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The Amiga 500 mini announced

Fredrik

Member
I can’t get over the lack of a joystick, I think they’ve missed the target there. It’s like only shipping a flight stick with a NES mini or only have a Dpad on an arcade machine. There is so much nostalgia lost when they don’t have the right input.

But on Raspberry Pi I use this so hopefully it’ll work here as well.

vsif0B5.jpg
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
For my fellow Australians, EB has preorders up:


Apparently EB listed all 25 games and then changed it back to 12. This is what they had listed according to another site:

Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed SE'92
Arcade Pool
Another World
ATR: All-terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
Cannon Fodder
Gods
Kick Off 2
Mego lo Mania
Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight
Pinball Dreams
Project-X SE'93
Qwak
Simon the Sorcerer
Slam-Tilt
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Super Cars II
SuperFrog
Super Stardust
The Chaos Engine
Worms: The Director's Cut
Zool: Ninja Of The 'nth Dimension
Be interesting to see how much RAM they are including on this thing. I know these days we are in the number of gigs that we use however it’s interesting to note Worms DC above as that needed 8mb RAM to work properly on the Amiga 1200 so I’ll be keen to see the ‘specs’ of each Amiga. If they are going standard 512k slow and 512k fast for the A500 that’s fine that’s what 99% of us has growing up.

To emulate A1200, thats 2mb chip (slow) RAM for starters and to run Worms DC like I say it needed 8mb fast RAM in addition. 4mb fast at a push it’ll still run but really needed 8mb.

Looking forward to getting more info.
 
I wonder what they'll move onto after this, I suppose they opt for a CD32 version which would essentially be this in a different shell as it was sort of based on the A1200 which is already covered here. It would be a strange move but I'm not sure that it's stranger than releasing the C64 and Vic20 which were essentially the same things in a different case. There's were and not the original machines, obviously.
I suppose they could possibly go the Atari ST way but I know that Atari is still messing around with the VCS and the cost of the license could be more prohibitive than the Commodore one.
I know there are loads of computers they could be interested in but I'm not sure how much of a market there could be for most of them. Obviously the Sharp X6800 would be an amazing choice for games but the entire OS is still Japanese only.
 

Aarbron

Member
For my fellow Australians, EB has preorders up:


Apparently EB listed all 25 games and then changed it back to 12. This is what they had listed according to another site:

Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed SE'92
Arcade Pool
Another World
ATR: All-terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
Cannon Fodder
Gods
Kick Off 2
Mego lo Mania
Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight
Pinball Dreams
Project-X SE'93
Qwak
Simon the Sorcerer
Slam-Tilt
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Super Cars II
SuperFrog
Super Stardust
The Chaos Engine
Worms: The Director's Cut
Zool: Ninja Of The 'nth Dimension
That is very tempting.

I‘m somewhat overflowing with Amigas though at the moment, so probably can‘t justify one:

Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260
Amiga 1200 with ACA 1230

Amiga 4000 with a custom modded accelator 68060 @80mhz
Amiga 2000 with 68060

Unboxed Amiga 2500…I should do an unboxing video o_O

and others….. ugh

yet … I want this :messenger_sad_relieved:
 

Bullet Club

Member
That is very tempting.

I‘m somewhat overflowing with Amigas though at the moment, so probably can‘t justify one:

Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260
Amiga 1200 with ACA 1230

Amiga 4000 with a custom modded accelator 68060 @80mhz
Amiga 2000 with 68060

Unboxed Amiga 2500…I should do an unboxing video o_O

and others….. ugh

yet … I want this :messenger_sad_relieved:
You've got some cool stuff.

And you should do an unboxing video!
 

Fredrik

Member
That is very tempting.

I‘m somewhat overflowing with Amigas though at the moment, so probably can‘t justify one:

Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260
Amiga 1200 with ACA 1230

Amiga 4000 with a custom modded accelator 68060 @80mhz
Amiga 2000 with 68060

Unboxed Amiga 2500…I should do an unboxing video o_O

and others….. ugh

yet … I want this :messenger_sad_relieved:
Wow that’s an awesome collection! 👌

I have a Amiga 500, the actual one I had back in my youth, still works. Extra memory is broken though.
And a modded A1200 with DVI out and internal Compact Flash card, old Blizzard-something turbo card. Always plugged in and ready for a spin! 👍
 

Fredrik

Member
What I can't get over is that the Amiga supported two button joysticks and controllers from day one, but Commodore decided to bundle a one button joystick as standard, as they were more common place.

