Minimig Discussion Forum

I'd like to know if the PIC is truly necessary part of Minimig. I know it sits between the FPGA and the SD card slot, but I'm curious if minimig can function and survive without it. I got a PCI format FPGA card to play with, and would have to add a PIC and whatever somehow f it's really necessary. I've got other ideas to play with as well on this board, but I'm curious if it's reasonable to think about minimig, or if it's a lot of additional stuff required to add a PIC, hack it into the PCI board connections, and whatever.

It's a Xilinx XCS1500, so I'd imagine that a softcore PIC or ARM from opencores would fit along with the TG68 cpu, but I've got some reading and learning to do until I have a good understanding of Minimig and if it makes sense to do this. Does the DE1 board have a PIC or other micro that serves that purpose, or is that an example of Minimig without the whole middleman micro there at all?

I've wanted for years to learn FPGA stuff, I hope to have some fun with this thing!

http://www.em.avnet.com/evk/home/0,1707,RID%253D0%2526CID%253D7816%2526CCD%253DUSA%2526SID%253D32214%2526DID%253DDF2%2526LID%253D32232%2526PRT%253D0%2526PVW%253D%2526BID%253DDF2%2526CTP%253DEVK,00.html

Other fpga board like DE1/2 dont use PIC or ARM, thats true. They use an own controller inside the FPGA. The FPGA was configured at power-up by some on-board device and FlashROM containing fpga core binary. To provide OSD, floppy and hdd support the DE1 board use AFAIK a simulated Z80 cpu and C-One an own TG68000 core, both also operating inside the FPGA.
But there is much to know about all this to adapt current Minimig source to any other fpga board.
Still the DE1/2 version also is open-source and can be used for this. But I dont know hoch much work it will be to adapt the whole thing to your PCI fpga card.