Cool Amiga Hardware Development Stuff

[Kamineko]

Cool Amiga hw dev stuff that somebody told me about!

Amiga 500 side expansion slot gizmo with 8mb fast ram, ethernet and microsd card slot.

https://github.com/endofexclusive/greta

Amiga 2000 Zorro gfx card

https://github.com/mntmn/amiga2000-gfxcard

[corrosive]

Must admit, I didn't expect to see a new Zorro board this year* and certainly not a home made one!

Really must get my old Amigas out and see what still works.

* Although I'll also admit I don't dig around much on what's going on with Amiga stuff these days.

[guythp]

Whilst cleaning the other day I had my android box playing amiga demos on youtube for something to have on in the background when it skipped to a video of some chap reviewing as 'Vampire 2'.

I don't know if it's cheating or not (the thing sits on top of the cpu and takes over control... hence the name, I suppose), and up until that point I'd never really liked the A600, I'm really tempted to get a A600 and sit on the (very long) waiting list for one.

Still, it's good to see people still making hardware for the old 16(and 32 bit) machines.

Here's one review

[NorthWay]

They have a forum over here http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php and it you go to the toplevel of that URL you get their web page.
Currently in work is a combined 500/1000/2000 version and a 1200 one. 3000/4000 should be in planning. Standalone machine will also come, but that needs more parts and hw logic work obviously.
They are heavily backlogged.

For the money you get the fastest non-FPU / non-MMU Amiga there has ever been (excluding any PPC bastardisations or emulated ones), a HDMI connector for a P96 compatible gfx card, and an SD(?) card slot for a 10M/s IDE interface.
FPU is in the works. Sadly it seems that Gunnar (the logic guy) is allergic to MMUs that are 68040/060(nor 030/020/010 for that matter) compatible. (But I don't think he has much choice if he wants to capture the other 68K markets - and he has said as much.)

I want an A1000 more than ever now...

[Firefox]

I'm normally stoked by tales of retro machines being augmented with new technology (SD card snapshot loaders and such), but in this case I find myself in the "what's the point?" camp.

In the video the chap's all excited that he can browse the web using a rather clunky-looking browser, watch an MPEG in a tiny window, and play Doom-like games at an okay frame rate.

My immediate question was, why doesn't he just use any old PC, tablet or phone (or Raspberry Pi) to do that? What does doing that on an old Amiga that's been souped up using modern technology add to the experience?

I expect that the answer is the fantasy that you could somehow send one back in time a quarter of a century and wow all of the other Amiga owners of the time with your amazeballs benchmark scores.

(Please don't take this as a dig at the Vampire 2 or its creators. It's taken a serious amount of work to put that together and it's an impressive hack. I just don't see what real use an end user could have for one.)

[NorthWay]

My immediate question was, why doesn't he just use any old PC, tablet or phone (or Raspberry Pi) to do that?

That 600 is not a million miles away from my A4000 with CS060, CV64/3D gfx card and 100Mb ethernet card from >20 years back. Nobody batted an eyelid over that back then (apart from how much molah you had sunk in it). Amigas have always had upgrades, be it software or hardware.
Whether it makes sense _today_ depends on if you want to use your Amiga as a productive machine for new projects, or if you want a black box for enjoying all that old good stuff.
I'm having my 4000 (and 3000) repaired this week after being neglected for 10 years. And I want a high-end Vampire for it...

[Firefox]

Been following this cool Glaswegian chappie for a few weeks now on Youtube: He's developing his own 68020 and 68030 accelerator boards for the Amiga A500 (and has also got the 68020 board to work on an old STFM he had knocking about).

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=85380
https://www.youtube.com/c/TerribleFire

He's now got his 68030 + 68882 FPU accelerator running, and has tuned it up to getting on for nine times the speed of a stock A600.

Here's a nice comparison video he's just posted, showing the intro to Frontier: Elite II running very smoothly under his accelerator:


I really like the look of his 68030 board - really well thought out and designed.

[Firefox]

Developer makes his open source Amiga accelerators work on the Atari ST as well; developer receives a barrage of hatred for doing that, and says "fuck this for a game of soldiers".



