neither. So you will still need to make do with the SCSI-1 SE narrow stuff that were common with Amiga. Present flashmemory (SD) will beat ordinary Amiga SCSI hardware on Mbyte/s basis.

The reason I bought SCSI is because it has a sound electrical interface, clean hardware API with well defined orthogonal commands, reliable etc. Something P-ATA never managed. Infact S-ATA drives are still second rate when it comes to build quality that's why SAS drives are more expensive. BUT with RAID or ZFS this issue is negated..

[psxphill]

Why are you so persistent to ruin it for us. We want implementation not emulation. I will not pay money for emulator in a hardware, please don't ruin FPGA for me! I want a reimplemented upgraded new technology to the old technology of the Amiga classic. FPGA Replay is doing that for me so don't enforce "emulation" into this. Let me enjoy it. Please.

I'll assume that this is sarcasm :-)
 
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

[kedawa]

The FPGA Replay is like an A1200, and A1200 is my favourite A500 emulator!

[freqmax]

8371 ASIC is a great OCS emulator

[persia]

I don't know why people cringe so much at the word emulation.  It's not a bad word and emulation whether done in software like UAE or hardware like Minimig or FPGA Replay are good ways to enjoy the retro experience without old hardware.

[Duce]

I don't know why people cringe so much at the word emulation.  It's not a bad word and emulation whether done in software like UAE or hardware like Minimig or FPGA Replay are good ways to enjoy the retro experience without old hardware.

Agreed.  If it's enjoyable, it works for me.

I dare say things like AF, Amikit and UAE have got people that have not been in the Amiga scene back into it after many years away from it.  I know myself if I hadn't found AF in 2007/2008, I likely would have never got back into the Amiga scene as heavily as I have.

Free UAE (or cheap Amiga Forever) vs. spending countless amounts of cash on the "real" hardware goes a long, long way.  A lot of people have no interest in fiddling around with legacy hardware that can generally only be found second hand and in hit or miss condition.

[JimS]

I don't know why people cringe so much at the word emulation.  It's not a bad word and emulation whether done in software like UAE or hardware like Minimig or FPGA Replay are good ways to enjoy the retro experience without old hardware.

I don't cringe at the word "emulation", I just prefer to have different words for things based on different underlying technology. It has nothing to do with which one is "better".

[psxphill]

I don't cringe at the word "emulation", I just prefer to have different words for things based on different underlying technology. It has nothing to do with which one is "better".

Except emulation doesn't define the underlying technology.
 
It's like saying you can't have a car with an electric motor, because all cars have internal combustion engines.

[freqmax]

Please discuss the non re-implementation issues in the "FPGA for dummies" thread.

[xyzzy]

Software emulation - using a processor to execute software code that interprets input and provide output.

 * inherently sequential, performance depends on host architecture and o/s
 * subject to timing delays, output can lag behind input
 * cheap to install and use on existing equipment

Example: UAE on a PC running Windows.

FPGA emulation - using a multitude of look-up tables and other basic logic elements embedded in a programmable integrated circuit to implement high-level logic algorithms.

 * parallel by nature, real-time processing of input & output
 * compact, most bus connections are internal
 * recompilation needed for use on a different host platform
 * host platform can be expensive

Examples: Minimig on Replay using an Xilinx Spartan3E FPGA, Boxer.

Hardware emulation - using discrete logic or fixed function generic integrated circuits to implement high-level logic algorithms.

 * closest to original hardware
 * implementations tend to be large
 * no platform needed, bespoke hardware implementation
 * construction can be very difficult and time consuming

Examples: Amiga Lorraine, Harlequin ZX Spectrum clone.

http://www.zxdesign.info/prototypeComplete.shtml
http://tarjan.uw.hu/zx_pix/harlequin/original/harlequin.jpg

Re-implementation - using original ASICs in a new architecture.

 * requires cannibalisation of old computers for parts
 * hard to assemble, needs patience and skill
 * resulting implementation closely resembles original

Examples: Georg Braun's A1000, Phoenix A1000, Index Access & InsideOut.

[JimDrew]

xyzzy, you are 100% spot on!

[psxphill]

Please discuss the non re-implementation issues in the "FPGA for dummies" thread.

Yes, the next time we talk about emulation and you want to tell us that using an fpga isn't emulation... please go in the FPGA for dummies thread to discuss it.

[psxphill]

Examples: Minimig on Replay using an Xilinx Spartan3E FPGA, Boxer.

this is quite a cool one too.
 
http://opencores.org/project,zx_ula

[espskog]

It is so cool to see that this thread exploded into a mega-thread It proves that the interest for this type of HW is what the market has a lot of interest in. Which again can mean Mike could earn some $$$ if he manages to sell a bunch. Hell -- he deserves it.

[mikej]

Certainly won't make any money on it, but that's not the aim. I would like to recover my costs, which are over 10K usd so far...

Good news is I have got somebody to source all the components for me, it was taking too much time. They have tracked down nearly everything now - and we can order more at any point.

The PCBs have been produced and the assembly plant have completed the programming and are just waiting for the rest of the bits.

I have finished the PCB design and software for the USB adapter (which sits in place of the PS2 connectors). This works nicely with mouse and keyboard, and also through hub.

I am busy testing the new OSD and ARM firmware at the moment.
Best,
MikeJ

[billt]

FPGA emulation - using a multitude of look-up tables and other basic logic elements embedded in a programmable integrated circuit to implement high-level logic algorithms.

 * parallel by nature, real-time processing of input & output
 * compact, most bus connections are internal
 * recompilation needed for use on a different host platform
 * host platform can be expensive

Just a couple clarifications there:

it's not real-time processing of inputs & outputs, it's real-time propogation. There's no "processing" going on.

You don't recompile, you resynthesize to another FPGA architecture, or to another "size" of the "same architecture".

I'm not sure about compactness. The way an FPGA is made to be generic, and (re)configurable, makes it kindof big compared to the ASIC equivalent die space for the given user logic circuit. I'm not sure what you're comparing with.