NatAmi 68070 design draft

[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

[HenryCase]

bloodline wrote:
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.

Personally I see the Natami, Minimig and CloneA as all complementary products. Bloodline it seems to me you are seperating out the Natami from this group because you don't believe it will be as compatible as the Minimig or CloneA.

Whilst I fully expect CloneA to be the most compatible of the three, I don't see where you get the idea that Natami will be less compatible than the Minimig. The Minimig is not cycle exact, neither is the Natami, they are both in the same boat.

Also, whilst I hugely admire Dennis for what he has done, the Natami project has been going for far longer than the Minimig has (Minimig started around 2005, Natami started before 2003 IIRC). Thus, even with the added complexity of the Natami design it is feasible that Thomas Hirsch (designer of the Natami) would have removed most if not all of the bugs in the design.

The cycle exact thing is oversold anyway. If you can run most OCS games on an AGA A1200 (with WHDLoad and other tools) why would you expect the SuperAGA to be a compatibility killer?

Why not wait and see the Natami in action to see how well it runs old Amiga software? Better to do that than claim it won't work without proof.

[wawrzon]

@bloodline: please, everybody has realized perfectly already that it doesnt pay to develop anything in any way resembling amiga. just let the people do things they like to do, cause nobodys life really depends on that so we have nothing to loose except of time

[Zac67]

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!

OMG - I hope this is not coming from any of the developers... Otherwise this project has just suffered a serious decrease of respect from my side. Complete nonsense.

Well, all in all I'm very sceptical, but I'd love to be surprised.  ;-)

[bloodline]

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

No. I quite agree here. NATAMI is a brilliant hobby research project for the people involved and would be happy to read about it and see it in action... it's the motivations/long term goals that is suspect!

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.

Come come now!!! You and I both know the GB is a totally bad example! That is a product for which software development never stopped and had a massive installed user base which needed to maintain backward compatibility with old software... The market for which the GB served was never overtaken by other systems, the technology for mobile devices has only in the past few years really started to catch up with desktop...

The Amiga, perhaps 10 years ago, would have had some software that other systems couldn't really match... but now, the very concept of Amiga software for anything other than a small group of hobbyists is laughable.

The GB is not a good argument for "SuperAGA".

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.

Errr.. well, ok... but the PSone is, what, 14 years old... And the NATAMI would be expensive, limited and buggy compared to a cheap off the shelf GFX chip...

If they did go for a ColdFire based option then it'd be up within the speed range of a PSP/PS2.

I'm not really sure how you are making this comparison... I simply don't know where the information for such a conclusion could have come from?

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.

Which is what the NATAMI is interesting for! I don't understand, why people want to big it up into something it isn't... when it already has a decent reason.

[bloodline]

HenryCase wrote:

bloodline wrote:
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.

Personally I see the Natami, Minimig and CloneA as all complementary products. Bloodline it seems to me you are seperating out the Natami from this group because you don't believe it will be as compatible as the Minimig or CloneA.

No, I separate out the NATAMI because unlike the MiniMIG and the CloneA, the motivation behind it don't make any sense, or at least seem very unrealistic!

Whilst I fully expect CloneA to be the most compatible of the three, I don't see where you get the idea that Natami will be less compatible than the Minimig. The Minimig is not cycle exact, neither is the Natami, they are both in the same boat.

The MiniMIG is just trying to be Amiga compatible... that is the motivation... that is what everyone working on it is trying to achieve. It doesn't matter what the MiniMIG devs have to do, they can do anything to improve the compatibility.

NATAMI seems to have some crazy idea about making a better Amiga, for no discernible reason...

Also, whilst I hugely admire Dennis for what he has done, the Natami project has been going for far longer than the Minimig has (Minimig started around 2005, Natami started before 2003 IIRC). Thus, even with the added complexity of the Natami design it is feasible that Thomas Hirsch (designer of the Natami) would have removed most if not all of the bugs in the design.

So Dennis got the MiniMIG from idea to shipping product in 2 years... and I understand that he took a break between finishing the design and releasing it... and the NATAMI has been in process for 5 years and is not even out of the development phase... does that not start alarm bells ringing?

