Minimig ECS

Since GitHub has removed their file uploads service, I shall make future snapshots of my fork of the Chameleon 64 Minimig core here.


Snapshots for Chameleon Version 2 hardware: (Do not attempt to flash these to the original Chameleon64 hardware.)

2019-11-16 – There has been some recent work documented on Atari-Forum to fix some bugs in the TG68K CPU.  Tobias Gubener now has an official version of the CPU on Github, so I’ve incorporated it as a submodule, and rebuilt the core with the latest version of TG68.  AMOSPro is much more stable in 68020 mode – some things that didn’t work before might work now.

2019-10-01 – This version fixes a stupid masking bug in the filesystem endian-swapping code, which caused boot problems with some SD cards and caused configuration file saving to fail.

2019-09-20 – This version adds support for the MIDI ports on the second-generation docking station.  New for this version – if you have a CDTV controller, hold down button B and slide the mouse/joy switch to toggle button B’s mapping between “second button” and “joystick up”.   Also minor firmware tweaks, fixes a problem on reset, should be more robust at initialising the SD card at poweron.  Don’t attempt to flash this core into a V1 Chameleon64.

2019-04-11 – This version fixes handling of the CDTV pad – it’s now possible to enter the menu with the power button, and browse with the directional pad (with the switch set to “joy”).  Again, don’t attempt to flash this onto V1 hardware.

2019-03-21 – (How on earth is it nearly six years since the last release?!) NOTE – THIS VERSION IS FOR V2 HARDWARE ONLY.  There are no changes beyond those required to port the core, so please don’t attempt to flash this core on V1 hardware.


Snapshops for the original Chameleon V1 hardware:  (Do not attempt to flash these to the newer version of the Chameleon64)

2019-11-16 – There has been some recent work documented on Atari-Forum to fix some bugs in the TG68K CPU. Tobias Gubener now has an official version of the CPU on Github, so I’ve incorporated it as a submodule, and rebuilt the core with the latest version of TG68. AMOSPro is much more stable in 68020 mode – some things that didn’t work before might work now.

2019-10-01 – This version fixes a stupid masking bug in the filesystem endian-swapping code, which caused boot problems with some SD cards and caused configuration file saving to fail.

2019-09-20 – This version brings the V1 port up to parity with the V2 port, adding support for accessing the menu via CDTV controller’s Power button, adding MIDI support with the second-generation docking station and firmware tweaks.

2013-06-08 – This version adds support for activating the OSD menu without a PS/2 keyboard, and allows the menu to be controlled with the joystick.  Use either the menu button on the Chameleon itself, or the run-stop key on the C64.  Also the scandoubler now defaults to “on” if there’s no config file.

2013-02-23 – This version makes it possible to disable the Minimig scandoubler, allowing a Minimig-to-Scart cable to be used.  To activate this, press the reset button, then immediately afterwards press and hold down F3 for 15KHz NTSC (480i) or hold down F4 for 15KHz PAL (576i).  (F1 and F2 can be used to select 31KHz scandoubled NTSC and PAL, respectively.  That’s a long-standing feature.)  The scandoubler setting will be saved as part of a configuration file.

2013-02-17 – This version incorporates Peter Wendrich’s chameleon_io entity, which abstracts away the messy details of communicating with the C64 or Docking Station.  While the keyboard’s not mapped in any way yet, the C64’s joystick ports are now usable from the Minimig core.

2013-02-10 – TobiFlex has just made some fixes to the TG68K core, so here’s an updated build of the Minimig core incorporating those fixes.  I’m not sure yet which games and programs will be helped by these fixes, but I can say that The Lost Vikings now works.

2013-01-03 – A bugfix release which fixes a major problem relating to the extended fast RAM.  (The address mangling which maps the Zorro II RAM from $200000 in the Amiga’s address space to $800000 in the SDRAM was being mistakenly applied to part of the Zorro III RAM too – which resulted in part of the address space being aliased.)  Also a few menu tweaks.