That's sad.

Oh well, he says later on in the video that he's going to turn his attention to some 8-bit retro systems next, so I'll be interested to see what he comes up with there.

[OX mkII]

Developer makes his open source Amiga accelerators work on the Atari ST as well; developer receives a barrage of hatred for doing that, and says "fuck this for a game of soldiers".



That's sad.

Oh well, he says later on in the video that he's going to turn his attention to some 8-bit retro systems next, so I'll be interested to see what he comes up with there.

Sad? I could understand a bit of jovial fanboy ribbing but personal criticism for daring to "turn to the darkside" is pathetic, time to bring back the mental institutions. Hope people can convince him to continue with the project, perhaps get someone else to document his progress?

[Deckard]

Zombie resurrect !!!

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned before - A500 Mini 115 quid on amazon - Getting good reviews across the board and can play extra games via side loading onto a USB stick



and comes with

"Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed: Special Edition'92
Another World
Arcade Pool
ATR: All Terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
California Games
The Chaos Engine
Dragons Breath
F-16 Combat Pilot
Kick Off 2
The Lost Patrol
Paradroid 90
Pinball Dreams
Project-X: Special Edition 93
Qwak
The Sentinel
Simon the Sorcerer
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Stunt Car Racer
Super Cars II
Titus The Fox: To Marrakech And Back
Worms: The Director's Cut
Zool: Ninja Of The "Nth" Dimension"

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/ ... c-editions

Good interview here with the creator too -

https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/08/a500-min ... -16427365/

and someone off amazon likes it this week

I have a couple of original A1200s, one heavily modded with flash storage/WHDLoad etc and one left completely stock. Problem with those though, is that they are a massive pain to get set up and you really need a lot of space too - not to mention that you need to look after delicate floppies on the stock one and your mileage using HDMI/scan doublers may highly vary.

Using this is completely different and *much* easier. It’s basically like having a modded A1200 with flash storage, WHDLoad and HDMI all sorted for you. It’s also robust enough to not worry about leaving it in the living room with a toddler about. There’s also the price which is unbelievable value - a fully modded real A1200 can easily cost you £1000 using parts sourced from eBay and elsewhere.

I highly recommend the A500 mini because it lets you experience all your favourite childhood games with a dash of modernity to help out. I’m looking forward to playing these games with my son when he’s old enough to show him what gaming used to be like.

[The ghost of raids past]

You would be much better off with a Pi 400 and Pimiga 2.0. Real keyboard and easily updateable. Other benefit is the Pi 400 is still in stock unlike the other Pi's

[Misfit]

I'm sure there are other threads where these have been mentioned.

You would be much better off with a Pi 400 and Pimiga 2.0. Real keyboard and easily updateable. Other benefit is the Pi 400 is still in stock unlike the other Pi's

Yes and no. Undoubtedly it is a superior solution, but not everyone has the time or can be bothered to get things like this working.

This is just plug and play.

I have a number of Pi projects I mean to get to, Picade mini arcade cabinet and a Sinden light gun being the main ones, but the time/faff even with ready made images is still holding me back. (So if anyone wants a sealed 10" Picade or a pretty much untouched light gun, give me a shout...)

Oh, and it looks like I'll soon have a Lumicube to gather dust. Must stop using Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... spberry-pi

[The ghost of raids past]

Pi-Miga is download and burn to a SD card. Put it in and its done. Hardly rocket science.

You get a working keyboard. a great curated Amiga setup including alot of Amiga Demos

[zip accident]

Zombie resurrect !!!

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned before - A500 Mini 115 quid on amazon - Getting good reviews across the board and can play extra games via side loading onto a USB stick

It was mentioned before:

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88991

At that time I at least was unaware of availability via Amazon.

There are about half a dozen games on that list I might be interested in, which is borderline for £115.

I am reading on Amazon that the keyboard works, is that correct? but you do need to buy a PSU for it?

[The ghost of raids past]

The Amiga Mini doesnt have a working keyboard. Amazon have published all sorts of Mini versions in the reviews section. Its powered by USB. Its essentially just a SOC running an amiga emulator.