Amiga_3k Quote:

Has somebody already figured out what those two 'connector' locations at the top could be? On some BananaPI version it is where the SATA connector and extra power connector was located. Or will 'we' see the keyboard connected there (USB maybe?) once an A500MAXI will be made?

If THEA500 Maxi comes out with ARM emulation then we know it is game over for the Amiga as a viable sustainable brand. There are only so many opportunities before failure. The Amiga elitists ignored the popularity of the Natami while pushing a few hundred a year AmigaNG units.



Now they are ignoring THEA500 Mini which shows just how abysmal the PPC AmigaNG market is. This isn't some big company coming in and crushing them with a mass produced product but rather, Retro Games Ltd, is a tiny little business that doesn't even use the Amiga brand. The Amiga elites should be looking to merge, including possibly with Retro Games Ltd, which could be a division of Amiga Corporation, and raise enough capital to do a respectful retro Amiga instead of another disgraceful gimmick.

Last edited by matthey on 14-Apr-2022 at 08:04 PM.

@matthey


Quote:

Now they are ignoring THEA500 Mini

Well nothing for me, sorry its a toy to run whdload games, sorry I can do that already on my PowerPC AmigaNG.

The problem with Vampire and THE A500, its not compelling to developers, clearly this products are not made for developers.

I'm more interested in GamePad for THEA500, then THEA500.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 14-Apr-2022 at 08:24 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

sorry I can do that already on my PowerPC AmigaNG.

Well yeah, I would hope that was possible on those machines costing hundreds if not thousands of pounds!

This is about appealing to people OUTSIDE of our community to you know GROW THE COMMUNITY (which is on life support at this point)!!!!

Why is that so hard to grasp? The product is ideal for that. My kids can play Amiga games easily and accessibly and guess what? They like them! They don't have to faff with floppies, ADFs, Goteks and aging hardware or stupidly expensive monoliths because The A500 Mini just works! What is wrong with that?

Who cares that it doesn't appeal to you? It's not for you but it fulfills a need in the marketplace and boosts the platform, just like the Tabor could have 5 years ago!

Last edited by BigD on 14-Apr-2022 at 10:50 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 14-Apr-2022 at 10:48 PM.

_________________
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NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

Well nothing for me, sorry its a toy to run whdload games, sorry I can do that already on my PowerPC AmigaNG.

THEA500 Mini is not so appealing to current Amiga owners and doesn't offer much for us. It's mostly aimed at ex-Amiga owners and fans. There are a few games I haven't played included but I wouldn't buy THEA500 Mini at less than half off. At half THEA500 Mini price, it starts to become appealing as a toy and gift which is what the Amiga market needs but then needs to deliver above well above expectations like the Raspberry Pi.

NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

The problem with Vampire and THE A500, its not compelling to developers, clearly this products are not made for developers.

THEA500 Mini is not aimed at anything productive. It is an overpriced toy. THEA500 Maxi likely will be also even with a functioning keyboard. That is my point. The Natami/Apollo hardware needs a 68k+SAGA SoC ASIC to be competitive. I agree that the leadership under Gunnar has been poor and has had poor relations with the developer Amiga community. In my experience with the Natami and as part of the Apollo Team, this is not the case with Thomas and Jens who have been honest, open and professional while much less vocal.

NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

I'm more interested in GamePad for THEA500, then THEA500.

The game pad is cheap and a little small for adult hands. I could tell from looking at the first picture of it. Granted, it is better than the CD32 joypad and looks better. The tank mouse is better quality though it brings up negative memories for me. I much prefer the rare CBM pregnant mouse with 3 buttons.

Edit: @BigD
You beat me to a similar answer on the target market for THEA500 Mini.

Last edited by matthey on 14-Apr-2022 at 10:59 PM.

@BigD

Quote:

just like the Tabor could have 5 years ago! 

Beta boards shipped 75 months ago. Doesn't time fly.