2013-01-01 – Happy New Year!  Yes, yet another new release!  There are two changes this time:  Firstly, the OSD menu will now allow you select 24 meg of Fast RAM, and the extra 16 meg will now be automatically configured.  Secondly, the OSD background colour is now variable, which I’ve used in the menus to give subtle navigational cues, which will hopefully make it clearer what’s in the toplevel and what’s a submenu.  (I’m undecided about whether or not this is a good idea, so feedback welcomed!)

2012-12-28 – Happy New Year?  A bit early for that, really – but here’s another new core, nonetheless.  More speedups, due to bank interleaving SDRAM accesses and removing synchronization with the 28Mhz enaWRreg signal.  I’ll be very interested to hear whether anyone has stability issues with this version – reports of stuff that worked before but fails now would be most useful.

2012-12-24 – Merry Christmas!  Adds a 4k CPU read cache, and a single-word buffer to speed up writes.  Breaks Turbo Chip RAM for the moment (due to the lack of bus snooping on the new cache), though it still works in some instances.

2012-11-01  – Supports Turbo Chip RAM, has an option in the menus to enable/disable it.

108 thoughts on “Minimig ECS

  1. Is there any way to get files from the SD onto the minimig without putting them in an ADF or HDF? It would be awesome if you could have the disk root or a folder thereon mounted on the Amiga.

    • Yes, that’s supported – but it currently doesn’t work on all cards. There are issues regarding C/H/S geometry to work around – but it works on some cards.
      To use it, go into the Hard disk settings menu, where you can set the emulated master or slave drive to be either the entire SD card or a partition thereof, as well as an HDF.
      My main card is 16gb. It has a 4gb partition mounted as Master, and the whole card mounted as slave. The Master is partitioned using HDToolbox, and contains the entire contents of my old A4000’s hard drive. The Slave allows me to mount the first partition of the card using FAT95.
      It’s also possible, though I haven’t tried it yet, to boot the Amiga from a FAT95 partition.

  2. hello! I’m sorry if this question looks stupid, but I have trouble with basic install:
    i downloaded minimig_tc64_20130103
    then lunched chaco, flashed the fampiga_top.rbf on slot 1. (unchecked “Flash additional ROM”.)
    I put OSD_CA01.sys and kick.rom (exactly: Amiga Kickstart 2.0 (37.300) (A600) (Commodore) (1991)-TOSEC) on the SDcard
    in options menu of the TC64, set to ON the “Boot on SD” option.
    When I boot, I an stuck on the first screen. nothing happens, pressing F12 don’t do anything.
    Did I make a mistake ?
    Thank you for your response.

    • I’m sorry, just found that it was the kickstart version that had problems. I boot normally now, but now I have a strange behaviour of the screen (half size).. I’ll keep searching πŸ™‚

      • That’s very strange! Does it only happen with this version of the core, or does it happen with older versions too?
        (I’m wondering whether your monitor just doesn’t like the 50Hz video mode? A lot of modern monitors don’t.)

        • hi

          it appears that all my problems are coming from the SD card type or brand:
          I tried with 1Gb VERBATIM, everything is ok (formating card with FAT16)
          I tried 2Gb TOSHIBA SDCard (FAT16, exact copy of the 1Gb VERBATIM), stuck on minimig boot.
          I also tried 16 Gb microSD card (Sandisk) plugged in the SD adapter, don’t work too, stuck on minimig boot.
          I have bought 2*4Gb cards from either Sandisk and Samsung, I’ll tell you if it’s working …

          • Tested miniSOC too, 2gb toshiba, 16gb microsd sandisk, fat16:

            screen says:

            testing serial output…
            Start Init
            SHDC found
            Init done
            not found BOOT SRE

            I put the correct files on the SDCard ….

          • i tried one and partitioned it in 2, 600mb for a fat16/c64 file storage and the remaineder i partitioned without a filesystem, then used HDToolbox to use that partition and use PFS3, my system has been much more stable and had fewer “not validated” messages.

            really do like using the filesystem directly instead of using HDF images.

  3. working perfectly for me so far, i tried using a vga > hdmi scaler/adaptor and it works perfectly, my only issue is that many programs have the bottom of the screen chopped off and the screens arent flush at the top of the monitor which is why the bottom gets pushed off.

    is there any way to re-align the display as my own monitor does not allow picture/overscan movement.

