Are you buying an FPGA Amiga?

[vidarh]

Got a Minimig, will buy a Replay *and* a Natami

[vidarh]

The Natami is likely to suffer the same problem that plagues most niche system, while it will run legacy software, the number of new packages developed specifically for it may be limited.

That may be true, but if they produce proper drivers it'll still benefit from the improved graphics modes for the base system for RTG friendly apps, and the performance will still benefit most old M68k apps, and if they get decent compiler support for their new instructions for N68050/68070 they might get even more substantial performance boosts.

There's clearly still quite a few classic users that refuse to consider an x86 or PPC system that would still like those performance boosts, and for whom the boost they might get from a Natami might be enough to let them stay with a M68k compatible system for much longer.

It seems the Replay will be perfect for a low end classic replacement for a lot of people, while Natami will push the performance boundary - I think there's plenty of room for both. Neither need huge sales numbers to be viable and both will benefit as FPGA prices go down and size and performance keeps going up.

[vidarh]

I'm interested in NatAmi, since it provides backwards compatibility but, even more important, Amiga-like architecture and improvements over past chipsets.

Hope the target price will be ok (IMHO around 200/250 EUR) and there will be some software for demonstrating the new capabilities.
BY!

I think 200/250 EUR for the Natami is completely unrealistic. That's the range that's been indicated for the FPGA Arcade. I'd be surprised (pleasantly so...) if the Natami ends up at or below 600-800 EUR.

[vidarh]

_I_ think the maximum target price NatAmi may be "good selling" (in Amiga terms, of course) could be something around 450 EUR (anyway less than 500 EUR), if supported by convincing performance/features/enthusiasm.
...even just the plain board (if it's a matter of adding case, drive, keyboard, mouse and so on).

Who knows, maybe it's possible. And time is in their favor - FPGA prices is one of their major cost issues, but FPGA prices are steadily dropping, so maybe they'll get below the 500 mark eventually.

But I think it'll sell in ok numbers (for the Amiga market anyway) - the cost if you want to fully kit out a classic to get even within striking distance of a Natami is pretty steep, and there must be a decent number of crumbling heavily expanded classics out there still aching for replacement.

Pricing out an A1200 mobo only + Indivision AGA mk2 + Subway USB controller +  ACA1230/42 gets you to about 470 EUR at Vesalia, and those items aren't even all available, and the 1230/42 will crawl in comparison, and the Natami has SuperAGA, ethernet etc.

You'd be hard pressed to even kit out a classic to similar(ish) specs without resorting to used hardware, and even then you'd likely end up with a big box Amiga with tons of aging and potentially unstable and expensive expansion cards.

If they can beat the fastest expanded classics, I believe there'll be a reasonable number of takers even if they end up at a 700+ EUR price point.

Of course "reasonable" in this case is pretty small. I'm sure the Replay board will be outselling them with a very high factor (not least because it's open and will come with a bunch of cores for other classic computers as well), for example. The Natami is catering for a very specific niche.