Natami started and stopped again

[OlafS3]

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.

[psxphill]

Why not just put an S3 DX in there? Put one of the DSPs we were suppose to have as well.

The DSPs that were going to be used in the A3000+ aren't that good now, so it's a lot of effort to do that when we don't have any software for it.
 
Adding an S3 in as well as the AGA output on one video output is a bit of a kludge, I'd rather see AGA improved, which would likely take up less gates.

[magnetic]

Just when I thought the stupid Natami stuff stopped yet another thread.

ITS V A P O U R

[AmiDude]

Just when I thought the stupid Natami stuff stopped yet another thread.

ITS V A P O U R

That's right! I can't believe that people are still paying attention to it.

[alphadec]

That's right! I can't believe that people are still paying attention to it.

If the natami team could update the site and if it is dead, say it. Post something in the news section so people like me who have not been in the amiga community for many years could find out and stop thinking that someone finally have made some new amiga hardware worth spending money on.

[LiveForIt]

That would be fantastic if they did that, but don't think that would happen becouse then they would sell less AOS4 and AmigaOne.

This two things are not the same products, the NetAmi has no appeal for me, its too low spec, for one thing,

NovaCoder is calling NatAMI too ambitious, I will say that it is not near how ambitious it needs to to be called  modern in any way or form.

They will never be able to create a graphic card that can be compared to modern ATI or Nvidia graphic card.

(If this was easy you see lots companies creating graphic cards, and competing for customers, and not two ATI and Nvidia.)

They will never be able to make a FPGA CPU that is in GHz range.

All I see is small upgrade to classic line of Amiga computers.

The X1000 on the other hand does have some modern features,1.8Ghz CPU,AltiVec, SATA, PCIe, modern graphics new graphic cards from ATI, lots and lots of RAM. It can play modern films 720, 1050 should work 1080 possibly with SMP, or with hardware accelerated video decoding.

AmigaOS4.1 was voted the most beautiful OS here not long ago, its also a patch free OS, with lots of improvements under the hood.

I'm not willing to go back to AmigaOS3.x with patches that make the system unstable.

The X1000 is expletive yes, but you get some thing now, instead of waiting for some thing that can never be as good, and by the time NatAMI project is out there will be X9000 I'm shore.

I can't think of any reason way I should be using a NatAMI instead of X1000, there is no old hardware that is wort connecting to it, and yes maybe is more precise at ruining 68k program, but who cares the software from 80's and 90's is designed for lowres 320x200 and 640x480, it looks horrible, and does not do what I expect in 2014.

[OlafS3]

This two things are not the same products, the NetAmi has no appeal for me, its too low spec, for one thing,

NovaCoder is calling NatAMI too ambitious, I will say that it is not near who ambitious it needs to to be called  modern in any way or from.

They will never be able to create a graphic card that can be compared to modern ATI or Nvidia graphic card.
They will never be able to make a FPGA that is in GHz range.

All I see is small upgrade to classic line of Amiga computers.

The X1000 on the other hand does have some modern features, SATA, PCIe, modern graphics new graphic cards from ATI, lots and lots of RAM. It can play modern films 720, 1050 should work 1080 possibly with SMP, or with hardware accelerated video decoding.

AmigaOS4.1 was voted the most beautiful OS here not long ago, its also a patch free OS, with lots of improvements under the hood.

I'm not willing to go back to AmigaOS3.x with patches that make the system unstable.

The X1000 is expletive yes, but you get some thing now, instead of waiting for some thing that can never be as good, and by the time NatAMI project is out there will be X9000 I'm shore.

Hmmm and where do you get the software from? Certainly 90% of the software base is 68k. And if I want something as workhorse I would not even look at "NG" because I have plenty of options already with all needed drivers (in opposite to AmigaOS). Amiga today is not the mainstream like it was in early 90s, it is a pure fun platform and for that I do not need extremely expensive custom PPC hardware and I will never buy PPC Macs (used or new). Certainly many people think that way. New FPGA based affordable devices would be something different, you can develop new custom chipsets on them, they have the "geek" factor, they are clearly different to standard hardware in opposite to your preferred choice that only differentiates in processor and price. So for me new FPGA Amigas are perfect and you can add everything you want in hardware and optimize everything so we will see how big the differences in reality will be. And even if who cares...

[LiveForIt]

Hmmm and where do you get the software from?

I create my own software, if I need some thing, that's my hobby.

Certainly 90% of the software base is 68k.