_________________
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BigD Quote:

Who cares that it doesn't appeal to you? It's not for you but it fulfills a need in the marketplace and boosts the platform, just like the Tabor could have 5 years ago!

bison Quote:

Beta boards shipped 75 months ago. Doesn't time fly.

At least we know the lack of AmigaOne branding is unlikely to be the hold up as Amiga branding doesn't seem to be needed for successful Amiga like hardware.

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

sorry I can do that already on my PowerPC AmigaNG.

And I can do that, even better, faster & cheaper on my Ryzen and Core i5 based PCs. I can even bring 'em with me in a little bag, if I like. I guess this is not the point at all.

@BigD
Quote:

This is about appealing to people OUTSIDE of our community to you know GROW THE COMMUNITY (which is on life support at this point)!!!!

EXACT! Which is, indeed, about 99,5% of the people making the Amiga community in 1990. Only a futile minority of that people followed PPC Amigas developments and even less care about them today.

Quote:

Why is that so hard to grasp? The product is ideal for that. My kids can play Amiga games easily and accessibly and guess what? They like them! They don't have to faff with floppies, ADFs, Goteks and aging hardware or stupidly expensive monoliths because The A500 Mini just works! What is wrong with that?

In fact, there's nothing wrong with that. There's something wrong with people who do not accept time has lasted. And as like as MUCH time has lasted, technology went on. There's no more magic in running Amiga software, it can be easily emulated by a $20 piece of ARM hardware. Add them to the cost of software licenses, plastic molding, packaging and distribution, and you still get a €130 (€ 130, NOT € 3000) machine easily buyable in the toy shops, NOT in 3 or 4 spare exotic websites all over the world.

Quote:

Who cares that it doesn't appeal to you? It's not for you but it fulfills a need in the marketplace and boosts the platform, just like the Tabor could have 5 years ago!

Tabor was not going to boost a damn anything and it won't ever be.

Last edited by paolone on 15-Apr-2022 at 08:10 AM.

@BigD

ok, i did i started a voting poll

https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=44503&start=0&post_id=849750&order=0&viewmode=thread&pid=0&forum=2#849750

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 15-Apr-2022 at 08:10 AM.

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@matthey

Quote:

If THEA500 Maxi comes out with ARM emulation then we know it is game over for the Amiga as a viable sustainable brand. There are only so many opportunities before failure. The Amiga elitists ignored the popularity of the Natami while pushing a few hundred a year AmigaNG units. Now they are ignoring THEA500 Mini which shows just how abysmal the PPC AmigaNG market is. This isn't some big company coming in and crushing them with a mass produced product but rather, Retro Games Ltd, is a tiny little business that doesn't even use the Amiga brand. The Amiga elites should be looking to merge, including possibly with Retro Games Ltd, which could be a division of Amiga Corporation, and raise enough capital to do a respectful retro Amiga instead of another disgraceful gimmick.

Please don't be fooled by the once-glory bias. Current 'Amiga' companies are chiwawa-sized ones barking like they were dobermanns. And like chiwawas, they are struggling and biting themselves around a stinky piece of rotten bread. There is no business plan, no real investors, no real money involved and there hasn't been for years. They just retain IPs nobody cares about and the only useful one (kickstarts and workbench ROMs) had been used by RGL in their product. Cloanto, by the way, is the only one smart enough to keep the 'licensing kickstart' and 'selling Amiga Forever' business separed. I wonder what interest would have RGL to merge with them.

RGM demostrated that brands and names are not as important as product recognition. Twice.

Last edited by paolone on 15-Apr-2022 at 08:23 AM.

@Thread

As shared on EAB, I have discovered an issue with The A500 Mini's emulation. I'm new to this emulation game and on the whole I'm very impressed as to what is possible in 2022 with a low spec CPU.

