Wither Natami?

[mikej]

"By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga."

It's not really an "emulator" in the sense of UAE at least, which is software running a close approximation to the original hardware on another cpu. The FPGA designs are actually copies of the original hardware.An FPGA is a big bunch of gates which have the same function as the original chips in the Amiga. The firmware wires these up to create hardware which could be identical to the original design (assuming no bugs). Electrically, in theory, you couldn't tell the difference between the original Amiga and a perfect FPGA copy - it would be the same design.

Sometimes when we design custom chips nowadays we take the source design that will be made into the chip and run it up on a really big FPGA to find any problems before we make it. The FPGA and the custom chip are the same design - ok, the FPGA is a lot more expensive and runs slower. Technology has moved forward so much since the Amiga was made we can now put all the original hardware in a modern FPGA and run it much faster and add extra features. It will be possible to run the 68000 softcore much faster than the original, how fast I don't know yet, but 50MHz plus should be no problem.

Mike.
www.fpgaarcade.com

[bloodline]

TheDaddy wrote:
>>Amiga Hardware is hardware based on the designs of the Original Amiga chipset.
The FPGA projects are new circuit designs which look to software like the Original Amiga chips... In much the same way as an Emulator looks like Amiga Hardware to Amiga Software.

So what?
It's the year 2005 Commodore are still around and they are planning a small, Amiga 500/600 compatible machine with PS/2, SD-Card, VGA support and they name it the Amiga 550.

It is released using fpga technology because it makes economic sense.

So we have the Amiga 550 (Minimig) by Commodore. Is this a "real" Amiga?

How is it any different to running UAE?

[bloodline]

mikej wrote:
"By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga."

It's not really an "emulator" in the sense of UAE at least, which is software running a close approximation to the original hardware on another cpu. The FPGA designs are actually copies of the original hardware.An FPGA is a big bunch of gates which have the same function as the original chips in the Amiga. The firmware wires these up to create hardware which could be identical to the original design (assuming no bugs). Electrically, in theory, you couldn't tell the difference between the original Amiga and a perfect FPGA copy - it would be the same design.

Sometimes when we design custom chips nowadays we take the source design that will be made into the chip and run it up on a really big FPGA to find any problems before we make it. The FPGA and the custom chip are the same design - ok, the FPGA is a lot more expensive and runs slower. Technology has moved forward so much since the Amiga was made we can now put all the original hardware in a modern FPGA and run it much faster and add extra features. It will be possible to run the 68000 softcore much faster than the original, how fast I don't know yet, but 50MHz plus should be no problem.

No one has the original chip designs anymore, so the FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips.

[TheDaddy]

>>FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips.

I would say that they can be an improvement of the original chipset. I would even go further and say an evolution.

[bloodline]

TheDaddy wrote:
>>FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips.

I would say that they can be an improvement of the original chipset. I would even go further and say an evolution.

UAE is an evolution too... Cheaper, more compatible and more configurable.

[TheDaddy]

This discussion takes me back to the old "Is Amithlon/Amiga OS XL/WinUAE an Amiga?" and my favourite "What makes an Amiga?"

 :-)

[bloodline]

TheDaddy wrote:
This discussion takes me back to the old "Is Amithlon/Amiga OS XL/WinUAE an Amiga?" and my favourite "What makes an Amiga?"

 :-)

Hmmm... yes, maybe.

But on a serious note, and what I was trying to get across to the OP, was that Emulation will work fine for his needs.

[mikej]

"No one has the original chip designs anymore, so the FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips. "

True, but they will be much closer than a software emulation. It is possible to get exact behaviour by running the FPGA core against a real custom and looking for any differences. This is what I've been doing with the Atari chips and will do for the Amiga customs. In this way you can prove the chips behave identically to the originals for all the stuff you have tried, demos, games etc.

If somebody wants to throw money at the problem it is very possible to reverse engineer the logic by examination of a real chip - you scan the chip, strip off the metal layer and repeat. These chips are old so the feature size is large, but it's still expensive.

But, you are right, software emulation is good enough for most things.
/Mike

[bloodline]

mikej wrote:
"No one has the original chip designs anymore, so the FPGA Amigas are workalikes, they do not behave exactly as the original chips. "

True, but they will be much closer than a software emulation. It is possible to get exact behaviour by running the FPGA core against a real custom and looking for any differences. This is what I've been doing with the Atari chips and will do for the Amiga customs. In this way you can prove the chips behave identically to the originals for all the stuff you have tried, demos, games etc.

If somebody wants to throw money at the problem it is very possible to reverse engineer the logic by examination of a real chip - you scan the chip, strip off the metal layer and repeat. These chips are old so the feature size is large, but it's still expensive.

But, you are right, software emulation is good enough for most things.
/Mike

Ok, I guess you are unaware of the projects...

MiniMig just looks like Amiga for software, that's how Dennis made it. He made no effort to recreate the chips, only to get the software to work.

NetAmi, hasn't been finished and the project developers are not looking for cycle accuracy here... so that will be similar to MiniMig.

