PPC Amiga getting even better

X5000 Demonic Workbench style

Hello again, fellow Amigans. Writing a new Amiga blog after some months of silence. Lots of work has gone into new Amiga music, pixel art and updating my X5000 with new files and libraries. So what are we going to talk about in this new blog? There are some new, interesting stuffs I want to share with the Amiga community in my blog, so keep reading and be entertained as well. I was inspired by the video blog of Tim Grooms, where he was also explaining this new mystical Mirari PPC Amiga hardware. Therefore, I thought I could write my own Amiga blog about that and what this all means to Amigans.

Mirari PPC Amiga - A new low cost PPC Amiga hardware

Mirari - A new low cost PPC Amiga

What is Mirari, you might ask? This mystical news about another new PPC Amiga comes as a great surprise to everyone in the Amiga community, right out of the blue. Nobody expected this to happen and suddenly, this news is going really HOT in Amigaland these days. But it's definitely a great welcome!

A few weeks ago, the nickname "Mirari" was revealed from an own link at the Amigans site. I can hear you scream again "What IS Mirari, really?!". Don't worry, I will explain.

Mirari seems to be a brand new low cost PPC Amiga, developed with running both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS in mind. According to the website, it has already been demonstrated to run a PPC Linux distribution quite fine without any issues.

The Mirari PPC specifications

Mirari PPC Amiga hardware is quite identical to the X5000 in terms of specifications, but intended to be a low cost solution for those who can't afford the AmigaOne X5000 but also want to use new Amiga technology supported as well.

The CPU of Mirari is a quad-core, T5040 variant with Altivec 2.0 support at 1.8Ghz. Otherwise, much the same stuffs as the X5000 in terms of DDR3 memory support, but also surprisingly supporting DDR4 memory as well. The rest of the hardware specifications are quite identical to the X5000, but with some new additional stuffs that I will cover right below here in this blog. Keep reading, this is interesting. Mirari is said to include a new UBoot BIOS made in 2024. The X5000 might also get a new UBoot BIOS update, with support for NVMe SSD and USB3.

Altivec:    Altivec is a 128-bit vector unit quite useful for multimedia purposes. Seeing the return of Altivec support is a great welcome. The X5000 CPU doesn't feature Altivec support, but Mirari's PPC CPU will do.

NVMe:    Mirari will feature support for this new groundbreaking technology found in NVMe SSD disks. This allows Amiga users, for the very first time in history, to boot into their AmigaOS setup at lighting fast speed with immerdiately respons. Same with reading and writing of data transfer. Mirari will come with NVMe SSD as a standard. The X5000 can easily add this on a NVMe-to-PCIe adapter to one of the PCIe slots on it.

X5000 actually has USB3 ports

USB3:    Now this is quite interesting. As you all know, there's no current USB3 driver in any AmigaOS, but rumours say that we can expect to see new USB3 drivers for Amiga soon. 

This is likely to be included in Hyperion Entertainment's upcoming AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3, and the upcoming Enhancer 2.3 from A-EON Technology is also likely to include support for USB3.

The interesting thing here is that not only does Mirari come with USB3 ports, but the X5000 actually has USB3 ports as standard. No kidding! On the X5000, those USB3 ports are present on top of the cabinet. For now, USB3 cannot be used on the X5000, due to the current lack of proper support for it (but it's coming). Instead, X5000 users like myself had to get what we call an USB3-to-USB2-adapter to use them as USB2 instead. This is not a problem but you don't want to download MP4 and other big video files using USB2. You want to use USB3 for much improved speed and stability. However, at present, you can use memory cards that are usually provided with digital cameras, as the transfer performance is quite good. A 32GB memory card should do the job quite well, while waiting for USB3 support to happen for the Amiga. But as soon as USB3 support happens, X5000 users like myself can remove the USB3-to-USB2-adapter and use the USB ports as they truly are. As USB3.

The team behind Mirari PPC Amiga

Supporting NVMe SSD and USB3 are truly great things to see for the Amiga. To actually boot right into our AmigaOS immerdiately in only a fraction of a second (sort of). No more waiting to get into our beloved AmigaOS setup. No more slow reading and writing of files in terms of download, upload and copying files. They will all happen immerdiately, and this is the whole point with NVMe SSD. Also when running applications and games. They will just start right away and you can get to work and play as smoothly as ever.

USB3 support will be a great boost for the Amiga as well. We all transfer files and stuffs from our Amigas to other systems, using USB sticks. But to download big video files as MP4 with USB2 speed is simply not ideal. However, you can use memory cards used with digital cameras to gain the acceptable performance. But USB3 support would mean getting the great speed of transfer that USB3 provides, which will make life a lot easier for Amiga users in terms of speed and stability.

