Excitement about NatAmi

[Louis Dias]

Hello people, I am André from the Natami Team.
I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge

But  first, the issue with Cammy. Cammy, it saddens me to read what you  write. I was the person trying to encourage you to talk to us in that  IRC log, giving you various options for participating in the project and  discussing your involvement and your planned software, access to our  version management and roadmap system, etc. You made it pretty clear to  us that you simply did not want to communicate with us. Since this was  in a public IRC channel, there were several witnesses to this  discussion, so you cannot say we made it up in any way.

I agree  that team management was quite sloppy - most projects involving  restricted Subversion/CVS systems etc. would actually have removed your  access almost immediately after hearing something like the above. But we  gave you several months before deciding to remove your access after  your continued silence. As Gunnar says - motivated people are very  welcome to the team. You are of course welcome back too, but if you do  not talk to us, what is the point of it all? Please do understand that  this is nothing against you personally, but we have to set some kind of  limit for a minimum amount of communication.

Having cleared that  up, I should talk a little about the past and present state of the  project. The first Natami prototype was a 68030-based card running on  top of the C-One. This was shown to the public in 2008. Thomas Hirsch  spent a few years before he reached this point - I am pretty sure he  started even before Mr. Van Weeren started on his Minimig project.

In 2008 the Natami team talked about releasing a system based on an enhanchment of this prototype before the end of the year.
However,  after considerations, the team decided to remove the real bottlenecks  of the design - i.e., the outdated memory system. This resulted in a  major redesign of the Natami, with the goal of implementing a DDR2-based  pipelined burst memory system design. Thus the "missed release date" in  2008, that people like to bring up now and then.
Finishing this new  memory system design resulted in the production of the Natami LX  prototype card this year. After evaluating the LX board in various ways  and adapting the Amiga chipset to the new design, a process which is  documented both on our forums and in the aforementioned Youtube video,  lessons were learned and ideas how to optimise the design into a board  ready for public use have been implemented in the new Natami MX board  design. Thomas Hirsch is currently occupied with the integration of a  few new yet-to-be-announced components in the board.

Regarding  the softcore 68k CPU, the N68050, development is going very well. The  current softcore version has been "done" for quite a long time and the  CPU team are in late optimisation and polishing stages, and are  currently discussing which instructions it would be most beneficial to  use the last unused instruction space for. Considerations and planning  for the future N68050E and N68070 architectures are well underway.

Finally, a few small points
-  A lot of people talk about the project being stalled by "feature  creep". In fact, the only "feature creep" has been about adapting the  Amiga chipset to DDR2 RAM, which took about two years of hard work.
The  other side projects are just team members making themselves useful  while Thomas is working on the chipset implementation and board designs.  Discussing and working on various sub-projects related to the Natami  does not slow Thomas down - he works at his own pace.

- The  YouTube video posted does infact show AGA - several AGA screenmodes,  including HAM8, are displayed. But full AGA support was not implemented  on the LX board at that time - so that is why there are no AGA games in  the video. Note that it is a "Stage 1" video - implying that there will  be later stages.

- We do not use the hardware designs and FPGA  configurations of other projects, including but not limited to Minimig  AGA. A while ago, we discussed with the FPGAArcade dudes about  sharing the softcore CPU:s, but this was quite a long time ago and did  to my knowledge not happen.
The Minimig AGA and Minimig cores can  stand on their own, and so can we. It is very good for everyone that  those projects exist alongside Natami, because this means that there  will be higher-end as well as lower-end options for people who want to  run systems based on the classic Amiga chipset in the future.

Sorry for the great wall of text...
I  am happy to answer any of your questions if I am able to. But please  understand that the FUD and finger-pointing some people seem to be fond  of posting is not really encouraging. Skepticism is healthy, but try to  not be mean.

Excellent post.

People with agendas seem to jump on the bashing-bandwagon instantly.
Sad that some trolls can't even recognized the real-time jpeg loading, decompression and conversion to HAM8 in the video.  It only makes them look like they are bashing themselves in the end.

One positive about the NATAMI over the other projects is that is can load from a real floppy drive...  If I was to call anything vaporware, it would be CloneA.  Even after it has been proven that AmigaInc holds not patents or copyrights to the original Amiga hardware, nothing has been seen yet we have Minimig for some time and FPGAArcade around the corner.  It's been in development for much longer.  What's the delay?  Regardless, I'd like to see it released and see how it measures up to other solutions.