Pressing a button to jump instead of Up would've made a huge difference to a lot of games.
Yeah the dual button joysticks are helpful, I have a few Wico joysticks I use a lot, a bit too loose for my taste but they’re built to cope with anything, super sturdy.

Regarding the joystick and controller controls. I’ve used controllers a lot through Raspberry Pi, and to me it always becomes worse than using joystick. You either jump by flicking the tiny analog stick up, or even worse dpad, or you have to set up different inputs for each game. In some games you jump up and in some you have regular 8-direction movement, then you can have smart bombs when rotating the stick and jump up and special moves when holding a button and left-up etc etc. It’s just complicated to get it to work for everything without hassle.

I absolutely understand that those who grew up with consoles prefer a controller though. Even in arcades you’re jumping with a button so up to jump isn’t exactly the norm, except on these old one button 8/16-bit computers.

But how many of young people are excited about old Amiga games?

I’m just thinking that for the real fans that play for more than a few hours it’ll end up like a Raspberry Pi in a mini Amiga casing and you’ll need a keyboard and joystick plugged in until you get it right.
 
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SpokkX

Member
Any idea of what the expected compability would be if you sideloaded games on this (it was mentioned this was possible)
For example Lemmings, Shadow of the beast comes to mind
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Don’t forget when you load SotB to hold down both mouse buttons and fire on the joystick until the prompt for disk two so you get infinite energy.

Jesus how the hell I remember these cheats.
 
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Fredrik

Member
Don’t forget when you load SotB to hold down both mouse buttons and fire on the joystick until the prompt for disk two so you get infinite energy.

Jesus how the hell I remember these cheats.
Cool didn’t know that, I just remember it as a pretty but absolutely impossible game! 😅

I do remember that you can type/say TEN PINTS to a dude at a bridge at the start of Shadow of the Beast 2 though. 👍
 

Bullet Club

Member
Here's some news about a possible A500 Maxi.




To answer 'that' question we are being asked over and over...
"Regarding the question being asked about a full-sized machine. This is something we've considering for sure, as per in the press release, THEA500 mini is the first in the planned THEA500 range, but as you're all aware, such a project is very expensive to develop let alone design and manufacture, not forgetting this is not being paid for in advance like a 'Kickstarter' project like some peer products, this is straight to retail. Thus we have followed the process we have with THEC64 range, and started with a more mass-market "mini" device that will reach a larger audience and perhaps introduce a whole new generation to the much loved home computer. If this is successful, and after the response we've had over the last few days we are sure it will be, then we will very definitely consider a full-sized release in one form or another. Though this will likely be some time away in the future, as in, after the release in 2022 of the mini of course. To answer the question further also its worth saying, in very rough figures, THEC64 mini has sold approximately 80% of the total volume of global sales so far for that range as opposed to 20% of volume of sales for the full sized version. So prior sales indicate the mini is the more popular option for most consumers, but we still do want to create full sized versions for that very sizable 20% of you as well! So basically yes is the answer, as soon as practical!"
 

rnlval

Member
Be interesting to see how much RAM they are including on this thing. I know these days we are in the number of gigs that we use however it’s interesting to note Worms DC above as that needed 8mb RAM to work properly on the Amiga 1200 so I’ll be keen to see the ‘specs’ of each Amiga. If they are going standard 512k slow and 512k fast for the A500 that’s fine that’s what 99% of us has growing up.

To emulate A1200, thats 2mb chip (slow) RAM for starters and to run Worms DC like I say it needed 8mb fast RAM in addition. 4mb fast at a push it’ll still run but really needed 8mb.

Looking forward to getting more info.
WHDload support needs extra memory storage. Note why TerribleFire 534 (68030 CPU) accelerator with 4MB fast ram** was stupid.

**Amiga's CPU fast ram terminology would be PC CPU's system ram.
 
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rnlval

Member
That is very tempting.

