20.Mar.2022
Commodore-News
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Minimig: Revision 1.8 (update)
In 2005 we reported on the start of the Minimig project by Dutch electrical engineer Dennis van Weeren: the reimplementation of the one Amiga 500 in an FPGA. Based on this approach there were other projects like the Mist, which uses its own hardware but for the Amiga core (with AGA support) an adaptation of the Minimig, the MiSTer, an adaptation of MiST to a more powerful FPGA or even the Apollo core.
But the Minimig project itself also continues: After publishing the project's source code and schematics on July 25, 2007, the MiniMig.ca site has been taking care of the project since mid-2021. So with the Revision 1.3 every board got 4 MB RAM by default. Likewise, the SD connector and the 3.5 mm audio jack were replaced and termination resistors for FPGA RAM and FPGA CPU were added.
In mid-February the site released Revision 1.8: The board has 4MB of SRAM divided into 2MB of CHIP, 512KB of ROM and 1.5MB of Slow. In addition, for the first time a real MC68000 CPU (CMOS and NMOS) could be run and PiStorm could deliver over 800MIPS performance to this board.
Update: (22.03.2022, 05:08, dr)
Inspired by the comments of our readers, we have asked the developer Ranko Rodic again:
Since he is still in the process of changing the hardware, he postpones the release of the Gerber files until version 2. Likewise, he gives an outlook on future development:
- At the moment I am working with Renee Cousins (Buffee project) on Minimig FPGA core. At this time Renee successfully integrated stock Gary chip into the core. This will make a significant difference for the bus control. The goal is to make sure Minimig is 100% real Amiga. Soon we will be able to run accelerator cards like TerribleFire 530 with additional RAM and HDD controllers on the board. At the moment only accelerator card that works well is PiStorm.
- Replace outdated Spartan 3 with something modern and cost effective. With the larger FPGA chip we will be able to support AGA and 32-bit architecture.
- Replace old SRAM with DDR. 128MB IC will do
- Make sure the board is mini ITX compliant
- Add floppy disk support and 34pin header. Make sure Minimig can drive real Amiga FDD
- Move from PS/2 to USB
- Add real HDD header to the board
- Add ethernet/wireless
- Before moving forward we will use REV 8 to make sure FPGA core is up to date and 100% compatible with A600 class Amiga. After I will replace old ICs and make sure hardware improvements are in place. As a spinoff I am hoping to move forward with chipset ICs. It would be awesome if we can recreate every custom chip as a FPGA/CPLD. We are making some progress.
(dr)
[News message: 20. Mar. 2022, 14:39] [Comments: 1 - 22. Mar. 2022, 05:36]
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