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Minimig and CloneA are very interesting projects imo. Seems they duplicate each other though. Are there major technical or direction differences between the two? I know one is open and the other closed and developed by Jens Schofield, but differences aside from those?

CloneA is a cycle exact reimplementation to the point where it can replace the real ICs in a real A500.
The Minimig is a functional level reimplementation.

Last edited by Bit7 on 01-Nov-2007 at 08:49 AM.

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OMG, £212 for a fully assembled MiniMig! I know eBay is a crazy place, but £212 for an A500 (clone)... edit: And they do *not* even supply a 5v PSU or a (dirty cheap) MMC card with it!

'They' is a single person that spent about 14 hours building the first board. He also had to buy the equipment for this and hopes to get some of those costs back and he also had a custom 'case' made for it. Even now, when he is familiar with the board, it still takes him 8-9 hours to create a new one.
If you take into account that parts alone already cost about EURO 180 (excluding the custom case), I don't consider it expensive at all. Especially since he also runs the risk of destroying components if he screws up.
I'm also pretty sure he can deliver the PSU and MMC card along with it if you ask him nicely and pay him for it. I've dealt with him and I would recommend him to anyone. He's really a very helpful guy, just look at his customer feedback at eBay.

You simply cannot compare this with a regular A500 when it comes to pricing. This isn't mass-produced (yet). It is a hobby project and someone took a lot of time building some of them because a lot of people wanted them fully populated. It is a service and he will only do a couple of them. If you find it too expensive, either build it yourself or ignore MiniMig completely until someone mass-produces them.

Yeah...I am ignoring at the moment.

Not worth the time nor money, sorry.

Too expensive.

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

expensive is a very relative statement in amigaland!

MiniMig is excellent way to show that everything can be done and deserves all our respect (from whom interested in it and from is not as well)

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We are talking about two different things here.

Respect and Money.

Minimig and its creator have my maximum respect.

Minimig priced at more than £200 (320 Euros) is not an viable option, at least for me.

When someone takes the project on and makes a business out of it and redeuces costs then we can talk.

Mass produced it should be £100 max.

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

AFAIK minimig can't be uses as commercial product and i'll insist ... for this low production run, is not expensive at all.

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You are free to buy it.

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

@ohno & Rob
I don't care if the MiniMig's parts cost £1000 & takes a month to build, that still does not make an expensive A500 clone any cheaper!

Obviously *someone* places more value on the 'uniqueness' of the MiniMig, rather than what it actually does (emulate an A500, and not perfectly either). Which is fine, as some people spend $$$$$ on ancient sports cars that can't do 60mph today. But that doesn't diminish the fact that £212 for an A500 clone is still silly money in most people's books.

But eBay is a crazy place, as I said

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

Geez, all this time I thought Minimig was going to be dirt cheap and it turns out it's more expensive than an original A500!

Heck, for that amount of money I can buy an entire PC clone complete with monitor. And the Minimig runs 200 times slower!

I fail to see what point there is in manufacturing a cheap board when the parts it requires cost a small fortune.

Miggy revival hopes dashed again.

@TheDaddy

FYI i'm not interested in the minimig product ... the "problem" here in amigaland, is another ... nevermind then

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@uboat

"Geez, all this time I thought Minimig was going to be dirt cheap and it turns out it's more expensive than an original A500!"

is it really so hard to understand?

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@ChrisH

I for once agree with you.

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

@uboat

Well put!

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Clone-A will be CE compliant when it retails as a consumer device. Minimig is a home made project and probably would require significant modification to the design to attain CE status.

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Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@uboat

Did you really expect this thing to be cheap? there has not been anything reasonably priced for the amiga in a long time. Most stuff now is just sold at such rip off prices that i am amazed that this community will defend and support such people (elbox is a fine example).

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I don't care if the MiniMig's parts cost £1000 & takes a month to build, that still does not make an expensive A500 clone any cheaper!

If you find it too expensive then that's fine, but you guys make it look like the seller is a rip-off and that is simply not true. It's a fair price given the circumstances and what he needs to put in. It is sooo easy to bash him, but at least this guy is doing something for the community. He's building a couple of MiniMigs since the are a lot of people who want to have it but lack the skills to build it themselves.

You should also consider the MiniMig to be a developers machine. It is a work-in-progress project using expensive hardware parts that can be reprogrammed. An Amiga-in-a-joystick alike device would not have such an expensive programmable chip, but the programmable chip is required for improving the current design. So MiniMig might lead to something big in the future, but it is not an end-user system and it doesn't have an end-user price.
If you expected otherwise, your expectations were off.

I am not nashing him.

I am just saying that for this thing to succeed you need to turn it into an under £100 object of desire, otherwise no one is going to buy it when they can get an A500 for a packet of crisps and a beer.

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

@TheDaddy

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I am just saying that for this thing to succeed you need to turn it into an under £100 object of desire

Hopefully CloneA will be just that.

@ohno
Please try re-reading what I said, and this time don't put me in the "anti-MiniMig" group (if there is such a thing). I think the MiniMig is a fantastic achievement, great little bit of kit with a lot of potential, and I don't begrudge anyone paying silly money for one. But that doesn't stop £212 for one from *being* silly money!

As I said, eBay is a crazy place, where some people are prepared to pay crazy amounts. e.g. Hundreds or thousands of dollars for some piece of clothing once worn (for about 5 seconds) by some famous pop-star.

I don't for a minute imagine that "mass production" MiniMigs will cost anything like £212. But while they are in short supply, some people will pay such silly prices. Those people could be called "early adopters", and are often the ones who pay for most of the development & risk in producing a new product.

edit: Evidently I should reinstate my old sig, which said "I question everything, including things I like. Questions do not imply criticism!". I'm not sure my current sig's humorous but obscure Portal reference is fully appreciate on an Amiga site...

edit #2: Not that sigs get shown on news 'threads' anyway :-/

Last edited by ChrisH on 02-Nov-2007 at 05:59 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 02-Nov-2007 at 05:56 PM.

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

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But that doesn't stop £212 for one from *being* silly money!

£212 is a fair price!

I don't think you can compare two different sets of potential minimig owners here.

For the first set;
The people who really want to get into verilog, people who are experimenters, nutters and engineers!
£212 is a bargain!

For the second set;
The people who want an A500 clone for playing games/curiosity and can't stand yellow plastic - I can see where you are coming from.

Don't worry though!
There are plenty of people in the first catagory!