Retro Games THEA500 MINI, User Manual

Page 1: ...A USER MANUAL v1 0 0 ...

Page 2: ...ed and used in accordance with the user manual This product can only be serviced and repaired by qualified personnel This product has no user serviceable parts The crossed out wheelie bin symbol confirms that your product should not be disposed of with your general household waste but should be taken to your nearest recycling centre for safe and responsible disposal This will help prevent any pote...

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Page 4: ...0 Mini 2 Turning THEA500 Mini on and off 3 First time setup 3 Language 3 Television settings 4 The game carousel 5 Selecting a game 6 Giving a game a favourite rating 6 Sorting the games 6 Playing a game 6 Getting help for a game 7 Exiting and suspending a game 7 Resuming a suspended game 8 Using the virtual keyboard 8 Saving and loading suspended games 9 Saving a game 9 Loading a game 10 Locking ...

Page 5: ...ng programs on the USB stick 19 Saving or loading a suspended USB stick program 19 Adjusting the settings of a USB stick program 20 Adjusting the image position and size 20 Auto centre 21 Crop rectangle 21 Auto crop 23 Setting the image size the easy way 23 NTSC 24 Adjusting the mouse speed 24 Configuring joystick and mouse ports 24 Mapping the gamepad 25 Assigning joystick actions 26 Assigning ke...

Page 6: ...rd party controllers 34 Using third party mice 34 Using a USB keyboard 34 Troubleshooting 36 Power indicator does not light 36 Blank screen seen on the TV 36 No sound heard from my DVI monitor 36 THEGAMEPAD or THEMOUSE is not responding 36 I have chosen a video output mode that is not supported by my TV 37 The edges of the TV picture are being chopped off 37 The TV picture appears to lag behind th...

Page 7: ...zures Only resume after consulting with a doctor To reduce the chances of a seizure while using THEA500 Mini Use THEA500 Mini in a well lit area Ensure the monitor or TV screen does not take up a large portion of your field of vision by keeping a sensible distance away from the screen and or using a small screen Do not use THEA500 Mini if you are tired or need sleep Take a 15 minute break every ho...

Page 8: ... not expose THEA500 Mini to liquids high temperatures high humidity steam direct sunlight excessive dust or smoke Do not allow small particles or any foreign objects to get inside THEA500 Mini Do not touch THEA500 Mini or any connected cables during an electrical storm Do not touch any of the metal parts of the connectors on THEA500 Mini Do not use any power cables HDMI cables or peripherals if th...

Page 9: ...rect ports and make sure to hold plugs straight when inserting Keep THEA500 Mini and all cables and peripherals out of the reach of young children Do not position THEA500 Mini where it or any connected cables might cause someone to trip or stumble Do not drop hit or otherwise abuse THEA500 Mini or any cables or peripherals Do not power off THEA500 Mini whilst data is being loaded or saved Some gam...

Page 10: ...Amiga models such as the Advanced Graphics Adapter and additional memory and its HDMI and USB ports make it plug and play with today s technology THEA500 Mini is supplied with its own replica mouse and a precision gamepad a modern reimagining of the Amiga CD32 controller for a truly authentic feel and comes preloaded with 25 fully licensed classic games from the heyday of the Amiga Plus you can ea...

Page 11: ...MI cable USB power cable THEA500 Mini Quick Guide You will also need to have the following items available not included A monitor or TV with an HDMI port capable of 720p resolution A USB compatible 5V 1A 5W output power adapter Connecting THEA500 Mini Make sure your monitor or TV is switched off before you connect THEA500 Mini Connect to power adapter Connect to TV ...

Page 12: ... will be asked a few questions about some essential settings needed to get you going with your new THEA500 Mini To navigate these menus use THEGAMEPAD and follow the on screen prompts and button hints displayed at the bottom of the screen Language THEA500 Mini first asks you to select your preferred language Move the selector to the language you want and select it by pressing A When you have selec...

Page 13: ... are not sure if your TV supports 50 Hz THEA500 Mini will test this before continuing Before you can proceed you must test and confirm that your TV will work with the chosen video output mode by pressing X THEA500 Mini will perform the test by switching to the chosen video output mode for 20 seconds When the test starts you may see your TV screen go blank for a few seconds If your TV successfully ...

Page 14: ...ers Such multiplayer games may be simultaneous or round robin style play c Favourite stars This shows the number of favourite stars you have given this game d Saved games indicator This shows whether any saved games have been stored for this game The number of filled circles shows how many saved game slots are occupied 4 Carousel of games This carousel shows the box covers of the games included in...

Page 15: ...sher and number of Favourite stars Playing a game Select the game you wish to play from the carousel of games using and press A to start it from the beginning If a game is started before a suspended game is saved the suspended game will be discarded All of the included games can be played with the THEGAMEPAD though some may also be played using THEMOUSE as indicated by the control type icons Some ...

