NatAmi 68070 design draft

[niklasni1]

wawrzon wrote:
bloodline, you are overly negative,

Not surprising considering the absurd claims you see from some people... especially people who seem to not have a clue (Atheist, amongst others)

There are some real gems on the Natami forums:

Intel recently said that the future of GPUs will be ray-tracing and Nvidia said that such claims are ridiculous. From what I read NATAMI , comes out of nowhere with a home-grown designed CPU and GPU, is supposed to be capable of ray-tracing Quake 3 @ 800x600/truecolor @ 30fps!

I fully support the Natami project, and I might even buy one if I find myself with the cash handy. If they get it working it'll be an incredible feat, and it'll be cool no matter how its benchmarks compare to a new PC... but these claims that it will be the fastest computer ever and cost 100 inflation-wrecked American dollars... you don't really know whether to laugh or start smashing skulls.

[wawrzon]

@niklasni1:
sure, i follow that forum, while not posting much. but who cares for overall iq level of regular amiga fans anymore.

edit: by the way even gunnar has never claimed natami is going to compare to a p4 whatsoever cpu-preformancewise. on the opposite: he tries to calm people making such assumptions down. so dont let u distract by kids

[jj]

I dont think bloodline is being overly negative and i dont recall saying things are impossible, just that are pointless, or at worst mis-guided.  People like AlexH who has been a chip designer for aa long time is also just trying to stop people wasting time and making crazy claims.

I love Amigas, but I have not switched my PPC A1200 on in a very long time.  It cant do the things I need to do , work wise or game wise, or anyhting wise.

[bloodline]

wawrzon wrote:
bloodline, you are overly negative, just as biggun is too enthusiastic over the matter.

Overly neagative say you. But I am not happy with people basically making a joke out of the Amiga. It was the best computer of its time... But all these absurd claims do nothing but drag the memory of this milesone in computer history through the mud.

look at this thread, some 50% of it are your posts, trying to convince people that something is impossible, i thing u could easily use this energy in some more constructive way.

I'm simply trying to show people the flaws in their thinking. I offer my advice based on the research that I do and the experience I have, I don't not pull numbers out of the air, and make insane claims, that are not technically feasable!

i believe, most people involved in amiga scene have got a clou about natami, but just keep quiet as long as anything is proven either way (at least me do).

as for selling rates of a complete amiga compatible system for  any 100eur not to mention 100$ (lol) it would surely exceed 10 pieces.

But not, if it was not 100% Amiga compatible. The NATAMI team can waste time adding a 1000 new features but for every incompatiblity it introduces... the market is halved.

just notice how much you pay for any old amiga hardware today.

Hadware that is proven to work with the Amiga software base.

and dont mention minimig should have been a bigger succes as nobody sane actually needs replacement for original a500 i believe. well i have no need at least.

What Amiga Compatible do you have need for?

as for jens schoenfeld arguments, do not forget that he is working on a concurent design. the amiga-hardware designers scene here in germany and poland (e3b, elbox, ic) seems to takes no risks by supporting each other products, due to the little market i believe.

j.s. always underlines that clone_a would be cycle exact replacement for the amiga, but is an a4k (with a cyberstorm060/ppc) cycle exact with a a500?

An A4000 is cycle exact with the Amiga... it is an Amiga...

if it is probably natami aga chipset replacement is compatible too

But with the AGA chipset timing was never really an issue, it was the 2megs Chip and register gaps filled with new functions that caused the problems... switch these off (in the early boot) and all but one of my A500 software would work...

since there it was shown to public and there are snapshots of it running genuine amiga apps on the natami page.

I've seen screen shots of Workbench running... That is all... And that could run on Amithlon with no Amiga hardware (and very minimal CIA emualtion).

[alexh]

bloodline wrote:
But with the AGA chipset timing was never really an issue

Not sure that is 100% true.

bloodline wrote:
it was the 2megs Chip and register gaps filled with new functions...

Yeah, and more importantly the new kickstart ROM and cpu caches.

bloodline wrote:
switch these off (in the early boot) and all but one of my A500 software would work...

