Natami

[amigadave]

The number of Natami sales will be entirely dependent upon how successful the implementation of duplicating a real Amiga and making it faster and better than the originals turns out to be.  I love the idea and want one when they are released, but it is not an easy task, as many of the naysayers have pointed out often.  There appears to be good progress being made on the hardware side, so I am hopeful that the developers boards will be ready soon.  The consumer version, if it ever sees the light of day, may still be a long way off into our future.

As for anyone making a profit from selling the Natami, it won't likely be the developers, as they have already put so many hundreds of hours into the project that have been dedicated for free, they are probably looking at making $5/hour, if they are very lucky.  The dealers, like AmigaKit, are the ones that will make a small profit from distributing the finished consumer product.  So, I have much admiration for the small team that is working on Natami.  It is the one Amiga project I would most like to see done well and completed.  A Classic type Amiga that could be made to run 2 to 5 times faster than the fastest 68060 Classic A4000's of the past would be a great thing to have.

[amigadave]

I was thinking that the purpose of Natami was to run all the old 68k programs faster than any other Classic Amiga could, plus improve upon AGA which would allow NEW applications and games to be written that would be higher resolution SAGA.  Then there is the question of will there be any programmers out there that will use their time to code for this new SAGA Amiga compatible system.

Maybe I am incorrect in my assumption of what is the purpose of the Natami?

[amigadave]

@AJCopeland

If you get a working OpenGL, then you'd probably want to release a version of MiniGL for that. Not that many apps use Warp3D directly since it is a low level API, they tend to be GL based apps linked against minigl. They'd still require recompiling to use it though.

I don't think that backward compatibility with old Warp3D games should be considered at this time, if ever.  The Natami team has never claimed that it would be 100% compatible with all old 68K games and applications, as very few true Classic Amigas are 100% compatible with 100% of those old apps and games either.

Natami is shooting for as much compatibility with older 68k apps and games as possible, but the focus is and should be on future apps and games that have better performance due the the increased speed and resolution available on the Natami and ONLY on the Natami.

I would expect and hope for Natami specific, or "native" games and applications to be written by a few programmers that still appreciate what it is like to use an Amiga.  I am assuming that Natami will run AmigaOS3.9 from the start and that over time we will see more enhancements to the OS itself, like a Boing Bag 3, or an unofficial AmigaOS3.91, 3.92, 3.93, etc.

Natami native games and applications are no different that writing something only for the CSPPC/BPPC, or for a certain 680x0 CPU, or the difference between OCS, ECS and AGA.  Now (when Natami is finished) we will have a fourth option to write to that is SuperAGA and can be more demanding than what was possible on an 68060/50MHz.

Of course, programmers that want their work to be appreciated by a wider audience will make two versions of graphics, AGA and SuperAGA and will write the games or apps to be able to run sufficiently well on an 68020/14MHz or better, or if it is a more demanding app or game, maybe the minimum spec Amiga could be a 68030/40MHz, which would cover a lot of the accelerators out there.

My point is that it will be nice to have this faster than 68060/50MHz, SuperAGA Amiga compatible computer that some programmers can take advantage of with new code.

I guess someone could redo the graphics on some of the old Amiga 68k games to use SuperAGA resolutions, but I would hope for some original works, instead of just prettying up some of the old games and applications.

[amigadave]

@amigadave

If you look at what you have just written, if that is the case, then why make a SuperAGA at all? The only reason to have AGA is for compatibility and much is made of SuperAGA's backwards compatibility. Compatibility is therefore an important consideration. I think it would be foolish not to consider compatibility with the broadest spectrum of software for the sake of not considering existing APIs.

One of the biggest criticisms levelled at the "next generation" machines initially was the fact there was little native software and no compatibility with legacy software that hit the metal.

I would suggest that without exposing the NatAmi SuperAGA features via existing APIs, you'd run into part of the same problem - new hardware with nothing that really takes advantage of it.

I guess I will have to read what I wrote again, but I certainly did not mean to imply that the greatest amount of compatibility should be implemented.  But I think it was you, or someone else in this very thread who pointed out how little existing software was written to take advantage of Warp3D, or any kind of 3D on the Amiga in the past.

My point was that if that is truly the case, then creating a new type of 3D for this "SuperAGA" PLUS retaining 80% to 90% compatibility with the thousands of existing Amiga software titles would not be a bad thing.  If they can somehow create a better 3D system AND still keep compatibility with Warp3D, then so much the better.  Again, my only point is that if some percentage of older Amiga software is no longer compatible with the Natami, it will be the price we may need to pay for progressing to a better, faster, more colorful and higher resolution Amiga compatible system.

It is my understanding that the Natami team is doing everything they can to retain as much compatibility with all of the existing Amiga models and software as possible.  

Edit:  The reason for having SuperAGA is to provide a step forward that will allow more colors and resolution for future programs.  A step forward that many Amiga users would have liked Commodore to make back in 1990 or some time close to that.

[amigadave]

If that is the case, then:
1) cgx/picasso96 applications won't work
2) no truecolor modes
3) no chunky modes, for example updating single pixel on 256 colour screen requires 8 read-modify-write cycles

Even if you would optimize the blitter and memory accesses processing everything in planar would still be horribly ineffective.

I respect Piru's opinion and technical knowledge, but I also respect the work Thomas and crew have already completed and their plans for the future and I can only guess that they are comparing apples to oranges.  The expectations of one are quite different than the plans of the other.

I know there has been a good deal of criticism against the Natami team for some claims and plans that have been put forward in the past, but not everyone on the Natami forums, or even the dev team knows which direction the project will ultimately go, so I just dimiss some of the more outrageous claims and fanaticism from a few at the Natami website forums.

I like the progress that is being made and still like the idea of what they are trying to accomplish.  Only time will tell if I will be able and still want to purchase a Natami board when they are finally released.


Edit:  I like the idea of buying a supercharged MiniMig that has faster cpu and aga graphics than any Classic Amiga model ever had.  If the AGA chipset emulation also has additional features, other than just being faster at all color depths than the original Amiga models, that will be an extra plus, but not a make or break item that I have to have.