A new Amiga portable console with new custom chipset.

[spirantho]

I suspect the idea was that the news was the indie-go-go bounty being started.

[wrath of khan]

In theory it sounds good but starting a campaign based on no actual research or work to show...bad idea.

The sketch is poor and silly. I have been thinking about the same thing recently though, a portable amiga computer/console.

Its surely doable but such a thing takes ALOT of work.

See the dragonbox pyra, its being made for I believe 40,000 euros and that's just the prototype. Mass production will be funded with pre-orders.

http://www.pyra-handheld.com/specs.html

A portable amiga is a pipe-dream of mine too but just that.

Too many people don't seem to understand the amount of work that goes into such an undertaking. It ain't all roses.

I have a small games company and am working on a commercial title but god knows how that will work out in terms of profits.

[Linde]

I suspect the idea was that the news was the indie-go-go bounty being started.

Is it considered newsworthy what some dude dreams up and then wants to trick people out of their money for just because it's part of an indiegogo campaign? Anyone can set up a campaign there, and I don't think it should be treated as something newsworthy whenever someone makes their pipe dreams public.

No wonder Amiga has been plagued with vaporware and false hopes if people actually take this campaign seriously. You all deserve it!

[Erol]

Is this April fools day?

i think ill stick with a real Amiga or cd32 console, at least I know the joypad looks better than that drawing lol..

[billt]

With 20k you wouldn't even be able to design one custom chip.

He wouldn't need to go ASIC. Use an FPGA, and none of it is impossible. Basically a console shaped Minimig board with a PowerPC upgrade slot from the sounds of things. FPGA-Arcade may already satisfy the majority of all that. For a livingroom console, for a handheld console then he'd have to do a new board, and it might not fit a PPC addon.

[billt]

Amiga console with new custom chipset that provide equal quality graphics as say of PS 2/PS 1

Well, on the graphics front the possibilities I'm finding start with OpenGraphics, OpenShader, GPGPU and potentially Number9 Graphics cores.

OpenGraphics seems to have been in the freezer for quite a while. The team lead there claims to have been distracted and helping to work on GPGPU.

The Number9 core has quite a ways to go to meet its kickstarter goal to make the core open-sourced. Interesting though.

Any would take up quite a bit of space in an FPGA implementation,


http://wiki.opengraphics.org/tiki-index.php
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openshader/
https://github.com/jbush001/GPGPU
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/725991125/open-source-graphics-processor-gpu

I understand that the Manticore is essentially long gone.
http://icculus.org/manticore/links.php

I haven't found anything else mentioning 3d support, but a variety of 2d VGA controllers out there.

[Hattig]

See the dragonbox pyra, its being made for I believe 40,000 euros and that's just the prototype. Mass production will be funded with pre-orders.

http://www.pyra-handheld.com/specs.html

And they're just taking off the shelf components and putting them together, with some firmware.

FPGA based designs include the physical aspect, the FPGA implementation, and firmware.

This is just an idea or dream. Most people don't go from idea to kickstarter, there's not even any details of how skilled the team* are at this type of work.  There is no way this should ever be considered news.

* okay, the team of one.

[wrath of khan]

And they're just taking off the shelf components and putting them together, with some firmware.

FPGA based designs include the physical aspect, the FPGA implementation, and firmware.

This is just an idea or dream. Most people don't go from idea to kickstarter, there's not even any details of how skilled the team* are at this type of work.  There is no way this should ever be considered news.

* okay, the team of one.

Yep the pyra is using off the shelf components, even the nubs are off the shelf this time unlike the pandora. The housing is custom designed though.

Its path to market should be a good case study for a potential amiga handheld computer at least.

An amiga handheld, if built needs cash, knowledge, pragmatism and careful meticulous steps.

[DyLucke]

Sorry guys but it seems this has been discussed like a zillion times.

There's a no-go with an implemented core using the actual FPGAs that could outperform a plain 020 with AGA.

There's a no-go with real native hardware fully compatible with AGA, see the S-AGA on the Natami.

At the end nothing like a new Amiga portable hardware will be made.
FPGA's can't achieve (for now) what we want at an affordable price.
Design new native compatible chips and bake them is stratospherically expensive.

However, i'm not sure if someone came with this idea so far.
What about using a low-cost PPC as CPU, and have the video and audio implemented
in two different FPGAs?

PPC as a CPU will grant a limited 68K backwards compatibility, plus it would be able to run MOS or OS4.

The PPC CPU could even be set to run in two different modes, native PPC, in case OS4 or MOS decide to add support, or an emulated 68K core.

As for the implemented audio and video, as long as they would be implemented in two different chips, the overall performance would improve quite a lot.

As long as they would be implementations, extra features or extra operation modes controlled by software would be possible.

