Natami started and stopped again

[OlafS3]

When comes to natami that is the most interesting project if you ask me. Sad you have not setup the team in a way that if one team member goes away the team will continue the work, since the work and project is incredible important for the future of amiga.

I have tried to register on the natami forum but even the activation mail is not sent out, sad.

Hope we get some good news from natami team.

The remainders of the Natami-Team is basically the team behind apollo core, then one of the former members is now creating a new core on its own (you can read discussions on amigacoding.de), I was member of the team too and have concentrated on Aros Vision after the Natami project ended, some others like Samurai Crow are around and he has said he would help me to improve Aros 68k to make it a perfect replacement for 3.1.).

Natami was a combination of custom hardware and specific core done by one developer and this developer had all rights to it. After this developer officially left I had a couple of email contacts with him and I asked him if he could think about opensourcing it, a couple of weeks later there was the last thing I officially read from him that he would continue with his project on his own with a new name and that was the last thing I have heard of it. Nobody of the team could do anything about it. Today the hardware would be very very old and the Natami board (as every custom solution) would have been very expensive if ever finished. What Gunnar now plans is much promising, affordable and based on new hardware. I was very interested in Natami at that time (in fact it was the reason why I started to be interested in Amiga again) but 2014 I think Natami is past. How Gunnar said, we have everything available now, ECS and AGA implementations (Minimig and the core of FPGA Arcade), free OS and Roms (Aros 68k) and also components that were done at first for Natami (Apollo core and SAGA) so if the persons responsible act together something good could come out of it.

[OlafS3]

This two things are not the same products, the NetAmi has no appeal for me, its too low spec, for one thing,

NovaCoder is calling NatAMI too ambitious, I will say that it is not near who ambitious it needs to to be called  modern in any way or from.

They will never be able to create a graphic card that can be compared to modern ATI or Nvidia graphic card.
They will never be able to make a FPGA that is in GHz range.

All I see is small upgrade to classic line of Amiga computers.

The X1000 on the other hand does have some modern features, SATA, PCIe, modern graphics new graphic cards from ATI, lots and lots of RAM. It can play modern films 720, 1050 should work 1080 possibly with SMP, or with hardware accelerated video decoding.

AmigaOS4.1 was voted the most beautiful OS here not long ago, its also a patch free OS, with lots of improvements under the hood.

I'm not willing to go back to AmigaOS3.x with patches that make the system unstable.

The X1000 is expletive yes, but you get some thing now, instead of waiting for some thing that can never be as good, and by the time NatAMI project is out there will be X9000 I'm shore.

Hmmm and where do you get the software from? Certainly 90% of the software base is 68k. And if I want something as workhorse I would not even look at "NG" because I have plenty of options already with all needed drivers (in opposite to AmigaOS). Amiga today is not the mainstream like it was in early 90s, it is a pure fun platform and for that I do not need extremely expensive custom PPC hardware and I will never buy PPC Macs (used or new). Certainly many people think that way. New FPGA based affordable devices would be something different, you can develop new custom chipsets on them, they have the "geek" factor, they are clearly different to standard hardware in opposite to your preferred choice that only differentiates in processor and price. So for me new FPGA Amigas are perfect and you can add everything you want in hardware and optimize everything so we will see how big the differences in reality will be. And even if who cares...

[OlafS3]

I create my own software, if I need some thing. That my hobby.



Yes but can you name any 68k software that is worth using today?



Well I'm not, I'm shore there are few people who are interested in FPGA's and what they can do with it, but this people have different interest then the people who buy X1000.

Anyway some will need to make this optimizations, write the drivers and the software to use the drivers, with out drivers there might be one program that can use your optimizations, and no other because how many are expects on FPGA's?

It might be that I have been a NG user for too long to see the value to see the appeal, that's maybe the point, the people who buy X1000, are not the same as the people who are interested in NatAMI.

Aehh drivers? "Who" writes the drivers for X1000? And there are for sure more people interested in 68k than in what is called "NG". You are not interested in FPGA and 68k and I am not in your X1000. And yes propably you are too long NG user obviously (even if I think many MorphOS or AmigaOS user will be interested in it too, not to replace AmigaOS or MorphOS but just for fun and interest).

[OlafS3]

68k software worth using?

Well, all things considered I could get by perfectly by using Turbocalc and Amigawriter.

I do realise that Libreoffice will completely murder those programs feature and userfriendliness, but for what I do for my own personal use those 2 programs would be more than enough.

On the way out the door, but thats the 2 programs I can mention on top of my head and they can be bought from vesalia
I used turbocalc all the time back in the days, and Im considering getting it again now that Im upgrading my A1200.

As has been said before; it might not make complete sense to do so, but if you have fun and actually get some productivity out of it, why not....?

