3 more NatAmi's - Yippee!

[Franko]

@ alexh

Gotta disagree with you strongly on almost all you said there (especially about Piru ) but all kidding aside I think you are wrong, the NatAmi is basically promising 100% backwards compatibility,  I (and I don't think anyone else is either) looking for it to replace any kind of PC (what give you that idea !!!) I am quite simply looking forward to buying new hardware that's an Amiga not a PC, is backward compatible and runs faster than any expanded Amiga ever could, not to mention all the other goodies it will bring...

It's got nothing to do with folk developing new software for it (though I intend to do so myself) the simple fact that most old software from DPaint to Pagestream will run a lot faster on it is what I'm looking forward to...

So to me comparing the NatAmi to other processors and the speeds they run at is pointless (as well as stupid to be honest). I think anyone who's looking forward to buying the NatAmi already knows it's capabilities and are very happy with what it offers and are going to be quite happy buying this rather than spending a fortune on ebay for a nearly 20 year old 060 that you can't guarantee will work or last long...

Kinda think all you "doubters" are deliberately missing the point in the NatAmi...

[Tripitaka]

@alexh

That's a rather negative view you have. I'm not going to argue with you right now however, it's late and I'm going to bed. I see little point in that anyway, your mind is quite obviously set, but I am wondering why you felt the need to post at all.

I can't help but think your kind of missing the point TBH. If you lack faith in Natami (and you clearly do), then sit back and just wait and see. If it doesn't offer anything you like then you loose nothing, but it may just turn out better than you think and that's great. Naysaying helps no one.

BTW, the reasons for the closed approach on the RTL code have been stated by gunnar on the Natami site more than once, I have no desire to repeat them so look it up if you can be bothered or just ask on the Natami forum yourself.

[Tripitaka]

Damn, Franko beat me to the post and I ...er... agreed with him for once. LMFAO

[Franko]

@ alexH

Of course I discount UAE as it's plain and simply got as much in common with "real" amiga as Amiga Forever has... (ie: sod all)

The MiniMig while a great product was never for me (took them too long to make it AGA and no AGA then no Amiga), quite simply the specs the NatAmi is offering is what I want & require from an Amiga and all the other reasons I've given before...

Closed source, open source, Top ruddy secret... I couldn't care less about how, who, what or why it's developed as long as I can simply buy one and it does what I want it to do...

So the doubters and downers can say all they want about it, you won't change my mind. First chance I get I'm buying one no matter how much someone else tells me "but it's old technology and xyz chip can run at abc times more faster than it"... who friggin cares... not me... I want a NatAmi and I want one now...

[Franko]

@ Tripitaka

Yup when I read your post I thought "that buggers got a camera in here spying on me somewhere" :eek:

(Hmmm... better have a quick look round... )

[Cammy]

alexh is the only one with his head up his own backside.

I wouldn't worry about anything he ever has to say, he only joins in when there's an opportunity to tell someone they're wrong, but never actually offers any new or useful information in his posts or takes into consideration the fact that other people have different views on computing than he does.

[DCAmiga]

alexh is the only one with his head up his own backside.
 
I wouldn't worry about anything he ever has to say, he only joins in when there's an opportunity to tell someone they're wrong, but never actually offers any new or useful information in his posts or takes into consideration the fact that other people have different views on computing than he does.

Cammy thats a bit harsh :laughing: but this time Alex is wrong ..
 

I don't even think it will replace your Amiga in the short term as compatibility will be it's Achilles heel for the short term.

Alex you know NatAmi stands for Native Amiga right? The following is from the NatAmi website:
 
Topics on Compatibility:

• The NatAmi is compatible to the OCS/ECS/AGA AMIGA chipsets.
• AMIGA Kickstarts 1.2, 1.3, 3.0, 3.1 are supported
• We recommend AMIGA Workbench 3.0 - 3.9 to be used
• AMIGA 4000/1200 register compatible IDE controller on board (enhanced, PIO and DMA)
• Existing AMIGA IDE harddrives can be used unchanged
• AMIGA DD/HD floppy support using standard PC Floppy drives.
• Floppy drive access can be redirected using ADF images on HD.
• AMIGA applications, games and demos that run on classic 68060-Systems,

will run on NATAMI as long as they have not any constrains to chipset timings/limitations.

• Direct hitting of the Amiga hardware works natively.

Querying CIA, and blitter registers will fully work just like on original AMIGA hardware.
All features documented in the Commodore Hardware Reference Manual, work as written there.
Enhancements will be described in similar style and quality.

• PS/2 mouse and keyboard can be used just as well as the original devices.

PS/2 devices are mapped to the original hardware registers.
[/LIST] http://www.natami.net/amiga-compatible.htm

[Kesa]

Cammy thats a bit harsh :laughing: but this time Alex is wrong ..
 

Can you tell me where Cammy posted this? Did you quote her then change her post when you quoted her to attack Alex? A bit suspicious...

[Jeff]

Is there any speculation yet as to what this might cost?

[commodorejohn]

Is there any speculation yet as to what this might cost?

IIRC, they've refused to comment until they're ready to put it in production...

