Thanks, that was a nice write up. I wanted to buy the msxonchip fpga box but this MiST looks actually more interesting. I started out with a PC, then C64, then MSX-2, Amiga, then PC (and SparcStation) again. So this would be great to play with! And EvilDragon sells them which is also good.
There's the MiSTer too, which on paper at least looks more appealing. The problem with these devices is that FPGA development knowledge is rare, so the dev community is quite small.
Thanks! this popped up in my google news feed on saturday, but I was theme parking with the kids and didn't get a chance to read it. then it disappeared from my feed. forever. ;) nice to see it here!
Like you, I was equally disappointed with how CBM treated the amiga from a marketing/R&D perspective though I at least had an A500 from sometime arount late '89. I always wanted an A1200 once it was announced, but could never make the numbers stack up. Then CBM went to the wall, then I went to uni and just watched the whole tragedy circus unfold from my first couple years of an EE degree...
I finally picked up a real A1200 a few years ago when a friend gave me his and it lines up nicely with my teen-hood A500 and an A600 which I got for cheap just before the prices went ballistic (thanks Vampire!)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxxpvfkHj9m/ <- the 3 of them together
I think the 600 was the only one that made economical sense back then, but the PC overtook it really quickly especially when SVGA became a thing for games :|
Oh, I forgot about that one. That was annoying as hell - having a game otherwise by luck or design working perfectly on the newer hardware, the newer software (Kickstart version) but then failing because one could not hit something on the numerical keyboard.
Nice takes me back to when I worked for Prestel / Telecom gold in the UK and was one of the thirdline unofficial Amiga support team - we got asked when the actual help desk got stuck.
I recall debugging a problem on some revs of the 500 that caused problems logging on to either Prestel or TG (cant recall which).
I also sometimes used my Amiga at home to login when I was WFH
Definitely cool to see things like this... While I tend to prefer emulation over legacy hardware approaches, it's very cool to see these kinds of things. I'm a bit of a fan of legacy tech, and online BBSes and the ANSi/Ascii art scenes today. A lot of it is now on Facebook more than the BBSes still alive. The way Twitter, FB and YT have headed, I'd be surprised not to see more users on more classic independent sites and irc more and more.
Neat! I like tutorials which give people reasonable options and don't assume readers know everything.
The MiST is a nice idea, but until any FPGA implementation can emulate an m68k MMU, I'll be running the real thing. I use my Amiga to compile m68k NetBSD packages.
Catalog files are basically man(ual) pages. They're documentation. Considering the size and cost of modern storage, it wouldn't hurt to install them.
Very nice. I didn't know about the Mist box and now I want one :)
As a former owner of a few Amigas (500, 1000), part of me wants one now, and the other part is worried that using one now will spoil the memory.
Post author here, let me know if you have any questions! I think the ESP8266 can also get other devices online, but haven't tried it.
Thanks, that was a nice write up. I wanted to buy the msxonchip fpga box but this MiST looks actually more interesting. I started out with a PC, then C64, then MSX-2, Amiga, then PC (and SparcStation) again. So this would be great to play with! And EvilDragon sells them which is also good.
There's the MiSTer too, which on paper at least looks more appealing. The problem with these devices is that FPGA development knowledge is rare, so the dev community is quite small.
Thanks! this popped up in my google news feed on saturday, but I was theme parking with the kids and didn't get a chance to read it. then it disappeared from my feed. forever. ;) nice to see it here!
Like you, I was equally disappointed with how CBM treated the amiga from a marketing/R&D perspective though I at least had an A500 from sometime arount late '89. I always wanted an A1200 once it was announced, but could never make the numbers stack up. Then CBM went to the wall, then I went to uni and just watched the whole tragedy circus unfold from my first couple years of an EE degree... I finally picked up a real A1200 a few years ago when a friend gave me his and it lines up nicely with my teen-hood A500 and an A600 which I got for cheap just before the prices went ballistic (thanks Vampire!) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxxpvfkHj9m/ <- the 3 of them together
I think the 600 was the only one that made economical sense back then, but the PC overtook it really quickly especially when SVGA became a thing for games :|
But the A500 could still be had in retail, and it was the same as the A600, only a bit bulkier. But with more peripherals.
...and a full keyboard that meant all games made for the OCS/ECS still worked ;)
Oh, I forgot about that one. That was annoying as hell - having a game otherwise by luck or design working perfectly on the newer hardware, the newer software (Kickstart version) but then failing because one could not hit something on the numerical keyboard.
Nice takes me back to when I worked for Prestel / Telecom gold in the UK and was one of the thirdline unofficial Amiga support team - we got asked when the actual help desk got stuck.
I recall debugging a problem on some revs of the 500 that caused problems logging on to either Prestel or TG (cant recall which).
I also sometimes used my Amiga at home to login when I was WFH
Great read, thank you! I have an old Atari 600XL I was looking to get online using the same method. One of these days I will make the time.
Definitely cool to see things like this... While I tend to prefer emulation over legacy hardware approaches, it's very cool to see these kinds of things. I'm a bit of a fan of legacy tech, and online BBSes and the ANSi/Ascii art scenes today. A lot of it is now on Facebook more than the BBSes still alive. The way Twitter, FB and YT have headed, I'd be surprised not to see more users on more classic independent sites and irc more and more.
Neat! I like tutorials which give people reasonable options and don't assume readers know everything.
The MiST is a nice idea, but until any FPGA implementation can emulate an m68k MMU, I'll be running the real thing. I use my Amiga to compile m68k NetBSD packages.
Catalog files are basically man(ual) pages. They're documentation. Considering the size and cost of modern storage, it wouldn't hurt to install them.
Yes, I'd love an FPGA device that can simulate a 68060 with an MMU! Or just an affordable way to run AmigaOS 4.1 on PowerPC :|
Very nice. I didn't know about the Mist box and now I want one :) As a former owner of a few Amigas (500, 1000), part of me wants one now, and the other part is worried that using one now will spoil the memory.
also check out that actually-available-right-now version MiSTer which uses an off the shelf FPGA dev board as it's core
Not sure about the MiSTer board, but for the MiST make sure you don't get the "newer" 1.4 since it lacks the serial port to make this work!