It's likely that we get to see the USB3 support expected to be included in Hyperion Entertainment's upcoming AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 3. A-EON's upcoming Enhancer 2.3 FREE update, might also possible include support for USB3. At least, NVMe SSD support will be present, according to rumours. Both are rumoured to be released during summer 2025. Perhaps around the time of the Amiga's 40th Anniversary? Amiga is actually celebrating its' 40th birthday July 23th. I'm pretty sure that summer time will be quite interesting for the Amiga.

It might interest you to read that Trevor Dickinson is one of the names revealed from the team behind the Mirari project, as he is actually financing the project.

Whenever NVMe SSD and USB3 support happen, my X5000 will be prepared to use these new additions. I hope to get myself a 2TB NVMe SSD, and I certainly hope that I can use those USB ports as USB3, when the Amiga driver is present.

I might possible add a great PPC Linux OS to my X5000 early 2026 and make my X5000 dual boot into AmigaOS4 and PPC Linux. A Ubuntu distribution should be pretty good. I would love to use my X5000 more for daily use as a serious system.

Some new ScummVM games added to my X5000 system

A Golden Wake - 1950s adventure

Few months ago, I bought some more adventure games to my X5000 to run in latest ScummVM 2.9.0 installment. I will list them up here below. These are:

*A Golden Wake (1950s inspired)

*Shivah (Jewish adventure game)

*Teen Agent (FREE adventure game)

*Whispers Of A Machine (Sci-fi adventure with AI elements)

Golden Wake is a cool adventure game inspired of the 1950s Miami life style of rich people buying properties and running a business. The graphic is beautiful and smooth. The music plays really nice. It runs quite smoothly on my X5000 with latest ScummVM 2.9.0. A great game worth playing. I bought it from GOG at a cheap price of 20 NOK or something. Saved me a lot of money, so I'm very happy.

A Jewish short adventure game

Shivah is a short but a great looking, very interesting detective adventure game of sort, as you play as a rabbi getting involved in a murder case of an old friend.

The game is pretty cool but I find it a bit too short to play. It's still a great game. Another one I picked up from GOG at a very cheap price. A worthy addition to the collection of ScummVM adventure games.

When the next update to ScummVM appears, hopefully sometime in summer of 2025, it will be possible to play, not only more Nancy Drew based adventure games but also adventure games like "Willy Beamish" and "Heart Of China".

Teen Agent - FREE adventure game

Teen Agent is another cool adventure game that I actually picked up for FREE from GOG. Beautiful graphic and cool music. Haven't played it through yet but I must try to play the game. The plot seems to have something to do with a robbery. You should pick up the game, if you're lucky to get it for FREE, like I did.

However, I also have the first 2 Syberia adventure games but still awaiting Shaders support for those games. I will add them as soon as Shaders support is provided for these Syberia games. Syberia is a great looking, big adventure game of mystery, crime and detective work. The kind of adventure I really love to play.

Whispers Of A Machine - AI related

Whispers Of A Machine is another excellent game I bought from GOG at a pretty low price. Around 20 NOK, if I'm not mistaken. The game is a sci-fiction detective adventure where AI is a threat the young lady has to investigate. The story becomes more interesting and revealing as the player progress.

The game provides 3 different augmentations to choose. These are Empathy, Analyze and Assertive.

Empathic would mean playing on the good feelings of the detective, being sympathic and supportive against people. Assertive would mean being cold and arrogant, and with pure logic, people will not being very helpful if being assertive.

Analytical might be the most interesting augmentation to choose in the game. It's a more neutral attitude but also more focus on the detective work using those special abilities from those implants the lady detective has, which is pretty cool.

Overall, the graphic and the music are both excellent. Graphic is beautiful but movement is a bit slow in ScummVM 2.9.0, even on my X5000. I guess it's because the support for the game is quite new. This might hopefully improve. The music plays truly beautiful through the whole game and changes as things become more dramatic. It's very much like a movie. A great game to play, so pick it up at a low price as possible and add it to your ScummVM collection. I sure did.

Well, this covers the whole blog for now. I hope you find it very interesting and inspiring to read. I will create another blog in summer that covers more of my musical Amiga work, with beautiful pixel art of covers. Perhaps those interesting updates revealed in the blog will appear and I get to upgrade my X5000 by then? The time will show but it should all be very interesting. Thank you for reading.

Until next time, let the Amiga be with you always and truly enjoy what it does.

Written by

Helge Kvalheim (HKvalhe) from Norway