Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Author Topic: Natami started and stopped again  (Read 18753 times)

Description:

0 Members and 6 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline biggun

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Apr 2006
  • Posts: 397
    • Show only replies by biggun
    • http://www.greyhound-data.com/gunnar/
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #29 on: July 03, 2014, 10:49:25 PM »
Tell me does AMIGA still have a future?
What do you think?

Does selling 100 or 500 devices give a future?

Or would it make sense to aim for something like high end AMIGA for $99?
Such a system could be sold ten thousands of times.
Would ten thousand new AMIGAs give the platform more future?

Why are developers working on FPGA stuff like this?
Are they in for making a quick dollar on this?
Or do they want to revive the platform,
Do they believe with selling 500 pieces they can revive the AMIGA?

Or would opening their sources to allow production of 10,000 units be better?

If people would free their sources would this be better for the AMIGA?
Would the people do this or would they ask for something like bountie to do this?

Lets say you have something like a AGA++ chipset and a 200 MIPS 68K CPU.
Would these FPGA source alone make the AMIGA revive -
or would you need a strong company which is able to pump in real money
to push the devices on every XMAS tree?

Offline mikej

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Dec 2005
  • Posts: 822
    • Show only replies by mikej
    • http://www.fpgaarcade.com
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #30 on: July 03, 2014, 11:12:23 PM »
For me at least, it has to be open source. We have about 20 developers working on different platforms, but a common infrastructure to ease programming, fd/hd access etc.

It'll all be pushed to the website shortly, once it is stable enough - and we are nearly there.
I'm selling the hardware, so in that sense it's commercial, but everything else is for fun so to speak.

I developed the hardware platform I wanted to write stuff on ;)
/Mike
 

Offline alphadec

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Join Date: Oct 2003
  • Posts: 118
    • Show only replies by alphadec
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #31 on: July 04, 2014, 04:17:03 PM »
What can we do to get these natami guys to work on the project again.

send them a subscription to pizza's for a year. ? (maybe not a good idea...)
what can we do to get this project off again. ?
Amiga 4Ever
 

Offline ElPolloDiablTopic starter

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: May 2009
  • Posts: 1702
    • Show only replies by ElPolloDiabl
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #32 on: July 04, 2014, 04:51:54 PM »
Natami had a lot of pressure to come out with super aa and performance. It was really a hobby project, if he was able complete it at the time it would have been great.
That was at the start of people getting into retro systems.

Why ask for an Amiga revival? Amiga would only fall again. A small amount of ex-users will come back steadily though.
Go Go Gadget Signature!
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #33 on: July 04, 2014, 04:58:22 PM »
Quote from: biggun;768170
Tell me does AMIGA still have a future?
What do you think?

Does selling 100 or 500 devices give a future?

Or would it make sense to aim for something like high end AMIGA for $99?
Such a system could be sold ten thousands of times.
Would ten thousand new AMIGAs give the platform more future?

Why are developers working on FPGA stuff like this?
Are they in for making a quick dollar on this?
Or do they want to revive the platform,
Do they believe with selling 500 pieces they can revive the AMIGA?

Or would opening their sources to allow production of 10,000 units be better?

If people would free their sources would this be better for the AMIGA?
Would the people do this or would they ask for something like bountie to do this?

Lets say you have something like a AGA++ chipset and a 200 MIPS 68K CPU.
Would these FPGA source alone make the AMIGA revive -
or would you need a strong company which is able to pump in real money
to push the devices on every XMAS tree?


simply set up a poll, outlining the project and count the potential customers against the active users here, this way you might get an average interest coefficient to multiply by the overall population of amiga scene. ;)
 

Offline Jose

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2002
  • Posts: 2871
    • Show only replies by Jose
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #34 on: July 04, 2014, 05:16:22 PM »
Hmm, maybe Trevor could help :) Have you contacted him ?
\\"We made Amiga, they {bleep}ed it up\\"
 

Offline Madshib

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Join Date: May 2013
  • Posts: 86
    • Show only replies by Madshib
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #35 on: July 04, 2014, 05:43:31 PM »
I came back after over 10 years of no use whatsoever. I want more Amiga now more than I did then. It's just a shame that hardware expansions (beyond an 030) are prohibitively expensive and all second hand.