You must not have had much software then ;-)

[bloodline]

alexh wrote:

bloodline wrote:
But with the AGA chipset timing was never really an issue

Not sure that is 100% true.

I did say "really", but I can't off the top of my head think of any place where I had an issue with the timings... Blitter and DMAs and stuff all seems to be the same... (Though I remember the AGA fetch modes all being messed up...) Though I'm not going to go back and look at 14year old source code to confirm :-) I didn't have an A1200 compatible ActionReplay either so I never hit the AGA hardware as hard as the OCS...

bloodline wrote:
it was the 2megs Chip and register gaps filled with new functions...

Yeah, and more importantly the new kickstart ROM and cpu caches.

I was going to mention them... but really we are talking about the chipset...

bloodline wrote:
switch these off (in the early boot) and all but one of my A500 software would work...

You must not have had much software then ;-)

Hhahaha, I was poor back then! Seriously, I think it was only MegaLoMania that really put up a fuss... Though I "know"* I got it working... Perhaps something else too... Damn UAE is so much easier :-)

*as in; quite sure...

[Crumb]

@JJ

Do you have graphic card in that PPC 1200? A BlizzardVisionPPC would be perfect for running MorphOS or AmigaOS4

[jj]

I sure do.  I have a bvisions and a CV64/3D

Just cant afford to shell out on AOS4 at the moment, how much is it in £

And I never manged to get MorphsOS free to work on it.

[bloodline]

Crumb wrote:
@JJ

Do you have graphic card in that PPC 1200? A BlizzardVisionPPC would be perfect for running MorphOS or AmigaOS4

I have a BVision in my A1200... but can't run OS4 as I only have 32Meg Fast.

[jj]

I only have 64mb. sold all my memory with my Blizzrd IV 030 and scsi kit, DOH.

Is 64mb enough ?

TBH I doubt I would use OS4 anywere near enough to warrant forking out the doh for it.

[Plaz]

@bloodline

The ARM is low power, well supported, it's not going anywhere and with a nice JIT should reach standard 680x0 performance with the current generation...

Something else I need to look into then.

Plaz

[tiffers]

@bloodline

I was just quoting what Gunnar/biggun has said in other threads, on other forums.

You (and others here) certainly seem to have much greater knowledge than I, about the specific technologies being discussed. I was just trying to show that NatAmi (according to Gunnar) is really placed to be cheaper than the MiniMig (in the CPU + chipset + Coldfire all-in-one configuration) and more compatible than the MiniMig in it's current state, and thus shouldn't be slammed too hard on the 'incompatible and expensive' claims.

Sub-$100 NatAmi And another

The proof, as I have heard said, will be in the pudding.

tiffers.

[wawrzon]

@bloodline: what kind of amiga compatible i need, you ask? accidentally just that kind the natami specs state, even up to genlocking (overlay) possibility, because that is what i tehnically use them mostly for. i wouldnt complain about some extra computing speed but thats not the primary issue for me. i can use pc for most computing tasks. up till now i mostly used amigas as simple, reliable, cheap, idiot-proof (no shutdown needed, just pull the power cord) controllers for my "video" installations.

i do not estimate too that every extra feature introduced to the amiga compatible will narrow the interested user base as long as it doesnt contradict an existing one. it even possibly  will become part of some future standard.

i sense you see no future for anything connected to amiga either way since you have already placed it in sentimental past and want to conserve this as such. im fine with it.

[bloodline]

wawrzon wrote:
@bloodline: what kind of amiga compatible i need, you ask?
accidentally just that kind the natami specs state, even up to genlocking (overlay) possibility, because that is what i tehnically use them mostly for.

I did not ask what you wanted. I asked what you actually needed from your Amiga. Do you need an Amiga Compatible or some kind of SuperAmiga that might not be so compatible.

i wouldnt complain about some extra computing speed but thats not the primary issue for me.

So what you need is an Amiga compatible... So something like a bugfixed MiniMig or CloneA would suit your needs?

i can use pc for most computing tasks. up till now i mostly used amigas as simple, reliable, cheap, idiot-proof (no shutdown needed, just pull the power cord) controllers for my "video" installations.

