"to Minimig" connector on Docking Station

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • Hi,


    Something's been puzzling me for a while - what's the purpose of the "to Minimig" connector on the Docking Station?


    I mean, I know that it's there so that you can connect an original Minimig board - but why would you want to? What purpose does it serve?

  • but why would you want to?

    The Minimig board only has two joystick ports, and it can't work with an original Amiga keyboard. The new Docking Station even gives access to the MIDI ports, which are also not present on the Minimig board. See it as a "port expander" if "Docking station" doesn't fit your idea of the right wording :-)

  • The Minimig board only has two joystick ports, and it can't work with an original Amiga keyboard. The new Docking Station even gives access to the MIDI ports, which are also not present on the Minimig board.

    OK cool - so how does it work on the Minimig end? Looking at the cable I presume it connects to the serial port? Does it require a custom core? Or custom PIC/ARM firmware?

  • Looking at the cable I presume it connects to the serial port?

    It connects to one of the joystick ports. Which one, that should be in the documentation of the core. I don't have a Minimig, so I can't share any experience. I only designed it to be compatible according to the open schematics :-)


    Does it require a custom core?

    It should be a custom core - I'd have to look up when that was made, but you might want to check the documentation of the Minimig core, as the Docking Station support might have made it into the main core. The author was from the a1k.org community - he did not only the Minimig core, but also an adaption of the C64 core to use the C64 keyboard header. That must have been November/December 2011 when the first Docking Station was released.

  • It connects to one of the joystick ports. Which one, that should be in the documentation of the core. I don't have a Minimig, so I can't share any experience. I only designed it to be compatible according to the open schematics :-)


    It should be a custom core - I'd have to look up when that was made, but you might want to check the documentation of the Minimig core, as the Docking Station support might have made it into the main core. The author was from the a1k.org community - he did not only the Minimig core, but also an adaption of the C64 core to use the C64 keyboard header. That must have been November/December 2011 when the first Docking Station was released.

    Thanks for the information - given the hint about a1k.org I was able to find both source and binaries in the first post of the Hardware -> Minimig FAQ thread on that forum.


    The thread's not viewable unless you're logged in, though, so it's invisible to search engines, and the docking station code doesn't seem to exist anywhere else. (It was never integrated upstream, and since Google Code went read-only I'm not sure if there even is an official upstream any more!)

  • From the code you shoul dbe able to see which lines are used for the serial data stream that comes from the Docking Station. This is identical on Docking Station V2, but the two unused IO pins of that joystick port are now used for MIDI - if you're interested in implementing that, I'll dig out the exact pinout so you don't have to try. Would be cool if you can use Bars'n'Pipes on Minimig.

  • The last reply was more than 365 days ago, this thread is most likely obsolete. It is recommended to create a new thread instead.