Page 16: ...d games that use a mouse will have the mouse controls duplicated by THEGAMEPAD This allows the game to be played with THEGAMEPAD alone if necessary Such mouse controls are usually assigned to the secondary controls of THEGAMEPAD For full instructions on how to play each of the 25 included games visit retrogames biz games thea500 mini Exiting and suspending a game To suspend a game and return to th...

Page 17: ...he game will not respond to THEGAMEPAD This is most useful for typing for example entering your name for a high score table For more complex keyboard functions for example pressing more than one key at once see Using a USB keyboard on page 34 Move the selector to key you wish to virtually press and press A There are also some special shortcut functions you can quickly access using THEGAMEPAD THEGA...

Page 18: ...or 5 Suspended game Saving a game If there is a currently suspended game the miniaturised suspended game will move down and hover above the first available Saved game slot either the first blank slot or otherwise the first unlocked slot Pressing will move the hovering suspended game to another slot Press A to save the game in the chosen slot This will overwrite any game already in that slot If a s...

Page 19: ... game slots If there isn t a currently suspended game the selector will automatically move to the first occupied game slot Press to select the saved game you wish to resume and press A to load it Note Loading a previously saved game will discard any suspended game Locking unlocking a saved game slot Move the selector to one of the occupied saved game slots and press X to lock that slot This will p...

Page 20: ...tions menu These options control the operation of the entire console Move the selector with and press A to select a menu option Press B to back out of any menu Display options This menu contains options to control how a game s image is displayed on the TV ...

Page 21: ...s Use screen edges is turned off the available screen height will be reduced which may affect the amount of scaling applied Screen fit This will adaptively scale the game image so that it will fill the TV screen from top to bottom maximising the size of the image The scaling may not be a whole number of pixels which can occasionally produce very slight scaling artefacts Enabling Image smoothing or...

Page 22: ...use controlled games Music volume Set the level of the menu music This does not affect the volume of a game s audio Power LED Mimic Amiga behaviour When this option is turned on THEA500 Mini s power LED will mimic the behaviour of the original Amiga s power LED that of being controlled by the running game When this option is turned off the power LED will remain lit while THEA500 Mini is turned on ...

Page 23: ...English Deutsch Français Italiano Español and Polski It does not affect the 25 included games which are in English Shutdown device This option safely shuts down THEA500 Mini This will discard any suspended game and power off the device Alternatively you can shut down the device by pressing and holding the power button for two seconds ...

Page 24: ...Advanced options This menu contains options for more advanced users and rarely used functions Television settings This menu contains options for controlling THEA500 Mini s output to a television or monitor ...

Page 25: ... until you test and accept it Use screen edges Enable this option if your television can display a full 720p image without cropping Disable this option if you find the edges of the image are being clipped off This is enabled by default System information This shows THEA500 Mini s current firmware build and will also allow you to upgrade to a newer firmware build if one is present on an inserted US...

Page 26: ...ogram is a complete archive of the program and not the program s WHDLoad installer When you insert a correctly formatted USB stick into THEA500 Mini an additional item will appear on the game carousel titled USB Media Access Select this item and press A to browse and run WHDLoad programs from the USB stick THEA500 WHDLoad Package must be installed on the USB stick It contains information on thousa...

Page 27: ...ckage will periodically be updated with improvements and additions so it is useful to make sure you are on the latest version To check what version of THEA500 WHDLoad Package you have installed on your USB stick view the contents of the text file THEA500 version txt which was written to your USB stick when you installed or last updated THEA500 WHDLoad Package The latest version of THEA500 WHDLoad ...

Page 28: ... the selected program press H and to adjust its settings press M To return to the game carousel press B The description shown for the USB Media Access carousel item will reflect the Current media filename Saving or loading a suspended USB stick program For USB stick programs the procedure for loading a Saved game is slightly different to that for built in games When the USB Media Access carousel i...

Page 29: ...nded program For controls that have a numerical value press A to increase the value and X to decrease the value Adjusting the image position and size Many programs do not utilise the full vertical resolution of the Amiga will often have a large black border at the top and bottom the screen and do not always centre the image on the screen THEA500 Mini will default to showing the full resolution of ...

Page 30: ...ical adjustment Enabling this option can sometimes result in the image appearing to slide into place towards the centre of the screen where it will usually stay For the few programs that this happens frequently to it may be preferable to instead configure a fixed Vertical offset along with a Crop rectangle Crop rectangle To maximise the size of the image and remove the unused and unnecessary black...

Page 31: ... Auto centre is not being used Adjusting Crop height will disable Auto centre and vice versa It is usually better to set the Crop rectangle to suit the program s main game play screen and not its menus since the size of the image often changes between the title menu and play screens When configured THEA500 Mini will know exactly how much and what part of the image is important and will present tha...

Page 32: ...l be shown at the bottom of the Game settings menu When activated the Auto crop function will analyse the image at the point it was suspended and automatically calculate the Crop rectangle and position This is nearly always successful and only occasionally requires a slight tweak to the settings afterwards Setting the image size the easy way A quick and effective procedure for optimising the size ...