    NOTE: it seems my screenmodes using NTSC are aligned and fit perfectly, its just my PAL screens that get pushed down.

  4. another quick observation, im using the scandouble pal mode (f2) yet when the system boots its still using ntsc instead of pal, same applies to holding both mouse buttons on boot its defaulted to ntsc instead of pal so im having to hold both buttons and force pal mode (sometimes the mouse sticks top/left and wont work when i do this) or use the TUDE program and add

    TUDE HERTZ=OSPAL

    to my startup-sequence to try and get programs to open in pal mode, its likely why im getting my previous issue with programs shunting down vertically and getting missing bits on the bottom of my display.

      • yup, even tried toggling to ntsc/saving and back to pal/saving, would deleting the config off the sdcard work then just resave settings? seems to matter what i do in the config or holding f1/f2 after reset i end up with ntsc, tho on the blue screen immediatly after reset it does state im running in pal, it just doesnt seem to be sticking atm.

        • How strange! Yes, please do try deleting the config file – but send me a copy of it first if you would, please? robinson b5 @t talk21.com (remove the spaced and ‘t’ after the @).

          • sent email? hope you got it, btw after deleting my config files and startign again, it seesm my configs arent saving to the sd-card anymore, used the OSD to save my 2 fave setups but keep having to redo them.

            checking the sd-card on the pc and there are no new .cfg files, so maybe thats why my changes to PAL mode arent sticking if the changes arent getting saved on my sdcard???

  5. have to give another thumbs up for the minimig core tbh, i just found this on the tc64 yahoo group that lets me acccess the fat partition on my sdcard within workbench.

    http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.chameleon64/564

    this tbh is great, i wish id found it earlier as i was copying my old software the hard way from my dead amiga’s archive CD’s to my xubuntu HD, then using UAE to copy those files to a HDF and copying them to the sdcard and mounting them in minimig.

    now ofc i just copy my stuff to the fat partition and then just use filemaster to move from the files/folders from the fat partition 1 to the real pfs3 formatted partition 2, miles easier.

    πŸ™‚ still glad i got the tc64 and using this core tbh, my friend and uncle got the “bigger/more feature filled variants” but i like the tc64 because it becomes the 2 main old computers i love most and the minimig side is working really well for me so far after i replaced my old 040/ppc software with 000/020 where possible, so i really do look forward to future changes and just want to throw another thumbs up and thanks for the continued support πŸ˜€

    /end excited rambling

  6. Hi,
    i took the last update of the core and know my tft monitor is not able to show this modus, after loading the kickstart.rom. the version vefore, i could use the tft monitor. Is there something to do, that i could use the new core?

    Thanke for help

    Christoph

      • The trick is to hold down the F1 or F2 key immediately *after* pushing the reset button. If you push the key before the reset button it won’t work.

        If you still can’t get it work let me know and I’ll send you a config file that has the scandoubler enabled.

  7. Hi Alastair! How are you. Would it be possible you add an option on the Amiga
    core to allow selecting a bigger size of the osd display?

    I think it would be very useful to see a bigger list of ADF images (more ADF
    images on the screen), and with more characters to read (for example TOSEC
    looong names). More information in less time is always good!

    You can see an example of what I mean here: http://tinyurl.com/cq69bvx , it is
    an image of the osd of the MCC…, it is very easy to see the names of the images
    and you need to press less Page Up / Page Down keys to browse the list.

    Hope you can add this feature! Best regards, Juan

    • A larger OSD is something that would be nice to have, but it would be more work than I can take on immediately.

      It would require, among other things, changing the SPI protocol used between the two CPUs, and there has been some discussion on the Minimig forum about doing just that – so when the time comes it’d be nice if it can be done in a such a way that it works on all variants.

      In the meantime, if you press a letter key while browsing a list of files, you should find that the view jumps to files starting with that letter, which should help speed up ADF selection!

  8. Thanks Alastair for your prompt answer.

    By the way, I am really enjoying the Amiga core on the TC64, thank you very much for all the updates and improvements!

    Best regards, Juan

    • Tobias Gubener added Docking Station support to the core over a year ago, and since I’ve built on his work, all the cores here should support the Docking Station – at least for joysticks.

