The natami looks very close to completion.

[TheBilgeRat]

It's all good!  MorphOS is good, PPC is good, AROS is good, fiddling with FPGA is good, tinkering with classics is good.  Each one makes someone happy, each one is challenging in its own ways.  It is blatantly stupid to call one superior over the other, or one project more important than the other.  If I had PPC Mac products I'd probably give MorphOS a day in court, so to speak.  I'd really like to see MorphOS running on the last gen PowerMac G5's.  There's still a whole bunch of life left in those boxen.  But to see that reality takes time and money and dedication of intelligent hard working people who in the meantime can't quit their day jobs.  Thus the definition of HOBBY.  It's been flogged to death-Amiga proper is no longer a mainstream player.  It is a bit player at BEST.  Linux, BSD, OSX, Windows all work better faster and cheaper on better faster cheaper hardware.  All of the Morph and AROS and OS4.1 people, not to forget Natami, minimig, etc are dedicated to breathing new life into soft/hardware that mainstream has forgotten or ignored.  So how about this-quit trashing people's choices on how to honor the Amiga legacy, enjoy the vibrant hobbyist community surrounding Amiga flavors, and STFU if someone gushes a bit about their favorite flavor being better than your favorite flavor.

[Karlos]

MorphOS needs a Wii port!  Then I will finally try it.  Now that is good cheap hardware with millions around.  Until the hardware gets that current, a MacMini is still a timebomb.  Bounty anyone?

What's so good about the Wii? Less than 1GHz of customised PPC, less than 128MB main memory, proprietary graphics hardware that needs driver support etc.

Sounds like a royal pain in the rear to me. If MOS wants to stay PPC for the time being, they are being sensible in going after old mac hardware.

[ferrellsl]

@Piru

Again, your arguments are flawed.  Just because there are "millions" of ANYTHING laying around, doesn't mean that there is a demand or that people will use them.  That's why they're "laying around".  Most people have moved on to newer, faster, more robust technologies.

Why take a step backward to use a 5-year old MacMini with MOS when I can get a modern system for $500 USD or less that will trounce a MacMini in every area?

I have several Amigas and I have a PegII with AOS4 and MorphOS both installed.  But I haven't turned any of them on in nearly a year.  There simply isnt anything that they have to offer me that I can't have on another cheaper, more robust architecture.  As an investment, I can certainly say that my Amigas and PegII are liabilities and I'm not going to put any more money into them.  I simply cannot justify the exorbitant price for an X1000 or for upgrading MOS or AOS.  I WILL get a Natami to use all of my legacy Amiga software and games.  I enjoy Amiga for the sake of nostalgia.  For those who think that AOS or MOS is the bleeding edge, well, you're either a relative of Rip Van Winkle or you've been living in a cave for the past 20 years.  AROS will be the future of AOS, not obscure, over-priced, low tech PPC cast offs.

[Piru]

@Piru

Again, your arguments are flawed.

Again, I don't agree with you. I think you're thinking that I'd somehow argue against x86/amd64. I am not.

Just because there are "millions" of ANYTHING laying around, doesn't mean that there is a demand or that people will use them.

Did I claim that? No.

I just say that it is way easier to get things replaced if there's a huge stockpile of used PPC Macs around. Repairs are easier than to some custom PPC HW platform.

Note that I did not claim that these systems would be better in generic computing than x86/amd64 box. This argument is obviously only valid in the the PPC amigoid sphere of things.

Why take a step backward to use a 5-year old MacMini with MOS when I can get a modern system for $500 USD or less that will trounce a MacMini in every area?

If you don't want to run PPC OS, then obviously you're going to get a x86/amd64 box. See above.

I personally run several intel c2d and c2q boxes (Debian GNU/Linux). They don't replace the two Mac Mini G4 and PowerBook G4 I have, however.

Now, you might think that running AROS on them would do that. I don't agree with that sentiment. Frankly, while AROS has progressed nicely lately, I still think it has years to come even close to what MorphOS is today, or might never get that far.

[Karlos]

I have several Amigas and I have a PegII with AOS4 and MorphOS both installed.  But I haven't turned any of them on in nearly a year.  There simply isnt anything that they have to offer me that I can't have on another cheaper, more robust architecture.  As an investment, I can certainly say that my Amigas and PegII are liabilities and I'm not going to put any more money into them.  I simply cannot justify the exorbitant price for an X1000 or for upgrading MOS or AOS.  I WILL get a Natami to use all of my legacy Amiga software and games.  I enjoy Amiga for the sake of nostalgia.  For those who think that AOS or MOS is the bleeding edge, well, you're either a relative of Rip Van Winkle or you've been living in a cave for the past 20 years.  AROS will be the future of AOS, not obscure, over-priced, low tech PPC cast offs.