Im somewhat intrested in NG machines, but I still cant quite get myself to shell out for it; its a price vs performance thing. Tho you could probarly use that logic against me since Im currently upgrading my A1200
I dont think potential Natami, classical and NG customers are that different. If we went for the whole performance ratio vs effort and price, then we would have left this platform/hobby behind long time ago.

+1

there are many interesting former commercial programs on 68k, f.e. Raytracers like Reflections, graphical programs like TV-Paint or even some office applications and countless PD or Shareware. The only area where NG is ahead at the moment is web browsing and a handful native applications. But you can certainly count them on one (or worst case) two hands.

[OlafS3]

I have actually used TurboCalc on AmigaOS4, and it work fine, but having said that there are newer and better spreadsheet application for AmigaOS, “Ignition” its 68k but it has fewer of the limitations of TurboCalc.

Amigawriter is to out of date for my taste, thinking about supported file formats and so on, shore there tools like AntiWord to convert .doc files to text and so, and lose the text formatting, I don't like that.

 “Cinnamon Writer” is my suggestion as replacement its native AmigaOS software, AbiWord that's also nice office application.

Libreoffice is not yet ported to AmigaOS, but you can use Google docs, works fine in Odyssey Web browser.

Besides every thing I can't do on AmigaOS, I need to do on Linux or Windows anyway, so sure there are some programs that used to be nice on AmigaOS3.x but most of the software is so old.



Shore that's the point of any hobby.

but there are mostly no newer ones on AmigaOS. So I see no sense to spend lots of money for it. On 68k there is lots of to look at, many programs and library (partly developed in years) are forgotten and have to be found again :-), hidden gems so to say. That is the fun to me. And there is no problem to start with it, you can use almost every hardware for it. Web Browsing is the only thing where NG really is ahead. It is a playground today, not a potential replacement for Windows/Linux/Mac like some seem to hope with Aros/AmigaOS or MorphOS.

Everybody shall have his fun, be it with new FPGA based hardware implementing 68k or X1000/X5000, and not try to explain the others do the wrong decision. Rational both are senseless.

[OlafS3]

NatAmi is not going to be free, thats for shore, I don't think money is a issue, seeing how much money people have spent on hardware upgrades for Classic Amiga; acceleration cards, graphic cards, and all sort of Clock port exception upgrades. Looking at signature, it looks like some have there own private museum with all models ever created.



AmigaOS has always been playground for hobbyists, shore it has been used in some commercial settings.



AmigaOS4 is a potential replacement for Windows/Linux/Mac, if it was not for Skype and Spotify and a few games, I'm shore there are people who don't need this things, and do manage with just AmigaOS.

I only recently installed Linux, for one thing only, I have managed with out Linux for years.

Most things you don't even need a computer to do this days, with Android tablet, and smart phones.



Some thing for every one.

I would not buy any of the old accellerators or graphic cards because the prices for them are as insane as for your preferred option. I know that some use AmigaOS as replacement for Windows or Mac but I am not interested in it. "Natami" would have been too expensive too because of custom board, the accellerators Gunnar and others are working on are much cheaper because they basically use standard FPGA boards for it. His goal is around 150 EUR so that is much more affordable than X1000 I assume :-). Both are hobbies but I would not be willing to spend thousands of dollars on it. But that has everyone decide for himself. When I mention a program you always write XYZ (only available on Windows or Linux) is newer that it. Yes but most of those programs are not available on AmigaOS too. And even if, they are just ports but then I can also use the programs on Windows or Linux and do not need to buy expensive AmigaOS hardware. Only software that is not available on Windows or Linux might be a reason to use AmigaOS.

[OlafS3]

The price of the OS is not that bad considering all the updates that I have gotten for that price.



It was not free when it came first came out, I belive it was priced around the same value as a AmigaONE-XE, when it came out.

Shore you can argue that X1000 hardware is expective, but we don't see it that way, we like to there to be hardware in the future as well, and the only way to do that is support the people who make hardware, that goes for any hardware being made, that also includes NatAMI, MiniMigs, and hardware upgrades for classic Amiga computers.

The fact that El-Box and INDIVIDUAL COMPUTERS, exists today is mostly down to fact that some one buys there products. It does not matter if its classic Amiga we are taking about or NG, in this context. I'm happy Amiga is as live as it is today, I'm happy I can go and buy new stuff from AmigaKIT, and I hope this is will be possible in the future as well.

I see you have donated to support Amiga.org, I'm shore you don't disagree with me.