[mongo]

All features documented in the Commodore Hardware Reference Manual, work as written there.

As long as they feel that this is enough to ensure 100% compatibility, and from some posts by the members of the NatAmi team I've seen they seem to, there will be problems.

Duplicating the undocumented behavior and timing of the original chip set is essential to achieving 100% compatibility.

[matthey]

Piru is the only one with a sensible head on his shoulders.

NatAmi is going to be fun (for those who can afford it) at least as long as the devs remain interested.

The comparison of memory bandwidth was rather silly. The N68k should have some respectable memory bandwidth though. I did noticed that Piru left out the memory copy comparison. That is where the 68k DOES compare nicely to a PPC. Gunnar thinks he can double the 68060 memory copy speed for the N68k as well. What's not mentioned is that the 68k/N68k doesn't need as fast of memory access for good performance unlike the PPC. Also, the 68k/N68k performs very well with less than great code while the PPC needs highly tuned code to extract good performance. Simply mis-aligning data on the PPC can cause a program to run at 1/2 speed or less on many PPC processors. The 68040 outperformed the early PPC processors on the MAC because of slow and limited ram and poorly optimized PPC code. The 68060 was easily a better CPU at the time but Motorola had already decided to market the PPC. It's a shame that the best processor for another 5 years was never developed or clocked up further. If the N68070 was ever burned into a real chip, it should be competitive with low end PPC (and ARM) in performance while using very little electricity. It should be fast enough to have some fun anyway .

It's not going to replace your modern desktop x64 PC. I don't even think it will replace your Amiga in the short term as compatibility will be it's Achilles heel for the short term. Power benchmarks against anything other than accelerated classic Amiga's are pretty much irrelevant.

I think compatibility will eventually be BETTER than high end classic 68k systems. The CPU caches are planned to have bus sniffing allowing much larger caches with better compatibility than the 040 and 060. More 020/030 and 68881/68882 instructions are built in than the 040 or 060 giving better early boot compatibility without a (N)680x0.library. Many hardware registers will be less "timing" sensitive than originals. The programmable nature of a fpga and the flash ROM will allow more fixing and patching. There will be some things that make the compatibility worse like adding and extending registers. The early Natami's will likely have bugs and worse compatibility than other classic Amigas BUT everything can be fixed.

[Heiroglyph]

I have no delusion that it will replace my i7 PC.

I'm very excited, I just hope they ship in sufficient numbers that I and everyone else who is interested can buy one at retail price.

Most projects seem to become instant collectors items for the handful of people who could actually beta one before the devs gave up.

Here's hoping that both Natami and FPGA Replay can avoid that fate and make some money in the process.

[Piru]

I did noticed that Piru left out the memory copy comparison.

Of course that was a deliberate, I was just hoping no one would notice!

Or not. The only reason is that the benchmark doesn't provide those numbers (actually it's no benchmark at all, those numbers are from a tool that checks memory for errors.. thus it doesn't do memory copy). But if anyone is interested memory copy is multiple times faster than natami, too.

[alexh]

Alex you know NatAmi stands for Native Amiga right? The following is from the NatAmi website:

It's a re-interpretation rather than re-creation of the Amiga chipset. There are going to be issues.

All features documented in the Commodore Hardware Reference Manual, work as written there.

That's just it. That manual is incomplete. They don't have the original source / schematics. They are reverse engineering the chipset. They are going to miss subtle timing an exceptions not documented. UAE and MiniMig both suffer from these compatibility issues (although as development of both continues information is wriggling out). Toni & Yaqube have done great work tracking these undocumented features over the last few years. They have shared them too which I think is very cool.

The early Natami's will likely have bugs and worse compatibility than other classic Amigas BUT everything can be fixed.

Absolutely. And because MiniMig was open source, when the original developer Dennis van Weeren left the scene, other engineers and enthusiasts were able to jump in and pick it up. The original MiniMig compatibility wasn't great but thanks to Jakub Bednarski (Yaqube) and Tobias Gubener (TobiFlex) and others (Peter Wendrich, MikeJ) it is now pretty good.

Most projects seem to become instant collectors items for the handful of people who could actually beta one before the devs gave up.

Exactly, e.g. You can't really buy MiniMig v1.1 PCB's anymore. But it doesn't matter! People have ported the code to at least four different open FPGA boards. If you know what you're doing you can port it to any future FPGA board (with the right I/O) too. The death of hardware manufacturing isn't the death of open source FPGA designs.

NatAmi being closed source will hopefully not stagnate if the creators enthusiasm slows. Lets see how it works out.

If the N68070 was ever burned into a real chip, it should be competitive with low end PPC (and ARM) in performance while using very little electricity.

Erm how did you come to that? Electricity usage in ASICs is primarily down to the physical implementation. How it was synthesised, partitioned and routed. The logical design has a small part to play but it is a small part. And unless NatAmi thought about power upfront (they may have, but it would be strange to do so for FPGA work) then it is unlikely that they have designed the VHDL/Verilog for ULP.

[Cosmos]

Dennis van Weeren left the scene

Any news about this cool guy ?