I'm just one person though....
 

Offline Louis Dias

Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #36 on: July 04, 2014, 10:28:33 PM »
Hardware is irrelevant today.  It's best to work on AROS first.  Turn 68K into a Virtual Machine environment that can interact with AROS/any OS on any hardware.  Then you can have cross-platform compatibility on real and "virtual" hardware.  Software drives hardware, not the other way around.
 

Offline orb85750

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Aug 2007
  • Posts: 1237
    • Show only replies by orb85750
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #37 on: July 05, 2014, 12:45:32 AM »
Quote from: alphadec;768204
What can we do to get these natami guys to work on the project again.

send them a subscription to pizza's for a year. ? (maybe not a good idea...)
what can we do to get this project off again. ?


Maybe remind them of what Dave Haynie himself thought about Natami?

"Actually, of all the recent hardware things I've seen in the post-Amiga world, this is the only one I see as being of much value. Or, in my usual terms, "It's cool". For one, you can claim real Amiga cred there -- doing things the Amiga way. You're not just a PC with a PowerPC CPU and some VGA chip trying to make the claim of being an Amiga. I was a little skeptical when I first heard about it, but I'm totally convinced at this point: if you want a new Amiga, this is the true way. It's also sustainable... you can make as many of these as there's demand for."
 

Offline psxphill

Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #38 on: July 05, 2014, 07:20:21 AM »
Quote from: Duce;762672
The Super AGA, which was a dumb idea to begin with

Super AGA that is AGA with >2mb chip ram, 1080p resolution and beyond makes sense. At that point adding 8/16/24/32bit chunky modes also makes sense as drag-able screens are then trivial.
 
Applications don't have to hit the hardware registers for it to be more logical to do it this way, applications that support RTG will benefit too.
 
Natami failed because everybody's ego went into overdrive. The CPU for example has spun off and is attempting to become a player in the embedded market.
 

Offline ElPolloDiablTopic starter

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: May 2009
  • Posts: 1702
    • Show only replies by ElPolloDiabl
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #39 on: July 05, 2014, 09:01:15 AM »
Why not just put an S3 DX in there? Put one of the DSPs we were suppose to have as well.
Go Go Gadget Signature!
 

Offline AmiDelf

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: May 2002
  • Posts: 691
    • Show only replies by AmiDelf
    • http://www.amitopiatv.com
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #40 on: July 05, 2014, 11:07:57 AM »
Now I am asking myself. A-EON should help the NatAmi team. They even making a new soundcard for Zorro Amiga's. Maybe the interest is there?

Trevor? How about this? Amiga is surviving but the time is taking ages. Can we see a movement now?
I love and respect people which care! And not those with
a heart made of stone.
 

Offline alphadec

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Join Date: Oct 2003
  • Posts: 118
    • Show only replies by alphadec
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #41 on: July 05, 2014, 11:45:26 AM »
Quote from: AmiDelf;768257
Now I am asking myself. A-EON should help the NatAmi team. They even making a new soundcard for Zorro Amiga's. Maybe the interest is there?

Trevor? How about this? Amiga is surviving but the time is taking ages. Can we see a movement now?


That would be fantastic if they did that, but dont think that would happen becouse then they would sell less AOS4 and AmigaOne.
Amiga 4Ever
 

Offline SamuraiCrow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2002
  • Posts: 2281
  • Country: us
  • Gender: Male
    • Show only replies by SamuraiCrow
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #42 on: July 05, 2014, 04:24:25 PM »
Quote from: alphadec;768260
That would be fantastic if they did that, but dont think that would happen becouse then they would sell less AOS4 and AmigaOne.

Don't be so sure!  Trevor opened up the X1000 to all Amiga-like OSs at AmiWest 2012.  The MorphOS team and AROS teams just haven't taken him up on the offer.

I was in the audience that day and I wouldn't be surprised if Trevor wouldn't buy himself an FPGA Arcade Replay board and a few of the Apollo Team projects (meaning the remnant of team NatAmi).  After all, Trevor owns a MiniMig already!  In fact, he said he owns at least one of every model of Amiga to date!

