User wants (from "Call for Amiga Developers from A-EON Technology")

[kolla]

I'm surprised no one has backed a project like FPGA Arcade / NATAMI / MiST / etc. yet.

The "not invented here" syndrome. Also - what kind of backing could that be? Money? Maybe the people who do FPGA projects are not interested in being backed by entities who may want them to sign contracts and meet deadlines. Maybe people value their freedom to do things in their own timely matter.

Current FPGA systems available:

* Minimig - made by someone who wanted to prove a point in confrontation with "the community", everything open source, ported to many FPGA families by individuals.

* FPGA Arcade - made by someone who never really was an Amiga person, to be open sourced when Mike finds it to be ready enough.

* MIST - made by Atari people who have a very pragmatic view on Amiga, based on Minimig, all open source.

* Chameleon - FPGA C64 extension by Jens, I am guessing Minimig target by luck.

* Vampire 600 - much like Minimig, made to prove a point by someone who at the time was not really much of an Amiga user, all open source.

Then we have the projects that are more in typical spirit of Amiga...

* Natami - proprietary, no modesty, aimed to become "the new amiga", profit! Fail!

* Apollo core - left over from Natami, smaller focus (only a CPU core), fewer people, less to disagree over. Proprietary. Visions of profit, somehow. Announce first, implement later, regards other projects as "inferior", "competition" and "the enemy".

* Minimig+ - announced again, and then again, and sort of redundant by now. If they decide to develop a board in open communication with the community of FPGA/Minimig/others developers and users, it could be awesome. Must be open source hardware to attract developers and succeed.

[Dandy]

...
I think most classic users want to see the Amiga grow into what COULD have been, like the NATAMI promised.  Many will say that Commodore was going the direction of PowerPC/OS4 anyway, but I don't think that's what classic users want.  They want to see things improved along the lines of the original Amiga chipset, maybe what AAA would have been and beyond.  
...

Well, as far as I'm concerned I have to contrtadict. I started with an A500 back in 1989, expanded it heavily and then got an A1200 in 1995.
I towered the A1200 and added an 030 accelerator.

Already during my A500 days there was talk about going PPC, which promised a significant performance increase. Since those days I dreamt of an PowerPC Amiga.

As I was studying mechanical engineering I also wanted to dive into CAD/CAM/CAE.

I realised that neither the A500, nor the A1200 had sufficiant power under the hood to allow to work fluently with apps like DynaCadd, MaxonCinema, Reflections and the like.

Meanwhile it was 1997 and the PowerPC accelerators had been announced. I eagerly awaited them.

I bought an A4000 mobo, an Miconik BigTower and the one of the first CyberstormPPC accelerators with 128 mB RAM at the "World of Amiga 97" in Cologne, along with an 8 mB Cybervision (which was delivered roughly one year later), SCSI scanner, ink jet printer and the like.

Once I had the Cybervision installed and connected to a decent 19" Belinea monitor, I asked myself how I could bear the flickering Amiga graphic system all the years. I never wanted to use an Amiga without a graphics card again just with its original chipset (OCS/ECS/AGA)...

Unfortunately it turned out rather quickly that 8 mB graphics RAM were not sufficient for me and so were the 128 mB of RAM on the CyberstormPPC.

So I expanded my A4kPPC with the Mediator PCI busboard and populated it with a Voodoo4 graca, a Terratec 512 digital soundcard (with optical output) and a 10/100 mBit NIC. Later I added an Deneb USB 2.0 highspeed card. with OS 3.9/WarpOS 16.1 I can use the 100 mBit mode of the NIC and USB 2.0 (OS 4 only allows 10 mBit and USB 1.1).

THAT was what I as a classic Amiga user wanted and THAT was the way I improved my classic Amiga 4000.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I never missed "the original Amiga chipset, maybe what AAA would have been and beyond". A PCI busboard with off-the-shelf graphics card, soundcard and a network interface card had far more to offer for the money...

[nicholas]

@matthey

Yes, yes..."We can make it right this time and it will be our salvation".

I have heard that before.

That is not how computer systems evolve, constantly trying to refine old hardware platforms.

Instead new ideas are added in that improve the product.

Look at the Mac, not 68K based, not PPC based, now X64 based.
With FreeBSD underpinnings that are totally dissimilar to the original core.
BUT, the look and feel are there.

In fact, if asked to choose, I'd always take the more evolved package.

Further, the 68K and the Amiga chipset are both so dated that no matter how much you try to supplement them they will still be somewhat archaic.

AND some of those people you have mentioned have strung the community along for years.
When is the Natami going to be released?
Probably at the same time as the SharkPPC and the new improved version of WarpOS.

