Does Natami satisfy Classic Amiga enthusiasts?

[orb85750]

Does the Natami concept satisfy the hardcore Classic Amiga enthusiast?  We've heard many on this board say that all this PowerPC stuff -- and AROS too -- are not true Amiga, and that the only real Amigas are the classic machines.  But is the Natami concept the exception??  I want to know what you think about it. (Yes, I know that Natami is not available for purchase at this point and there is no certainty that it will be, but that's beside the point.)

[Karlos]

Seems and interesting an fun project, though I wonder if suffers from runaway feature creep.

[tone007]

Concepts do not satisfy!  Cold, hard, erm, hardware does!

[Franko]

Being one of those hardcore Amiga fanatics, I can honestly say that the Natami from what I have read about it, could in my books qualify as true modern Amiga if it lives up to the hype that's written about, I'm actually more interested in the Natami now than the X1000, but it's a case of wait and see...

(never thought I'd actually admit to that !!!)

[pampers]

Put it on sale and I'll tell you then

[Heiroglyph]

All it would take for me is the feature set of an A1200 plus a much faster 68k CPU and PCI/PCI-e.

Beyond that it's all fluff.

I think the developers forget that people like myself mostly want our old software, but with up to date hardware and that they can't write an OS in a reasonable amount of time.

Edit: thats not a dig a Aros, they are doing a terrific job.  But look at the history of Amiga OS's, they take decades with the manpower available.
My point was that whatever hardware is made needs supporting software so it pretty much requires our old apps and OS to work out of the box.

[Cammy]

I used to want to make games for the Natami, but I have never cared about making games for a non-Amiga system so the Natami was something I was really looking forward to for a while.

[NovaCoder]

I can answer this because I'm the kind of person that Natami should be aimed at (eg x-classic modded 1200 owner and not a NG Amiga owner).

In theory it would be the perfect machine to satisfy the classic retro urge but until the thing is actually available to buy its all just wishful thinking.   If they'd just gone for something more basic (eg a MiniMig update) then I think most of us classic users would have been more than happy.

And with the FPGAArcade coming along nicely, it looks like they may miss the boat entirely.

It also seems that Jens hasn't given up on CloneA yet which would be yet more 'competition' for team Natami.  How come in the tiny Amiga market, everyone has to compete with each other and nobody works together (classic and NG!)  

[matthey]

Does the Natami concept satisfy the hardcore Classic Amiga enthusiast?

Yes! The 68k is so much easier to use than PPC. It's too bad it was prematurely killed off for marketing reasons. I really like the Natami openness compared to the attitudes of the AmigaOS 4.x bunch. It's not that I dislike PPC so much as some of the attitudes. Good compatibility is always a plus too. You should have made this a poll question.

[actung_bab]

yes sounds good alright but x1000 good too just diffrent markets
for running old amiga software hope it whould be good, but then when the orginal amiga 1200 come out alot old games didnt run well 1.3 stuff because the chache and aga etc cfo slot always going have some people un happy .
way look at x1000 for new amiga os 4 software no didfrent to ps3 not ruuning some
ps2 titles . just buy a old psx2 whats the problem or amiga case use emulator

[TheGoose]

I guess it would have to exist before it satisfied anything. I'm stickler for picky details, I know.

[NovaCoder]

All it would take for me is the feature set of an A1200 plus a much faster 68k CPU and PCI/PCI-e.

Beyond that it's all fluff.

I think the developers forget that people like myself mostly want our old software, but with up to date hardware and that they can't write an OS in a reasonable amount of time.

Yep you're right, the lack of OS support for any 'enhanced' features is the biggest issue here.   Someone could come up with an awesome AGA+++ FPGA design with an 200Mhz 68060 softcore but what OS are you going to use it with?

Basically the more you enhance AGA, the more trouble you're going to have running classic software.

The best (looking/functionality) you could hope for is a patched OS3.9 install (think AmiKit) which would mean the FPGA would have to feature an emulated RTG (some kind of WinUAE type monitor driver hack) and have decent AHI support.

[JimS]

I think the Natami or the FPGArcade would both be a great machines for classic Amiga fans. For me, I'm leaning toward the FPGArcade, because it would be a good learning platform for VHDL.  My main interest in things Amiga at this point is running old software. UAE works fine for this, even on my Athlon XP $5 pc. I still like the idea of dedicated hardware.

If you're looking at using an Amiga flavored modern desktop, which I admit is an appealing idea, I think AROS on gerneric hardware is more sensible. Much as I wish AEon well, that A1X1000 is just going to be too expensive. It's going to have the same problem as AROS- lack of moden software that can use all that power.

[ferrellsl]

If you're soley looking for classic Amiga performance, stick to a Minimig.  If you're looking for classic performance with a few tweaks and performance enhancements, wait for an fpgaarcade.  If you're a classic enthusiast that wants all the features that Commodore SHOULD have put into an Amiga 5000+, then wait for the Natami.  Of course the Natami should also be able to approximate a stock A500 or A2000 with the right core too, although it is much more capable.  The Natami dev team has painstakingly preserved backward compatibility with hardware-banging classic apps while extending and adding new features such as high speed DMA, new AGA and chunky modes, as well as a processor core that's superior to any 68060 made by Motorola, etc.....Clock speed will also be in the triple digits as well.

[matthey]

yes sounds good alright but x1000 good too just different markets for running old amiga software hope it would be good, but then when the original amiga 1200 come out alot old games didnt run well 1.3 stuff because the cache and aga etc cfo slot always going have some people un happy .

The N680x0 CPU should handle the cache problem. I believe it will sniff the memory for self modifying code and auto-magically "handle" it. The problem of poorly written early OCS/ECS games can't really be fixed. Also some games will likely run way too fast. Most of the later games programmers learned though. The Natami CAN do certain things with the fpga chipset and CPU to increase compatibility.