      As for when I’ll be releasing another core, this is a spare time project for me, so the answer is simply “whenever I’m next inspired to work on the TC64 Minimig core, rather than the dozen other projects that compete for my limited time!”

  9. I have flashed the last minimig core and i have found this issue, is it a problem of new core or my chameleon failure?
    I have set the minimig core to run with a 3.1 kickstart and an hardfile with classic workbench 3.1 68k (the same i use in the real minimig). The minimig setting in Chameleon are set with all the memory at maximum values and 68020 processor Amiga 1000 OCS.
    When i boot the first time it show all memory 26 mb of fast ram, after a restart of minimig core it gives me a yellow screen (like in real amiga with memory issue) and after being in the workbench i have 18 mb of fast ram instead of 26 mb.
    If i try to restart to chameleon menu it doesent take effect and if i restart minimig i get the same yellow screen and after a workbench with 18 mb of fast ram. Only after removing the power supply and restarting minimig core it gives me no memory error and 26mb of ram. If i restart again i get the same issue!
    I have solved the memory problem disabling the turbo chip, but the return to chameleon menu issue is still there, it works fine only after copying again the file (OSD_CA01.sys and fampiga_top.rbf) and deleting the minimig file that is created.
    But this works only until a reboot.
    Any suggestion?
    Thanks

    • Hi,

      It doesn’t surprise me that the Turbo ChipRAM thing causes problems – it’s a bit of a hack, and only really intended for giving a temporary speed boost for games that benefit, such as ZeeWolf 2, not to be left enabled all the time.

      As for the Return to Chameleon menu item – yes, that’s known to be flaky. Finding and solving the problems with that option is on my ToDo list, but hasn’t reached the top yet! πŸ™‚

  10. hi i have bought the turbo chameleon i am Lorenzo Chiodi i call from italy ,
    i launch the minimum core …i dont know what to do in this page because i have a blue page that there is a letter and other wrinting but dont open minimum core if you help me ok bye thanks please help me if you want i will send a photos of my video that i see ok bye

    • To use the Minimig core you need the OSD_CA01.sys file and a kickstart ROM file on an SD card. It sounds to me as though one of those files is missing. Can you tell me exactly what the text on the blue screen says?

  11. I’ve mounted the core in slot 3, copied the OSD and a variety of kickstart roms (my own pulled from the machine) or others from other places..
    I have the TC mounted in a C64C and when I start the core the c64 screen goes blue, the VGA screen blanks out and then reports “Out of Range”. Is there a way to force the screen into a higher refresh rate? I noticed other cores (c64, Stella, Pacman) display fine. What am I doing wrong?

    • Try holding down F1, F2, F3 or F4 *immediately* after pressing the reset button. It sounds like it may be activating the scandoubler, which F1 and F2 should disable. I can’t remember which one forces PAL mode and which one NTSC mode – but that should help bring the refresh rate up to something the monitor can handle.

      • I tried the F1-4 and nothing changes. I’ll try some other VGA monitors (maybe an older one) and see if that helps.

        Any other ideas?

        • Actually, a completely different monitor did the trick. I have a first gen Sony LCD/VGA which works perfectly. Next thing to work out is the keyboard, which all I have is USB types.. none of my PS2 converters seem to work. Oh well, need to go digging..

          • Glad to hear you got it working. The lack of a working PS/2 keyboard would explain why the F-Key trick didn’t help… πŸ˜‰

    • Nothing immediately in the works – life’s been hectic and I’ve barely touched Quartus for weeks. What little time I do have I’m currently spending on the ZPU project – but I will return to the this and the Vampire 500 project at some point.

  12. Hi,

    There’s a very slow menu response browsing files on the OSD menu. I have a few folders, each with about 20 ADF files, and moving the cursor down when it starts scrolling moves the cursor very slow. Is there a configuration fix or is this a known issue?

    I’m running build 2013-06-08 with TC64 .8h.

