MiniMig the no bull thoughts on this device

[CritAnime]

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=919
 
you can also set the jumper for 15HZ video and you should be good to go.
 
i have not seen the quality, but I'd imagine it will look just like RGB.
 
Also don't forget the LG TV will run NTSC stuff.... just the PAL stuff won't work...
 
good luck...

My LG tv will do 50Hz and 60Hz if it's running a TV signal. I know because I have a ntsc SNES I use on it. But for some reason the VGA port will only do 56Hz to 75Hz.

[F0LLETT]

All 4mb minimigs have piggybacked ram. The latest core works on both arm and non arm.
The non arm minimig will do almost everything the arm minimig does, but slower.

We have both minimig and arm controllers instock. To answer price query, acube dont list vat price.

[smerf]

Pretty much as the title says. If I was to buy one purely for gaming from ADF's do I need the ARM chip and do I need the 4mb version? What are people who own this device honest opinions? I have given up on classic hardware because I don't have the time nor money. So I just want something I can plug into my big TV, via VGA, or run on my spare vga monitor.

Hi,

Well I am going to get ready to get flamed by everyone here, but if you want a good cheap, ultra fast, Amiga, and you have a MODERN DAY PC (by which I mean 2.4 ghz or faster) then you should try Amiga Forever, So far it has played just about every game I have put in it and it is running my main programs such as Pen Pal, DPaint, Soliton, Megaball, doom, Zool etc. and also I can call up cd 32 and play CD32 cd's, or I can call up CDTV and play CDTV games, it can be an A1000, A500, A2000, A3000, A1200, A4000, CDTV, and CD32, but it can't be a MiniMig or MorphOS, but it can run AROS. It is super fast, Super Cool, and doesn't give me any problems because it automatically detects NTSC or PAL and makes modifications to run that program.

Why anyone would waste a lot of money buying new hardware to run old obsolete programs is beyond me, it is totally senseless, crazy and absolutely LOONY. I enjoy my Amiga A500, A1200, A3000, A4000, and CD32 and even my C64, when I just want to go back in time and play with an old obsolete computer, but I would rather burn up a PC after all there are plenty of them and they are cheap too, plus as a side benefit if you have a new power house computer, you can play all the new PC games on the market.

SO MY THOUGHTS on new expensive hardware to play old games.

You are all loony.

smerf

[kedawa]

You could also do without paying for a front end for UAE if money is a concern.

[Azryl]

I do want to buy a Mini-mig...  4meg with ARM board etc

To me it will be the machine setup beside my rebuilt c64 system, all sharing same tv/monitor and desk. Mini-mig seems ideal to buy/use compared to an emulated system.

There is an unidentifiable specialness to use Amiga software on real Amiga hardware, I will include mini-mig in this

Az

[Dwyloc]

I liked my first 2MB Minimig that much I purchased a second 4MB Minimig and ARM board to go with it.

So now I keep the first 2MB Minimig I purchased connected to my old large CRT TV and us it to play ADF games and watch old Amiga Demo's.

I have the second on connected to the my Hitachi TFT panel and use to play WHDLoad games and other games like Monkey Island 2 which are bested played from hard disk.

I have also connected them both together in the past to play Lotus2 over a serial link which works well too :-)

My Minimigs work that well I don't really use my A1200's very much these days, as I generally need to spend to much time getting them working again after each time they are move, were as I can pack my Minimigs up and take them round to a friends and connect them up to a TV or monitor and have them setup and ready to play in just a few minutes.

[gaula92]

@smerf: You have no idea of how the Minimig feels. I have several Amigas here (A600, A1200), the Minimig and UAE wich I can configure myself because I have a barely normal brain and I already paid for my KS ROMS when I was 10.
From UAE to a physical Amiga, the difference is enormous: even if I use 50Hz modes and I get perfect smooth 50Hz scroll in demos and games, UAE feels laggy, something's not  right. I have shown this solution to friends and they all thing the same: it's not the same, there's a difference in control input, a noticeable input delay that affects games. Occasionally, there are also desyncs in the image: it's very hard to have a system with the bare minimal services running and configured priorities so UAE has the CPU all the time, but I have souch a system: a dedicated Linux system built from scratch where every kernel module and every service is put there by me and I know when they take over CPU. But even so, there's the ocasional frame desync: it can take half and hour, but it WILL appear.