CloneA, was built to be cycle accurate. Logic Analyzers were used to to ensure that the FPGAs not only perform the same function but timing is perfect too. This is the closest we will ever get to the Original Amiga. But the DACs are not the same old 80s tech, so the gfx and audio output will be different, subtly...

WinUAE is by far the most accurate and configurable Amiga recreation possible. I can adjust all the settings to match any of my real Amigas. I have software that will work on one model of Amiga and not on another... UAE will run all the software...

[the_leander]

Ya know, I was going to let this one slide and leave it to bloodline, but ya know, I've had a crap day and you're it.

TheDaddy wrote:
>>In the case of both MiniMig and Natami, their creators do (I've never heard of CloneA).

That doesn't mean it can not be considered a real Amiga.

Which part of, it's an emulation done in hardware was not clear?

TheDaddy wrote:
What is a real Amiga?

From Wikipedia:

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985. The name Amiga was chosen by the developers specifically from the Spanish and Portuguese word for a female friend,[1] and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically.

TheDaddy wrote:
If Commodore were still around

They're not so the rest of your point is moot. The Commodore name lives on, and produces a very nice set of PCs. End of.

TheDaddy wrote:
If Amiga Inc. had licensed the name to the Minimig and Natami creators what would you call them?

An idea so fundamentally above the capacity of the current name holders that it too is a moot point since it'll never happen.

TheDaddy wrote:
Nonsense.

Funny, I was thinking just the same.

[mikej]

I am aware of the on-going work, and I agree UAE is accurate and configurable.
Personally I want an expandable hardware system which is accurate enough to run the software I wish to. True, the FPGA designs will be approximations to the original hardware, but with effort they can be extremely close. Logic analysis helps, but it only verifies what you capture. By running the two chips in lock step you can verify function and timing.

The Atari custom chips I have been working on are gate level accurate. (I am an ASIC designer by trade).

At the end of the day, I think expandability is more important that complete compatibility, it's sort of fun to add hardware features we all wished were there from the start. Ok, you can do this in the software emulator, but it's a bit more real when it's a small board sitting on your desk?

Best,
/Mike

[bloodline]

mikej wrote:
I am aware of the on-going work, and I agree UAE is accurate and configurable.
Personally I want an expandable hardware system which is accurate enough to run the software I wish to. True, the FPGA designs will be approximations to the original hardware, but with effort they can be extremely close. Logic analysis helps, but it only verifies what you capture. By running the two chips in lock step you can verify function and timing.

The CloneA Aims for this, and as such is the most accurate of the Hardware clones. If Jens ever finishes it, I'll get one :-)

The Atari custom chips I have been working on are gate level accurate. (I am an ASIC designer by trade).

Forgive me, but the Atari chips were quite a bit simpler than the Amiga ones.

At the end of the day, I think expandability is more important that complete compatibility, it's sort of fun to add hardware features we all wished were there from the start. Ok, you can do this in the software emulator, but it's a bit more real when it's a small board sitting on your desk?

If I want expandability then I'm going software. If I buy a piece of hardware it has to be able to replace my real A1200, one for one (but offer VGA out, and PS/2 or USB ports, etc).

[mikej]

"Forgive me, but the Atari chips were quite a bit simpler than the Amiga ones."

yes, that's why I started with them

[amiga_3k]

bloodline wrote:


Hmmm... yes, maybe.

But on a serious note, and what I was trying to get across to the OP, was that Emulation will work fine for his needs.

I have tried OctaMED on WinUAE (moderate 2.4 GHz PIV on Windows XP) in different configurations and it never ever felt about the same as when running OctaMED on a 25 MHz 68040 equipped A3000. So WinUAE to me doesn't quite do the job. Which brings back an old question I had: How is OctaMED behaving on the MiniMIG?

[bloodline]

amiga_3k wrote:

bloodline wrote:


Hmmm... yes, maybe.

But on a serious note, and what I was trying to get across to the OP, was that Emulation will work fine for his needs.

I have tried OctaMED on WinUAE (moderate 2.4 GHz PIV on Windows XP) in different configurations and it never ever felt about the same as when running OctaMED on a 25 MHz 68040 equipped A3000. So WinUAE to me doesn't quite do the job. Which brings back an old question I had: How is OctaMED behaving on the MiniMIG?

I agree, I also had problems with with a 3.0Ghz Pentium4 (I think that had a weird timers as I would always get stuttering)... but my Athlons and MacBook Pros always worked fine :-)

[JimS]

the_leander wrote:

By no definition I know of (given their respective creators words on the matter if nothing else), could these two projects be called "real" amigas, since everything is being done by an emulator coded into an fpga.

You need to understand what an FPGA is before you say something like that. It's basically a huge pile of chips on solderless breadboards with a huge pile of wires to make the interconnects. The design software lets you specify how those chips are interconnected. Nothing is "emulated" unless you build a cpu on the FPGA and do emulation with it. (The port of   Minimig to the Altera DE1/2 boards does this for the PIC processor - replacing it with a soft Z80.

The best comparison I can think of is that the minimig, and it's cousins are like the Amiga Lorraine prototype- where the custom silicon was implemented with hard wired low level gates.... It's just that the FPGA makes that process faster & smaller.