wawrzon wrote:
@bloodline:
as far as i understood biggun if he ever spoke of asic, then only as an option in case some bigger company had an interest to use future natami-technik in a device like sort of pda.
Certainly once one has the HDL of the chip, an ASIC
could be made. Indeed, in the next 20 yearsit might become possible to make ASICs of the required complexity for a tiny fraction of the cost they are now...
But unfortunately I must refer back to my German supermodel argument... While it's possible that I might be dating one this time next year... it's VERY unlikely, so unlikely I may as well consider it impossible...
There is no technical reason why any company would chose anything related to the Amiga hardware for their own designs... it simply does not make any sense for any company to do so.
in that case something related to amiga technik might again appear on the market. whatever consequences it might have to amiga community i dare not foresee. the asic natami computers could be probably constructed to smaller quantities in this case, so to say "by the way".
If a comapny is going to produce these chips it's highly likely they would sell them with a markup to help lower their own costs... but like the German supermodel, who has no reason to date me... no company as any reason to use NATAMI... there are modern, cheaper, better supported designs that they can buy.
edit: the failure of similar past ideas like setup boxes based on amiga-technology would indicate that one couldnt rely much on such possibility.
Yes, that's painfully true. I think even in the late 90s the idea of using the AGA chipset in a comercial product was a very shakey idea... it did offer some advantages, like Genlocking and TV resolution support... but still it was old, power hungry and required a lot of silicon...
@atheist:
no 2000 people are going to gather around a risky project with uncertain outcome to donate each 500-1000$. face it. even a single sponsor is more likely
He is not alone in his beliefs though.