The cycle exact thing is oversold anyway. If you can run most OCS games on an AGA A1200 (with WHDLoad and other tools) why would you expect the SuperAGA to be a compatibility killer?

Every extra feature takes time  and silicon away from debugging the standard AGA features... Plus somethings I have read about the "Super" features would be incompatible by design... anyway that isn't the point, why bother with these new features, no existing software can use them!

Why not wait and see the Natami in action to see how well it runs old Amiga software? Better to do that than claim it won't work without proof.

I don't care how well it works, I just don't understand the project motivations or perhaps really I don't understand what benefits this has over MiniMIG and CloneA as a commercial product... but I can see disadvantages...

[bloodline]

wawrzon wrote:
@bloodline: please, everybody has realized perfectly already that it doesnt pay to develop anything in any way resembling amiga.

Actually it does... the MiniMIG proved that. The motivations behind the MiniMIG were clearly defined and well thought out.

just let the people do things they like to do, cause nobodys life really depends on that so we have nothing to loose except of time

I would be nice if it didn't turn the Amiga name into even more of a joke in the process...

[Atheist]

I state unequivocally; that probably only 1% of the people here realize the true power of the 1985 Amiga computer!!!!

And it's those one percent (who may remain unnamed*), who understand that, THAT multiplied by 100 is MINDSHATTERING!

So, they will get the NatAmi60.

EOL.


* DoomMaster is one who shall not remain unnamed. :laughing:

[bloodline]

Atheist wrote:
I state unequivocally; that probably only 1% of the people here realize the true power of the 1985 Amiga computer!!!!

And it's those one percent (who may remain unnamed*), who understand that, THAT multiplied by 100 is MINDSHATTERING!

So, they will get the NatAmi60.

EOL.


* DoomMaster is one who shall not remain unnamed. :laughing:

Well done... I guess your remedial tutors are very proud of you for learning how to use a keyboard..

[wolfchild]

@Atheist
You need a reality check, mate.  The Amiga is technically light years behind.  The Natami has nice specs, but its place in time would still be somewhere around year 2001 or so.

By the way, about getting a NatAmi60...don't count on it.  No matter how much you are able to pay.  A dev machine sold to people who can't contribute by hitting the metal and actually fixing bugs might as well be thrown away.

I suggest you go and buy yourself an Intel quad-core, some SATA RAID, couple of SLI cards and try a couple of PC games.  Try not to wet yourself.

@The rest
Come on guys, what could have been a great, down to earth technical discussion has just been a fight about what non-sense Natami could be. Why care so much about backwards compatibility anyway?  There are already other solutions such as genuine hardware and emulation.  I don't think there's need for another Amiga clone.  It would mean staying where we are.

Why so much hate and anger towards this project?  Is it fear of change?  I really think Natami is a very interesting proposal.  This is some new creativity for god's sake!  For once someone is not only trying to replicate old technology but thinking of moving it forward!  Whether they succeed or not, well, it still is a nice try.  And no matter whether the project has taken 5 years already, so what?  Did this guy steal any of your time by taking initiative to do something creative with his own time?

I, for one was dreaming of filling the remaining space in my minimig's FPGA with some additional funky hardware for cool demo effects and stuff.  You know, doing something creative in hardware.  Now, if I ever were to do it, I guess it would be best to keep it to myself, tell no one and release nothing, lest I be a judged insane and my motivations questioned...

[AJCopland]

bloodline wrote:
No. I quite agree here. NATAMI is a brilliant hobby research project for the people involved and would be happy to read about it and see it in action... it's the motivations/long term goals that is suspect!

Yeah the long term dreaming is what I'm reading a lot of but honestly I don't think it's from the developers too much. Occassionally Gunnar goes off on one but if he wasn't having those flights of fancy in public then he'd be having them in private :-D how can you resist dreaming about "what-could-be" when you're helping to make something.

Come come now!!! You and I both know the GB is a totally bad example! That is a product for which software development never stopped and had a massive installed user base which needed to maintain backward compatibility with old software... The market for which the GB served was never overtaken by other systems, the technology for mobile devices has only in the past few years really started to catch up with desktop...

