TheBackShed.com

Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : The Amiga 500 emulator for the Colour Maximite 2 G2

Author

Message

matherp
Guru

Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12166

Posted: 03:29pm 10 Nov 2026

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

This has pushed the CMM2 to the limit but I think the results are spectacular

An Amiga 500 on the Colour Maximite 2
A new program in the 7.00.00RC5 programs zip, for the Generation 2. It needs firmware 7.00.00RC5.

https://github.com/UKTailwind/CMM2V1.5/releases/tag/v7.00.00RC5

What it is
It is pico-amiga, drewpo28's Amiga emulator for the RP2350, with Karl Stenerud's Musashi 68000, and a new front end for the CMM2.

• An Amiga 500 with 1MB of memory (512K of chip RAM and 512K of slow RAM) and its original chipset, on Kickstart 1.3.
• A PAL Amiga at its own 50 frames a second, shown in 720 x 576 at 50Hz (576p) with each Amiga line drawn twice, with Paula's stereo sound. The heaviest demos tried, Mental Hangover (Scoopex) and Arte (Sanity), keep up all through with the sound on.
• -ntsc gives an NTSC Amiga at 60 frames a second in 640 x 480, and -pal60 the PAL Amiga at 60Hz for a monitor that will not take 50Hz (it then runs 20% fast).
• It runs on the Generation 2 only.

You need a Kickstart and disks
No Amiga software comes with it. Kickstart and Workbench are still copyright, so they cannot be given away with the emulator. If you have an Amiga, use its Kickstart and disks. If you do not, we recommend Cloanto's Amiga Forever, https://www.amigaforever.com: it is the legal way to get them today, and costs little. Its Value Edition, the least costly, has everything the emulator needs: Kickstart 1.3, the Workbench 1.3 disk, and over 50 games and demos.

Copying the files from Amiga Forever
Install Amiga Forever on a Windows PC. Its files are then in C:\Users\Public\Documents\Amiga Files. Copy these to the folder A:/amiga on the SD card:

• Shared\rom\amiga-os-130.rom, Kickstart 1.3. Keep its name exactly: the emulator looks for amiga-os-130.rom by itself.
• Shared\adf\amiga-os-134-workbench.adf, the Workbench 1.3 disk. Any name will do, such as workbench.adf.

The games and demos are in Titles\Games and Titles\Demoscene, an .rp9 file each. An .rp9 file is a zip file with the title's disk images in it: copy it somewhere, rename it to end .zip (or open it with 7-Zip), and take out its .adf files. A game on several disks has one for each, numbered. Put them in A:/amiga, or in folders inside it such as A:/amiga/games and A:/amiga/demos: the disk menu goes into folders.

Only titles made for the Amiga 500 run. One whose zip has a .hdf file (a hard disk) rather than .adf files, or which is marked for the Amiga 1200 or 4000, will not, and nor will amiga-os-310-a1200.rom.

Getting started
Copy the amiga folder of CMM2_Programs_7.00.00RC5.zip to A:/amiga with the files above, then:

CHDIR "A:/amiga"
RUN "amiga.app"

It starts with its disk menu. Choose a disk with the arrow keys and Enter, then Boot it. To start a disk straight away, name it: RUN "amiga.app", games/zoom.adf

The disk menu
F11 brings up the disk menu at any time, in the middle of a game too, and the Amiga waits while it is up.

• Up, Down, Page Up, Page Down, Home and End move through the list, and a letter jumps to the next name that starts with it.
• Enter opens a folder or chooses a disk, and Backspace or Left goes up a folder.
• Esc or F11 goes back to the Amiga as it was.

A disk chosen can be booted (the Amiga restarted with it in DF0: use this to change game), put in DF0 as a disk change, for a game that asks for its next disk, or put in DF1, the second drive. The menu also makes a new blank disk in the folder shown. A gamepad works the menu too.

Saving your work
What the Amiga writes to a disk goes into its .adf file on the card as it is written, as onto a real floppy disk, so saved games, high scores and your own programs last.

• For your own work: Workbench in DF0, then F11, [ A new blank disk, made here ], and put it in DF1. It is named Work1 on the Amiga: save to Work1:
• A read-only .adf file is a write-protected disk, and is never changed. RUN "amiga.app", game.adf -wp protects every disk.
• The RAM DISK is lost at a reset, as on a real Amiga.
• There is no BASIC in the Amiga's ROM: AmigaBASIC came on the Workbench 1.3 Extras disk, which is not in Amiga Forever's Value Edition. If you have that disk, put it in DF1 with Workbench in DF0, and AmigaBASIC runs from it, its demos too. If you do not, a copy is on the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/amiga_extras1.3_basic1.2: download and use it at your own risk.

The keys

F11 the disk menu
F12 back to MMBasic (Ctrl+Alt+End too)
Ctrl+Alt+Del reset the Amiga (Ctrl and both Amiga keys too)
Windows keys the left and right Amiga keys
Insert HELP

The keys are taken by their place, as on an Amiga keyboard. Workbench 1.3 starts with the American layout: on a British keyboard, type SetMap gb in a Shell.

The mouse and joysticks
• A USB mouse is the Amiga's mouse, in port 1. It is read every 2ms, so fast movements are not lost.
• The first USB gamepad is the joystick in port 2, where nearly all games look, and a second one the joystick in port 1. The d-pad or the left stick steers, and any face button fires.

What has been tried
On a Generation 2 with 7.00.00RC5:

• Demos: Mental Hangover and Arte at 50 frames a second all through with the sound on, and 242 (Virtual Dreams and Fairlight). D.O.S. (Andromeda) falls just short in a few places.
• Workbench 1.3, with the mouse and the keyboard, and AmigaBASIC from an Extras disk in DF1, running its Demo program.
• Games from Amiga Forever, each for a minute: Arkanoid, Aunt Arctic Adventure, Blasteroids, Datastorm, Exile, Gotcha, Lethal Xcess, Obsession Pinball, Pac-Mania, Rage, Statix, Toobin and Zoom! load and run at 50 frames a second.

Known problems
• Interlaced screens show every other line.
• Collisions between sprites and the playfield are not reported, which a few games use.
• Tie Break shows only a black screen, and X-Balls and Logic load slowly through AmigaDOS.

Licences
pico-amiga is under the GNU GPL version 3, and Musashi under the MIT licence. Its source is github.com/drewpo28/pico-amiga, with the CMM2's front end and changes in apps/amiga of the firmware's repository. No Kickstart, Workbench or other Amiga software comes with it.

homa

Guru

Joined: 05/11/2021
Location: Germany
Posts: 752

Posted: 08:30pm 10 Nov 2026

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Peter, I'm blown away.
I feel like it's Christmas. Most of the demos are working. “Desire - Inside the Machine (2024)” seems to be too challenging.
Now it's time to move on to the games...

Thanks!

Matthias

Print this page

To reply to this topic, you need to log in.