Now don't take me wrong: UAE is an awesome program to interface with the Amiga HDDs in FFS format and with the Minimig HDFs. It's great to test whdload slaves, and even to compile C programs very fast with SASC.
But it's NOT an Amiga. It doesn't feel like one: it feels like an emulated one running inside another OS, wich can be useful for some needs, but that's all. It's a tool, so to say.

The Minimig however FEELS like an Amiga. It's as snappy, elegant, responsive and precise as the Amiga. It's light, small and it won't drain a thermonuclear plan to run Lemmings, as the lame X86 noisy pigs do. It drains a ridiculously small amount of power and it feels RIGHT.
It's NOT that expensive, you just sum everything it has included:
-A FAST 68000 on board, actually slightly waster that a 030 @ 50mHz in TURBO mode. It can run at stock 7'58mHz for perfect CPU compatibility.
-Full ECS chipset.
-3.5 MB of RAM.
-Virtually endless HDD space.
-Perfect scandoubler: fully VGA-compatible chipset modes!
And count it as new hardware, totally new: no aging overpriced hardware from the 80's with failing caps some idiot will try to sell you based on it's "retro and rare" state.

[_ThEcRoW]

And it has an incredible amount of ram too.

[Ral-Clan]

@smerf: You have no idea of how the Minimig feels. I have several Amigas here (A600, A1200), the Minimig and UAE wich I can configure myself because I have a barely normal brain and I already paid for my KS ROMS when I was 10.
From UAE to a physical Amiga, the difference is enormous: even if I use 50Hz modes and I get perfect smooth 50Hz scroll in demos and games, UAE feels laggy, something's not  right. I have shown this solution to friends and they all thing the same: it's not the same, there's a difference in control input, a noticeable input delay that affects games. Occasionally, there are also desyncs in the image: it's very hard to have a system with the bare minimal services running and configured priorities so UAE has the CPU all the time...

That's strange.  I have been using WinUAE with the most intensive productivity applications (and the occasional game) for the past four years and have never noticed any of the above symptoms.  I have really put UAE through its paces with super-hi-res graphics editing and also MIDI music work (where timing is absolutely critical).  Most of the Amiga software I use in WinUAE requires a 68020 or even a 68040 CPU, etc. at it works extremely well.

This is all on a 2.8GHz single core PC.  Trying to emulate a "simple" 68000 A500 is, in comparison, even easier on my system. If you are having problems, you should try WinUAE, I hear it's the most mature of the UAE versions.  Also, often the problems you mention can be easily and permanently fixed by simple tweaks in the UAE settings.

I love real hardware Amigas, but I would have to say that WinUAE is frikkin' awesome!  I can render a ray-traced picture in seconds that would take minutes or hours on my 68040 Amiga.  Other than that, I'm not sure I would be able to tell if I was using a real Amiga or WinUAE if it was put to a blind test.

[Darrin]

That's strange.  I have been using WinUAE with the most intensive productivity applications (and the occasional game) for the past four years and have never noticed any of the above symptoms.  I have really put UAE through its paces with super-hi-res graphics editing and also MIDI music work (where timing is absolutely critical).  Most of the Amiga software I use in WinUAE requires a 68020 or even a 68040 CPU, etc. at it works extremely well.

This is all on a 2.8GHz single core PC.  Trying to emulate a "simple" 68000 A500 is, in comparison, even easier on my system. If you are having problems, you should try WinUAE, I hear it's the most mature of the UAE versions.  Also, often the problems you mention can be easily and permanently fixed by simple tweaks in the UAE settings.

I love real hardware Amigas, but I would have to say that WinUAE is frikkin' awesome!  I can render a ray-traced picture in seconds that would take minutes or hours on my 68040 Amiga.  Other than that, I'm not sure I would be able to tell if I was using a real Amiga or WinUAE if it was put to a blind test.

The real test is when you try and connect that 9 pin joystick.  

I've used WinUAE from the start and I have 4 FPGA based "Amigas".  The FPGA machines feal "real", with UAE I'm always aware of the fact it is an emulator sat ontop of another OS, especially when I boot for the first time:

PC:  Power on, BIOS, blank screen, Windows, more Windows, more Windows, blank screen, Windows but still loading, looks like it has finsihed loading but hasn't, click WinUAE, wait, config screen, select config, wait, wait, Workbench!  (and I still can't plug in my joystick as my new PC doesn't have a PCI slot and even if it did the drivers wouldn't work).

Minimig:  Power on, text appears but vanishes before you can read it, black screen, Workbench!  Oh, and my joysticks fit!  