The Amiga, perhaps 10 years ago, would have had some software that other systems couldn't really match... but now, the very concept of Amiga software for anything other than a small group of hobbyists is laughable.

The GB is not a good argument for "SuperAGA".

Ah ha not so fast, GB->GBA is a marvellous argument (or we wouldn't be having on :lol:) because I don't care about the actual success of the platform only the hardware differences :-P
You see we're discussing really two overlapping things, the market for something with the hardware and design of something.

If we compare the GB to the A500, the GBA to the A1200 then think of the Natami as the DS-that-never-was. That's all that some of us fanboys want really to see a sort of what-could-have-been, a continuiation of the series...

..maybe that's a better analogy actually, think of it like a TV series that gets cut halfway through, its still got a fanbase so after a few years another production company picks up the right and they make the rest of them. Now they can either keep the original staff that everyones familiar with (Natami-MiniMig-CloneA) or they can hire new actors to play the same roles :-o

Errr.. well, ok... but the PSone is, what, 14 years old... And the NATAMI would be expensive, limited and buggy compared to a cheap off the shelf GFX chip...

Yeah actually I'd like it if they DID put in an extra off-the-shelf GFX chip on there too. My point about the PSone was that its a reasonable benchmark to surpass. Slow 33Mhz CPU, weak 3D chip (by todays standards) but a potent machine when used right. Even an A1200 with a 3D chip would have given it a PSone a run for it's money at the time if commodore had ANY idea that 3D was coming.

See below...

If they did go for a ColdFire based option then it'd be up within the speed range of a PSP/PS2.

I'm not really sure how you are making this comparison... I simply don't know where the information for such a conclusion could have come from?

I code for the PSP and PS2 so know them fairly well. The PS2 would be harder to surpass but the PSP would be relatively trivial for a CF based machine at 300Mhz to 400Mhz.

Thing is even a 68060 60Mhz based machine with good memory access (something that particularly hobbles the PSP) would get close to PSP standards if they'd give it a basic 3D GFX chip, leave the 2d stuff to the AGA/SuperAGA side. They'd only have to give it something with multi-texturing support to improve on the performance of the PSP rendering.

Hmm gone off on a tangent, damn, was beta for our game today so just got home :-D

All of the above is trying to say that you don't have to do much to get a hobby platform upto older-gen's console power and that's only been the Natami's stated goal, to give the Amiga (AGA) chipset a bit of a boost up whilst maintaining as much compatibility as possible.

Which is what the NATAMI is interesting for! I don't understand, why people want to big it up into something it isn't... when it already has a decent reason.

Agreed, what they're saying though for the NatAmi with 68060 isn't that it's going to be the greatest thing ever.

Hell even getting the Natami upto even the level of the PSone would be an upgrade, after all 14 year old technology is better than 16 year old (A1200==1992!) technology :-D

Andy

PS: sorry I'm knackered so the above is all confused, I'm gonna go watch anime and get some sleep!

[CodeSmith]

@bloodline

No, I separate out the NATAMI because unlike the MiniMIG and the CloneA, the motivation behind it don't make any sense, or at least seem very unrealistic!

The motivation is making something cool and selling it to a few like-minded people who won't be able to build one themselves.  I don't understand why you think there's a difference between the motivation behind the MiniMig and that behind the NatAmi.  The CloneA *is* different - Jens wants to basically clone the old Amiga chips and sell them by the million.  Dennis and Thomas are doing it for fun.  Don't be misled by them wanting to make a few bucks on the side, I never got the impression from them that they're out to do anything other than inject a bit of life back into the Amiga hobby.

Every extra feature takes time and silicon away from debugging the standard AGA features... Plus somethings I have read about the "Super" features would be incompatible by design... anyway that isn't the point, why bother with these new features, no existing software can use them!

