Minimig Discussion Forum

So how about it?
Who will be the first to put a bigger FPGA in the Minimig so that developers can get to play around with AGA and soft 68K support?

What about the C-One FPGA Extender?

It has a soft 68K, and a second soft 68K in place of the PIC that controls the SD card, all implemented in the FPGA, plus the full minimig core w/ the latest enhancements.

In total the board has 3 FPGA's on it... As it stands the C-One FPGA Extender (CycloneIII w/ 24000 LE's) is only 65% full.... a ton of room left for improvements to come. It is possible that they will be exploring integrating Catweasel floppy functionality, and virtual hard drive support. None of these improvements are guarantees, but I would expect more to be done on the platform in the future. We'll see what happens.

I'm not sure if AGA is a possibility without additional hardware.. (Anyone?) Also, what about Clone-A, which was prototyped using a C-One board? I don't have high hopes that this will be offered as an upgrade path for existing owners... I'm just not sure.


The FPGA extender on the C-One is VERY new, so there are a few bugs still being worked out... You can also boot it up as a VIC20, a C64 (PAL or NTSC) w/ Real Stereo SID Chips, IEC port, etc etc, or other cores. I have recently played Space Invaders and Donkey Kong on my C-One also. Not to mention all of the Amstrad stuff (Which I don't personally use, but its there!)

The Newboot menu looks good, boots cores FAAAST, and you can have a full library of cores available right at power-on, so you can switch platforms without changing out your memory card.

http://www.c64upgra.de/c-one/

There shouldn't be a reason why AGA cannot fit into the extended C-ONE. It just needs someone to code the core for the AGA chipset. We've already seen the Minimig move from OCS to (almost full) ECS.

Once we've seen a released PIC replacement on the Minimig v1.1 with hard drive support then hopefully we'll see the code adapted to work on the C-One. Perhaps someone might even code our core to make use of real hard drives via the C-One IDE ports!



This is why I splashed out on the C-One.

What does that mean "Splashed Out"? Why you got one?

"Splashed out" is British slang for spending some money on (usually) a luxuary item. For example, "I just splashed out on a new car" or "I just splashed out on a plasma TV", etc.

Right now I have a Minimig v1.1 on a sliding draw under a C128 next to an Amiga 4000 all on one desk. I'd love to be able to reclaim some space and have the C-One replace the Minimig and C-128.

I really like the form factor of the Minimig.
A C-One would take up to much space and it's kind of pricey too.
Even the Minimig is pricey but the form is really sexy

The only thing holding me back buying a Minimig is the limitations of the FPGA for future greatly expanded cores.

Yes, the Minimig v1.1 is an A500 replacement while the C-One has enough space to become an A1200 replacement (cores permitting and perhaps a 680x0 CPU card to go in the slot), but (as you say) you pay more for it.

Personally, I think the Minimig is excellent value for money but is not priced low enough due to volume to pull in your average shopper. We could still do with a large investor to throw somemoney into it and make a huge run and reduce the individual cost by 50%. It's a bit late for this year, but a Minimig v1.1 in a simple case, PSU, SD Card containing some games with a licensed Kickstart and the current core would sell well for $99, but it would have to be produced in volume.

If Amiga Inc had any sense then they would be doing it themselves and then selling those ADF files on their website to the customers.

Regarding limitations,

I noticed Darrin (on Amiga.org) that you are planning to install the extra memory, piggy-back style, on your Minimig.
Does this require a core update? Only I haven`t noticed a core that offers any support for extra (retro fit?) memory yet.

Roger

Hi turbonut2000,

there is currently a new core in development by Jakub. This core is able to address extra memory up to 4MB in total and (as familiar) 512KB reserved by kickstart image. Maximum memory amount to use is 2MB of chipmem and 1.5MB of slowmem, enough to let WHDload and several other (Workbench) program work just fine

Well anybody thinking of making a MiniMig board with a bigger FPGA is already too late.

Such a board already exists, well a few do anyway.

It is planned to go on sale shortly.

Here is a link for you:-
http://www.fpgaarcade.com/

MikeJ is working hard over there to make what is likely to be the best ever Minimig board on release.