That's an insane proposition.

You've just explained at length how you can get a newer, more powerful machine for $500, an example of which (or better) I assume you already own and why you refuse to invest any more money in PPC offshoots.

Why on earth, then, would you buy a "new" classic machine (the natami) to run your old software catalogue when you could run it anyway on your cheap and cheerful PC at speeds far faster than any real 68K? It doesn't matter that the natami has SuperAGA, if all you are going to run is your existing 68K catalogue of old games and apps. None of them will be able to take any advantage of them other than perhaps higher screen resolutions for system friendly apps.

UAE is free. You can't get a more cost effective way of indulging your classic habit than that.

[Louis Dias]

What's so good about the Wii? Less than 1GHz of customised PPC, less than 128MB main memory, proprietary graphics hardware that needs driver support etc.

Sounds like a royal pain in the rear to me. If MOS wants to stay PPC for the time being, they are being sensible in going after old mac hardware.

The cpu is downclocked to 729MHz, it could be upclocked in software.  They chose that speed for maxmimum backwards compatibility with GC mode.

The graphics are well known in the hombrew community so porting libraries is trivial.  There are SDL ports already.  It already has SDHC and USB 2.0 support.

It's also widely available and cheap.
This would be a way to spread the MorphOS 'word'.  If an Amiga-like OS can't run on 64MB  of main ram + 24MB of video then shame on it.

[Piru]

@lou_dias

It will not happen. Forget it.

[ferrellsl]

@ Karlos

I explained why I want a Natami.  For nostalgia sake.  I don't like software emulation although I will concede that emulation works great and runs rings around any legacy Amigas.  I don't want to invest in any NOS Amigas or original old Amigas.  I have enough of those and will hold on to them but I want to keep their usage as limited as possible.  I want them to last as long as possible.  I'll use a Natami and leave the old Amigas in the garage so to speak and only use the old Amigas on special occasions.  Same concept as a classic car.  There's no way I'd use a Model T Ford on the today's roads as a daily commuter vehicle.  Better to keep it in the garage and take it out on special occasions.  Buy a cheap modern car for routine transportation.  And who wants to drive a Model T simulator?  Nobody!  There's nothing like the real thing baby!

[Crumb]

The cpu is downclocked to 729MHz, it could be upclocked in software.  They chose that speed for maxmimum backwards compatibility with GC mode.

The graphics are well known in the hombrew community so porting libraries is trivial.  There are SDL ports already.  It already has SDHC and USB 2.0 support.

It's also widely available and cheap.
This would be a way to spread the MorphOS 'word'.  If an Amiga-like OS can't run on 64MB  of main ram + 24MB of video then shame on it.

64MB is not enough for OS4/MOS to do anything productive because modern apps require much more ram. Efika has twice the ram and sometimes I feel it's not enough. Wii users are not interested in running Linux or MorphOS and screen resolution would suck anyway.

[ElPolloDiabl]

No need to fight. I think the bar's been raised. You won't have to settle for low spec machines and be grateful for it. Now you have some variety to pick from.

[koaftder]

screen resolution would suck anyway.

Yup, thats the main killer when it comes to repurposing the gc/wii. It really is a shame Nintendo dropped the ball on the video resolution with the wii.

[Karlos]

Aw come on guys, you make it sound as if 576i isn't the pinnacle of display resolutions...

[Louis Dias]

Aw come on guys, you make it sound as if 576i isn't the pinnacle of display resolutions...

You guys seem to miss the point.
It's not to make a Wii a productive MOS machine, but to put MOS infront of people to generate interest.

@Piru,
Sure, I'll forget it completely, along with ever trying it out.  AROS keeps excelling and OS4 will have superior hardware this summer(in theory).

I guess I'll have to be content with: http://dl.qj.net/wii/homebrew/uae-wii-v5.html
...toodles!

[jj]

Can anyone tell me the name of the plane game show on the natami party screenshots.   used to plsay it all the time when i was school on lunhc times with my mate,  Loved it, cant remeber for the life of me name of it

[Hattig]

*ignoring the Wii MorphOS thread-jack posts*

Is there an up to date time line for Natami now that things appear to be happening?

Mostly interested in AGA and the 68050 CPU implementation, and future demos using a few of the new features.

[ChaosLord]

Can anyone tell me the name of the plane game show on the natami party screenshots.   used to plsay it all the time when i was school on lunhc times with my mate,  Loved it, cant remeber for the life of me name of it

Wings of Fury.

That wasn't me that crashed the plane!  Honest