Quick And Dirty MIST FPGA Demonstration Video – Initial Impressions

The Mist is a FPGA computerboard with VGA, analog audio out, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 9 pin joystick connectors and an SD card capable of hardware emulating quite a few systems.

Running a system is achieved by booting into a specific core which interfaces with the graphics, video, I/O of the Mist system. The SD card contains the core but also the files needed by the core and the games/apps images you want to run.

Some cores require the SD card to be in FAT16 others can work with an SD card formatted in FAT32. Some cores are quite picky when it comes to SD cards where others are much more lenient.

Cores that work well by my own experience:
Amiga (Minimig), C64 (Various), Amstrad CPC, Atari 2600, Atari 8bit (finicky), ZX Spectrum (finicky but when it works it works well), Atari ST (can be finicky to get up and running but when it works it works well and you can use the midi ports on the device like on a real ST great for Cubase), Amstrad CPC and BBC Beeb. Let’s check out the video. And I don’t even get to show all the various systems that can be emulated.

The MSX-core has a lot of potential in this system but suffers from SD-card read errors. For now don’t get the MIST for MSX emulation!

The MIST has been around for a couple of years now, and there’s not too much active development for it anymore. That’s because the MIST platform has been ported over to a more enhanced FPGA board that combines the FPGA chip with an ARM CPU which makes much more complex interaction with audio/video and IO and the cores possible. Most of the development has been moved to that new MISTer system. The MISTer system sadly isn’t a readily available system like the MIST was, it’s based off a FPGA single board system and community driver hardware add-ons that make it into a MISTer. A very desirable system when you’re into FPGA emulation but the community driven add-ons and the board are not easily obtained. The add ons are user made and are not mass produced. 🙁

The MIST can be bought in various online webshops catering for this sort of things like:
http://amigastore.eu/en/318-mist-fpga-computer.html
http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96
https://www.dragonbox.de/de/285-mist-fpga-konsolen.html
http://amiga.amedia-computer.com/index.php/catalogue/infos/3/9/ACF_MISTMIDIDB9

More information and how to get started:
https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki/GettingStarted

I am not affiliated with any of those stores or the creator of the MIST computer. I bought the system with my own funds and this video is made by me to share my experiences.

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