There’s no better retro computing companion than the Amiga. From its rich history to the classic old-school design, modern computers just don’t feel the same as that era of home computing. Itching to get that old feeling back into his life, Rob Fisher decided to build an Amiga 1200 emulation project using none other than our favorite SBC—the Raspberry Pi. Not only does this project look like an Amiga, it sports a working floppy drive that the Pi is able to interact with thanks to a clever interface card.
To build the project, Fisher is housing a Raspberry Pi inside of a modern Amiga 1200 replica shell. While you could easily use almost any Pi for this project, he opted to use a Raspberry Pi 4 to power the machine. To make full use of the case design, the ports on the Pi have been routed to the outside of the shell for access, including the floppy drive. This makes for a seamless experience as the project consists of just one unit unless you plug in some accessories.
Fisher shared a video to YouTube breaking down the project design from the inside and out. In this video, he shares not only the hardware inside but where he got the components so you could easily recreate it at home. According to Fisher, this is a work in progress but we’re still impressed with the project so far.
As we mentioned above, the main hardware used in this project is a RaspberryPi 4 set inside of an Amiga 1200 shell. In addition to the Pi, he’s using an A500 keyboard from eBay for input. A Greaseweazle floppy adapter board is used to help the Pi interface with a PC floppy drive. All of the ports, including the floppy drive, are mounted with extensions so they can be easily accessed from the outside of the case. A 3D-printed button is used to release the floppy drive.
In another video, Fisher gives us a look at what the Amiga project looks like in action. It’s running Pimiga 3, an Amiga emulation application that can be programmed to get the classic look and feel of the original operating system. If you want to read more about emulating the Amiga, check out our guide on how to emulate the Amiga on a Raspberry Pi. In the demo video, Fisher also demonstrates the floppy drive is completely functional by popping in a few Amiga magazine cover disks to see how they perform.
If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, check out the original video shared to YouTube by Rob Fisher and be sure to follow him for future projects as well as any updates on this one.
