First Natami MX boards produced

[Darrin]

Very nice.  This could be an expensive year for me hardware-wise.  I've ordered the Chameleon, I'll buy the FPGA Arcade as soon as it is ready and I'll grab one of these too.  

[Darrin]

To be fair the RTFM means nothing (incidentally I had read the aims of the project) - a RISC cpu at the same clock would run rings around an 68K, likewise a native 3D core means S3 Virge or Geforce GTX 400 series performance. I see the niché in this product being a low power computing device with existing software that at a push can perform with the big boys but you wouldn't want to do heavy ray tracing/play the latest 3D shooter or emulate anything better than a PS2* on it when there are better machines available, i.e. its for casual usage and to satisfy an itch both in closure to an old architecture that needs perfecting and for fan base to get an update.

* and this is exactly why I think we'd need stats - to see where the bar can be set against comparable systems.

[EDIT]My ref. to the original Amiga price was of course referring to the A500 at its £200-£400 price, not the original original Amiga [/EDIT]

With PCI slots and USB, this looks like a nice replacement for my A4000 in a tower with Mediator and Deneb.

The question is, whether they have a usable USB stack ready to roll otherwise they can stick 100 USB ports on it and they'll mean nothing.

[Darrin]

The best news is that with the FPGA Arcade rumoured to be around the 200 EURO mark, we now have two options like we used to back in the "glory days" when you picked between the A500 and the A2000 or the A1200 and A4000.

To me, my FPGA Arcade is going to be my games machine, especially as it will be running multiple systems (C64, Spectrum, Atari ST and classic arcade games), while the Natami is a replacement for my more "serious" A4000.

[Darrin]

Also to all the people who said Vapour ware.... :p :p :p :p :p :p :p

Well, I was one of them and the only way I know how to apologise to the Natami team is to purchase their product.  I just hope they accept it.  

[Darrin]

Go to the back of the queue you naughty Welshman...

LOL.  THey'll probably send it to me with Kickstart 1.1 ROMs and the joystick inputs reversed!