straycat's Minimig
an unofficial site for Dennis van Weeren's Minimig - an open source modern implementation of an Amiga

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Minimig Resource - last updated April 2008

  • Minimig Cases
    to be added soon
     

  • Choosing an SD card...
    If your Minimig isn't supplied with an SD card it's worth trying out two or three different ones to compare speed. I've noticed significant differences in speed disk images mount as well as loading time. I've found 1GB Dane Elec SD card to work very well and I've heard Sandisk cards work very well too. Getting the right card can really improve your Minimig experience!

  • Setting up your SD card
    You may find your Minimig is supplied with an SD card already but if not you'll need to buy one (or borrow one from something like an old mobile phone). I would recommend at least 64MB but the more the better, 1GB is probably ideal and easily available. I've heard the Minimig is quite fussy and only works with some cards. Sandisk cards report to work very well.

    Plug your SD card into your PC (or Amiga, Mac etc). You'll need to copy a Kickstart rom to your card. If you have something like
    Amiga Explorer you can copy your Kickstart rom from your real Amiga. If you do not have a real Amiga I've been informed Amiga Forever roms work okay although I've not tested this.

    You'll also need the Minimig firmware. On a traditional Amiga this is on a chip built into the Amiga but as this is still licenced it cannot be shipped with the Minimig. You can download a firmware file from the
    ACube website. At the present time you may find the ACube firmware (or firmware file on your SD card if supplied with one) only works with a traditional CRT monitor. Fortunately someone has released an updated firmware that not only works well on American NTSC screens but LCD monitors too. See the link at the bottom of this page for the download.
     

  • Copying games to your Minimig
    Your Minimig reads ADF files - images of Amiga floppy disks. You can transfer your original disks by using something like Amiga Explorer which creates an ADF file as it copies the disk from your Amiga. Alternatively there are many ADF downloads available on the internet, a quick internet search should reveal a number of sites. Note that copyright still exists on most games so ensure you own the originals or stick to freeware programs.
     

  • Saving files on your Minimig
    Although many Amiga games work quite nicely without having to worry about this, you may want to save your progress in some.  Apart from saving game positions it's also useful to be able to save things like your doodles in DPaint, drum patterns in Sonic Drumkit and programs in AmigaBasic. At the time of writing the Minimig firmware doesn't have the facility to save to the SD card.

    This leaves one only one option to preserve data on your Minimig: saving things on the Ram disk and then transfer your files across a serial cable to another computer. I've successfully set this up relatively easily using my existing null serial cable and Amiga Forever software in exactly the same way as my 'real' Amiga. I've kept the same serial settings at both the PC and the Minimig end and it works great. You don't have to have your PC on the whole time either, just turn the PC on when you want to transfer some files to/from the Minimig. You do need to keep the serial cable plugged in at both ends though.

    For many games that need to save to a floppy disk unfortunately this doesn't work because they only allow saving game positions to floppy (or ADF in the Minimig's case). There's a few games (such as The Bard's Tale) that need write access to the floppy drive to even run properly but for a select number of games, and especially applications saving to the Ram disk is an option. You'll need a serial transfer program and cable to do this, there's several options out there, I'm using Amiga Explorer coupled with a decent null modem cable. I've successfully transferred AmigaBasic and DPaint images to and from the Minimig using this method.

    The Amiga Explorer site has excellent tutorials on setting this up for use. Once you're up and running you can access the Minimig's Ram disk (full read/write access) and DF0 (read only access at this time).
     
  • How to re-order your SD card programs
    The current Minimig firmware doesn't list the contents of your SD card in any obvious order. In fact it's listing the files by 'Date Created' with the oldest at the top of the list. If you're using Windows you can modify the creation date to
    effectively re-order your SD card.

    - In Windows Explorer list the files by Date Created (Don't forget to view by Details. You will probably need to add the Date Created column by right mouse clicking the column bar at the top). List the files with most recent at the bottom. This is now the order they are displayed on the Minimig.
    - To change the Created date of the file copy the file then paste it into the same folder.
    - It will create 'Copy of xxxxx'. Delete the original and rename the new copy to the original name. The file will now appear at the bottom of the list. This method is obviously very limited but the only method I know of at present until we see a firmware update.

    I've used this technique to successfully place all my Workbench and application ADFs at the bottom to separate them from the games.

     

  • Some useful links
    ACube - Minimig manufacturer
    AmigaKit - Suppliers of the Minimig based in the UK
    Amiga.org - Visit this forum for solving technical queries
    Amigaworld.net - Another excellent Amiga forum
    Cases - Follow this forum thread at Amiga.org for more info on the cases
    yaqube's firmware update - Follow this forum thread for the NTSC/LCD firmware update
    Amiga Forever - Buy licenced Roms plus the useful Amiga Explorer for transferring files via serial port
    Minimig wiki page - Wikipedia info on the Amiga with further links
    Minimig Open Circuit wiki - Excellent resource including a list of what works and doesn't
    TheDaddyreview - An early review of the Minimig including another compatibility list
     

 

 

 

 

 

 


Website by straycat 2008. Disclaimer applies. Minimig is an Open Source project.
Amiga, the Boing Ball and other assorted pieces are trademark Amiga Incorporated.

Other trademarks used are owned by their respective owners and no attempt is made by me to conflict with those trademarks.
Such use is in accordance with the Fair Use rules as posted here.