According to Gunnar, the "super" features have been designed to be backwards compatible.  Presumably they did this the same way you can add A1200 style clock ports in a compatible manner to a C64, ie by using memory addresses tagged as "future expansion" in the hardware docs.  Since CBM's no more, it's safe to use those.  I agree that no existing software makes use of the new features, but again I point you at the C64.  There's a very cool game called "metal dust", that won't run on a stock C64 - it requires a SuperCPU expansion that was released after CBM went under. The SuperCPU is an accelerator that adds a new, partially incompatible CPU (undocumented opcodes don't work and it's not cycle exact) to a C64, so it's a significant hardware change.  People will write new software for an old platform.

I don't care how well it works, I just don't understand the project motivations or perhaps really I don't understand what benefits this has over MiniMIG and CloneA as a commercial product... but I can see disadvantages...

You see the NatAmi as a commercial project that follows the normal rules of business, and it that sense it's insane.  But then again, the MiniMig is also insane from a commercial point of view.  How many have been sold so far?  I'd be very surprised if the total number of units "out there" breaks three digits.  Think of the NatAmi as the A4000 to the MiniMig's A500 and it will make a lot more sense.

I can understand your confusion though, there are a few posters here, at aw.net and at natami.net who are making some pretty outrageous claims about what the hardware can and can't do.  The NatAmi team consists of two people right now: Thomas and Gunnar, and their claims are a lot more scaled back.  Anything said by anyone else is probably suspect.

[wawrzon]

i admire efforts like minimig while they do not improve any technical possibilities of amiga, so i could use a cheap a500 instead. thats why a do not need a minimig but i would maybe need a natabi if it would ever become reality. period

[Atheist]

Features/benefits of AOS on NatAmi over other JUNK:

1. 4 second boot up (Could be 1 second, if it weren't for memory check and loading of FPGA.)

2. AOS anywhere from 1.3 being 700 K to AOS3.9 being 2.6 Megs (I'm talking copying whole OS to ram. What REALLY do those other OSs do that needs 450 Megs of code and 40 Megs of ram??? Notepad on XP is 64 K, and who knows what support files it needs to be able to run?)

3. Ram: disk

4. Rad: disks (even reboot off of rad:. Yeah, seems like the one above is the same, but NO, these are two DISTINCT features over and above what linux/MacOSX and wind up your pants 95/98(SE)/2000ME/xp/vista offer.)

5. Draggable screens (This BLEW MY MIND when I first saw it in 1988.)

6. Multiple resolutions simultaneously displayed from one vertical line to the next vertical line (amazing ability!!! This combined with #5, I needed changing pants!)

7. Programming wise, can easily bypass OS if you wish

8. No login carp

9. No MP

10. No swap file

11. No registry

12. No DLLs

13. Programs can run from ANY directory/device, unless hard
coded to dissuade you from being able to (I had only THREE sub directories in the root of my Amiga 2000 hard drive, think it was S: and maybe Libs: and one more sub dir with all the other AOS1.3.3 directories in it.)

14. Programs are SMALL and I mean REALLY small.... Try starting a program on a cell phone, why's it take 6 seconds to load the damn things!!?!?! Oh, compressed you say? AND IF I should happen to have a 2 Gig SD memory card is there ANY way I the "master" of the device can FORCE it to be put onto the memory card in uncompressed format, so that I (the MASTER) can load the app/game in ONE second? NooooOOOOOoooooo!!!!!

15. Speaking of small, what's with the graphics drivers being in the 20 Megs range? There is no actual way of KNOWING how big these drivers are, and how much ram they take up as everything is secreted away from the users. Point is, that was one of the keys of AOS working so MAGICALLY. There wasn't 30 Megs of graphics kaka, and yet it achieved basically audio/visual miracles!!!

16. NatAmi60's physical power is near the PS2 level, BUT it's TOTALLY OPEN to the USER!!!!! How HARD was it for the game developers to achieve the real benefits of the Emotion Engine? It only took TWO YEARS before games using it's full potential were out (by the BIGGEST developers who had dev kits upto 1.5 years before the console was even released!!!!). Toooooo complex!

17. With all the power down/energy conserving "AI" measures, I think that using the new CPUs and devices produces unpredictable results (this applies to #10, swap files too).

