Hardware : FPGA Amigas

Introduction

A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing – hence the term "field-programmable" (from Wiki). In the Amiga world, FPGA have been used to make new accelerator cards to complete replication of the original Amiga chipsets. This page will only focus on the complete replication system that have been made in the Amiga world.

Vampire V4 / UnAmiga / MiSTer / NanoMig&PocketStorm 20k / AmiCube F1200 / Mini Mig

Apollo V4 (Vampire)

There has been a real buzz in the Amiga community over the latest FPGA Amiga, Vampire V4, now renamed Apollo v4. Its not just another reinterpretation of Amiga hardware, but more like what the next classic Amiga might have been had it continued to be developed. Designed to be both an accelerator for classic Amigas, A500, A600, A1200 etc or an independent device. The unit features a 68080 CPU (a concept of what the next motorola 68000 series processors could be) that can power the classic Amiga much faster than any old accelerator could, around 120 times faster than the A1200. The graphics have also been improved with what's been called Super-AGA, this allows the system to display full AGA graphics support but also adds extra features like up to 12mb of Chip Ram, faster Blitter and Copper support, faster ram access, video accelerated hardware and HDMI support, full specs below.

Apollo 68080 CPU
Performance is application dependent: up to ~ 1000 MHz 68030 / 500 MHz 68040 / 250 MHz 68060 speed
512 MB DDR3 memory
Dual Flash chips
FastKick
Super-AGA GFX Core: Truecolor DIGITAL VIDEO OUT
FastIDE/CompactFlash controller 13 MB/s
SDcard for data exchange
USB
RJ45 100BaseTX Ethernet
Expansion ports (e.g. Wifi Module)
£549.99

The system can run AmigaOs 3.1/3.1.6 and 3.2. But due to legal issues of supplying the system with the Roms, the Apollo team decided to support and develop there own fork of Aros 68k with there own OS named ApolloOS. Find out more about the OS here.

http://www.apollo-computer.com/ - Official site

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php - Forum

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1426384837419519 - Facebook Page

https://www.apollo-accelerators.com/ - old Official site

http://wiki.apollo-accelerators.com/doku.php/start - Wiki

https://amigacoffin.com/ - Apollo OS / Coffin OS designed for Vampire boards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRr74v2tPzM - Video about the history of Vampire v4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6VyEMoAaY - Video about Apollo Accelerators

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UnAmiga

The UnAmiga A500 header was designed to fit inside a real A500 or a Checkmate 1500 case. The header outputs all the required signals from the FPGA to convert your empty case into a fully working A500 020 with AGA. This new version has been completely redesigned from the ground up. Now includes a 24 bit video DAC and a 10 bit i2s audio DAC. The sound quality is beyond the original Amiga. FPGA board, SD card and power supply included with the header. A new UnAmiga ITX version came out to support the ITX Checkmate mini case.

Specifications:

FPGA Board Included.
24bit videodac to output VGA 15khz/31khz output (depends on the core).
Power plug vía JACK or via MICROUSB B.
Power switch.
MicroSD reader.
14bit I2S audiodac to output 3.5mm audio jack and Dual stereo RCA jacks.
One amiga Joystick port and one Amiga Mouse port (DB9).
External PS2 Keyboard and Mouse available.
ESP8266 port for serial connection header (esp8266 not included).
Floppy buzzer.
HDD, FDD and POWERLED output.
A500 keyboard connector (you can use your original A500 keyboard with this board).
SoftLatch circuit for the CheckMate 1500 case.
SD card with software included for free.
From £165 to £280 (Depends on the version ITX/A500)

Amiga Core Specs:

68020 AGA Core
2MB of chip ram.
20 MB of fast ram.
Floppy emulation via ADF’s (two floppies available)
HardDrive Emulation via HDF’s (two files can be set up to two drives).

https://github.com/benitoss/UnAmiga - Github home page

http://www.forofpga.es/ - Spanish FPGA Forum

https://www.checkmate1500plus.com/Products.aspx?id=364 - UnAmiga ITX details and videos

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MiST / MiSTer / MiSTerPi

The MiST board was original designed to implement classic 16 bit computers like the Amiga, Atari ST(E) or the Apple Macintosh (and even early 32 bit computers like the Acorn Archimedes) as a System-on-a-Chip using modern hardware. But the system abilities were soon expanded to support 8-bit systems like the Atari 800/XL, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, C64, Atari VCS, Atari 5200, Colecovision, Apple II, Sega Master System, Nintendo Gameboy, Nintendo NES, Odyssey2 plus others. Of course, it expanded to the 16 bit console systems such as SNES, Genesis/Megadrive, PC Engine are also supported. The system also supports over 100 Arcade games! The project expanded way beyond its original goal and so a more expandable and much more powerful version came along, MISTer, this allowed much more powerful and high spec systems to be run on the FPGA.

