A New Classic Amiga via Kickstarter

[ElPolloDiabl]

Hi,

Which would you like have. A follow on AAA chipset A5000/A3500 and A1400. A boxer system (A4000 with PCI slots).
Or stick with FPGA path, plus all the extras like USB and ethernet.
I could add redo Amithlon, instead just select other.

[yssing]

I voted FPGA, since its already there, thinking of the minimig and chameleon 64.
The FPGAarcade is close to being finished, and once the daugther board is finished, then that combo would have everything we need.

Then there is the MiST and the TiNA projects.

Sure it would be nice with some PCI-e/pci extensions as well, but one thing at the time.

[Lurch]

FPGA 060 @ 100-500MHz+ based, PCI, AGP(?), Not fussed about PCI-E, 512MB+ RAM, NIC, USB, RTG, WPA2 wireless,PCMCIA/PCARD in micro atx size would be me.

Maybe PowerPC... AmigaOS 4.. but can live without.

Don't even need a case, I'd sell my classic A1200 for that :-)

[portarinos]

FPGA for the win! Why reinvent the wheel when there is a nice, up to date practical solution? Couldn't ask for more. Bundle it with OS4 or even with an updated 3.9 (no boing bags for whatever reason, just a ready to run updated OS) and off you go.

[takemehomegrandma]

Voted "other" for "none of the above".

While I can see a point in resembling or doing remakes of old Amigas in an FPGA (or even in silicon), most prominently the A500 but perhaps also the A1200 (there might even be a small commercial gift-market for a Clone-A based "Amiga in a Joystick" bundled with a few games), I see no point whatsoever in creating "new" hardware that would be a museum object the moment it was born.

It wouldn't be an Amiga (it would probably even be incompatible to some degree) so it fails in the "Retro Amiga" genre, and it would at the same time be laughably behind in all technological aspects today, so it fails in the "New Amiga" genre as well.

Fail, fail.

Sorry!

[gaula92]

It wouldn't be an Amiga (it would probably even be incompatible to some degree)

Try to find a single ECS app or game that doesn't work on the Minimig V1.1 board with the latest core. You have never touched an FPGA Amiga, I believe.

Good to see people is going for FPGA at last!

[Duce]

An up to date, runs on most modern hardware Amithlon would suit me the best.

Even the hardware purists that have tried my Amithlon machine have been left speechless, especially when I tell them it's running on PC hardware with the physical box hidden away

[psxphill]

Try to find a single ECS app or game that doesn't work on the Minimig V1.1 board with the latest core. You have never touched an FPGA Amiga, I believe.

There are ECS games?
 
I know of plenty OCS games and AGA games.
 
Do you mean OCS games that are also compatible with ECS?
 
I'd say that minimig would have to be compatible with everything a 1.3 a500 can run to be worth using. As you can easily drop kickstart to 1.0/1.2 to run the rest as well.

[polyp2000]

If implementing a new chipset - why use FPGA which limits performance from the get -go? I appreciate fabbing a new chipset would be expensive , so why not use off the shelf parts?

Lets face it - no software was ever written to support either the AAA chipset or the Hombre chipset - so why go there?

Why not use existing DSP's , GPU's along with a modern processor etc.

What might be really interesting is to have such a machine but include an amiga SOC design to provide legacy compatibility.

N

[takemehomegrandma]

Why not use existing DSP's , GPU's along with a modern processor etc.

Good idea IMHO, and this is called MorphOS (or OS4)...

What might be really interesting is to have such a machine but include an amiga SOC design to provide legacy compatibility.

In practice, this would result in some hardware based UAE solution. The question "what's the point" comes to mind.

No, I'll stick to what I said earlier: Make it either "Retro", or "NG". Don't get stuck in the middle!

[royalcrown]

I guess I'll throw in my 2 cents as well.

All of our awesome Amiga hardware is going to die someday no matter how well we take care of it. What would be awesome is a system that can emulate all of the Amigas actually produced and sold. IMO I'd like to own a system with:

1. Hardware emulation of stock platforms via config file, with appropriate kickstarts stored in flash or selectable at boot.

(proper speed as well, no 300mhz A1000's)

2. The ability to use CF or SD as the HDD and FD out of the box (So IDE, or SATA for SCSI emulation). Can run .ADF

2. The ability to use actual Amiga keyboards and mice. Maybe have 2 usb for ppl that like newer mice/kb

4. Dip switch or Some way to toggle on and off RTG hardware emulation (picasso or spectrum).

5. HDMI output for video.

6. Small enough to fit in a classic case (for when our beloved hardware is all gone.

7. easy ways to hook up LED's for retro LED indicator goodness.


No PPC or MorphOS as those weren't officially released products. While they are fine and people are free to like them, they are guesses in the general direction that the hardware / software may have gone (yes I am aware that C= was working on the PPC version, but it was never FINALIZED and therefore we can't say what changes would've been made.)

From what I've seen (only seen), morph and all those seem too much like OSX  or linux with skins. There is still a lot of cheap apple hardware that can run that stuff, not so much good Amiga stuff left.

[Duce]

The latter sounds exactly like my Xotac Mini ITX box with a Lyra tacked on for real Amiga keyboard functionality.

Boots right into WB 3.1, never see the windows side at all.  Can use whatever Miggy config you like, from mild to wild.

[Mrs Beanbag]

I've voted "other" for the following reasons:

1. there was never any AAA chipset produced, and it wasn't going to be backwards compatible with OCS/AGA so that would be pretty pointless.
2. I'd much prefer a wedge/keyboard case than a big box.
3. FPGA for the CPU and AGA chipset maybe, but then it would just be another Minimig so why bother.

So here's my "other" suggestion. Use FPGA for the graphics but make it reprogrammable from software. Initialise it with AGA core from ROM, but allow the user to change it.

Also add a standard PCIe graphics set from nVidia or some other vendor, so we can have the latest OpenGL graphics. Pipe the output of this through the FPGA graphics core so it can process the image including "GenLOCK" the AGA on top of it.

The CPU could be FPGA-based 68060-like (special Amiga friendly version!) or I suppose it could be an ARM or PowerPC chip with software emulation. But I like the idea of an FPGA at the moment because I'm thinking of making my own core.

I guess this is really a combination of 1 & 3.

[OlafS3]

With FPGA Arcade and TiNA we have two very good proofen concepts already, I do not see much sense doing anything different. TiNA is not a special retro development so it could be really affordable and I am already looking forward to it. Something nice (additionally) would be a cheap mobile device in future and of course we have emulated environments already including Android. So I think already a pretty nice list :-). At least in the near future FPGA is the way to go...

[ChaosLord]

I've voted "other" for the following reasons:

1. there was never any AAA chipset produced, and it wasn't going to be backwards compatible with OCS/AGA so that would be pretty pointless.

+5

2. I'd much prefer a wedge/keyboard case than a big box.

-5
Detached FTW!

So here's my "other" suggestion. Use FPGA for the graphics but make it reprogrammable from software. Initialise it with AGA core from ROM, but allow the user to change it.

Also add a standard PCIe graphics set from nVidia or some other vendor, so we can have the latest OpenGL graphics. Pipe the output of this through the FPGA graphics core so it can process the image including "GenLOCK" the AGA on top of it.

The CPU could be FPGA-based 68060-like (special Amiga friendly version!) or I suppose it could be an ARM or PowerPC chip with software emulation. But I like the idea of an FPGA at the moment because I'm thinking of making my own core.

+12