Natami started and stopped again

[biggun]

There are great FPGA systems on the market.

SOCKIT for example:

* An FPGA with over 100,000 LE
* 512 KB build in 2nd Level cache
* 2 Gigabyte of fast DDR3 Memory
* Ethernet
* USB
* VGA out
* Audio out

Such board would give a perfect new AMIGA.

[biggun]

But will look at SOCKIT when it is availible.

The point is that socket _is_ available.
Its been sold hundreds of times already.

Halve a year ago the Sockit was on promotion for $99.
Now its back to its normal price of $299.

[biggun]

The problem is the huge amount of work required to target the IP to a specific platform.

I agree that targeting new stuff like the USB chip requires new logic.
And getting a driver for the new logic will take time.


But the original AMIGA stuff like the
68K CPU, the AMIGA chipset, the planes, Sprites, Blitter, Copper, even RTG chipset
is more or less just drag and drop.


The keypoint is the memory bus.
If the design uses a standard ALTERA bus like AVALON,
then compiling the desing for the SOCKIT is really only drag and drop.

Also the VGA out chips are usally very easy to address
and adapting to another chip is not rocket science..

If the design uses a non standard bus - then you need to write a little bus bridge.
This is work of days but thats it then.

I compiled the CPu for the Sockit board - this was very easy.
You only need to create the proper PLL, and can compile it already.
Its work for 20 minutes including the compile time.

[biggun]

Tell me does AMIGA still have a future?
What do you think?

Does selling 100 or 500 devices give a future?

Or would it make sense to aim for something like high end AMIGA for $99?
Such a system could be sold ten thousands of times.
Would ten thousand new AMIGAs give the platform more future?

Why are developers working on FPGA stuff like this?
Are they in for making a quick dollar on this?
Or do they want to revive the platform,
Do they believe with selling 500 pieces they can revive the AMIGA?

Or would opening their sources to allow production of 10,000 units be better?

If people would free their sources would this be better for the AMIGA?
Would the people do this or would they ask for something like bountie to do this?

Lets say you have something like a AGA++ chipset and a 200 MIPS 68K CPU.
Would these FPGA source alone make the AMIGA revive -
or would you need a strong company which is able to pump in real money
to push the devices on every XMAS tree?