Amiga Mini


vcoleiro1

vcoleiro1

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Well, I was just saying on another forum how nice it would be if someone were to develop an Amiga Mini , well it seems to be actually happening. And by non other than, Retro Games Ltd (Paul Andrews and co ie the team beinhd the C64 Mini)

Here's an Italian Article on it (sorry , you will have to Google translate it) : https://www.tomshw.it/amiga-mini-sogno-diventera-realta-88742

Here's some snippets

"Paul Andrews CEO of Retro Games ltd., Who chaired Koch Media's play station, told us that his company already has an agreement to develop an Amiga Mini "

"In April this year Amiga Inc. decided not to renew the rights to the Amiga brand; this event allowed Italian Cloanto to record historic brands in June . And it is with Cloanto that Retro Games ltd has reached an agreement to bring the Amiga mini to life: "Yes, we are working with Cloanto, the Italian company", Andrews told us."
 
If he pulls that off, I might buy it. If he goes for a Vega+ (The64 handheld-with-screen) I'd be all over it. But damn, this will have to be expensive. Emulating the miggy properly needs at least a Pi3 in ARM and even then it doesn't do a very good job on more demanding software. And I'd need at least the AGA chipset fully implemented to be satisfied. Oh, and a keyboard.
 
I would love to see a mini, maybe even handheld, Apple II of some sort. I guess if I don't want to modernize anything this wouldn't be too difficult to do, however I would want to use SD cards, and I would prefer it have enhanced IIe specs, plus the ability to overclock and such, and built in functionality of some of the better and more important cards. Probably a bunch of other little things.
 
ZXDunny said:
If he pulls that off, I might buy it. If he goes for a Vega+ (The64 handheld-with-screen) I'd be all over it. But damn, this will have to be expensive. Emulating the miggy properly needs at least a Pi3 in ARM and even then it doesn't do a very good job on more demanding software. And I'd need at least the AGA chipset fully implemented to be satisfied. Oh, and a keyboard.
Click to expand...

I was thinking they may use the same board as what they will/have developed for the C64 Mini. But that looks to use a SOC less powerfull than the one in the Pi 2.
 
pmprog said:
Is this before after they've done THE64 fullsize and handhelds?
Click to expand...
Sounds to be super early days, with only an agreement with the rights holder at this stage. So probably after THE64 fullsize and handhelds come out - youd hope anyway, othrwise the shit would hit the fan
 
vcoleiro1 said:
I was thinking they may use the same board as what they will/have developed for the C64 Mini. But that looks to use a SOC less powerfull than the one in the Pi 2.
Click to expand...

iirc (and it's been a while) the Vega SOC clocks in somewhere south of 400MHz, single core. I do know that they had trouble getting an accurate Speccy emulation to run on it, so they had to cut corners and disable some of the accuracy of the ULA emulation. There's no way that's gonna cut it for an Amiga emulation.
 
vcoleiro1 said:
Sounds to be super early days, with only an agreement with the rights holder at this stage. So probably after THE64 fullsize and handhelds come out - youd hope anyway, othrwise the shit would hit the fan
Click to expand...
Well, considering they've basically said "yeah, not sure when we'll look at the handhelds", announcing a new product line doesn't sound a great plan either.
Also, surely you'd actually wait until at least THEC64Mini was out there and actually selling first? I know the C64 and Amiga markets are slightly different, but still, it's market knowledge.

I'll probably wait for that standalone vampire for an Amiga, if I look at buying into an Amiga again. I'm also a bit less sure on buying into one of the C64 FPGA machines coming out (which is partly due to me wanting to learn FPGA development, and so far, I've not done very well).
 
I wish they'd deliver one product before announcing another.

And I'll just wait for a 1200 & stand-alone Vampire :)
 
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I have a laptop dedicated to running Amilator - basically a modern Amithlon. It's a GHz class Miggy with shitloads of RAM, HDD space and RTG :)
 
ZXDunny said:
I have a laptop dedicated to running Amilator - basically a modern Amithlon. It's a GHz class Miggy with shitloads of RAM, HDD space and RTG :)
Click to expand...
Wow, I'd never heard of that before. Thank you :)
 
If you're thinking of running this, I can recommend this thread: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=88707

Where the latest developments have been taking place. Currently there's some issues with the underlying Linux distro and a 20-floppy limitation in the disk swap list, but it's working very well indeed for me. Add in WHDLoad (from the EAB FTP server) and some wifi, and it's terrifically easy to get all the software you ever wanted on it.
 
I need to try and spend some time sorting out my "Amiga".
I created a disk image with my copy of WHDLoad and Workbench etc., but I can't remember what type of Amiga it was setup for, I'm pretty sure it it might have been an A500. So don't know if I should try and build a more modern one, though I don't know how that'd work with the older games?
.
 
Using WHDLoad mitigates most of the issues with older stuff not working on newer 3.1 ROM hardware. I'm running a super-A1200 here - GHz class 68040+FPU (no MMU for compatibility) with 1GB of FastRAM, 2MB Chip (compatibility again, as I run with JIT) and 128MB on the Gfx card. I have a complete set of system ROMs for WHDLoad to use to downgrade, too.

Running ADFs is a bit hit and miss as you're at the mercy of the current chipset etc, but WHDLoad as I said sorts that out for the vast majority of games. If you need any software, let me know.
 
Well , Cloanto would only be giving RGL a licence, and RGL would build it. Plus that Interview was pretty specific and quotes Andrews.

Then there is this on facebook, I asked Paul about it as per below - he's not exactly denying it:


Paul, I read an italian article that said you guys are working on a Amiga Mini. How's that coming along, and when might we see that? I know someone will ask, so here is the link to the story: https://www.tomshw.it/amiga-mini-sogno-diventera-realta...


Paul Andrews: One thing at a time! Good things come to those that wait so they say!!
.
 
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