Quite why I need to run something that requires a 400w PSU to play Lemmings is beyond me.

I use WinUAE mainly to backup and configure my SD Cards for the FPGA machines.

At the end of the day, it is down to personal choice.  If you have the spare cash then the FPGA machines are a great option.

[gaula92]

If you are having problems, you should try WinUAE, I hear it's the most mature of the UAE versions.

I don't use Windows programs for personal reasons. Needless to say, I don't own a Windows machine and nevel will. No one in my house does. We all use Linux for daily computing.
That said, I use FS-UAE, wich is a port of WinUAE to standard libraries (OpenGL, etc) vs privative scumm (DirectX), based on the latest stable sources.

This is all on a 2.8GHz single core PC. Trying to emulate a "simple" 68000 A500 is, in comparison, even easier on my system.

You're missing the point. It's not a throughput problem, but a timming problem: on a Minimig, Amiga software runs ON the hardware: no undelying software, abstraction layers in form of backend, system libraries, etc... On an emulated enviroment, Amiga software runs on top of a HUGE pile of layers: the Amiga emulator, system libraries wich rely on different backends, etc... Even if you have RAW power, you don't get fine-grained input response. There's an inherent delay in software emulation wich hardware reimplementation (FPGAs) don't have, just like real hardware.
It's not about raw power or "I can render in seconds": it's about "I press a button on mu USB joystick and it takes WAY longer to be processed by the emulator+variours abstraction layers+os libs+kernel than it takes on real Amiga hardware, be it ASIC (Amiga 500, 1200) or FPGA (Minimig).

Quite why I need to run something that requires a 400w PSU to play Lemmings is beyond me.

Oh, and this, of course

[Darrin]

Oh, and on those REALLY bad days...

PC: Power on, BIOS, blank screen, Windows, more Windows, more Windows, blank screen, Windows but still loading, looks like it has finished loading but hasn't, popup:  "Windows has finsihed updating and needs to restart your computer", reset, BIOS, blank screen, Windows, more Windows, more Windows, blank screen, Windows but still loading, looks like it has finished loading but hasn't, popup: "Java update available, click to download", popup:  "Flash update available, click to download", click WinUAE, wait, nothing happens because you notive your virus checker is updating and dragging the whole machine down, make a cup of tea, config screen, select config, wait, wait, Workbench! (and I still can't plug in my joystick as my new PC doesn't have a PCI slot and even if it did the drivers wouldn't work).

[Ral-Clan]

The real test is when you try and connect that 9 pin joystick.  

Got that covered!  I've made an interface for 9-pin joysticks out of an old Logitec USB controller pad.  I can plug my Wico bat joystick (or any other Atari 2600 type joystick) into my PC and play away Amiga games on WinUAE!  It's great!

[Ral-Clan]

You're missing the point. It's not a throughput problem, but a timming problem...it's about "I press a button on mu USB joystick and it takes WAY longer to be processed by the emulator+variours abstraction layers+os libs+kernel than it takes on real Amiga hardware, be it ASIC (Amiga 500, 1200) or FPGA (Minimig).

I did understand your point - and I do know it's running on lots of abstraction layers, but I don't experience any noticeable latency in input when using WinUAE.  Believe me, when I play a MIDI controller keyboard - if there was any latency in playing the notes I would certainly be peeved (when I press a key on the MIDI controller keyboard it has to go through Windows--->WinUAE/emulated Amiga---->Bars&Pipes pipeline----->backout to Windows MIDI handler----->to external MIDI sound module).  If there was any latency in that chain (and latency is very noticeable when you're playing music) I wouldn't be using WinUAE.  I've also played games under WinUAE with my Wico bat joystick connected to the USB interface I made and haven't had a problem.

I'm not trying to slag real Amigas - they are awesome and I would have bought a Natami if they had ever actually been made, but since they were not I was eventually forced to go UAE against my will and to my surprise I ended up loving it.  Prior to that I was convinced no Amiga emulator could ever be equivalent to the real thing.

I'm not sure what would be causing a noticeable lag on your system.

[kedawa]

The only latency issues I've had with WinUAE involved the mouse pointer, and I seem to recall adjusting some settings and having no further problems.

[psxphill]

I did understand your point - and I do know it's running on lots of abstraction layers, but I don't experience any noticeable latency in input when using WinUAE.

I would imagine there is less latency between midi input & output than there is between joystick & video. With video you can only send a complete frame at a time.