Favourite FPGA Amiga poll

[trekiej]

I believe Natami has some Clone-A added.
I like all FPGA Amigas.

[Iggy]

FPGA Arcade. The Natami is a closed system. No disrespect to Thomas, but all I need is Amiga compatibility (and maybe that '60 board).

[Darrin]

I have to say:  FPGA Arcade because I have one, unfortunately my bloody work means I've only had about 3 hours to play with it.  I expect this to become my main "Amiga" and I look forward to the 68060 expansion board.

The Minimig v1.1 is also a bloody great machine and if you're an OCS/ECS games player then I highly recommend it.  Also, you no longer need the ARM controller for HDF support although it does speed things up a lot and it makes updating the core a hell of a lot easier.  I also recommend that unless you only like 1 or 2 disk floppy games that you pay the extra and get the 4MB model.

I have the C-One with the extender board and it never lived up to expectations on the Amiga side.  Expect to see it on eBay sometime soon.

The new Chameleon64 also has a Minimig core and an update was released the other day.  Unfortunately work has meant that I haven't had a chance to try the Amiga core (and it co-exists on the same SD card as the C64 core).  According to the update:  "This new core bypasses the chipset emulation if the CPU wants to talk to fastmem... The result is a display of almost 80MHz in Sysinfo (which is a measuring error), 4.65 MIPS and a whopping 8.4-fold speed over the standard A500 (these numbers are more accurate). This core almost catches up with a 25-MHz A3000!  The CDTV remote control joystick emulation now gives the correct directions."  So, an Amiga with an infra-red joystick!  ;-)

NATAMI:  Looks good on paper.  I like the PCI slot.

[Darrin]

You need to add the Chameleon64 to your poll choices.  :-)

[Iggy]

You need to add the Chameleon64 to your poll choices.  :-)

Definitely second that idea. The price is nice.

[Darrin]

Definitely second that idea. The price is nice.

Bang for buck it is certainly a nice piece of hardware for classic Commodore fans.  I bought it purely as a "C64 on steroids" and the Minimig core release was a surprise bonus.  I hope we see additional cores released like the VIC-20, PET, etc.

The beauty of it is the fact that it plugs into a real C64/C64C (doesn't work on a C128) to give you a "real" keyboard and access to the tape drive and floppy drives/plotters/printers as well as the joystick ports.

For those without an actual C64 then a PS2 mouse and keyboard can be connected to the expansion cable and something was mentioned about a joystick dongle for standalone mode.  Meanwhile the infra-red Amiga CDTV controller can be assigned as a joystick if necessary.

People say there haven't been any new Amiga models since the A1200/A4000.  I disagree, we have plenty of new models available and more on the way.

[kedawa]

The FPGA is in a very exciting phase in its development, so it's hard not to get hyped.
Depending upon which arcade boards get implemented on it, I may end up scrounging up the cash for one.
I'm excited for Natami as well, but it seems like it will be well out of my price range, and I'm not sure if the additional muscle will really matter much to me.
The most powerful Amiga I've owned personally is a modestly expanded A500, after all.

[NorthWay]

I really want to vote for NatAmi, but I can't get myself to click on it. However nice it is, I don't think I can stomach going for another system that is non-tinkerable.
(I have spent some time thinking about that - it works wonders when you are 100% in sync with what the creators want, and it breaks down the minute you would prefer something flavoured differently but can't have it.)

[moijk]

The minimig is a great idea, but it isn't a step ahead. You can get similar performance on classical hardware for the same price.

The Clone-A seems to be targeted to a broader audience, which again means the focus on the Amiga is slightly less. So not knowing what that one brings, I'll skip on that for the time being.

The FPGA Arcade doesn't seem to bring the amiga forward in any sense, I've seen the 060 daughter board but still. that doesn't fix the slight incompatibility the 060 has.

The NatAmi however brings the Amiga forward, with their own core that is as compatible as it can be but has the speed as well would give the classic software a real boost with the new hardware. And since it's also enhanced with the SuperAga and 3d core, plus 512MB of ram, it also opens up for new possibilities which the others don't.

I vote for NatAmi.

[hairy]

I really want to vote for NatAmi, but I can't get myself to click on it. However nice it is, I don't think I can stomach going for another system that is non-tinkerable.
(I have spent some time thinking about that - it works wonders when you are 100% in sync with what the creators want, and it breaks down the minute you would prefer something flavoured differently but can't have it.)

Agreed 100% - same reasons here.

SuperAGA might be appealing for demo coders, but as standard OS gfx subsystem it's some 15 years late.

[humppa]

Is the Clone_A still in development or has it been scrapped in favour of the Chameleon? It's been quite a while since I heard anything new about it.

[nicholas]

FPGA Arcade as it exists. Would love to see Nat Ami in production though.

[gaula92]

@Darrin: When you buy the 4MB Minimig, what you get is the normal 2MB minimig with the piggyback 4MB expansion, right? Or does a 4MB Minimig really exist?

[Colin_Camper]

I voted Minimig. None of the others are currently available.
I thought the replay board used a further developed minimig core with additional soft 68K. So it should really be called minimig 2 when it is available.

Also I thought that Yens had given up on CloneA as a system due to belligerence from scAmiga.Inc and was only going to use elements in add-on boards etc.

Natami has been so long in coming since publishing wonderful accounts of performance and compatibility. I don't get how it can take several years to go from that point to a finished motherboard. I get a Dragon feeling about the Natami.

So really we have only one choice; Minimig or it's derivatives.

Note to MODS - I have tried not to use any humour or offend anyone in this post which is entirely my opinion. So please don't ban me.

[XDelusion]

I voted Natami, but really I'll go for what ever I can afford, though at this point, I'm loosing interest in the Minimig just because of the amazing speeds associated with these up and coming Amiga clones.

[Fats]

I may get my hands on an Atlys board in the near future. I will surely look how I can use it to get my Amiga fix.

greets,
Staf.