It is however giving quite major glitches on one of my favourite games of recent years Tiny Bobble! The game seems to glitch at the point of collecting a potion (which initiates the mini game of collecting as many of a single item as possible vs the other player). The game then stutters in and out of a black screen every time an item is collected or a bubble burst! This also seems to happen within the main game eventually but the game remains semi-playable because of the save state system meaning you can load back to before the glitch started!

To clarify this game works rock solid on a 'real' Amiga. I guess there's some room for optimising the Amiberry emulation?

_________________
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John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Thread

From EAB
pink^abyss explains a possible reason for the emulation issue:

Quote:

Tiny Bubble has a slightly uncommon hardware usage by using copper list blits with 5 bitplanes and a 256 pixel wide display (perhaps only game with this setup). So emulation that works fine with most titles could fail here.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@thread

The A500 Mini - WHDLoad Package 1.01 Released

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
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@BigD

Tiny Bobble works fine on the A500 mini's version of Amiberry. You just need to adjust the default configuration.

Neat to see the official update so quick.

Just for people who dont know, I updated my site https://amigang.com/amigamini-thea500/

with info on the exclusive packs they made, https://twitter.com/GadgetsBoy/status/1512494770265935877

and i started a thread on English Amiga Board for where Hacks and Mod post that I know about will be posted
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1540612#post1540612
i knew the system would be hacked sooner or later, but man it pretty quick work by the community.

Cheers

Last edited by amigang on 15-Apr-2022 at 01:52 PM.

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@fishy_fis

Quote:

fishy_fis wrote: @BigD Tiny Bobble works fine on the A500 mini's version of Amiberry. You just need to adjust the default configuration.

It is working but black screen glitching occurs after a while as discussed on EAB.

Last edited by BigD on 15-Apr-2022 at 09:38 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

Hi @matthey and all!

Quote:

The Amiga elites should be looking to merge, including possibly with Retro Games Ltd, which could be a division of Amiga Corporation, and raise enough capital to do a respectful retro Amiga instead of another disgraceful gimmick.

I agree with what you wrote except for that bit: if I was Retro Games Ltd. I would avoid Amiga Corp. like the plague

Cheers!

_________________
Tygre
Scientific Progress Goes Boing!

@BigD

Nah, Im saying it works without glitches if configured properly.

I managed to get both AmigaOS and AROS running on my A500 mini.
Not using whdload-ified version of AmigaOS, which some people were doing, but that is just a novelty because it's read only. This is a standard install to directory based partitions/drives.
Was a fun little project with both read and write access.
Still more tinkering to do, but managed to really open up the system for all sorts of shenanigans.
Great fun. Ive been mentioning it to anyone who may be even remotely interested :)
Being limited to 160MB is a slight limitation, but if a person is doing anything on an Amiga-noid system theyre not going to be doing it on an A500 mini anyway. Speed isnt close to that the emulation speed of a modern pc, but its still in the 1ghz '020 range if some very basic testing is any indication.

https://postimg.cc/kD6CdL9R

Ive posted the AROS image rather than any of AmigaOS simply because it was a little bit more of a challenge at 1st (although by the end it's ended up equally as easy for both).

Last edited by fishy_fis on 15-Apr-2022 at 09:25 PM.
Last edited by fishy_fis on 15-Apr-2022 at 09:24 PM.
Last edited by fishy_fis on 15-Apr-2022 at 09:21 PM.
Last edited by fishy_fis on 15-Apr-2022 at 09:19 PM.

@fishy_fis

Quote:

fishy_fis wrote: @BigD Nah, Im saying it works without glitches if configured properly.

And I'm saying it definitely glitches when you get a new high score (hence the problems when I collect more items etc)! How do you 'configure' that glitch away?

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

By changing the emulator settings.
What else could I have possibly meant?
Contrary to your hilarious passive, condescending aggression based on your apparent cluelessness it absolutely works without glitches if the emulated Amiga is configured correctly.

It's not exactly rocket science to understand what I meant by configured.

Last edited by fishy_fis on 15-Apr-2022 at 09:41 PM.