Amiga 600 FPGA (MiSTer) Conversion
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2018 8:28 pm
This was a tough build. Lots of measuring and 3D printing and recycling of said 3D prints.
Preface: I do these projects because I like doing them. They are not necessarily economical. If you're looking for a cheap FPGA Amiga, this is not it.
That said, a couple of months ago I ran across the MiSTer FPGA project spearheaded by sorgelig. This project is based on the Terasic DE10-Nano board which has a decent sized Altera Cyclone FPGA paired with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU. Sorgelig has designed a number of add-on boards that allow the DE10 to interface with additional devices. He also has ported (and improved) many cores for this board, including the Minimig-AGA core which provides a very nice recreation of the Amiga from a 500 to a 1200.
After buying a DE10 and getting the Minimig-AGA core running on it, I was immediately infatuated with the quality of "emulation" on this thing. It felt much more complete than the UAE4ARM and Amiberry emulators and the video quality looked much nicer. Not to mention, the near-instant power on (and off) felt more like a real Amiga. Following in the footsteps of my previous Raspberry Pi conversions, I decided to convert an Amiga 600 to FPGA as the 600 case fits so nicely on my desk.
I bought an empty 600 case off of eBay, a keyboard from Amibay, a Tynemouth Software A600 keyboard interface, a Zero4U USB hub, and a bunch of other parts and doodads. My goal with these conversions is to never compromise the original case. Staying within that tradition, I have designed several brackets to fit all these parts without modifying the original case -- all parts snap-in and then the electronics screw into those parts.
There is only 1 more thing I want to do: add wi-fi. I have a USB wi-fi dongle, but the USB hub needs power to run it. In a week or so, the plan is to split the incoming DC power and route 5v to the USB hub to power that dongle. Then my "Amiga" can BBS like it's 1986.
The result is what you see in the pictures. A kick-ass Amiga in FPGA masquerading as a 600. If you're interested in the details, let me know! I'm happy to share the 3D files at no charge. I hope you enjoy!
The guts...
...and up close. The Tynemouth adapter allows the keyboard to interface. The power, HDD, and floppy LEDs all work connected to the DE10.
The floppy drive houses the micro SD card for the DE10 for easy removal and servicing.
Case on! A modern twist: I used USB instead of DB9 for mouse and joystick.
Rear ports from left to right: HDMI, MiSTer On Screen Display (OSD) button, power switch, 5v DC barrel jack input.
All ports get covered, even the PCMCIA slot.
DotC FTW!
Preface: I do these projects because I like doing them. They are not necessarily economical. If you're looking for a cheap FPGA Amiga, this is not it.
That said, a couple of months ago I ran across the MiSTer FPGA project spearheaded by sorgelig. This project is based on the Terasic DE10-Nano board which has a decent sized Altera Cyclone FPGA paired with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU. Sorgelig has designed a number of add-on boards that allow the DE10 to interface with additional devices. He also has ported (and improved) many cores for this board, including the Minimig-AGA core which provides a very nice recreation of the Amiga from a 500 to a 1200.
After buying a DE10 and getting the Minimig-AGA core running on it, I was immediately infatuated with the quality of "emulation" on this thing. It felt much more complete than the UAE4ARM and Amiberry emulators and the video quality looked much nicer. Not to mention, the near-instant power on (and off) felt more like a real Amiga. Following in the footsteps of my previous Raspberry Pi conversions, I decided to convert an Amiga 600 to FPGA as the 600 case fits so nicely on my desk.
I bought an empty 600 case off of eBay, a keyboard from Amibay, a Tynemouth Software A600 keyboard interface, a Zero4U USB hub, and a bunch of other parts and doodads. My goal with these conversions is to never compromise the original case. Staying within that tradition, I have designed several brackets to fit all these parts without modifying the original case -- all parts snap-in and then the electronics screw into those parts.
There is only 1 more thing I want to do: add wi-fi. I have a USB wi-fi dongle, but the USB hub needs power to run it. In a week or so, the plan is to split the incoming DC power and route 5v to the USB hub to power that dongle. Then my "Amiga" can BBS like it's 1986.
The result is what you see in the pictures. A kick-ass Amiga in FPGA masquerading as a 600. If you're interested in the details, let me know! I'm happy to share the 3D files at no charge. I hope you enjoy!
The guts...
...and up close. The Tynemouth adapter allows the keyboard to interface. The power, HDD, and floppy LEDs all work connected to the DE10.
The floppy drive houses the micro SD card for the DE10 for easy removal and servicing.
Case on! A modern twist: I used USB instead of DB9 for mouse and joystick.
Rear ports from left to right: HDMI, MiSTer On Screen Display (OSD) button, power switch, 5v DC barrel jack input.
All ports get covered, even the PCMCIA slot.