MiST - FPGA ST

[qq1975b]

Impressive job

An Atari & Amiga clone. Really cool. Hope it can support STe features before going on sale.
Does it support too all A500 features? Games?

[alexh]

Does it support too all A500 features? Games?

It uses the open-source MiniMig core by Dennis van Weeren & Jakub Bednarski. This has been used for many years for all A500 features (and beyond). It has a few bugs but is quite compatible.

You can buy a range of other FPGA boards which will take this core including a commercial version of the MiniMig v1.1 PCB

https://acube-systemsbiz.serversicuro.i ... /6-minimig

Gizmo is designing an alternative FPGA board and a whole new Atari core which is impressive.

[xc8]

Just received email from Lotharek..

Dear Friend !

I just introduced MIST to automatic assembly !

So, what does it mean ?


It means that device will be soon available - soon at my www more pictures, more infor about pricing.

Meanwhile Till ( creator of device - till@harbaum.org) is working on new cores and fetures !

Stay Tuned !


Estimated prices of cased device, ready to USE will be in range between 160-190E

[qq1975b]

But will this final release support STe capabilities and all Amiga 500? Or just ST ones + some A500?

If only ST, Can it be upgraded to STe when release? I mean will only new firmware be needed?

[xc8]

But will this final release support STe capabilities and all Amiga 500? Or just ST ones + some A500?

If only ST, Can it be upgraded to STe when release? I mean will only new firmware be needed?

This is the "beauty" of FPGA mate, chips can be "emulated" so we need to update the cores. To say the truth I have some concerns about the FPGA systems, as I have very unpleasant experiences from the c-one.
I am really curious what is the capacity of the FPGA there, in the case they will use the EP3C40 it's 39,600 Logic elements (LE) , the minimig core -for example- is around 17,000 LE so I assume the ST core is around the same, that means we have 22,000 cores free for extra chips etc (so the STE core)

chris

[MasterOfGizmo]

in the case they will use the EP3C40 it's 39,600 Logic elements (LE)

It's an EP3C25 with rougly 25000 LEs. The minimig core requires ~60% of this. The MIST core a little more. But there's still plenty of room for improvements and i am confident a STE can be done. Although that'll be quite some work ...

It's the same FPGA the chameleon64 uses. Although the MIST comes with a seperate ARM controller for IO and many things are done by the arm controller on the mist board which have to be done by the FPGA on the chameleon64. Thus the MIST FPGA has a little more spare room than the one on the chameleon64.

[MasterOfGizmo]

If only ST, Can it be upgraded to STe when release? I mean will only new firmware be needed?

If an upgrade fits into the FPGA then it's only a matter of replacing a file on an sd card. The STE should be possible as well as AGA amiga (e.g. A1200). But currently it's "only" Atari ST and Amiga 500.

[INSPECTOR77]

Will Mist have full midi in/out support, and run midi sequencer software like cubase or notator?
regards

[alanh]

According to Lotharek's website, MIDI has to be done with a plug-on board.

[MasterOfGizmo]

The minimig core requires ~60% of this. The MIST core a little more.

I've optimized the ST core a little bit and now it uses less than 50% of the FPGA.

[MasterOfGizmo]

According to Lotharek's website, MIDI has to be done with a plug-on board.

That's true. In order to keep the price of the MIST low it only provides what most of the users will need/use. Thus MIDI is an add-on.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6nnBp4Z0YE

[alexh]

I'm not familiar with this family of FPGA but on Xilinx Spartan after you go much above 80% you start to get routing & timing failures. Obviously it is design and clock speed dependant but do you have any feel for how full the FPGA could get and still route?

[MasterOfGizmo]

I'm not familiar with this family of FPGA but on Xilinx Spartan after you go much above 80% you start to get routing & timing failures.

80% seems very low. Imho the Minimig port for the DE1 (being altera ep2c20 based) fills the fpga pretty close to 100%. Without optimizations and with lots of signaltap the MIST also was significantly above 80% without any problems.

[alexh]

I've never used the Altera tools but what they describe as utilisation and what the xilinx tools report as utilisation must be two different things. 100% utilisation is not possible. The xilinx FPGA's just don't have that amount of dedicated routing resources. They use logic resources for routing and when that happens utilisation drops off.

[waSTE]

Can now pre-order the MiST @ 184.29 EUR, 156.82 GBP

Lotharek's page says the pre-order price will be 10-15% cheaper than the final price.

I can see it's cheaper than other FPGA but still including shipping it'd be 197.99 EUR, which I can't justify spending myself.

But, if you can afford it, looks like a great item.

[qq1975b]

with full ST and A500 features at start? And STe on close future?

[xc8]

:roll: with full ST and A500 features at start? And STe on close future?

i just pre-ordered it as I believe its a very nice project, I am looking forward too for the MacPlus core ;-}

[johncarteronmars]

Could anyone please tell me if this is correct, using MIST I will be able to have 14mb ram,
view hi-rez on lcd monitor I have with db-15 connection, if i want midi it will be an addon
board at some point in time

tks for info
in advance
cul
az

[Gryzor]

Damn, I think I'm getting one... anyone knows how long the preorder period is going to last?

[retrorepair]

If it doesn't end up supporting 15khz I'll probably be out. It's a shame because I was really looking forward to it. I just wanted to add it to my console collection, having an ST by the telly really takes up a lot of real estate.

I'm a die hard CRT fan and though I do have an LCD for modern stuff, I'll use a CRT for the older stuff till I die.

[DarkLord]

Well, I couldn't stand it - I also preordered one.

Looks like it could be too much fun to play with, to risk
passing up.

I suredly would like to see it (at least) offering accelerated
modes though. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[RA_pdx]

A very interesting project and the price is good.

For me it´s only useable if it supports all STE features (Blitter, DMA sound, 4096 colors and Hardware-Scrolling, LMC1992). Are there any concrete plans for supporting STE?

[Gryzor]

Till told me in an email that further features (STe/blitter, AGA...) will be depended on community support and number of orders. Fair enough... so I went ahead and got one

[iceman]

But will this final release support STe capabilities and all Amiga 500? Or just ST ones + some A500?

If only ST, Can it be upgraded to STe when release? I mean will only new firmware be needed?

I'd like to know if the MiST will be able to access all 32Mb of RAM or is some of that used by the subsystem? Also, how fast will the MiST be compared to a real Atari ST? I've heard 15MHz being bandied around - is this possible? If we get both of these, I'll definitely pre-order

[troed]

Does it run the full set of ST demos including fullscreens & sync scrollers? That is, how accurate is the hw emulation.