Page 33: ...ouse speed setting allows you to adjust this for individual programs perhaps to achieve a consistent response across all programs or just to make some easier to control This is different from changing the sensitivity of the mouse itself which will affect every game equally To do this go to Options System settings and adjust Mouse sensitivity Configuring joystick and mouse ports The original Amiga ...

Page 34: ...d It is possible to remap the default actions assigned to each button of THEGAMEPAD for each port through the Map gamepad option This also allows keyboard keys or other actions to be assigned to THEGAMEPAD buttons Mapping the gamepad When a port is configured as a Joystick or CD32 pad the connected THEGAMEPAD can be reconfigured to assign any control or action to any button choosing from a combina...

Page 35: ...tion groups of Joystick Keyboard CD32 pad Mouse and Special by pressing L Assigning joystick actions While editing THEA500 Mini positions a light blue indicator over THEGAMEPAD button currently being assigned For this button To change the assigned action use 5 to select the joystick action you want to assign and press A To keep the assigned action press Y To clear the assigned action leaving that ...

Page 36: ... THEGAMEPAD buttons Note You can only assign a single keypress to a THEGAMEPAD button Press L to switch to the group of CD32 pad actions Assigning CD32 pad actions Assigning CD32 pad actions to THEGAMEPAD follows the same process as assigning Joystick actions THEA500 Mini will display a representation of a CD32 pad and allow its actions to be assigned to THEGAMEPAD buttons Press L to switch to the...

Page 37: ... require mouse input to be controlled from THEGAMEPAD Press L to switch to the group of Special actions Assigning special actions Assigning Special actions to THEGAMEPAD follows the same process as assigning Joystick actions THEA500 Mini will display a list of Special actions that can be chosen from which at the time of writing is the single action Show virtual keyboard Typically this would be ass...

Page 38: ...rt thea500 mini upgrade and check if the latest version on the website is greater than that reported by THEA500 Mini 2 If a later firmware is available download it 3 Copy the firmware onto the root directory of a FAT32 MBR formatted USB stick Do not place it in a folder 4 Insert the USB stick into THEA500 Mini 5 Go to Options Advanced options System information 6 THEA500 Mini will check if there i...

Page 39: ...ortant not to remove the USB stick or power from THEA500 Mini while the update is in process When the update is complete THEA500 Mini will reboot and return you to the game carousel If you wish to verify that the update has been applied go to Options Advanced options System information and check the Build version that is displayed ...

Page 40: ...From the game carousel go to Options Advanced settings and enable Expert mode When Expert mode is enabled Game settings will show three additional sections Blitter mode Memory and Optimise and an additional display switch Interlaced Interlaced If the program being run shows a high resolution image that appears to rapidly judder slightly it is exploiting a feature of old cathode ray tube CRT televi...

Page 41: ...usually written for the Amiga 500 assume the blitter will have finished what it was doing before they next need it However when run on an Amiga with a faster CPU such as the A1200 this is often not the case and new commands are sent to the blitter before it has finished processing the last This will usually lead to image glitches Setting the Blitter mode to Wait will pause the CPU when it attempts...

Page 42: ...HEA500 operates by default in accuracy mode where it aims for software compatibility over efficiency Occasionally some CPU intensive programs benefit from having Optimise CPU JIT enabled which makes the emulated Amiga CPU prioritise efficiency over compatibility Because compatibility is reduced this should be used with care Optimising Amiga co processor performance The Amiga co processor or copper...

Page 43: ...RB R1 R R Back Select Select M Start Start Start H Using third party mice THEA500 Mini may be compatible with other USB mice but you may find that the sensitivity is different to the included THEMOUSE If this is the case you can alter the system mouse sensitivity by adjusting Options System settings Mouse sensitivity Using a USB keyboard If you plug any standard USB keyboard into one of THEA500 Mi...

Page 44: ...s Left solid Amiga A Left Windows logo Left Meta Insert Right hollow Amiga A Right Windows logo Right Meta Home Help Page Down On the Amiga keyboard there are also the keys and on the numeric keypad These cannot be pressed using a USB keyboard but can be pressed using the virtual keyboard see Using the virtual keyboard on page 8 ...

Page 45: ...s not support See I have chosen a video output mode that is not supported by my TV on page 37 No sound heard from my DVI monitor THEA500 Mini is not designed to be used with a DVI monitor nor is it supported when done so THEA500 Mini may appear to be compatible with DVI monitors through an HDMI to DVI converter but the DVI standard does not support audio so even if you see a picture you will hear ...

Page 46: ...ur saved games and settings The edges of the TV picture are being chopped off It is likely that your TV cannot display a full 720p picture or that you have some picture scaling options turned on in your TV settings Make sure to disable any scaling options in your TV settings so it is able to display a full unmodified 720p picture If your TV cannot display a full 720p picture turn off THEA500 Mini ...

Page 47: ... Amiga and in doing so it generates a little heat THEA500 Mini contains lots of vents on the upper and lower surfaces of the case for this reason and it is important not to block or impede this ventilation see Ventilation on page ii THEA500 Mini should be moved away from other sources of heat and it should be ensured that there is plenty of airflow around the case ...

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