I have only a problem with your view 68=old/retro and X1000 is new/modern. In fact the FPGA solutions that will be used are very modern (to be precise used in the industry). And Aros 68k includes a number of patches already too, in fact I have not added very much in my distribution. Most changes are desktop-related (Magellan) and replacing Zune with MUI 3.8. So your black/white picture is not true anymore. And in the last three years I really got a good overview of the software base and 68k is by far the biggest (and I do not talk about commercial software that is almost not existing on NG). There are lots of libraries written in assembler for gaming and graphics that are long forgotten and I hope to make them known again. And the huge number of compilers available that not exist as PPC native versions. All successor OSs tried to give life back by making it easier to port applications and games, but after now 20 years (or 10 years MorphOS/AmigaOS) we see that this vastly failed. A new generation of 68k devices directly build on the 68k base offer a much higher chance. That does not mean that people cannot have their fun with their X1000 or used Macs but I prefer a different route and think the "we are the innovative and modern" and there are the "retros, just playing old games" attitude totally wrong.

[OlafS3]

Comparing Natami, or any FPGA Amiga clone, to the X1000 and AmigaOS4.1.6, or MorphOS3.6, or the latest version of any of the AROS forks, is about as useful as comparing the C64 to Windows 8 running on the latest i7 CPU.  Trying to convince the users of any of these hobby platforms that they are wasting their time and that the platform they have chosen to spend their money and time supporting, and that they enjoy using and maybe developing new or ported software for, is also a waste of time. can very often lead to conflicts in these forums, when one member insults the intelligence, or sanity for another's choice of hobby/retro platform.

It would be better to just stick to the thread topic and leave out comments that attack any other platform choices.  We have read those attacking comments hundreds of times over and over again anyway, so why bother repeating them again.  We all know that any of the currently available Amiga and Amiga inspired OSes and hardware that they run on are far removed from any mainstream platforms, but most of us use one or more of these Amiga and/or Amiga inspired platforms, because we like to use them.

Instead, I suggest that members choose to support the Amiga and Amiga inspired platforms of their choice(s) by pointing out the positive points for each of those platforms, but do it in appropriate threads, or in a way that ties such information to any thread they are posting the information into.

Just a suggestion on how to contribute in a positive way, instead of negative alternatives.

a small correction... Aros 68k (that is base of Aros Vision) is using the newest Aros fork. It is inheriting all the features of Aros (and sometimes also its errors)

[OlafS3]

A FPGA can be programmed to do different things, but if you program it to be a Amiga1200 it is a Amiga1200, shore you can add some new features. And sure you can make a better Amiga then what existed back then, but even so you can't make better graphic card then what ATI have for sale.

But the NatAMI is not for people like me who wants a a new ATI graphic card, instead of some kind of AGA graphics.

I think we might be drifting a bit off topic here, I hope no one minds.



That might be, when I first got my AmigaONE-XE, I spent days digging into old Amiga Cover CD's and Disks.

If we talk about internet software, besides the more known Aweb/IBrowse/Voyager, there is few BBS and News Group reader programs, this days I wont dream of using today.

It might well be that there are some gems I don't know about as I whet from Amiga500 to AmigaONE-XE, and skipped, only used A1200 when vising one of my friends. And he did not have internet connection at the time.

I know of one Arexx RSS/Podcast reader I like to get working gain, the trick is to install the correct versions of MUI classes or else it does not run, I have pretty much given up on it. (Anyway it might be this is a potential future software project for me, so I don't mind)

The point being there is lot of crap out there, and while there might be few gems its really hard to find this, when you do find some thing it is normally a disappointment because software is not exactly bug free, as you might think.

Shore there are some programs that are not totally outdated.



Looking foreword to knowing more about this.



There is a few compilers that don't work anymore, but most software is written in C, sure there might nice to have a good Pascal compiler, but then again no one writes programs in Pascal anymore. Looking back at things I made in AMOS there is absolutely nothing I like to bring back to life. (Even if was possible to bring back something, I really hate having to work with a program language that is not well structured today.) The start menu Excalibur started its life as a BlitzBasic2 program, and was rewritten for GCC, I'm not shore it be supporting Composition and window transparency if was not ported from BlitzBasic2 to GCC, AsmOne might not work, but VBCC 680x0 assembler and linker do, there is nothing I really miss.



most of the software is not open source, reverse engineering is not that easy, and writing some thing that looks like some thing old, seams meaning less as more then likely it does make sense to do it the same way as in 80's and 90's.

But on the bright side, there as been a few nice ports, AWeb, Dopus4, Opus5 and Personal Paint, Yam, SimpleMail, AmigaAMP. It maybe not a lot but many of this programs are nice programs.

There are slot of new programs that kind fills the gap.

I can also easy admit that there are some 68k programs that do work.

In any case most of big 68k software base is mix some good and lots of not so good programs, navigating and finding some thing that is worth using is not always easy, if you don't know what your looking for.

For the people how use classic MacOS, there is system7today.com, some thing like that might be nice idea for AmigaOS3.x, to help guide people to good gems.

Examples are Raystorm and game master system (two of many) that come to my mind and I recently added to Aros Vision. There are many more (both with years of work invested in it).