    Regards,
    Jostein

  13. Updated with latest version , it is working great! hope one day you will fix the problems with sd cards , and why not have an AGA emulation or RTG too πŸ™‚

    • I’m sure there’ll be more updates at some point in the future. But for now there’s not much “low-hanging fruit” left – and I don’t currently have the time to do anything major. Chaos is working on adding Mousewheel support to the DE1 Minimig core, so I will probably port that across when the time comes.

  14. after big tests i make my sd cards working … how?
    I goes in amministrative windows menu and change the format type of the sd,
    now my micro sd 8gb and 16gb working great with Minimig core .

    Ps: will be possible one day use all the c64 keyboard on the Chamaleon and the video pal exit on the c64?

    Thanks for the great wonderful job!

  15. Is there a how to guide somewhere? I just got my TC64, loaded the TC chameleon core and F12 doesn’t do anything? I have a kick.rom on there and tried both 1.3 and 3.1.

    I am on the yahoo group (searched) and googled to death. No info on proper config for noobs.

    on SD root:
    kick.rom
    Buncha ADF’s

    • Assuming you’ve used Chaco to flash the Fampiga_top.rbf file into the Chameleon, have you put the OSD_CA01.sys file on the SD card, too?

  16. I have a couple of questions about the latest core. 1) Is the serial port mapped to the IEC port? 2) Is the source available for the latest core ?

    • Thanks – keep reminding me if you don’t hear anything because I’m ridiculously busy at the moment and quite likely to forget!

  17. Hi, I have problem with getting this to work. πŸ™ I have placed the “OSD_CA01.sys” and a Kickstart file (tried 2.04 and 3.1) as “kick.rom” in the root of the SD card, and I have flashed the “fampiga_top.rbf” into core slot 2.

    It appears to load because the leds on the Chameleon flashes for a while, but the screen is totally black. :/

    Can anyone advice with suggestion?

    • Sounds to me like your monitor might not be able to cope with the 50Hz video mode – a lot of modern PC monitors can’t. Try pressing the rightmost blue button on the Chameleon (reset), then immediately holding down the F1 key for about 5 second or so – it should force the core to start up in NTSC mode (60Hz) instead of PAL (50Hz), which should be more to the monitor’s liking.

      • Will running the TC64 in 60Hz Mode break compatibility or timing in PAL games?

        I also wonder if joystick emulation via PS2 keyboard works?

        • Yes, 60Hz mode makes the Minimig pretend to be an NTSC Amiga (albeit not perfectly since the base clock is still 7.09MHz rather than 7.14MHz), so yes, PAL games will run pretty much the same as they do on NTSC Amigas.

          Joystick emulation does work – just use Num Lock to turn it on and off, then use the numeric keypad.

  18. Hi,

    Thanks for your great work on Minimig cores. My problem is that I’m forced to use 2013-02-10 built core, since anything newer wont run WHDLoad-version of Sensible World Of Soccer! I tried different WHDLoad-exes (versions 10-18) and different settings but those give “Line 1111 emulator error”. Also tried SWOS 96-97 adf’s but those gave guru too.

  19. Shadow of the beast 1- Crashed every time. In latest core &casys can’t back to Chameleon menu from minimigcore. In prevoius version all work and very important. Amiga 500 keyboard attached do TC68 not working. LEDS are chjanged postions, PWR LED is Drive LED and DRIVE LED is PWR LED. Any chance to resolve problems ? very important for me is working kbd A500 with LEDS and some compatibility πŸ™‚ regards Paul.

  20. Is hard drive access broken in the latest version? The hard disk menu has an option for a master and slave option, but whatever I put in the slave option never seems to get detected – even an amiga hard drive image fails.

    Trying to install amiga os on the second partition (working) on the sd card with fat32 on the first partition mounted as slave but isn’t working either.

    ljones

    • Maybe the RigidDiskBlock on whatever you’ve got set as the Master drive needs to be updated? When HDToolBox creates the RigidDiskBlock, if there are no more drives in the system it sets a flag which tells the OS not to bother looking for further drives.

  21. Hello,

    I’m Danilo, a new italian user of the Chameleon 64.
    I noticed Chameleon 64 and ZX Spectrum Cores use for the PAL resolution a frequency of 56Hz at 800 x 600 which is fully compatible with most of the monitors VGA / LCD.