However, as long as i'm not an expert, i don't know the drawbacks of this idea.

[ElPolloDiabl]

There is also the MCC 216. Multi Classic computer. Check out some of the reviews on that.
I'd like one. Perfect if you mostly play games.

[psxphill]

There's a no-go with an implemented core using the actual FPGAs that could outperform a plain 020 with AGA.

I thought the FPGA arcade replay (whatever it's called) and the vampire 600 was doing better than plain 020 already & they are using relatively old and cheap FPGA's.
 

There's a no-go with real native hardware fully compatible with AGA, see the S-AGA on the Natami.

Natami is not a good example. Once you have AGA fully compatible then some extensions would probably not be too hard. You have to be pragmatic to ship something like that, which is something they weren't particularly good at. The same problem the AAA team at commodore had.
 

At the end nothing like a new Amiga portable hardware will be made.
FPGA's can't achieve (for now) what we want at an affordable price.
Design new native compatible chips and bake them is stratospherically expensive.

I can't see there being anywhere near enough demand that baking would be cost effective. It also takes away some of the benefits, as you can't ever make it do anything different.
 
I think a laptop/netbook version of the FPGA Arcade is much more likely to happen. Once the standard version has shipped then mikej should look into crowd funding that.

[matthey]

There's a no-go with an implemented core using the actual FPGAs that could outperform a plain 020 with AGA.

No. The fpgaArcade TG68 CPU with small caches and minimal pipelining is equivalent to a mid speed 68030 already. AGA performance has been surpassed in the fpgaArcade and Natami prototypes.

There's a no-go with real native hardware fully compatible with AGA, see the S-AGA on the Natami.

There were supposedly issues with the Natami design but it was an aggressive design that would have provided a huge speedup to AGA+. Improvements in AGA performance are achieved in fpga without even trying. Some things may even need to be slowed down to improve AGA compatibility.

At the end nothing like a new Amiga portable hardware will be made.
FPGA's can't achieve (for now) what we want at an affordable price.
Design new native compatible chips and bake them is stratospherically expensive.

It depends on what you consider affordable. An fpga can only be cost reduced so much but prices are constantly dropping while sizes and features are increasing. It should be possible to produce an fpga based board that will outperform any classic 68k Amiga for less than 500 Euros.

However, i'm not sure if someone came with this idea so far.
What about using a low-cost PPC as CPU, and have the video and audio implemented
in two different FPGAs?

Most low cost PPC chips are for embedded systems and limiting. The cost is not so low without large quantity purchases also. Separate video and audio fpgas would increase cost and complexity. I doubt there would be any speed advantage to separate fpgas either.

There is also the MCC 216. Multi Classic computer. Check out some of the reviews on that.
I'd like one. Perfect if you mostly play games.

I believe the MCC has an fpga that is smaller than the fpgaArcade. The fpgaArcade fpga is even too small for the Apollo CPU or an FPU with the Amiga chipset. The fpgaArcade should get the 68060 expansion board but I believe this would not permit the original handheld gaming design (if a proper case, LCD screen and controls were ever made). The newest version of the Mist fpga board (Cyclone III with 25k LE) has a larger fpga than the fpgaArcade. It should be large enough for a 68k CPU, FPU and advanced chipset with some cramming but has other limitations. All other retro computing fpga boards I know of are handicapped by too small of fpga including the MiniMig+.

[IanP]

The tablet and smartphone have made handheld consoles a niche product. With competition from Nintendo 3DS/2DS, Sony PS Vita and Nvidia Sheild (Sheild 2 with Tegra K1 chipset is currently rumoured too) at the high end and Pandora/Pyra covering the homebrew/hobby/retro area there's very little room for an Amiga specific handheld console. It would be hideously expensive, underpowered and unsupported by 3rd party developers even if you could put one together.

An FPGA Arcade Replay type handheld with modest 68k softcore performance and slightly improved AGA graphics, LCD screen, battery and a housing with some buttons/joysticks might be technically achievable but doesn't have a market like the actual FPGA Arcade Replay does.

Talking of the Replay and mobile technology a Slimport transmitter IC would make a nice AV output option since you can't have HDMI directly due to the high annual licensing fees.

Suggesting a PPC based 'Amiga' handheld is an even more out there idea than a 68060 based one.

[Fransexy_]

Another attempt to scam amigans?

[slaapliedje]

What I would prefer over a handheld console, would definitely be a PPC or 68060 based laptop.  Even better, from what I've read, a lot of the 68060s didn't even need active cooling.  Get one of those, an SSD and you'd have a nice cool silent system.  

I mean if you want a console that plays Amiga games, just go pick up an old original Xbox and hack it.  

slaapliedje

[persia]

I've just designed a new Amiga:



Can someone send me 20K dollars please.