Speaking of delays, I'm sure you all can appreciate how MikeJ's project has been delayed by component suppliers and board manufacturers.

I guess basically I'm saying that a large STFU is in order.  I can sit here and critcize every platform Amiga(ish) or not.  What does that net me?  How has my life been improved?

[Louis Dias]

@forcie very well written post.

@lou-dias  thought you would be busy porting os4 to the gamecube or wii.  I was asking why no aga games in video.  was a valid question.  so  why dont you stfu

What you said was:

AGA not working then, why video of all non AGA games ?

So your question was answered by watching the video more closesly.  There's also a 'bring up' thread that you choose to ignore.

As for me porting anything, I never said I could or would, just trolls like you like to put words in peoples mouths and continue to act like 12 year olds rather than have anything actually useful to say.

In the meantime, you can make do with http://wiibrew.org/wiki/UAE_Wii

[Louis Dias]

What I find interesting about Natami is that I took about 10 months off from the Amiga forums (logged back in today), only to see that Natami has yet to be released.  I still have some optimism about the project, though.

Perhaps you should go to the actual Natami forum for an update rather than make a baseless remark?

[Louis Dias]

I think they're waiting for the Minimig AGA to be released to copy their code.  

I thought that this would be possible but the Minimig license renders it unusable by the team.  Yes, I've asked this on the forum.

The reality is that the board went from 4-layer to 6-layer to add onboard add Gbit-ethernet and USB.  Hence, going from LX to MX has taken longer than originally planned.  A PCI slot was removed and 2 more memory chips were also added...

...but I suppose someone looking for actual answers would have gone to the official forum and discovered this for themselves...
[listens for the wolves to cry 'feature creep']

No one wants to buy a computer today that can't get online out of the box...the Natami team included.

[Louis Dias]

Well, it would be useful if there was an Amiga App Store style thing (e.g., to download games from the various Amiga freeware/abandonware game sites; access aminet; etc). If GigE is pennies more than 100mbit then it sounds like there's a purpose to it.

In the end it depends on the cost of the final board. I think there's room for both an FPGAArcade and a Natami (later on, when it's complete) in my life though.

They are for different markets for sure.

The Replay (fpgaarcade) board will have a connector for standard arcade controllers (JAMMA or is it JAMBA) and is not specifically for the Amiga market.  It can be a slightly souped up Amiga for sure but it's performance is below the goals of NATAMI.

Natami is designed to be an Amiga PC.  It will have a PCI slot(s) and a cpu slot, ethernet and USB and 256MB or ram or more.   I can't recall if it will have SATA or PATA IDE.

here is a quote from Thomas the designer:
http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=6¬e=28597&z=Xyqlpy

The boards are not in production right now. But they are close to. Designing the MX board took much longer than I expected. There are only "small" changes to the LX board. But they increased the complexity very much. There are now four memory chips on board instead of two. And I removed one PCI connector to make room for two on-board PCI components (USB and LAN). For that the board has now six layers instead of four.

I'd much rather have ethernet and USB onboard rather than have to waste 2 PCI slots for them.
This is a positive delay.


@Piru
I don't see similarities to the Boxer at all.  The BoXeR looks like a PC board with an fpga to emulate AGA and a connector for a 68k or PPC cpu.  Natami is a re-implimentation of an actual Amiga design with bottlenecks removed and enhancements made where they can be.


In truth I wish all Amiga projects could work together and share assets for even faster delivery of products.  Licensing models do work against this though.

[Louis Dias]

Why is that?  The Minimig is Open Source isn't it?  Does that prevent the NatAmi team using the code for a retail product?

Natami is closed source.  Using Minimig code would require them to post their changes.  Open source can tie someone's hands when they want to bring unique features to a market.

The problem is that we keep hearing "NatAmi will have this", "NatAmi will have that" on these forums, but we never see pictures or hard specs.  With regards to the FPGA Arcade/Minimig AGA, we have pictures posted, we see Workbench running, we have production updates and we have SysInfo screen grabs.

I've visited the NatAmi set several times and the only real updates I see are to the site graphics.  Quite honestly, I have no idea what the current specs are, how far along the board is, who is working on it or what the plan forward is.

No!  The problem is you don't look for answers.  Post your questions on the actual Natami forum where someone who actually can answer you will.
You also conveniently forget that their is a video of the LX board running OS3.1 in AGA and running A500 games back in april or may.
The MX board is the final board.
Go back and look at when the "Minimig with AGA" thread started and where it's at.
Too many people have selective memory around here it seems.

