The A600GS From Amigakit Teardown
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- In this video, I'll be opening up and exploring the inside of this machine. While I may not be familiar with every component, I'll explain what I can. Please note that the video was filmed in a large room, so there may be some reverb in the audio.
#amigakit #a600gs #retrogamer
While I appreciate that it's not a 68060 and that it's essentially emulation, but I appreciate the creator for getting some legendary developers to release updated versions of their softs
That has far more appeal to me than anything else about it. Especially if (?) DOpus 4 actually received some bug fixes...
Love hiw the ARM technology is used on the A600GS. Simply brilliant!
I've just ordered mine, as a computer engineer I am perfectly happy with emulation and knowing the microcontroller board is replaceable with a known brand. They've done a lot of work on the OS, native ARM graphics library and bundled some good software with it. I'll be using mine maybe for a few games but mostly as a modern Amiga-compatible computer.
Im liking it myself im a massive fan of emulation and replaceable boards
As a computer engineer I'd expect you to understand the difference between a microcontroller and an SBC 😂
@@JayDee-iy5be the orange Pi is an SBC, not a microcontroller... Weird that my original post saying this was deleted.
The inside looks better than the outside!
I do quite like the look of the inside
"AmgiaKit" oops 😅
I don't understand why people are surprised. Korg make synths with Raspberry Pi CM3 boards inside. Loads of industrial things use Orange Pi and Raspberry Pi boards....
That loose panel is just a tolerance thing - a bit of tape or something to keep it snug will be fine. Also they are expecting you to open it as it has a micro sd card in it. Would be better with eMMC instead but hey. H618 is used in loads of Android tv boxes btw
@@adrianhendy exactly. These boards were designed for this purpose. They power so many things! We benefit from the economies of scale.
Agreed. Using readily available SoC boards that are well supported and documented makes a lot of sense.
I would put some small heat sinks on the H618 CPU chip and the big black ram chip next to it and the PMU (the little black chip about a 1 cm above the ram chip towards the USB connector. Every Orange Pi 3 Zero board I've had (3 of them) , these get really hot.
Good tip. Another potential mod could be to fit a larger capacity SD card, or even mount it externally with one of those SD extender cables.
Honestly, with all the markings a transparent case would have been cool imho.
A clear case would be awesome
Versatile, and potentially upgradable. I like it.
I bought one at Kickstart 02. Got serial number 14
Same i like it living the 9pin support
Thanks for the video. It's really cool, I could really not care less about the criticisms or whatever controversies surround this device.. None of my business, in the end it's just another great way to enjoy the world of Amiga, oh I know, I know before someone starts yelling "that's not an amiga!" Again, I don't care, so no need to state the obvious. Not everyone has the room, finances or technical know how to track down the original hardware, maintain them etc. It's a small intuitive little device that allows one to run the Amiga software that I enjoyed so much back in the day for a reasonable price on a modern display, then that can only be a good thing in my opinion. I have loved emulation since emulating probably C64 on my original a1200. Emulation is just another means to an end, do what you love the way you love to do it and just ignore the crybabies.
Couldnt have put it better myself
Thanks for watching glad you enjoyed the video
Fully agree with this. But what really "IS" the amiga? You have 68k with the original chipsets, PowerPC with original chips or later powerpc with old amiga emulation, x86 reimplementation with old amiga emulation, arm, fpga, etc etc. They all do the same thing one way or another. I like this as it has classic joystick ports and a nice interface. I also like the fact it could be upgradeable seeing as it used an arm sbc mounted to their interface board.
It is still an Amiga - it's using Amiga technology, it's just a matter of implementation - you can do that with original chips, hardware emulation with FPGA or software emulation in code. Emulation is a perfectly acceptable solution. They're also using ARM native graphics library in the OS.
@@ThomasCaraccio The simple answer is "whatever runs the Amiga software". God knows how many times I've heard that "It's not an Amiga" drivel... And yeah, when i hooked up a CD32 that i picked of a garbage bin (real story, there was DOZENS there...) and hooked it up to my A1200 with a serial cable (this was the 90's before ATAPI drives were cheap and CDFS existed...) guess what, it wasn't a CDROM either, but it did the job. And when i used a hand me down P133 with Wingate hooked to the Amiga so i could use a cheap winmodem, it wasn't a router either. And so many more tales of the same ilk.
This is a cute box, just a bit under powered for my taste. Think they might have had a better deal with a x86 SBC as emulation doesn't get much from multi core, benefits more from fast single/dual core. Still, if they made an Amiga side spi.device to interface with a real SPI port on the Pi... oh my, the amount of "coprocessors" you could add with cheap ESP32's...
p.s. my ATOM S3 Lite isn't a USB keyboard either, but my PC thinks it is ;) All in the eye of the beholder...
I have no problem with Emulation, I own my fair share of Classic Amiga Hardware and I do use Emulators. Emulation allows for an inexpensive means to getting that Amiga Experience. I don't have an opinion of the A600GS but do welcome another choice on the market for people to chose from.
