Minimig Discussion Forum

Hi all,

I made it hoem today, grabbed an old PC tower, installed the C-One board, installed the CPU card, connected the power swich, power LED, reset, HD cables, formatted a 2GB Transend CF card as FAT32, downloaded and copied the Newboot201 files to the card, copied over the Kick.rom files to the PAL and NTSC Minimig directories, hooked up a PS2 keyboard and mouse, connected a joystick, hooked up my trusty PAL/NTSC plasma monitor, switched on and... bugger all.

Well, not quite bugger all. I press power and the green LED on the C-One lights up, the red "slave" light comes on bright and then then goes dim and then nothing. I removed the CF card and tried it as FAT16, I've unplugged everything except the monitor, I've tried it with an old CRT monitor... all the same.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

You mentioned that you hooked up the HD cables, what are they hooked up to right now?

One of my power supplies was giving me a problem.. for some reason I had to have a CD-ROM drive hooked up to the power supply in order for the board to boot. It was as if it needed the extra power load, it didn't even need to be plugged to the board, just the PS.

Did the extender come pre-installed? If so I would assume that the board is already updated w/ Newboot. Otherwise you need to update it to newboot, before attaching the extender board.

As far as the lights go, that sounds like the proper operation. I can't tell for sure because my board is with Jens right now.

Do you see ANY indication of an attempt to sync to a video signal, a flicker or anything?

Did you try reseating the SIMM module?

Hi Rich.

When I mentioned the HD cable I meant the HD led cable/wires from the LED on teh tower to the HD activity pins on the C-One.

Everything came pre-installed, including the latest hardware mods.

I got no signal whatsover and no flickering of the screen - just a "no input signal" message.

I got a reply from Jens suggesting using different CF cards or a multisynch monitor, plus letting me know the LEDs on the mobo were correct. Assuming from this that my board was working and that I just couldn't see the Newboot menu selection I decided to change the CF card files so that it would boot directly into a Minimig core on startup. As per teh read me I deleted all teh root files with the exception of the 2 directories, copied over the contents of the PAL Minimig core (and I tried the NTSC core) along with some game ADF files and the KICK.ROM (the same one I use on the Minimig v1.1) and switched on...

This time I got a blue screen and the following text:

Minimig by Dennis van Weeren
Bug fixes, mods and extensions by Jakub Bednarski

Bootloader BYQ080718

FPGA core FAA000000

Agnus ID: $20 (PAL) Denise ID: $FF

and then the boot sequence hangs at this point.

IT's inetresting that the extender.rbf file copied from the Minimig core is larger than the file originally unpacked from the ZIP archive to the root for Newboot selection.

Anyway, I have a display now, but does anyone have any other ideas on how to get the "insert disk" logo?

The extender.rbf file is what gets loaded to the cyclone 3. The smaller version of the file in the root is only meant to emulate the original jumpers that were on the c-one board prior to the fpga extender board ever being in place. So any cores that do not require the cyclone 3 just basically leave that smaller extender.rbf in place which basically bypasses the extender. At least that is how I understand it. Make sense?

Haha, as far as ever getting the actual amiga screen, I'm not the best person to ask, having never actually seen the screen myself. My extender board had a fault and as of yet has not returned from Germany. Maybe I'll see it this week, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Your symptoms sound very familiar to what I was experiencing, although I doubt you have the same problem that I did. Does that screen have lines on it running top to bottom in a different shade of blue, or is it solid?

It should be just as simple as adding the kick.rom into the folder. What size is your kick.rom? Originally a 512K kick.rom was required.

Jens pointed out that the Newboot201 archive doesn't have the latest Minimig core files. I downloaded the new files (which includes a new extender.rbf) but the result is the same.

He also said that he hadn't tried it booting directly and should use Newboot menu, but I can't see the menu to know what to press to boot the various cores.



I get a solid blue screen with white lettering. I have to admit that it's an instant screen! Press power and wham - it's up!

I'm using a 512KB ROM image. I'll try it with a KS3.1 ROM and see if that makes any difference...

Perhaps I do have the same problem as you and that there may have been a fault in the extender production.

MAJOR PROGRESS!!!

I seem to have got somewhere!!!

I reformatted the Transcend card as FAT32, copied the Newboot201 archive over, replaced the extender file in the root with the one from the updated Minimig core download replaced the PAL and NTSC Minimig cores from the 201 download with the new download, added a Kick3.0 ROM and I get what appears to be a "Big Boot Classic" screen.

There is 1 pic of a VIC 20, 3 pics of a C64, SD RAM test and 2 pics of an Amiga 2.0 (PAL & NTSC),. There is also a message:

"Flash the new Startupcore. Caustion! Only use if you have successfully tested BBClassic!".

I should also point out that I reseated the RAM module before booting in case this made a difference!

(This is all on that plasma monitor of mine that wasn't showing a pic before)

I used the joystick to select the PAL Minimig and I get the usual blue screen.... and it hangs.

I rebooted and selected the NTSC core... and it hangs at the blue screen again.

The C64 boots!!! Woot!!

The VIC-20 boots!!! Damn, I haven't seen that screen for a long time. I feel like a little kid again. Where's my Blue Meanies tape???!!!

Should I risk the "flash the new Startup core" option?

What I thought was the title of the screen "Big Boot Classic" was in fact an option (I guess this screen is Newboot). Selecting it gives me a blank screen with no signal - just like before. The SD RAM test gives me a white screen.

I put my SIMONS BASIC cartridge in the C-One slot and booted the C64... and I have extended V2 BASIC!

You don't need to flash the new startup core.. this is done. That screen you are seeing is actually Newboot.

The SDRAM test actually is testing the other RAM socket, the DIMM module. If there was ram there you will see a picture of someone's house.. maybe Jens' dunno. Nice house though.

atleast you are making some progress!! The journey is half of the fun.

As much as I would be thinking the same thing... 2 things make me believe that hopefully that is not the case.

#1. The fault wasn't on the board itself, but rather internal to the Cyclone 3.

#2. Jens told me that each board is tested prior to shipment for quality control. He said it would not have gotten the "Golden Sticker" if it did not run the Minimig core.

Although I will admit, your symptoms almost mirror mine exactly. However I did see some weird discoloration on that blue screen, almost like stripes up and down.

Also, Jens says that my Newboot screen was discolored, which I didn't notice myself.

It will be interesting for sure to hear how you make out.

Rich

Well I'm off for a haircut and to do some shopping and then I'll get back to troubleshooting.

At least I have some cores working (VIC and C64) and I even hooked up the 1571 floppy drive.

Jens emailed me and told me to reseat the extender card so I'll give that a try, meanwhile if anyone else who has a Minimig core running can email me the contents of their core folder along with the kick.rom file to darrin01311 at AOL dot COM then I'd appreciate it.

One other snag I've found is that I don't have any sound on the C64 side. I haven't fitted the SID chip and left the jumpers as they were which I assumed would let the core emulate the SID. ANyway, I'll look into that later...