Original Mist

Altera Cyclone EP3C25 FPGA
32 Megabytes 16 bit wide SDR SDRAM
AT91SAM7S56 ARM IO controller
MAX3421E USB host controller
TUSB2046 USB HUB
1 x Analog VGA output with 3*6 bits colour depth
1 x Stereo analog audio jack 3,5mm
1 x SD Card Slot
4 x USB (for keyboards, mouses, joysticks...)
2 x Classic joystick connectors (Atari\'s specification DB9: Amiga, Atari, Amstrad, C64, etc)
3 x LEDs (Power, FPGA and IO Controller)
3 x Push buttons (Board Reset, Menu, Core defined)
1 x Micro USB connector for power supply and IO Controller flash update
1 x Power Switch

MiSTer

Altera Cyclone V with two ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores / DE10 Nano board
1GB of DDR3 SDRAM,
HDMI out
a microSD card slot
a USB-A port,
Ethernet connectivity
GIO pins
£150 to £500 for complete set up kits

The best thing about MiSTer is it expandability thanks to the GIOP Pins, you can add different kind of boards for different project, like adding WiFi, Bluetooth support, Original 9 Pin Joypad port, VGA out, more USB port etc. This system could run up to PlayStation 1 and Sega Saturn era consoles. The Amiga core can support all Amigas,

MiSTerPi

MiSTer has been growing in popularity in the Emulation community for its range of system it could support and accuracy of system it could do over emulation system. However cost and availability of the system was only going up and more difficult, so Taki Udon decided to look into making a cheaper version. Dub the MiSTerPi (not to be confused with Raspberry Pi and it is kinda odd he did this, I guess for the low cost links maybe?) the MiSTerPi is based on cheaper FPGA chip, but designed to be 100% compatible with MiSTer cores. Find a review of the system here

Find out more on the below links

https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki - Git Hub Home page

https://misterfpga.org/ - MiSTer FPGA Forum

https://misterfpga.co.uk/ - MiSTer Shop (uk)

https://retroremake.co/pages/store - MiSTer Pi Store

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiSTerFPGA/ - Reddit Discussion group for project and info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPa5EW5mp8 - General Use Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhT6YYRH1EI - Good Break down / Comparison Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5__shDTYMQ - Getting Started Video

NanoMig / PocketStorm 20K

Like MiSTer Pi above, ever more cheaper FPGA system are being look into for emulation purposes. The Tang Nano 20K is another mini FPGA developer board that has had the Amiga Core ported to it, ( https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/tang/tang-nano-20k/nano-20k.html ) The port is called NanoMig, learn more about it here.

More interestingly, developer of the Pi Storm, is looking to develop this into a new low cost, but high speed Amiga system, named Pocketstorm 20K. It would use the FPGA for the Amiga chipset replication, and the CPU would be powered by a Pi system. You can follow progress on the developers Blue Sky feed, https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yh5grkvtvwhf6y2h6jzdnfha

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AmiCube F1200

AmiCube F1200, a cutting-edge FPGA computer designed with Amiga compatibility in mind. Packed with incredible features, this powerhouse offers AGA support, stellar CPU performance, MIDI capabilities, 64MB RAM for seamless multitasking, USB support for convenient connectivity, and Joystick DB 9 support for classic gaming enthusiasts. The sleek MiniITX form factor makes it a space-efficient choice, while the integrated WIFI module ensures seamless connectivity. Additionally, the RealTimeClock adds a touch of precision to your computing experience. What truly sets the AmiCube F1200 apart is its versatility—it goes beyond Amiga and extends support to 50 different systems, including Sega, Nintendo, NeoGeo, all meticulously implemented in FPGA hardware. Experience the future of computing with the AmiCube F1200!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsjiMXMYqrU&ab_channel=AmiCube - Youtube video about the project

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MiniMig

Minimig started around January 2005 as a proof of concept by Dutch electrical engineer Dennis van Weeren. He intended Minimig as the answer to the ongoing discussions within the Amiga community on implementing the Amiga custom chipset using an FPGA. The project's source code and schematics were released under version 3 of the GNU General Public Licence on 25 July 2007.

Xilinx Spartan-3 400k gate (XC3S400-4PQ208C) FPGA using 82% capacity.
Freescale MC68SEC000, 3.3V, at 7.09379 MHz. However, there's no 'E' clock, MOVE sr,<EA> is privileged and there is no real replacement instruction. This does not seem to affect any programs yet.
Amiga Chip RAM bus and Slow RAM merged into a single synchronous bus running at 7.09379 MHz.
2 MB 70 ns asynchronous SRAM organised as 2x 524 288 x 16-bit banks.
MCU PIC 18LF252-I/SP^[3] (An alternative is Atmel AVR) implements a FAT16 disk layout and handles loading of FPGA configuration and Kickstart. Simulates a floppy to the Amiga by encoding on the fly from ADF files.
MMC Flash memory card to load FPGA configuration, kickstart and software for the implemented computer.
3× LEDs to display the disk activity, main power and Amiga power up status (no existing audio filter!) Amiga power up status led will change intensity to show audio filter status.
Video D/A consists of 4 resistors for each color red, green, blue (4 bits/color) and output via VGA connector.^[4]
Audio from an 8 bit dithering sigma-delta converter with 2nd order analogue filter.
+5V DC main power (~200 mA).
Spare 3x generic I/O from the FPGA (GPIO)
JTAG for programming chips (TMS, TDI, TDO, TCK)
RS232 serial port
2x Joystick of Atari 2600 DE9M type.
DE15F VGA video (which can output PAL compatible signals to connect to SCART).
MMC Flash memory card slot.
PS/2 connector Keyboard + Mouse
3.5 mm audio jack
+5V DC 2.1 mm cylindrical DC plug power supply inlet.
£350