I have pimiga which is awesome love my pi400 i also have pi4 which runs myb speccy and amiga games brill
I do welcom these new devices also thisis great though with the 9 pin support
Thanks for watching stephen
@@tooheystechgaming1977 Chris Edwards has done an awesome job with PiMiga. I have 2 server racks with 1U Pi fixtures which allow me to play in the world of Pi easily. I also like the Pi Theme Cases.
I hope that we in the neat future will see more amiga software running natively on ARM.
Given its cheap, I'm surprised that anyone is surprised or upset that it's a pi. The whole device looks very well made. Anything that removes barriers to entry is a good thing imho. Some people just want to play, and can't be bothered with setup. I'd lean towards the mini myself but this still looks great imho. Long live Amiga.
Thanks for showing what's inside. I'm quite capable of deciding if this might fit my needs, as long as I have sufficient info. As a ready to go Octamed box, I'm tempted. As I last used that software (V4) nearly 30 years ago, I've pretty much forgotten everything! I'd love to see/hear how the updated version performs on this device, free of the limitations (lack of RAM) that I battled with back in the day.
Im currently testing out octamed ill pop it in a future vid next week probably
@@tooheystechgaming1977 I look forward to it. If possible, please test with some 16 bit stereo samples.
The main appeal for me is that it has two 9 pins and its a mini. I have the A500 mini, and rasp pi so this well fit in nicely
I quite like it. It's all very well saying you can cobble one together yourself for half the price yada yada yada but a lot of people do not have the time, expertise or just the inclination to do such a thing, never mind getting it all to fit in a neat little box. For those people, jobs a goodun.
I never said i can cobble one together what i said was the mini is cheaper and you get a bundled mouse
@@tooheystechgaming1977 I should have clarified, it's not you saying this, but that's a lot of the citicism that I've read about it "mehh it's a 30 quid orange Pi" and so on. Some people just like a good moan... :)
@LozzoAmiga im with you ive heard it a lot aswell lol
I like it im using it right now infact with my zipstik
You can just buy cheap Android TV box for about $20 and run UAE on it.
The 26 pin expander could be for serial port as any Pi has a serial port on-board built into the microcontroller. Also possible they could add a external IDE port or parallel port or pcmcia port or an Amiga clock port. But either way I personally won't bother with this as it's just a Pi and any PC from the last 10 years will run Amiga emulation better than any Pi. Or for a similar small package get a Pi4 or Pi5.... that would actually be a better choice as they are a fraction of the cost too!
The inside wasn't what I was expecting! I thought it'd be more generic rather than dedicated and personalised.
Same here i wasnt expecting the orange pi
Ah, I just heard about this system. I was kinda hoping for something FPGA based. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, but I couldn't find much info on it. I have an A500 mini so this system is one I will skip on that basis. Probably would have picked one up if I didnt already have that machine.
Look up the new minimig v1.98 boards or better still wait for the Amicube, both FPGA Amiga systems
Did they not even de bur the hole they cut in the generic project box. That said it fills a gap in the market and is great for anyone who doesn’t have the tech knowledge to make their own
I quite like it slowly getting to grips with it
i'd get it if they cased it inside a A600 keyboard at least. the amigas were computers, not consoles. missed opportunity but looking forward to the a500maxi for that : )
Have you tried copying anything from USB to AmiBench yet? I just get an empty file created with the same name as the file I tried to copy... even if I copy to RAM: 😒
Ill hopefully be doing a video on amibench in the next few days so ill try that
This really should have had a full size hdmi port.
You have emphasised both at the start of the video and the end of the video that the product has had a lot of criticism. In reality it has received a small amount of negative comments but the majority of feedback has been postive. Please remember that the few users that have an agenda against AmigaKit are a small group but very noisy and vocal so it can seem there is more criticism than there actually is.
The majority of the product costs go on software development. This product is over 36000 lines of code and includes 2024 editions of four new Amiga applications. It will be quite some time until the development costs are recouperated.
I dont know the full story why people have an agenda against amigakit i for one have dealt with them for years with no issues
All the criticism ive seen and heard are people ive spoken to after the show as well as video comments and fbook group comments...one person i even seen chatting away to amigakit really nice and then in the same breath slagging them later on so i do understand what you are saying when its a small group
I still think and i stand by it a mouse could have been bundled with the product
Have heard lots of positive feedback aswell
@@tooheystechgaming1977More than Likely another company Fan Club who holds grudges 🙄
I imagine a good portion of the cynicism is going to be over the name. And I can’t say I blame em. It’s a bad name.
" few users that have an agenda against AmigaKit"
And you are (of course) 100% impartial ?
@@tooheystechgaming1977 There are concerns over aggressive use of domain names that seem to belong to competitors being used to redirect to their site, as well as the trademarking of A* and the rainbow tick, old Amiga symbols which many believe belong to the community.
However, AmigaKit is committed to the survival of the Amiga. This device represents progress, offering excellent value for money. They are committed to its ongoing development. They have ambitious plans for the future. I trust them to deliver on their plans. The future looks bright 👍
Can you make a backup of that micro SD in .img? That will surely boot on a normal orange pi zero 3.