I‘m somewhat overflowing with Amigas though at the moment, so probably can‘t justify one:

Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260
Amiga 1200 with ACA 1230

Amiga 4000 with a custom modded accelator 68060 @80mhz
Amiga 2000 with 68060

Unboxed Amiga 2500…I should do an unboxing video o_O

and others….. ugh

yet … I want this :messenger_sad_relieved:

I have the following classic Amiga hardware

Amiga 1200 rev 1.D1 with TerribleFire 1260 i.e. full 68060 rev 1 @ 63 Mhz and 128 MB fast ram version.

Amiga 500 rev 6 with Wicher 508 i.e. 60HC000 @ 50 Mhz and 11 MB fast ram. I have a spare 68LC060 rev 4 CPU that can reach 75 Mhz.

MiniA500 is cute.
 

Fredrik

Member
I have the following classic Amiga hardware

Amiga 1200 rev 1.D1 with TerribleFire 1260 i.e. full 68060 rev 1 @ 63 Mhz and 128 MB fast ram version.

Amiga 500 rev 6 with Wicher 508 i.e. 60HC000 @ 50 Mhz and 11 MB fast ram. I have a spare 68LC060 rev 4 CPU that can reach 75 Mhz.

MiniA500 is cute.
That’s wild! 10 times the original clock! 😮

I have this old lil guy

olOoivE.jpg



8pgsP8b.jpg


No 68060 but still capable enough to cope with just about everything.
I had a ACA1232 as well but never got it stable, apparently it was incompatible with certain motherboards. There were fixes online where they said which resistors you should change and I did all that but it just threw me a black screen, so I bought this Blizzard card instead and it has been smooth sailing since then.
 

rnlval

Member
That’s wild! 10 times the original clock! 😮

I have this old lil guy






No 68060 but still capable enough to cope with just about everything.
I had a ACA1232 as well but never got it stable, apparently it was incompatible with certain motherboards. There were fixes online where they said which resistors you should change and I did all that but it just threw me a black screen, so I bought this Blizzard card instead and it has been smooth sailing since then.
For accelerators from ACA and TF on some A1200 motherboards, a timing fix needs to be applied. Blizzard accelerators have mitigation fixes for some A1200s with extra filter caps.

I have applied the timing fix for my A1200 since it was easy to do i.e. desolder E123C and E125C filter caps. Commodore has issued technical bulletins to remove extra filter caps.

There are two timing fix methods depending on motherboard revision. I followed the advice from TF designers. I also upgraded PSU to provide about 26 watts per power rail. LOL.
 
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Fredrik

Member
For accelerators from ACA and TF on some A1200 motherboards, a timing fix needs to be applied which removes two filter caps i.e. E123C and E125C. Blizzard accelerators have mitigation fixes for some A1200s with extra filter caps.

I have applied the timing fix for my A1200 since it was easy to do i.e. desolder two filter caps. Commodore has issued technical bulletins to remove extra filter caps.

There are two-timing fix methods depending on motherboard revision.
I never got that working, instant black screen, can’t swear it was the same components though, it was long ago, or maybe I just messed up. Do you have a link to a working guide?
I upgraded the PSU too, it was said to be too weak for the upgrades.

The Blizzard card has worked great though.
 

rnlval

Member
I never got that working, instant black screen, can’t swear it was the same components though, it was long ago, or maybe I just messed up. Do you have a link to a working guide?
I upgraded the PSU too, it was said to be too weak for the upgrades.

The Blizzard card has worked great though.
My A1200's timing fix instruction was from https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/v...sid=a4c7ec420c28d1f6f7ff870db7674b80&start=10

They need to be capacitors.

For ACA, http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA1233n#possible_required_board_modifications
Internal memos from Commodore are available that clearly say to remove capacitors E123C and E125C for any version of the Budgie chip, yet, you can find lots of boards out there that have these capacitors assembled. Less often, but at least as severe, some boards have capacitors E121C and E122C assembled.

ACA1233n, ACA1221ec and ACA1221lc have implemented special logic that can handle most of the timing errors caused by wrong assembly of the A1200 main board.

--------

Your ACA1232 doesn't include timing mitigation like on ACA1233n.
 
