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Comment by hestefisk | Hacker News Reader

What is the best option for buying a fully functioning Amiga clone? I know there are various boards and accelerators out there. What should I buy?

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MiSTer is an FPGA implementation of the Amiga (and a lot of other cores) based on an easily available FPGA dev board. https://misterfpga.org/

Apollo Vampire V4 standalone is a "modern" FPGA implementation of a 68k Amiga that is nearly 100% Amiga compatible but much, much faster and with updated graphics etc. http://www.apollo-core.com/v4.html

So: MiSTer if you're looking for an authentic Commodore Amiga experience and want to play old games etc, Vampire if you have a lot of money to spare and want to do "modern" things on a classic Amiga (fancier games, MP3 and video playback...)

You should also consider that Amiga emulation is very accurate and fast these days and you could just get a Raspberry Pi running UAE which would be mostly indistinguishable from the FPGA reimplementations once you're up and running.

I haven't compared the two solutions personally, but MISTer is said to have less latency than emulators.

This is true but depending on personal preference/perception and usecase it might not matter. If you really care about latency for twitchy old-school games, a MiSTer (or a real Amiga!) and CRT monitor would be ideal.

It's not so much the emulators that have latency, it's the platforms they run on that have mostly been optimized for throughput and battery life for the past ~20 years. It's possible to get low latency on modern systems, but it requires relatively advanced and often non-portable techniques to fight the system's attempts at "efficiency".

Where FPGA really shines is in producing a consistent timing model and the associated performance quirks (such as slowdown in video games).

I think the MiSTer is a good suggestion as it's flexible. Inevitably one day you will decide you want to try something other than an Amiga and then you've got all the cores available for other systems to easily install. The support is also very good from several vendors. Here's quite a nice complete kit of parts to easily make a games console style MiSTer solution:

https://rmcretro.store/multisystem-board-only/

And a review of this set of parts from Anthony of LTT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyDqGdY7ffQ

Aside from FPGA/emulation options, somebody actually made a replica Amiga 4000 motherboard called the A4000TX[1], so if you can supply the custom chips, you can have an actual hardware Amiga.

The maker still apparently sells them on Amibay[2].

[1]https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=93869

[2]https://www.amibay.com/forum/want-to-sell/hardware-for-sale/...

There are a few good options here:

* The MiSTer FPGA computer supports an Amiga core.

* The Vampire V4+ Standalone, another FPGA-based system, is pretty much the ultimate 680x0 (compatible) Amiga. Both it and the MiSTer are going to more closely approximate the original Amiga hardware by having the FPGAs configured to mimic the custom chips, but they are a little pricey.

* If you don't mind an emulated system, or need to go cheap, then a Raspberry Pi with PiMiga might do. When you consider that the Raspberry Pi 400 is literally today's version of an Amiga 500 form factor, it makes sense.

If you wanted a modern Acorn Archimedes this is also easily had with a Raspberry Pi: simply boot the Pi port of RISC OS!

The vampire is adding 3D acceleration as well it seems at the voodoo level of quality and performance. Seems like a pretty cool platform to teach kids to code.

If it is classic games you're after, there is a mini retro-console coming up in March/April: TheA500 Mini . It should provide the most out-of-the-box polished experience. You could pre-order it, but I would await reviews before I'd buy. It comes with a replica mouse, and a gamepad inspired by the Amiga CD32 console's, both talking USB.

However, games back in the day hade been made for digital joysticks — which (I personally, find) are more accurate on diagonals than D-pads are. So, I think that a retro-joystick (such as the TheC64 Joystick from the same company) or vintage joystick with USB adaptor would be a must for the authentic experience.

I'd say a Raspberry PI with emulator, for price and flexibility, more so if you have one dusting a draw sitting about. https://retrogamecoders.com/raspberry-pi-amiga-emulation/

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