Finally, do you really think that new ASICs are going to be created to carry on the legacy of...well legacy hardware?
Why not follow Apple's lead and forego custom designed chips and buy 'off the rack'?

Like this one Jim?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A9

[Iggy]

...Sorry to disappoint you, but I never missed "the original Amiga chipset, maybe what AAA would have been and beyond". A PCI busboard with off-the-shelf graphics card, soundcard and a network interface card had far more to offer for the money...

YES!
Off the shelf components are cheaper and they perform better.
AND we don't have to foot the bill for design and prototyping.

Even with the move to PPC, we weren't paying for the design of the chips, just the design of the boards.

And it all works well.
Place an OS4.1 or MorphOS machine next to a legacy system and you will quickly see which is more practical.

[nicholas]

Aww, do not be so sad, they are online all over the Internet - just download the PDF. I have some hard copies, but that is more for sentimental reasons, for all these manuals I rather find them online than dig out the book. Bonus feature, PDFs online are typically OCRed and are to some extent searchable.

Example:

links removed

If posting this link have me banned here, it would be the exact kind of "law mongering" I am talking about. And in the meantime everyone are happily sharing so called "commercial software" on the "zone" over at EAB and wherever, and nobody really cares, as long as we don't talk about it too much.

links removed

Enjoy.

[kolla]

The Amiga (A-EON and Hyperion) is a niche market competitor of Apple and Microsoft.

Geehh... stop it already, you are killing me!! :laughing:

[Kremlar]

The "no invented here" syndrome. Also - what kind of backing could that be? Money? Maybe the people who do FPGA projects are not interested in being backed by entities who may want them to sign contracts and meet deadlines. Maybe people value their freedom to do things in their own timely matter.

Yeah, I'd like to think that with all the money being thrown around designing these NG boards that a salary could be paid for someone capable of designing (or locating an already made board) and implementing a classic system on FPGA.

Would they want to work for A-Eon or whoever on a project like this full time?  Maybe not, but maybe.  Many people dream of working on hobbies full time.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I never missed "the original Amiga chipset, maybe what AAA would have been and beyond". A PCI busboard with off-the-shelf graphics card, soundcard and a network interface card had far more to offer for the money...

No disappointment.  That's why I said most - clearly everyone has different opinions/needs/wants.  Your needs seemed very application driven, like most of the people using Toasters in their Amigas.  Once the Amiga was no longer meeting their needs, and better tools became available, they moved on.  

So, if 3D/CAD was the main application for you, why stick with the Amiga once it no longer met your needs?  Why today?  Clearly there are better tools for the job.  Do you just prefer the OS?

I had many friends that liked the games on the Amiga.  Once games got better on the PC than the Amiga, they moved on.  When a better tool is available for the job, why stick with an old one?

For me, and I think many others, the Amiga itself was the application.  I liked "playing" with the system, tuning my workbench, etc.  I liked the hardware and the OS.  I have a 4000T today with a RTG graphics card, and while Workbench seems nice it just seems less "Amiga" to me.  I too had big box Amigas long ago.  I did not expand much, but I pre-ordered both the 3000 and 4000 when they were announced.  I was also at World of Amiga both years they were released.

For me the custom hardware was the heart of the Amiga, along with the OS.  While I obviously wished the chipset would get upgraded and move forward to one up the competition, putting PC components in an Amiga wasn't attractive to me.  I wanted C= to produce a new and better chipset so I could shove it in the faces of my PC-loving friends!

I moved on when the product stopped moving forward, when I needed a PC and could not afford both.  But I always missed my Amiga, not for any particular application - I just missed using it.

Off the shelf components are cheaper and they perform better.
AND we don't have to foot the bill for design and prototyping.

But it has no heart!!  


Today, with NG AmigaOS 4.x systems I agree and see no point in using custom PowerPC boards.  If all you care about is the OS then port it to mainstream hardware.  With all the money being spent on developing custom and inferior PowerPC motherboards surely porting to x86 makes more financial sense.  I don't see the logic in continuing down the path AmigaOS 4.x is currently on.

[kolla]

link removed
Enjoy.

Yes - share and enjoy.

My example was merely from pressing "I feel lucky" when googling the title that was mentioned, hehe

[nicholas]

Yes - share and enjoy.

My example was merely from pressing "I feel lucky" when googling the title that was mentioned, hehe

[kolla]

If all you care about is the OS then port it to mainstream hardware.  With all the money being spent on developing custom and inferior PowerPC motherboards surely porting to x86 makes more financial sense.