[Louis Dias]

I look for answers, but I don't expect to have to dig for them.  If this is a commercial product then they must be using ex-Commodore PR staff.

Too many people don't know what "passage of information" means.

No.  Too many people think passage of information is a requirement every 5 minutes.
You don't hear about a new iPhone being released until it's already in production.
Natami MX is not in production.  That seems to be all you really want to hear.

[Louis Dias]

Quite obviously I was not talking about technical similarities. What is remarkably similar is the drag generated by the feature creep.

Right now I'm counting about 6 months to add ethernet, USB...which were previously to be optionally supported via PCI...and more memory.  These are the final features from a physical standpoint, everything else is done inside a fpga and "features" can/will be added as implemented.

For reference, the "MiniMig with AGA" thread will be 2 years old this coming January.  Please don't knock one while praising the other.  There were times when a whole month or two went by without an update from MikeJ.  His board has also been in development a long time but only "discovered" by this community within the last 2 years.

The goals of creating an "A5000+"-caliber machine are far more complex than simply emulating an A500 with an '0X0 accelerator.

I don't see the situation as having a problem of feature creep but simply the reality of accepting what features a new PC must have to be usable out of the box.  Ethernet and USB are standard on any PC, why not on a new Amiga...?

[Louis Dias]

I don't see much feature creep dragging his project.

My point is even when there isn't much feature creep, it's still taken over 2 years to produce a Replay(fpgaarcade) board that is still not for sale.

Especially when your goal posts keep moving constantly.

the only things moving is what's in the fpga but that's ok because that can be changed anytime, I just quoted the developer of the board stating they are close to production...

Lack of resources. For instance USB support adds insane amount of extra work. Why? Just because you don't want to use PS/2 like the other projects?

because the other projects are indeed not trying to be as versatile....
Again, I quoted the developer stating that the work is already done...

What makes more sense:
-ethernet and USB onboard supported from day 1 with one less PCI slot
or
- now you have to buy an ethernet card and a USB card consuming 2 slots ... oh and by the way which model did you buy because I don't think we support that chipset ... perhaps you should start a bounty for that card on NATAMI

Perhaps you are a masochist and prefer the 2nd option, but I'll take the 1st - thanks! ;-)

[Louis Dias]

So what was this change where USB and ethernet was added on the board?

The LX board was made not to be sold but to prove that the MX board could be built.  In that time it was decided having ethernet and USB on the production board would be a big positive.  Why is this so hard to comprehend?

Ah, so who's writing the driver for this USB chip? And ethernet SANA2 driver? Or are these yet another items that will happily get ignored on the software side of the project?

I am not on the team, perhaps you should direct your questions to a team member on the project's forum instead of speculating none shall exist - if you are indeed truley curious.  The plan is to release a fully functional PC.  To think less is to spread FUD.

So let's be clear, just because the board is developed and produced doesn't mean it will be for sale until a working Amiga OS(and/or AROS 68k) installation is running on it.  It also helps to have hardware in hand when writing drivers, no?

[Louis Dias]

No one has suggested Thomas won't make good on the promises, but to claim that the targets haven't changed isn't fair.
I would have prefered the 68060 board that was announced be considered for the final production.The 68070/68050 development time has undoutedly slowed the introduction.

I also don't remember a statement being made about the board only being offered as a whole system.

The '060 board hasn't change.  It's already built and was connected to the LX.
They are working on '050 and '070 boards.  Nothing is stopping the MX boards from shipping with '060 boards and infact that's what developers will have initially.

The goal has always been to ship with an functional operating system being it a licensed and patched 3.1 or AROS 68k.  That hasn't changed, don't buy into the FUD.

It's an Amiga-compatible machine running an Amiga OS...as has been demonstrated with the LX board.

[Louis Dias]

I think Piru and myself are more accustomed to working in environments where there are deadlines and cost/benefit ratios.

Those devices on PCI vs. onboard wouldn't justify a redesign and massive delay in my working world.

A good shipping product is far better than perfect vaporware.  There is always a next version to add more features to if you handle the first one right.

Tinkering forever is exactly what seemed to have happened to the Boxer and gave the community nothing but dashed hopes, hence the analogy.