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sunnysideup

Banned
i have an amiga 500+ with aca 500

and an amiga 1200 with aca 1220 ec.

Imo if you want to get into real classic amiga. amiga 500 with aca 500 is the way to go.
 

Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
i have an amiga 500+ with aca 500

and an amiga 1200 with aca 1220 ec.

Imo if you want to get into real classic amiga. amiga 500 with aca 500 is the way to go.
Got em all brah, well me dad did. If I can engage my brain for longer than five minutes I could set them up :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

rnlval

Member
i have an amiga 500+ with aca 500

and an amiga 1200 with aca 1220 ec.

Imo if you want to get into real classic amiga. amiga 500 with aca 500 is the way to go.
ACA 500's Amiga 1200 CPU card connector for Amiga 500 is interesting since I have a spare 68LC060 CPU. Attaching another TF1260 with Amiga 500+ACA500p would be interesting. LOL
 

Fredrik

Member
My A1200's timing fix instruction was from https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/v...sid=a4c7ec420c28d1f6f7ff870db7674b80&start=10

They need to be capacitors.

For ACA, http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA1233n#possible_required_board_modifications
Internal memos from Commodore are available that clearly say to remove capacitors E123C and E125C for any version of the Budgie chip, yet, you can find lots of boards out there that have these capacitors assembled. Less often, but at least as severe, some boards have capacitors E121C and E122C assembled.

ACA1233n, ACA1221ec and ACA1221lc have implemented special logic that can handle most of the timing errors caused by wrong assembly of the A1200 main board.

--------

Your ACA1232 doesn't include timing mitigation like on ACA1233n.
Thanks a ton! I have to look into that.
 

Monokrom

Member
Yeah i pre-ordered one. I need to go back to my youth. :)
Games I'll be playing are:

Panza Kickboxing
Ports Of Call
Oil Imperium
Genesia
Great Giana Sisters
Rise Of The Dragon
IK+
It Came From The Desert
Lemmings
Lost Vikings
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 1&2
Mega lo Mania
North & South
Nuclear War
Railroad Tycoon
 

MrA

Banned
Now this is an exciting product, I have no experience with the amiga, for both the good (look forward to trying the best exclusives/only shared with atari st games) and trying weird ports to the amiga, I don't care if it's trash I want to try amiga castlevania. .. as long as I can map up to the second button
Love that the controller is a cd32 pd
I'd like to see an eventual atari falcon mini as well (complete with blue and grey jag pad)
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Yeah i pre-ordered one. I need to go back to my youth. :)
Games I'll be playing are:

Panza Kickboxing
Ports Of Call
Oil Imperium
Genesia
Great Giana Sisters
Rise Of The Dragon
IK+
It Came From The Desert
Lemmings
Lost Vikings
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 1&2
Mega lo Mania
North & South
Nuclear War
Railroad Tycoon
Just be mindful that the ADFs of Railroad Tycoon that are out there didn’t have the copy protection removed correctly so whilst you can pick any train and it will say congratulations, when you are playing the game you’ll only be able to have 2 trains max on the map as it wasn’t done properly.

My advice get the non-cracked ADFs and a PDF of the trains so when the protection check comes up you’ll be able to carry on playing.
 

Monokrom

Member
Just be mindful that the ADFs of Railroad Tycoon that are out there didn’t have the copy protection removed correctly so whilst you can pick any train and it will say congratulations, when you are playing the game you’ll only be able to have 2 trains max on the map as it wasn’t done properly.

My advice get the non-cracked ADFs and a PDF of the trains so when the protection check comes up you’ll be able to carry on playing.
Aha, was not aware of that. Thanks for the heads up.
 

rnlval

Member
That’s wild! 10 times the original clock! 😮

I have this old lil guy

olOoivE.jpg



8pgsP8b.jpg


No 68060 but still capable enough to cope with just about everything.
I had a ACA1232 as well but never got it stable, apparently it was incompatible with certain motherboards. There were fixes online where they said which resistors you should change and I did all that but it just threw me a black screen, so I bought this Blizzard card instead and it has been smooth sailing since then.
My A1200 with TF1260's 68060 rev 1 @ 62.5 Mhz CPU.