And Pascal is just one example, there are different versions of Amiga-E, Oberon, Modula, several Basic-Compilers and even when using AMOS there are plenty of AMOS extensions available. C is available too, I think I saw a official page for Actek-C somewhere and there are VBCC, Dice and of course you still get commercial or former commercial compilers on ebay (bought lots of software there in the past).

http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/gms_dev
http://aminet.net/package/gfx/3d/raystorm_881

[OlafS3]

If you want to get my two cents: It's probably not more worth than the two cents I just gave you... The reason is quite simple: There is no reasonably modern and reasonably large software library, and there is no reasonable hardware either. Most certainly, you can say the same for Os 4.0, which is basically the reason why I do not care much about either. Sorry for that, but that's simply as it is. For anything modern, I have Linux. For anything old, I have the 68K. But I have no use of an Operating system for exotic hardware and no software basis.   Linux. Yes, really. You pay nothing, you get updates forever, it runs on modern hardware, and has a huge software library, does everything I want.    To be frank, it would also cost me nothing, but that's because our university has a Dreamspark contract with M$. But anyways - it's not the Os of my choice, Win8 even less so. It's consistently unusable.    Somebody has to earn some money for all the time spend developing it. For both "PPC branches". That's all appreciated and understood. However, that still does not make me understand the business model behind it. It is basically a model from 30 years ago: Create a custom hardware ("home computer") with its own software and user basis, and hope that it creates enough attraction. Basically, you sold a hardware and hope that the users care for the software.  However, this type of business died a long time ago. Hardware does not count anymore. Today, you provide a software for free, or no software at all, and provide a service around it, or around a web-service, and charge for that. Hardware is unimportant. HTML is important, browsers are important.

I agree with Thomas here, even if one of the NG options would offer 64bit/SMP/MP and run on modern hardware (Arix could be propably nearest to that) it would not offer more than Windows/Linux/Mac but minus the software base of these. And this would not magically change in future.

For me FPGA based new solutions would offer some geek factor, be modern based on new boards and would directly build up on the huge 68k base. All NG OSs (AmigaOS, MorphOS, AROS) tried to convince user and developer to change the hardware but in reality most left (the big drop was around 1998), when AmigaOS and MorphOS became reality it was already too late. And even then (for different reasons) more and more people left (sadly including many devs). AROS has finally at least get a 68k version and ROM replacements so there is a chance to create something new based on 68k independent of history with all the legal problems regarding Amiga Inc. and Hyperion. Will that solutions beat modern hardware? No. Will they outperform PPC? No (but who knows what comes :-) ). Is that necessary? No because it will certainly be a fun platform and not the workhorse. Has any of the NG options a chance to become workhorses like some seem to dream? In my view No because of the lack of software.

[OlafS3]

"NG options a chance to become workhorses "

And some "Just want my personal workhorse to be an Amiga."

For me, addition to that, a way to survive as a (niche) platform must be secured.

Surviving in case of NG means a couple of hundred (perhaps thousand +) user and that you can buy hardware (even if overpriced). My personal hope is to win much more user and I do not see that with NG because they have vastly failed because not enough software was ported, most devs left (partly even before MorphOS and AmigaOS became real). Affordable FPGA based solutions will offer more attraction because they are different to standard hardware and are based on the much bigger 68k software base. I do not say anything against the NG platforms, I think they will survive (at last as long some people are alive and using it) but I do not see a big chance to get outside the existing community (except AROS with ARM/X86/X64 but it has the problem of the propably smallest software base compared to AmigaOS/MorphOS). I am very grateful for the 68k branch of AROS though :-)

[OlafS3]

Dear Moderator,

This thread should be moved to CH. It has gone a little off-topic.
Anyone else agree?

No

[OlafS3]

hope he makes it a consumer product.

I am not sure if he wanted it in public now at all. No speculations please, Thomas will announce something (or not) if he wants that.

[OlafS3]

Why isnt natami.net removed or updated with the information so people like me can stop hoping that something will happen to it. ?

I am not the moderator there and not a member anymore there too so do not ask me. The accellerators based on FPGA Cyclone 5 are promised for the near future, everything else is in dark so to say :-)

[OlafS3]

The idea that linux is an option is ridiculous.
Yes it serves its purpose, but that purpose in no way shape or form scratches an amiga itch.
MorphOS is a much better option, and worth the money if you enjoy amiga paradigms in your OS (as is AROS or OS4).

A thousand bananas for $1 isnt as interesting as 50 oranges for $10 if a person dislikes bananas and enjoys oranges.  That's just the way it is.

I think he meant that different... for modern software he uses Linux, for the rest 68k and he sees no sense in a modernized NG OS (AmigaOS/MorphOS) that runs on obscure hardware and has no software. He did not say Linux is AmigaOS.