I've got nothing against Natami, I just hope they are professional enough to see the product through to completion rather than tinker for ten years with nothing to show for it. (closed source prototypes = nothing to show for it IMHO)

It's close source because it's going to be a commercial product.  I don't recall too many commercial companies just giving away all their technology.  I think we are lucky to see the development of the  C1+030 board to the LX+060 boards to the MX.

They've shown what they've shown to simply prove they are not vapor.  They have collected no money.  They owe no one anything.

When the product is done - judge it with your wallet.

However, if you or anyone else is so inclined, perhaps I should to join the team and start printing T-shirts...  $50 each ofcourse!

[Louis Dias]

I would like to point you to the MiniMig, WinUAE, MorphOS, AROS, AmigaOS4, the slew of products from Individual Computers (although they have had a few bombs), the iMica, etc., etc., etc..

The Amiga landscape was really ugly for a long time, but the last few years have been a consistent stream of exciting new products actually released, and it keeps getting better every day.

The biggest challenge I see for NatAmi at this point is finishing the project, and getting it out there before the MiniMig line surpasses it.  With the first generation of the MiniMig platform released, and in wide use, we are now weeks away from having the second generation of MiniMig released in the form of the Replay boards.  This will bring the MiniMig up to parity with any hardware that Commodore released.

While NatAmi aims to be better than what Commodore released, they do need to get it finished soon, as we don't know what level the Replay boards will achieve when they hit the wild, and no doubt there will eventually be someone that moves forward with a third generation of MiniMigs that will surpass the NatAmi target.

If you look at the memory thruput of the various boards you'll see that they are all in currently different classes...
- Minimig uses SDRAM, small fpga;  performance limited to an '020 with no AGA
- I believe MikeJ's board evolved to DDR1, medium fpga; performance is like an '040 with enough space for AGA and super hi res modes
- NATAMI is DDR2 in burst mode 100% of the time with a larger and faster fpga, 100x blitter speed, 100MHz 060 minimum, room for extra chips/cores to add 3D processing; overall system power between a PS1 and a PS2...itching closer to PS2.

So you'll excuse NATAMI development if it takes marginally longer than the others...

The Minimig does not need to change as it's goal was to be an A500 and it has succeeded in that admirably.

MikeJ's goals have also been met as his board will emulate all classic Arcade cabinets.  He really doesn't have much incentive to make it faster other than if he can lower his costs along with it.

Natami is being developed with the future in mind, not a simple emulation of the past.

[Louis Dias]

I hope you're going to back this and the rest of your figures with some benchmarks, right? Because as it stands this is purely theoretical. And of course this hangs on the presumption that the emulation is up to snuff.

And no "my friend the developer close to the project" doesn't count as evidence.

It's simple math.  with a 3.67Mhz clock and 16 bit bus, how fast does a real Amiga move RAM?  Now figure the speed of DDR2 which in burst moves what 8 bytes at once and there is cache to throttle it as well.  Infact, for A500 games compatibility there will be a 3.67Mhz mode...

Hahahahaha. Good luck sourcing many of those at anything like a reasonable cost. Hell you could probably buy an ARM A8 and emulate 68k faster for significantly less.

No one claimed '060's were cheap nor that NATAMI will be cheap.  Read the faq
http://www.natami.net/qa.htm

Citation needed.

You are Theirry and I claim my 5 pounds.

The ReplayArcade board, IIRC, does not even use burst mode of DDR1 and it's achieving '040-like results.

If you watch the LX video, you will see it load and decompress a large 24bit jpeg in real time...using an '060 in seconds.

If I was in on the bet, you'd owe me money...

[Louis Dias]

Actually the '060 card is 99 MHz.  It's the N68050 softcore that is in the 100+ MHz range.  With opcode fusion any pair of opcodes that can be simplified into a 3 operand instruction will be fused as one opcode internally.  This means that the '050 will compete well per clock vs. an '060.  (Note:  Since the LX board's FPGA was too small to hold both the '050 core and SuperAGA, the MX board prototype will have to be produced before the profiling and testing of the '050 core will be complete.)

Remember that the team gets to buy their systems first for testing purposes.  By the time you can buy the production model, the '050 softcore may be already running 100% performance and the team will be working on the N68070 to be superscalar on top of that.

BTW, if you try to run UAE on an ARM Cortex A8 (such as the Pandora), you'll see that it typically trips over itself and delivers roughly stock A1200 performance.

For the fastest '060 read the clock speed of this and weep:http://www.natami.net/gfx/NAe60F/NAe60F_1.jpg

Amazing what some die-shrinks over the years have done for the old girl. :-)