Ive backed it up ready to use it my other fails as an iso
I used rasp pi imager
@@tooheystechgaming1977 Can you upload the image to mega or drive? I would be grateful.
is it possible to use a usb floppy and or cd drive?
Im unsure i havent got that far with that yet
It would depend on how much of the OrangePI kernel is left after it is stripped to reduce loading times. Chances are, there is enough left in order to boot, and load AmiBerry with a custom UI (Like what Cloanto does with Amiga Forever, using WinUAE with a Custom Front End).
Matt told me they hope to release an external USB floppy drive for it. One that can read Amiga disks. They are working on a prototype.
They have huge plans - however, as with everything those plans are dictated by funding / sales.
Considering you can just stick this on a pc in 5 minutes, I cant see the point of spending 134 pounds on it. If it came inside a keyboard that was a copy of the amiga, then yeah I would say worth it. Might as well just buy a second hand Amiga at that price.
The A600GS is supplied with several commercial titles that have been updated in 2024. Octamed 8 and Final Writer 7 are the first commercial updates since the 1990s. Personal Paint 7.4 is a special update for the A600GS. AmiBench has had 2 years of development.
@@A600GSWho is AmigaKit licensing the OS from? It has to be either Hyperion or Cloanto.
~$25 RPi3 equivalent when there are several far more capable devices available? I don't see the rest of the current ~$150 cost in the box and interface board. PiMiga4 is free so the software argument doesn't hold water.
There are a lot of costs involved with the A600GS project. We have not used any pirated/unlicenced software in this development.
We paid Amiga developers over a two year period for the original software that is included and updated.
Software Developments include paying programmers to develop:
* AK-Datatypes including new picture DTC and new datatype library
* SystemV46 including brand new DOS command V46 rewrite
* AmiBench
* OctaMED 8
* Personal Paint 7.4
* A600GS Games Menu system: 36000+ lines of code
* ARM Graphics Library
Plus:
* 100's of new 32-bit icons and backgrounds
There are 18 contibutors from the Amiga community to this project. We will probably break even in the first year of sales.
It’s not PiMiga. The productivity software has been improved and developed further. It’s worth the money.
@@A600GS I'm appreciative of the effort that has gone into this machine, it's a nice compact little modern system and I can't wait for mine to arrive. It's also a heck of a lot cheaper than the Vampire I was going to buy.
about what I expected -- generic ARM SBC, with a dervitive of the Pi Amiga on it, and a simple IO board. /yawn
This is very nice. Makes it possible to upgrade later on. Stand alone box with joystick ports is more practical in some cases.
@@rednight2476 it’s not a derivative of PiMiga.
Fully licenced productivity apps
An Amiga Workbench / OS compatible environment, based on AROS - but with improvements.
The ability to use your joysticks.
Clearly they should have asked you what you wanted them to create, rather than just put this dinky little device together. They should have realised that anything less than a brand new, miniaturised A600 chipset, with extra RAM, fast IDE, USB and a 100MHz 68060 wouldn't be considered good enough for the die hard Amiga fanatics. Yet this is still cheaper than a decent A600, more reliable, better equipped and more expandable than a real A600. Who'd have thunk it?
@@another3997boy are you in for a surprise when you hear about what else is about to come out!
My nipples are hard. Only Amiga makes it possible
sooner have a pi4 running pimiga.
I have that also
Nothing stopping you from having a Pi4, or any other "Amiga" solution. You'd miss out on the DB9 ports, but other than that a Pi 4/400 would do the same basic job. But then so would pretty much any x86 machine made in the last 10 years, and it would probably be considerably faster than either this or the Pi, and more expandable. Horses for courses.
orange pi zero 3 board 30 quid on amazon thanks for the video youve helped me make up my mind
It is not about the hardware. The software is the key. AmigaKit have developed an Amiga like Workbench alternative which is free from the legal issues of the past. Built-on open source AROS. You also get a bunch of updated productivity apps.
Up until hearing about this id never heard of an orang pi and looking at the prices of them yeh wow cheap as
@@tooheystechgaming1977 cheaper still if you dont mind buying stuff off aliexpress 12 and half quid
@BlufftonMicrocosmicExperiment It's not free software.
AmigaKit owns Octamed, having purchased the rights from Teijo Kinnunen (to whom the manual is dedicated following his recent passing). They have also further developed the software.
Similarly, they acquired Personal Paint and licensed an updated version of Final Writer. This software is not free.
I agree with you - it’s well worth it 👍
A standalone Orange Pi doesn't have DB9 ports, and it provides fewer USB ports. It also doesn't come with a case, SD card and relevant cables unless you pay extra. Add on the streamlined base OS, an emulator, a working, ready to run AROS installation with extras, and your £30 doesn't seem such a bargain after all.
This is so lame. Utterly disappointed.
Aww. Not even an FPGA. Boring.
Not as boring as your comment. 😂
The hardware it's another emulation, sucks...
Ok
If you were waiting less than a month for that to turn up from AK i'd be surprised. £134 for what? Something you can do on a £20 pi?