18. The Mac is now relegated to "appliance".

19. Instant off! (Why aren't cell phones instant off??!?!?!?!?!??!)


Until the "Modern, up-to-date, be all/end all super pooper compooters" can do these (19) things, they aren't really what I'd call a "PERSONAL COMPUTER"......



P.S. Doesn't anything just turn ON and OFF anymore???

[HenryCase]

bloodline wrote:
No, I separate out the NATAMI because unlike the MiniMIG and the CloneA, the motivation behind it don't make any sense, or at least seem very unrealistic!

The motivation is unrealistic/suspect? The ideas behind the commercialisation of the Natami only started recently (probably around the time bbrv offered to help with getting it running Coldfire, which we know now was not the path to take), and you've said yourself that you see it as an interesting hobby project, yet the motivation behind the Natami is suspect?

Are you questioning Thomas Hirsch's motives or the motives of the other people interested in the Natami?

The Natami doesn't need to be flying off the shelves in shops to be a success, maybe you think it does? Cue Garth:



"It's like people only do these things because they can get paid. And that's just really sad."

The MiniMIG is just trying to be Amiga compatible... that is the motivation... that is what everyone working on it is trying to achieve. It doesn't matter what the MiniMIG devs have to do, they can do anything to improve the compatibility.

The Minimig is open source, any one can build what they like with it. If I had the time (and skill) to implement the AAA chipset on the Minimig your argument falls apart, as the AAA is Amiga technology and something that (the majority of) Minimig fans would not shun.

NATAMI seems to have some crazy idea about making a better Amiga, for no discernible reason...

Why is that such a bad idea? If a company were releasing the Natami I would probably class them as 'brave', it doesn't have enough mass appeal for today's market, but to those who are interested in it it is a huge deal, and providing Amiga developers embrace it too it could be a very interesting retro platform for a good number of computer fans from different computing 'cults'.

So Dennis got the MiniMIG from idea to shipping product in 2 years... and I understand that he took a break between finishing the design and releasing it... and the NATAMI has been in process for 5 years and is not even out of the development phase... does that not start alarm bells ringing?

You're clutching at straws here, why would that bother me? It's clear that the Natami consists of a more complex design than the Minimig, more complexity = longer development time.

Every extra feature takes time and silicon away from debugging the standard AGA features... Plus somethings I have read about the "Super" features would be incompatible by design... anyway that isn't the point, why bother with these new features, no existing software can use them!

According to the Natami team the development process for SuperAGA is close to complete, including AGA compatibility. I'm so glad that this chipset was developed (largely) in secret so we didn't have to go through the painful 'will they let us down' phase. Of course the Natami60 hasn't been released yet, but I'm confident we'll see some progress on that soon. Yes the SuperAGA features are mostly useful for new software development, but there may be one or two features I've heard of that will be of use to standard Amiga software.

I don't care how well it works, I just don't understand the project motivations or perhaps really I don't understand what benefits this has over MiniMIG and CloneA as a commercial product... but I can see disadvantages...

Your argument is baffling. Any product sold, whether that be to Amiga hobbyists or any other group, is a commercial product. The Minimig (in its preassembled form) is a commercial product, it is selling to those who are interested in it, the Natami will do the same. If someone is willing to pay money for something then it has the potential to be a commercial product. Some of us (myself included) may get a little carried away with dreaming what the Natami could do, but that doesn't give you an excuse to knock the technology, which is the issue at hand here.

If the SuperAGA was shown to be highly compatible with AGA, became open sourced, and was developed for a future Minimig revision, would you still shun it then?

[Atheist]

In point #16, to make it clear, it took ~1.5 years before the PlayStaion 2's were for sale, to 2 years AFTER they were buyable to achieve full throttle performance wise.

3 and a half years TOTAL.

Also, I've played very few games on it, but the price of all that eyecandy seemed to make games choppy, "complete this (small) section, load next....." (Played only a few of the initial releases.)


P.S. I'm sure there are more than 19 points of contention, too. Would take micro soft (sic) 50 billion dollars to FIX these nagging details.