I was one of the members of the NatAmi team though I am not currently a member of Team Apollo.  I would gladly buy either an FPGA Arcade Replay board or a Sockit board with Amiga core if I had the money to do so.

One interesting possibility is the Apollo Team's proposed accelerator card since I could buy that for less than an '060 accelerator for my A1200 and get better performance.  Since it would have access to the existing AGA chipset that way, I could use it out of the box and not have to wait for both the chipset core and the processor core to get the bugs worked out.

Also interesting, the FPGA Arcade Replay board is slated to support an '060 daughterboard.  If Gunnar (BigGun) and Mike (mikej) would be willing to cooperate, a harness to use to use the Apollo Team's Altera Cyclone 5 FPGA-based accelerator in the place of the '060 daughterboard for the FPGA Arcade would allow the CPU core to grow in a separate FPGA from the next-generation AGA compatible core on the Replay board.

Since Individual Computers is the only RoHS compliant A1200 trapdoor slot socket supplier, it may depend on how cooperative Jens Schönfeld wants to be.  If he makes a big stink about the card-slot adapter for the A1200 it might be more practical just to do a Replay board harness instead!

So many possibilities!  One bad thing about the Sockit board is that VGA is analog only.  The NatAmi prototypes and Replay board both support digital DVI as well as the possibility of analog DVI to VGA adapters in the same port.  Also, the proposed Apollo Team accelerator is supposed to have HDMI which is strictly digital and supports both audio and video signals on the same (smaller) port simultaneously (though DVI to HDMI converters drop the analog and audio signals in the port adapters).

I can't wait to see what comes of this anyway!
« Last Edit: July 05, 2014, 04:28:21 PM by SamuraiCrow »
 

Offline alphadec

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Join Date: Oct 2003
  • Posts: 118
    • Show only replies by alphadec
Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #43 on: July 05, 2014, 05:12:58 PM »
Quote from: SamuraiCrow;768268

I was one of the members of the NatAmi team though I am not currently a member of Team Apollo.  I would gladly buy either an FPGA Arcade Replay board or a Sockit board with Amiga core if I had the money to do so.


When comes to natami that is the most interesting project if you ask me. Sad you have not setup the team in a way that if one team member goes away the team will continue the work, since the work and project is incredible important for the future of amiga.

I have tried to register on the natami forum but even the activation mail is not sent out, sad.

Hope we get some good news from natami team.
Amiga 4Ever
 

Offline OlafS3

Re: Natami started and stopped again
« Reply #44 from previous page: July 05, 2014, 05:48:19 PM »
Quote from: alphadec;768270
When comes to natami that is the most interesting project if you ask me. Sad you have not setup the team in a way that if one team member goes away the team will continue the work, since the work and project is incredible important for the future of amiga.

I have tried to register on the natami forum but even the activation mail is not sent out, sad.

Hope we get some good news from natami team.


The remainders of the Natami-Team is basically the team behind apollo core, then one of the former members is now creating a new core on its own (you can read discussions on amigacoding.de), I was member of the team too and have concentrated on Aros Vision after the Natami project ended, some others like Samurai Crow are around and he has said he would help me to improve Aros 68k to make it a perfect replacement for 3.1.).

Natami was a combination of custom hardware and specific core done by one developer and this developer had all rights to it. After this developer officially left I had a couple of email contacts with him and I asked him if he could think about opensourcing it, a couple of weeks later there was the last thing I officially read from him that he would continue with his project on his own with a new name and that was the last thing I have heard of it. Nobody of the team could do anything about it. Today the hardware would be very very old and the Natami board (as every custom solution) would have been very expensive if ever finished. What Gunnar now plans is much promising, affordable and based on new hardware. I was very interested in Natami at that time (in fact it was the reason why I started to be interested in Amiga again) but 2014 I think Natami is past. How Gunnar said, we have everything available now, ECS and AGA implementations (Minimig and the core of FPGA Arcade), free OS and Roms (Aros 68k) and also components that were done at first for Natami (Apollo core and SAGA) so if the persons responsible act together something good could come out of it.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2014, 05:57:12 PM by OlafS3 »