    May the Minimig TC64 Core support this resolution?

    I used the TC64 in NTSC 60hz, but I found a lot of PAL games incompatible with my screen monitor/TV.

    Thanks for your attention
    Good job !

  22. Hello,

    I come back to bother you.
    May it is possible to do a Build with resolution 800 x 600 @ 50Hz VGA
    that seems to be docked from my monitor / TV ?

    The 720 x 576 it’s not compatible.

    Thanks for your attention.
    Danilo

    • Unfortunately it’s not easy to change the Minimig core’s screenmode – so this is unlikely to be done in the forseeable future. The only thing that might be possible to improve compatibility with modern TVs and monitors is to “overclock” the entire Amiga to bring the 50Hz mode up to 56Hz. This will have the side-effect of making games run too fast, music play too high and may cause stability problems with the CPU – but it might be possible. (The MIST’s Minimig core could do this at one point – I don’t know if it still can with the latest versions.)

  23. Hi!

    On MIST an AGA v1.2 minimig core is out since february. Is it planned porting to TC64?

    GΓ‘bor

  24. I have the latest minimig running on a TC64. kick.rom, key file official from cloanto. FPGA image boots, loads but then is stuck at diskette-animation screen (purple). 3.1 rom, 40.063. run/stop does NOT start OSD. Thoughts?

      • Don’t have one. (hard to come by!) As soon as the animation starts, no matter what I do, I cannot get to the minimig menu with run/stop…

        • Make sure you have the latest version of the OSD_CA01.sys file on your SD card. Also double-check that you do indeed have the latest version of the core flashed.
          Does the menu button (leftmost button) on the Chameleon itself work?

          • Latest version of OSD_CA01.sys, latest version of core. (2013/6/8) Leftmost button on TC also does not work. (By the way, the left button and the runstop do work in C64 mode)

  25. ok – it was the SD card. I’ve copied everything on another card (2GB) and it now works!! Thanks for the help anyway.

  26. Now that I’m on it – has anyone found a solution to use an USB keyboard?(converters to PS/2 do not work) Is there a way to send chars to the TC?

    • Apologies, I’ve only just noticed this comment, and while I’m on the icomp.de forum I don’t read the German section due to the language barrier. Try turning off Turbo Chip-RAM. If it still happens, try turning off fblit – I seem to remember it causing issues.

  27. Thank you. Turning off Turbo Chip-RAM was the solution.

    A few years ago you where ask for AGA Support. Since iam looking very jealous on those beta core, i ask you if AGA Support will be realized for TC64 or if you already burried that project. πŸ˜‰

    • I’m not saying it’ll never happen but it’s not going to be an easy project. The AGA core might not fit in the Chameleon – I think it can be squeezed in by using a smaller CPU core for the control CPU (currently the core uses a second TG68) – but that means porting the firmware – as well as making it compatible with the AGA core. It’s beyond the scope of what I normally do “for fun”!

  28. Thank you! I will flash my good ol’ TC1 asap πŸ™‚

    Since you are actively working on the cores, is AGA support somewhere on your roadmap? I have read past comments (and your replies), and i realize this will be hard to accomplish.

    • Yes, it’s still on the roadmap – I’m trying to figure out the best way to accomplish it, ideally in such a way that will make other cores possible to port in future.

    • Not a lot to report at the moment – except that I do now believe the AGA core can be made to fit in the TC64.

      I’m not working to any kind of schedule here, just working on whatever currently piques my interest. My recent post “Frustrations and Brittle Projects” was about the Minimig core – but I’m also looking to do a proper release of the Next186 core in the not too distant future.

  29. Nice that the AGA core can be made to fit in the TC64. I do not want to make any pressure on you. I know that you do that as a hobby and for the community. But i guess that you can understand that many C64 enthusiasts are veeery exited for the AGA Core for TC64. πŸ˜‰

    So dont be surprised if some people will ask you from time to time… πŸ™‚

    • That would be nice – I’m investigating the best way to do that, as it happens. (Everyone I’ve spoken to so far recommends using Patreon because that’s the platform everyone knows, but also using PayPal for one-off donations – so that’s my current plan.) In the meantime, I am making slow but steady progress!

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