
Amiga 600 FPGA Conversion - erickhill
https://amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=636
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eboyjr
It’s been a good amount of time for me seeing custom mouse cursors (maybe
since the days of MySpace). Very fitting. Thanks for taking me back,
amigalove.com

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function_seven
I used to spend ungodly amounts of time making my own cursors in the
Preferences page in Workbench 1.3.

I was a terrible designer when I was 8. My creations were usually a large box
with an “X” connecting the corners, and the hotspot in the center. Hot pink,
electric blue, and bright yellow where the 3 colors I settled on.

My Amiga 1000 handled all my computing for a decade, and it was _still_ a
downgrade in 1995 when I begrudgingly switched to a 486.

~~~
mvexel
> My Amiga 1000 handled all my computing for a decade, and it was still a
> downgrade in 1995 when I begrudgingly switched to a 486.

Yes. Many Amiga owners I knew, and I myself, felt that way when it became
clear around 1993-4 that the Amiga's future was not looking bright. I had
invested quite a bit into my A1200 setup (HD disk drives, 68030+68882,
MacGyvery external HD using a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE cable) and it could do most
things I needed and wanted to do. But the need to collaborate with fellow
students on papers, projects (SPSS, AutoCAD) drove me to get a (admittedly low
end) 286 PC. I hated it, but it got the job done. I kept my Amiga around for
many years after that, and used it, mostly for gaming, well into the 2000s. I
finally got rid of it only fairly recently when I moved abroad. I tried Amiga
gaming on emulators, but not having a native joystick (Suzo Arcade!) makes
that no fun whatsoever.

~~~
snvzz
>But the need to collaborate with fellow students on papers, projects (SPSS,
AutoCAD) drove me to get a (admittedly low end) 286 PC.

Considering your Amiga's specs, couldn't PCTask or some other PC emu have done
the job?

~~~
MagerValp
While CPU speed was okay-ish with the software emulators, graphics performance
was underwhelming. You also had to suffer interlace for the high resolution
modes.

~~~
snvzz
>You also had to suffer interlace for the high resolution modes.

1200/AGA should have the double-scan (31KHz-ish) "productivity" modes. VGA
monitors work just fine with these. The graphiti would have offered chunky
modes (vs bitplanes) from AGA, for major performance improvement. Else, Amiga
video cards generally do chunky.

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LeoPanthera
I've always loved the computer-in-a-keyboard format of 80s home computers.

Are there any PC cases available today for home build PCs where the PC and the
keyboard are one unit?

~~~
ekianjo
> Are there any PC cases available today for home build PCs where the PC and
> the keyboard are one unit?

Laptops are like that :) You could just remove the screen off a laptop and
connect with the video out.

More seriously there are things like that:
[https://www.cybernetman.com/en/keyboard-
pc](https://www.cybernetman.com/en/keyboard-pc)

~~~
LeoPanthera
Haha well yes, I suppose I described a laptop, but really I was looking for a
case I could put my own components into, so I could make something workstation
class.

~~~
rpiguy
Commodore c64x was just such a case, but they go for 300 dollars or more now.

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stesch
I programmed my first BBS on an Amiga 500 with 2 disk drives. Those were the
times.

~~~
klippoteket
With the Amiga 500 I as a teenager learnt assembler - which was mostly about
controlling hardware (graphics, disc drive, sound, etc.). It gave me a solid
foundation in understanding bits and bytes, hex and octal. And last but not
least, as a programmer always make programs fast and memory efficient. Today
we always assume there is a lot of memory. Back then we were counting bytes
and processor cycles.

It would be beneficial for the whole computer industry if every programmer get
a year where they have to develope under similar constraints as we were under.

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wanderfowl
This is excellent, and these sorts of projects are wonderful to see, as
they're nice reminders that although our modern computing tools are more
powerful, there's much to be learned from studying the past.

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stesch
Amiga Fever infects all!

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klippoteket
Respect! Amiga rulez! Awesome project!

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unixhero
Can I buy it?

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hotdog97
The MiSTer FPGA project is fun and easy to get started with.

You need:

1\. The FPGA board from Terasic (Linux ARM host, has USB, HDMI) for $130

[https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/terasic-
inc/P0496/...](https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/terasic-
inc/P0496/P0496-ND/6817231)

2\. To run the cores for the vast majority of supported systems you need a
custom 32 MB SDRAM board. For timing reasons the DDR3 memory on the FPGA board
can't be used.

[https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/SDRAM-
Board](https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/SDRAM-Board)

I bought mine for about $30 from someone in the MiSTer forum - there are a
bunch of hobbyists that sell them there.

3\. Some of the more complex cores (Amiga etc) need a custom IO board (VGA, SD
card slot, etc):

[https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/IO-
Board](https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/IO-Board)

This one also seems to go for around $30 in the forum.

~~~
snarfy
As far as emulation goes, how is this better/different than running an
emulator on my pc or raspberry pi? I really want one for the cool factor but
am unsure of how practical it is. FPGA dev sounds fun.

~~~
raphlinus
Emulators add a lot of extra latency, both on input and on display. Actually
it isn't so much the emulator as the host os, with its compositor etc. An FPGA
has the possibility of running with dramatically better latency. Similar
issues go for startup time.

~~~
Jaruzel
Currently though, FPGA emulation of the Amiga hardware isn't 100% perfect (but
good enough for almost all tasks).

Also, last time I checked, it also doesn't have AGA support yet, so there's no
proper Amiga 1200 or 4000 emulation just yet.

The FPGA Amiga stuff is all open-source, so hopefully the emulation will get
there eventually.

~~~
MagerValp
Both the MiniMig and FPGA Arcade cores support AGA these days.

