Postby Windfisch » Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:22 pm
Hello!
I am planning to get a retro machine, and I primarily want to run old Amiga software and games on it. Basically, I want to recreate the A1200HD I had back in the day however I don't want to pay the skyrocketing prices for original old hardware but get new stuff instead. I read about MiST, FPGA Arcade and the upcoming Vampire V4 standalone which is a much more sophisticated beast altogether but since it is not open source, it is not as hackable as MiST and MiSTer. So I will likely get a MiSTer.
What I basically want to achieve is to recreate my old A1200 as I wrote earlier, but also run some Atari 8bit games and maybe do even some ST stuff. I chose the MiSTer over the MiST as I suppose it is the newer, more actively maintained project (am I right?) and it also has a 486 core for old DOS stuff if I ever want to re-experience Windows 3.11 and Turbo Pascal 7.
I could not figure out some things which are possible newbie questions, so if they have been answered before, a link to the answer is sufficient for me. However, I ask them here anyway.
First question is about the keyboard. The MiSTer uses USB keyboards and mice which is nice. However, how well do the cores support non-US keyboards? Several UAE variants, e.g. Amiberry on Raspberry Pi, have a bit of a problem with some keys being at exotic places on a German keyboard. For example, pressing the "#" key yields the backslash, and I can't get the "#". I could use a US keyboard but then I'd have difficulties getting Umlauts (ä, ö, ü, ß).
Second question is about the keyboard, too. What type of mapping do most cores use? Positional mapping or symbolic? Or can they all be set to symbolic mapping? Because nearly all keyboards today have a layout derived from the IBM MF2 standard and I don't want to guess what I get when I press which key.
When I open the MiSTer page on Github, I see no Atari ST core. Is there currently none, or can I use the official one from the MiST? (I can live without it if there is none)
Since the MiSTer uses HDMI and I want to either connect it to my living room TV or an LG monitor which has HDMI ports and supports all SD modes like 576i, 480i, 480p etc. at 50 and 60Hz, all PAL and NTSC modes should be working, right?
And finally about joypads. I have INNEXT SNES replica joypads and when I browsed through the "show your setup" thread I saw someone using them so I reckon they are supported. Since the Atari 8bit, C64 and Amiga used the Atari 2600 style 1-button controllers, Jump&Runs often used "up" for jumping. Can I remap one button on the pad to be "up" to have traditional joypad control for e.g. Giana Sisters or Turrican?
Thanks in advance for any answers.