Right, so you have software that you currently use on Amiga systems that you need to use in your video installations. That's fine, and when all the original Amiga hardware dies, having a supply of new Amiga Compatible hardware would be good for you... but your software can't use and doesn't need the extra features of NATAMI... So why add complexity (increasing cost and debugging time) to the Amiga Clone by having SuperAGA features?

i do not estimate too that every extra feature introduced to the amiga compatible will narrow the interested user base as long as it doesnt contradict an existing one. it even possibly  will become part of some future standard.

The Amiga chipset has already defined its standard... 16 years of unchanged hardware have defined that standard. Any changes are not compatible and never will be.

i sense you see no future for anything connected to amiga either way since you have already placed it in sentimental past and want to conserve this as such. im fine with it.

No, I want effort to be directed in directions that make sense. The Amiga Hardware has no future, it never had a future, it was a product of the 80's computing environment. It solved problems that technology has surpassed and which simply don't exist any more.

We all here have software that we use, for some reson (it doesn't matter why), that needs an Amiga to run... Amiga hadware has a limted life an we need to develop solutions to account for that... CloneA, Minimig and TobiFlex68k (I personally also include AROS in this list) are all vital in preserving the Amiga... but NATAMI seems like feature bloat and without good reason, except as a private hoby project where it is a good learning tool for someone... and N68070 is just a waste of everyone's time, it can never be as powerful or as complex as a modern CPU, and frankly any software that need a 68k does not need anything better than 68030... really...
 

[bloodline]

tiffers wrote:
@bloodline

I was just quoting what Gunnar/biggun has said in other threads, on other forums.

You (and others here) certainly seem to have much greater knowledge than I, about the specific technologies being discussed.

The technlogies are publically documented, a little bit of time spent of Google and a few Emails to the companies that sell this technology will give you a good idea what is possible and how much it costs... Also there are plenty of people on these forums who work with this stuff everyday who can explain this stuff.

First thing I do when someone makes a claim that seems too good to be true... Google... :-)

I was just trying to show that NatAmi (according to Gunnar) is really placed to be cheaper than the MiniMig (in the CPU + chipset + Coldfire all-in-one configuration) and more compatible than the MiniMig in it's current state, and thus shouldn't be slammed too hard on the 'incompatible and expensive' claims.

But I really can't see:

a) How it can be cheaper than the MiniMIG with the feature bloat of the SuperAGA and even a CPU core on there, we are talking about a HUGE FGA.

b) How it can be as compatible as the MiniMIG, which is already a very mature beta product, and still full of bugs. The added complexity of SuperAGA is going to increase Debug time. The added features of the SuperAGA Chipset will decrease compatibility, unless they are kept away from the AGA emualtion (i.e. moded out)... and then what is the point of them, no existing Amiga software can use them, and if you are writing new software... use a new machine.

c) How can the coldfire really make much sense in this situation... Hell, even I as someone who dislikes the PPC, can see it's a better fit in this situation for wide range of technical and cost reasons...

d) that all the problem which plague the idea of SuperAGA apply to the N68070... Who wants a not very 68k compatible CPU that runs faster than a 68k at several orders of magnitude the cost of an modern CPU?

Sub-$100 NatAmi And another

The proof, as I have heard said, will be in the pudding.

tiffers.

That's true... but at the moment we don't have any pudding... just some vague recipies and expensive ingredients...

[AJCopland]

All fair points but I don't want to discourage the Natami guys or believe that they should be discouraged.

Look at the argument for the natami as the argument for the DS over the GBA, or the GBA over the GB. Many years between them, lack of straight compatibility (not entirely true of GBA->DS but for the sake of argument...). They're simply upgraded with newer designs but no less '80s/early '90s in their implementations.

Now the Natami with a 68060 or even ColdFire+SuperAGA ASIC (yes yes yes I know they'll never do that one) is not going to be a handheld suitable one. However the design is simply damned interesting and even with a 060 would be faster than the PSone. If they did go for a ColdFire based option then it'd be up within the speed range of a PSP/PS2.

So mostly it's interesting in it's own right, perhaps only as an extended hobbyist project but it's still fascinating and judging by the interest in it there are people who want it.

Andy