Pimiga - Raspberry Pi Powered Amiga

Raspberry Pi Powered Amiga

The Pimiga is a fairly new project that brings the retro joys of the greatest computer of all time to modern and easily available hardware. It is recommended you use a Pi4 or even better a Pi400 as a modern day Amiga. Pimiga is a workbench replacement for the Commodore Amiga. Built for Raspberry Pi 400. It is based on ClassicWB with Scalos workbench replacement. User provided ROMs make it work.

This page will be landing page for the available resources about the Pimiga and all the fun wrapped into it.

Video Summary of the Pimiga

Here is an overview of the Pimiga, set up and usage by Chris Edwards, the developer.

Getting Started

Before you can actually use Pimiga, you will need the proper hardware and software.

Recommended Hardware

• Raspberry Pi 4 or Pi 400 with proper power supply
• Mouse
• SD Card – 64 GB minimum recommended
• Display – 1080p recommended

Download Pimiga

In order to download the Pimiga image, you will have to use a BitTorrent client. There are various options, I use Ktorrent without any issue but there are others such as qBitTorrent or Transmission.

Pimiga 2.0 x64

The image is compressed with 7 zip (7z) and requires the appropriate decompression utility.

Kickstart ROM

Pimiga is shipped as NON-WORKING. In order to run the Pimiga, you will require the Amiga 1200 kickstart ROM. Pimiga contains NO Amiga ROMs. The There are a couple options to get the appropriate ROM. One is to purchase a copy of AmigaForever, install it and run the Amiga 1200 virtual machine initially. There is also an option to buy it through the Play store for Android and extract the ROM from there.

Installation

The quick and easy way to get Pimiga on the SD Card for your Pi is using the Raspberry Pi Imager. After selecting Choose OS scroll to the bottom of the list and select, Use Custom.

Choose the appropriate Pimiga img file, Select Choose Storage and be sure to sellect the correct storage as you do not want to overwrite something else inadvertently. Generally, a good indicator is the size of the device. I inserted a 64 GB Micro SD Card so it is pretty clear which device on the list is the correct one.

Imager will provide a sanity check warning before you proceed. Authentication is required on some systems in order to proceed.

Once the writing is complete, do not remove it from the computer. Open your file manager and observe that there are three partitions on the SD Card: boot, rootfs, and KICK.

Kick Partition not Visible?

Should you not see the “KICK” partition, take the following appropriate remedial actions.

Windows

Run diskmgmt.msc and add a drive letter to the kick partition, then it will show.

Linux / Mac

Eject disk and reinsert.

Locate the A1200 ROM image as mentioned in the aforementioned step. Locate the Kickstart v3.1 A1200 ROM and copy that .rom file to the KICK partition and rename it to kick31a1200.rom.

Unmount the SD Card and put in the Pi4/400. Your setup is complete

First Run

Once booted to Pimiga, say wow, then Press F12 and choose “QUIT”

The image auto logs in as as user pi with password pimiga. Note this if you need a sudo command in Linux.

Expand the file system

In terminal, run

sudo raspi-config

This will expand the image to use your entire space on your microSD card to give you more space avail if larger than 82g. (image size) Amiga OS will show the free space of the card.

Configure All Locale Settings

Default TimeZone/Keymap/Language is English US/US UTF8 Keyboard. If this does not suit your location, adjust accordingly. The Space Bar is used to select your keyboard/country. The Space Bar will also unselect the unneeded country. Press Tab until the OK is highlighted and Enter to select.

Wifi

setup wifi country and wifi ssid/username/password for your needs.

Display

Default is CEA MODE 16 1920×1080@60hz

The CEA MODE 31 1920×1080@50hz can be selected if you are in a PAL region and it wont support @60hz, however this “may” cause audio to skip sometimes. Should there be issues, reset to CEA MODE 16 .

99% of all modern hdmi devices support 50 or 60 hz regardless.
Amiga is set to PAL with UAE1920x1080x32 by default.

Sound

if you would like to use the 3.5mm or usb audio Pi4/400
edit the file asound.conf with sudo nano /etc/asound.conf
and change the card from 0 to 1 like this

/etc/asound.conf
pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
device 0
}
ctl.!default {
type hw
card 1
}

The card number can be confirmed by typing aplay -l

usually card 1 is 3.5mm sometimes called headphones(-this will be usb on pi400)

card 0 is hdmi audio (default)

you can change back to hdmi audio by replacing the card 1 with card 0
in both lines

Volume can be turned up if too soft by typing

sudo alsamixer

and following the on screen instructions

Joystick / Controllers

Controllers need to be plugged in at boot. No hot swapping for you.

• configure in emulator f12/input port 1 drop down.
• select your controller, resume, or save config resume.
• if not using a controller leave Amiberry setting to disabled for port 1
• or keyboard may place a 2p when pressing “2” and other weird key issues.

Bluetooth device

The Pi4 and Pi400 have Bluetooth 5.0 built in. To pair a device, quit emu.

To turn on Bluetooth:

sudo bluetoothctl

it should say “agent registered” if on
this also puts you in a [bluetooth] mode (type exit to quit this)
now type help to see commands,
to pair a device. In terminal type:

scan

Then pair and the mac address of the device
example: [bluetooth] pair 11:22:33:44:55:66

web search “bluetooth pi” if you get noobstuck

USB

• insert any USB drive into usb at power on.
• device will be mounted via linux to /media/usb
• available in Scalos Workbench as DH5:
• this is configured in the emulator as a folder mount in /media/usb
• any format/filesystem that Linux can read will work.

Note: USB is NOT hot swappable!

If you remove/re-plug in, you must power off and back on. A warm reboot will not do this!

Tip: inside of the OS, open your usb icon then right click choose view/ all files to show them or just use directory opus on the dock bar

Enjoy

Have fun with the software, the games and the Matryoshka doll of emulation within Pimiga.

Chris Edwards

This is the brainchild of the the Pimiga and Amiga super-fan that will help you turn your Raspberry Pi 4/400 into an application packed Amiga with all the fun of the 90s and the convenience and reliability of today’s hardware into one magnificent package.

Support

If you find Mr. Chris Edward’s contributions life changing and you want to support him. He has a Patreon that will encourage him to keep at it.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/3tRN30P