ARM based Amiga?

[Tripitaka]

How we think about ARM has an awful lot to do with what one thinks of as "An Amiga" in the first place as well as about future hopes.

To my mind the Amiga was more than just an OS. It was about fun and accessibility, knowing what the files are on your drives, and about knowing where to find them. It was also about clever and elegant design from PCB upwards. The CPU was a huge part of this and the custom chips too. They didn't just provide processing power, they gave us a level of compatibility that PCs didn't and couldn't match. I knew every game I bought for my 'miggy would run as long as it said AGA on it (my first 'miggy was the brand new 1200), it was as easy as a console. All of these things played a part in my Amiga experience and many other things too, being able to plug the sound directly into my HI-FI for games of Xenon 2 and the video compatibility for example.

Well, now is another age. So given complete choice over the direction Amiga should take I would make Natami official, make an add-on ARM board for OS4 and also develop a more powerful ARM based machine incorporating the Natami chips.

Denver plus Natami sounds like a good start for a wedge with a cpu expansion slot that could take a board with a second ARM and GPU combo (another denver )to run in parallel with the motherboard.

Well I know that would cause some issues but that's the only two cents I'm giving today because I'm off to bed. G'night Amigoids! I'll come back to this thread tommorow as it's getting interesting.

[Tripitaka]

By todays standards my PC CPU is far from leading edge, (it's an AMD 2800 X2) but I seldom get anything eating all of it's power, in fact I rarely use more than 50% of the CPU cycles. The simple fact is fast drives, RAM and GPU are far greater issues. Now before anyone asks I do a lot of graphics work so I'm not just web browsing.
All in all I favor fast throughput of data so I'll take elegant design with less bottlenecking over raw CPU grunt any day and it's in this direction that I would prefer to see a modern Amiga go.

[Tripitaka]

To be honest I don't consider the "Amiga is dead so it needs to bring out something amazing in 12 months" approach at all valid. I've noticed this comment on this thread and others before. It's rubbish! The Amiga is no more or less dead in general terms (ie. to the masses) if it takes 5 years more for a new machine. Sooooo...

...maybe the best approach would be to get in early with future techs like Silicon Integrated Nanophotonics, Coriolis fans, MRAM etc... and build something truly astounding. Lets face it any new Amiga should have Thunderbolt as standard at least.

If your not familiar with the above techs just google them.

Sadly any approach is limited by cash first and foremost and without big investment the chances are Amiga will never catch up again. It breaks my heart to say it but I think one of us needs a big lottery win to throw at the problem. :/

[Tripitaka]

Sadly, throwing money at the problem without great ideas and vision behind it is a waste of money.  Look at the amount of money claimed to have been spent by CUSA on marketing and developing a "knock-off" retro case and then look at the end product and what most people around here think about their chances for success.  Only time will tell if the majority here will be correct about the long term success of CUSA, or if they will be proved wrong and Barry & company will still be in business and making a profit 3 years from now.  It is going to take a lot more than money to ever bring the Amiga back into anything close to the mainstream of computing.

I agree that cash alone is no answer but without it great ideas often die an undeserved death. Capitalism sucks in that respect.

[Tripitaka]

Essentially a Natami board with a Denver ARM socket,

Well I mentioned Denver plus Natami back on page four of this thread and I'm pleased to see someone agree. If this could happen I for one would be very happy. Perhaps Hyperion should have a chat with Gunnar and co about it.....

....LMAO, no chance! it's just too much like common sense to ever happen.

[Tripitaka]

 The part of the Amiga scene that wants to move forward needs to forget about the Amiga and use alternative platforms. Obviously this has been happening for years already. It's just that people keep holding these systems back by sticking to Amiga OS compatibility (which I find quite ludicrous).

So then how the hell would it be an Amiga? :/

[Tripitaka]

I don't think it's impossible to have both backwards compatibility AND 21st century functionality.

With FPGA and UAE around I can't help but agree. The simple fact is of course that if a new Amiga was out tomorrow with very little or no backwards compatibility I would judge it purely on its own merits......
.....don't know what software I would run on it though.

[Tripitaka]

@Mrs Beanbag

No, there are things that are completely impossible to implement in Amiga in a clean way without breaking the Amiga compatibility, but would be totally possible if you would say "fcuk the old, only new stuff from here on" and start with a clean slate, and create a new API that will incorporate functions like these but without the ambition of running old Amiga apps (or system components for that matter).

Ahh... and that then begs the question:

Just what do we accept as "backwards compatibility"?
In the true sense of the term, you are of course correct. To some however (myself included) "invisible emulation" is a better way forward. This allows for a clean slate and my old games and apps.

[Tripitaka]

It wouldn't. Amigas ended with AGA, the other systems are alternative systems that users insist on holding back with AOS derivatives and dated software.

Amiga is a dead end in terms of hardware (and current old software), and users who want more need to realize that they need to break with Amigas and move on or they will be held back.

People who are truly interested in Amigas and still want more need to realize that it's only really going to happen with new software that's technically and functionally better than the, mostly old, programs that are available now. Chipset+680x0 can do much better, but only if high quality software is written from scratch for it (most of the time).
No, I mean that people who are not really interested in classic systems have to ditch Amigas and move on, after all, how good are things like AOS4 and MorphOs really? Or AROS? Why would you want to run AOS (or derivatives) on newer hardware anyway? So you can use old programs that are mostly superseded left and right? Not me, that's for sure (I can do that with my Amiga already and don't need a new machine for this).

Newer machines need to be their own platform instead of sticking to AOS (and Amiga itself needs to move away from this as well).

OK, I see what your saying and believe or not I think you make some valid points. If we take a cold hard look at what we have got we find the Amiga name itself is split (CUSA "Amiga", Ainc "Amiga", Hyperion "Amigaone"). The software is mostly old and out of date (not all of it of course, but mostly). The OS is fractured and the derivatives are just that, derivatives. The hardware is old but awesome or new(ish) but generic and not outstanding. So, yes, you have a point.

So what does that leave us with?

FPGA solutions for classic clones are fine as stand-ins for old hardware running classic software we may wish to run, so is UAE however.

Natami will be, to my mind at least, probably the greatest hobby machine ever but is at the end of the day just that, a hobby machine, Gunnar has made this quite blatantly obvious on many occasions. I must say I look forward to Natami, it looks like a great solution for classic Amiga and adds power to a classic piece of computer history that will, I don't doubt, create a vibrant hobby community enjoying new games and apps whilst learning about the real fun that computers should be.

If however your desire is for powerful and efficient modern hardware, designed from the ground up to be a joy to use for end users and programmers alike with strong graphics and multi-media capabilities as well as an OS that is logical in it's implementation in such a way that the end user actually knows what all those damn files are for (rather than the dll shotgun splatter that is a windows C: drive), then, my friend ...
....please let me know when you find it.