http://www.acube-systems.biz/eng/minimig.php

Any thoughts on this?

From reviews it seems to have good (perfect) speed, which I was wondering about with the Spartan on there, but that of course depends on how you use it. The one major thing is it comes without any case... You would think they could just throw this thing into a project box especially after all of that work.

I see projects like this as a huge chance to get into the mass market even. Obviously, software emulation (as great as it works) is not something for the average user. A pre-made board which people can just buy, connect to a power supply and turn on, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

Of course, it would need to be really easy. Just selling a 'naked' board is not going to cut it for anyone but a few geeks. As I said, it needs to be a ready-to-use box, looking good enough to put it in the living room. Obviously, it needs to be able to connect to a TV natively (which I think this board isn't), too.

Second, there would have to be a legal and easily available supply of games. That's the even larger problem: You'd have to get the companies together to sell their old games in huge collections, because such a system can only make it if the amount of software is already huge and cheap.

Third, it would have to be backed by a company with enough resources to really push this into the mass market, i.e. get it into the large retailer chains (not just techie stores).

Go ahead, put it down as a dream, but think about how successful Nintendo is with its ultra-simple console with the silly name and how every console these days has has these virtual machine capabilities to play older games built in. A high volume market for cheap old games exists.

From the technical point of view, it really struck me back when I saw a video of the 'Clone-A' presentation by Jens Schoenfeld on Breakpoint '06. His Clone-A project is basically the same (no news about it for quite some time, so no idea if it's still going) - FPGAs... it's really so obvious!

Further to the Minimig and Clone-A, you may wish to check out the NatAmi
( http://www.natami.net/ ) a high-end "classic" Amiga clone.

Incidentally, isn't the Minimig an open-source design meaning that anyone or any company can make them? So perhaps someone will release a complete Minimig computer.

I didn't know that one - very interesting! A different focus there, though. There's always this split between the people who want to 'continue the legacy' by creating a new system for everyday use and those who just want to enjoy the old classics.


Yes, I think so, but there's another problem I forgot about yesterday: To be functional, it'd need a Kickstart, wouldn't it?

More than likely, but they could try licensing one from Amiga Inc., or failing that, they could always bundle it with a copy of Cloanto's "Amiga Forever" ( http://www.amigaforever.com/ ) as Cloanto do have a license.