It was rewritten in C to be... portable, right? :rolleyes:

Honestly, I believe there simply are not enough resources to do any porting, they just barely have enough resources to have any development at all. All this could of course change if they opened up much more of the code and allowed anyone to participate in development of OS components in a more professional and typical open source manner.

[eliyahu]

@thread

lots of good discussion was happening in the "Call for Amiga Developers from A-EON Technology" thread -- but it had little to do with the thread's purpose. so folks can continue in here....

-- eliyahu

[matthey]

That is not how computer systems evolve, constantly trying to refine old hardware platforms.

Instead new ideas are added in that improve the product.

Look at the Mac, not 68K based, not PPC based, now X64 based.

PPC was not capable enough for the Mac but it is a better evolution for the Amiga? Is Mac ending up back with CISC a new idea? If the Amiga breaks enough compatibility by switching processors, will it have more development after than before? Do we have enough resources to create a whole new AmigaOS with SMP and 64 bit addressing like Mac while breaking compatibility? Is the path forward always easier than the path backward, even while leaving everything you started with behind?

Further, the 68K and the Amiga chipset are both so dated that no matter how much you try to supplement them they will still be somewhat archaic.

How old are the x86 and ARM? The 68k can evolve easier than both of these processors. The 68k support is what is dated but this is due to lack of popular new 68k hardware. The 68k is a loved processor because it is simple and unique. The Amiga custom hardware is simple and flexible which can be expanded. The new Amiga FPGA hardware already shows how fast the Amiga's simple logic can be using more modern technology. Standard integrated hardware which allows for efficient software could close some of the gap in performance with commodity hardware. Consoles are usually not as far behind in performance as would be expected by their hardware for this reason. Jay Miner created a game computer which was more expandable than the game console which the investors expected. A retro game computer is what I would target as well. The market is missing good retro hardware which is more expandable than the Raspberry Pi and more open than the modern consoles with a price in between the two.

AND some of those people you have mentioned have strung the community along for years.
When is the Natami going to be released?
Probably at the same time as the SharkPPC and the new improved version of WarpOS.

Finally, do you really think that new ASICs are going to be created to carry on the legacy of...well legacy hardware?

It is difficult for individuals to create a Natami. I believe the Natami concept was close though. The Amiga PPC boards are lucky to sell a few thousand boards while the Natami bringup thread has 730792 views.

http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1¬e=33366

This makes me think that the AmigaNG PPC is the wrong computer niche. The Natami was gaining interest by developers and ex-Amiga programmers as can be seen in Natami forum posts (developers were asking instead of being asked). It was generating Amiga excitement not seen since the collapse of C=.

Why not follow Apple's lead and forego custom designed chips and buy 'off the rack'?

Apple would be the world's 3rd largest MPU manufacturer in the world (behind Intel and Qualcomm but ahead of AMD and Freescale) although the statistics often combine Apple with Samsung who provides the foundry services. These are Apple custom designed SoC processors by the way.

[Kremlar]

It is difficult for individuals to create a Natami. I believe the Natami concept was close though. The Amiga PPC boards are lucky to sell a few thousand boards while the Natami bringup thread has 730792 views.

http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1¬e=33366

This makes me think that the AmigaNG PPC is the wrong computer niche. The Natami was gaining interest by developers and ex-Amiga programmers as can be seen in Natami forum posts (developers were asking instead of being asked). It was generating Amiga excitement not seen since the collapse of C=.

Exactly!!  They are lucky to sell hundreds of PPC boards.  Something like the NATAMI would be huge in comparison.

[Iggy]

Geehh... stop it already, you are killing me!! :laughing:

Yeah, that one just keeps me in stitches too!
Even taken in totality, our various directions don't even make a blip on those projects radar.

AND, I am not anti-68K (I used to build systems based on those - when it was practical to do so), nor do I wish AROS or OS4 any harm.
Just thought I'd straighten that out since everyone does seem so polarized.

[guest11527]

Place an OS4.1 or MorphOS machine next to a legacy system and you will quickly see which is more practical.

A strange question to ask. The legacy system of course. It runs all the Amiga applications I have, without emulation, exactly how I need them to run. If I want a fast modern system: That's the PC running here. That's a lot more practical for day work than anything that is remotely related to Amiga.

[itix]

A strange question to ask. The legacy system of course. It runs all the Amiga applications I have, without emulation, exactly how I need them to run. If I want a fast modern system: That's the PC running here. That's a lot more practical for day work than anything that is remotely related to Amiga.

Interesting. I cant understand where is the fun using Workbench on tiny 640x256 screen with 16 colours. I could invest $1000 to an accelerator and gfx card but that ship sailed long time ago.