The natami looks very close to completion.

[AJCopland]

That is how I see Natami, I'm not pinning my hopes on it or anything. They are presenting it pretty agressively though. I tend to look at most things as vapor until proven otherwise. I know that may upset some people but I have worked on several projects over the years that were just geek hobbies. Fun to goof around with etc. When you set up a whole webpage and forum system and start setting up news etc. it goes beyond just a simple geek project.

We are? There's a constantly running thread on the dev' side about keeping it quiet so as not to whip people into a frothing rage when it doesn't meet their expectations. Then there's a lot of followers who just seem to think it'll be the second coming of Christ!!! :/ We're trying not to get peoples hopes too high, we just started off doing a _terrible_ job of it.

It's more than just a geek project; we want to release it with basic features that beat a base A4000/A1200 setup. That's it. Everything else, no matter how many times we say it, is for AFTER that. The 3D Core, improved sound etc etc etc almost all of it is for after, the base platform just has to be capable of supporting that future work AND be as compatible as possible with old software.

We'll get there I think, Thomas has done some amazing work, but he is the originator of the project and the only one doing the hardware much like MikeJ with the fpgaarcade board so it takes time.

Back on topic: Close is a relative term, I think MikeJ is much much closer than we are and I'd love to buy one of his boards myself when they're available. Not necessarily for NatAmi but just for what it is in and of itself.

Andy

[AJCopland]

Maybe "aggresively" is a little strong of a word. I have looked over the site and was quite impressed with the site itself. What I can't really tell as much about is the product. One of the most impressive projects in the history of the amiga was minimig by Dennis van Weeren. That was completed in secret, then shown to the world.
Natami is as amibitious as boXer, I'm just hoping it doesn't share the same fate.

I think Thomas felt that the MiniMig forced his hand. He'd been working on what became the NatAmi for a while already when Dennis announced the MiniMig and so he felt, much like Jens with the CloneA, that he had to say something about the project existing. I think that the plan had otherwise been to do what Dennis did, just several years later

BoXer comparisons are far I guess, but we're not commercial and each of the project members has access to a lot of the software and N68050 fpga work already done. So that won't be lost.

The hardware and SuperAGA? Well it could happen I suppose, the NatAmi team that deals with the N68050, 3DCore (tami) etc don't have access too the hardware. We're all clustered around Thomas's private project and respect that so whilst Gunnar (and a couple of others) might have access to Thomas's hardware the rest of us are a separate team.

Andy

[AJCopland]

It would be nice to be able to combine the Natami and x1000 in a way.

I don't think we have any crossover between the projects. They're focused on the future using PowerPC. We're focused on delivering the 68k based Amiga that people would have liked to have seen after the A1200 & A4000 with a few bells n' whistles.

I notice that a lot of people keep saying how easy it would be to do, but not many are doing it.

Andy

[AJCopland]

Seems like yarube should be pulled in since he has an AGA implementation going already.

What and drag him away from the fpgaarcade board?!?! No way! I want one of those myself!

Thomas already re-implemented most of AGA when he first demo'd the test board, most of his current if porting that over and bug fixing. The fact that the list he posts isn't complete is, I think, more a feature of him re-implementing things to take-advantage/work-with the new bus, memory and boards. That and y'know, he has a life outside of the NatAmi too

Andy

[AJCopland]

I periodically think "Oh hey man I should really give the natami a whirl when it debuts" then I remember: there's nothing to do there once you get there.  A clone of 1941 that looks like it was built with Flash elements doesn't do much for me.  And all we've seen of the vaunted 3d capabilities are screenshots.

The 3DCore isn't due for the launch, though there might be simplified version for shortly after.
To clarify though we did do monthly simulation builds until we realised we needed to rethink elements of the design and those were put up for people to download.

I know because I helped write it.

Andy