PS; TF1260's firmware is in beta, hence SysInfo's Chip Speed vs A600's result is lower.
SIHWKFC.jpg

vaROQqf.jpg


PS; This particular DELL U2410 monitor can support Amiga's 15 kHz refresh rate via the VGA port.
 
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Castef

Banned
Also, consider that several games published towards the end of the Amiga commercial life were nothing short of amazing.

Like:
Lionheart




Ruff’n Tumble




Banshee




Fightin Spirits




Super Skidmarks



Mr. Nutz

 
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Fredrik

Member
I know there has been rereleases but don’t forget about Turrican, still have it with me 31 years later and it’s still awesome! 👌
w6idw3U.jpg

fHd1RM2.jpg

Sorry about my mess
This is played on a Pi4, with joystick through Retronic Design dsub to usb adapter, works great but it obviously looks bad compared to having a baby A500 sitting beside the real A1200 here 😋
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Also, consider that several games published towards the end of the Amiga commercial life were nothing short of amazing.

Like:
Lionheart




Ruff’n Tumble




Banshee




Fightin Spirits




Super Skidmarks



Mr. Nutz


Amiga was never big in Canada. I dont remember one guy in school even having one. Some C64s though in the mid 80s. And one kid had a Vic 20.

But by the late 80s/early 90s, everyone had either a clone PC or a Genesis or SNES for gaming. Most gamers ditched their NES by then. T-16 was dead here too.

Amazing seeing these Amiga games and how close they are to Genesis games.
 
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rnlval

Member
Both used the 68k CPU. A lot of EA's early Genesis/Mega Drive releases were Amiga ports, stuff like The Immortal, Powermonger etc.
Both Mega Drive and Amiga specifically share 68000 CPUs. 68000 (32-bit registers, 16 bit ALU, 16 bit external) closest PC equivalent is 386SX (32-bit registers, 32 bit ALU, 16-bit external frontside bus) running around 7 to 8 Mhz.

Amiga 1200 has 68EC020 CPU which has 32-bit registers, 32 bit ALU, and 32-bit frontside bus.

For Doom, Commodore didn't officially release 68030/68EC030 @ 50 Mhz or 68LC040 @ 25 Mhz CPU card for A1200.

68030 @ 50 Mhz ~= 80386DX2 @ 66 Mhz (68EC030 has no MMU)
68LC040 @ 25 Mhz ~=80486SX @ 25Mhz
 
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Fredrik

Member
Amiga was never big in Canada. I dont remember one guy in school even having one. Some C64s though in the mid 80s. And one kid had a Vic 20.

But by the late 80s/early 90s, everyone had either a clone PC or a Genesis or SNES for gaming. Most gamers ditched their NES by then. T-16 was dead here too.

Amazing seeing these Amiga games and how close they are to Genesis games.
Can’t speak for the whole Sweden but where I grew up everybody had a Commodore 64, it was way more popular than NES and I only knew one person with a Mastersystem.

Amiga 500 came before Megadrive and wasn’t actually too far off technically. At my place the Amiga was again a lot more popular, at first, but I didn’t know anyone with an Amiga 1200 and by the time SNES was out in 1992 most people moved to Megadrive, SNES or PC.

And the early era of CD games mostly passed by like a sour fart in the wind, I’ve still never played on an original CD-i, CDTV or CD32, just through emulators.

It’s fun thinking back on all this, seems like there was so much happening at that time, more hardware makers doing unique things.
 

Fredrik

Member
Wolfchild (A500/A600)

Cool I’ve never seen this, reminds me of Hollow Knight’s lower levels at the level in 10:40 with the bugs moving in walls and worms crossing the path. Awful running animation but otherwise it looks great.
 
I know there has been rereleases but don’t forget about Turrican, still have it with me 31 years later and it’s still awesome! 👌
w6idw3U.jpg

fHd1RM2.jpg

Sorry about my mess
This is played on a Pi4, with joystick through Retronic Design dsub to usb adapter, works great but it obviously looks bad compared to having a baby A500 sitting beside the real A1200 here 😋
mint , turrican was awesome , shadow of the beast , etc...man i nearly started a list then... haha.

great times.
 
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