Yes but can you name any 68k software that is worth using today?

and you can add everything you want in hardware and optimize everything so we will see how big the differences in reality will be.

Well I'm not, I'm shore there are few people who are interested in FPGA's and what they can do with it, but this people have different interest then the people who buy X1000.

Anyway some will need to make this optimizations, write the drivers and the software to use the drivers, with out drivers there might be one program that can use your optimizations, and no other because how many are expects on FPGA's?

It might be that I have been a NG user for too long to see the value to see the appeal, that's maybe the point, the people who buy X1000, are not the same as the people who are interested in NatAMI.

[Niding]

68k software worth using?

Well, all things considered I could get by perfectly by using Turbocalc and Amigawriter.

I do realise that Libreoffice will completely murder those programs feature and userfriendliness, but for what I do for my own personal use those 2 programs would be more than enough.

On the way out the door, but thats the 2 programs I can mention on top of my head and they can be bought from vesalia
I used turbocalc all the time back in the days, and Im considering getting it again now that Im upgrading my A1200.

As has been said before; it might not make complete sense to do so, but if you have fun and actually get some productivity out of it, why not....?

Im somewhat intrested in NG machines, but I still cant quite get myself to shell out for it; its a price vs performance thing. Tho you could probarly use that logic against me since Im currently upgrading my A1200
I dont think potential Natami, classical and NG customers are that different. If we went for the whole performance ratio vs effort and price, then we would have left this platform/hobby behind long time ago.

[OlafS3]

I create my own software, if I need some thing. That my hobby.



Yes but can you name any 68k software that is worth using today?



Well I'm not, I'm shore there are few people who are interested in FPGA's and what they can do with it, but this people have different interest then the people who buy X1000.

Anyway some will need to make this optimizations, write the drivers and the software to use the drivers, with out drivers there might be one program that can use your optimizations, and no other because how many are expects on FPGA's?

It might be that I have been a NG user for too long to see the value to see the appeal, that's maybe the point, the people who buy X1000, are not the same as the people who are interested in NatAMI.

Aehh drivers? "Who" writes the drivers for X1000? And there are for sure more people interested in 68k than in what is called "NG". You are not interested in FPGA and 68k and I am not in your X1000. And yes propably you are too long NG user obviously (even if I think many MorphOS or AmigaOS user will be interested in it too, not to replace AmigaOS or MorphOS but just for fun and interest).

[OlafS3]

68k software worth using?

Well, all things considered I could get by perfectly by using Turbocalc and Amigawriter.

I do realise that Libreoffice will completely murder those programs feature and userfriendliness, but for what I do for my own personal use those 2 programs would be more than enough.

On the way out the door, but thats the 2 programs I can mention on top of my head and they can be bought from vesalia
I used turbocalc all the time back in the days, and Im considering getting it again now that Im upgrading my A1200.

As has been said before; it might not make complete sense to do so, but if you have fun and actually get some productivity out of it, why not....?

Im somewhat intrested in NG machines, but I still cant quite get myself to shell out for it; its a price vs performance thing. Tho you could probarly use that logic against me since Im currently upgrading my A1200
I dont think potential Natami, classical and NG customers are that different. If we went for the whole performance ratio vs effort and price, then we would have left this platform/hobby behind long time ago.

+1

there are many interesting former commercial programs on 68k, f.e. Raytracers like Reflections, graphical programs like TV-Paint or even some office applications and countless PD or Shareware. The only area where NG is ahead at the moment is web browsing and a handful native applications. But you can certainly count them on one (or worst case) two hands.

[LiveForIt]

Well, all things considered I could get by perfectly by using Turbocalc and Amigawriter.

I have actually used TurboCalc on AmigaOS4, and it work fine, but having said that there are newer and better spreadsheet application for AmigaOS, “Ignition” its 68k but it has fewer of the limitations of TurboCalc.

Amigawriter is to out of date for my taste, thinking about supported file formats and so on, shore there tools like AntiWord to convert .doc files to text and so, and lose the text formatting, I don't like that.

 “Cinnamon Writer” is my suggestion as replacement its native AmigaOS software, AbiWord that's also nice office application.

Libreoffice is not yet ported to AmigaOS, but you can use Google docs, works fine in Odyssey Web browser.

Besides every thing I can't do on AmigaOS, I need to do on Linux or Windows anyway, so sure there are some programs that used to be nice on AmigaOS3.x but most of the software is so old.

but if you have fun and actually get some productivity out of it, why not....?

Shore that's the point of any hobby.

[OlafS3]

I have actually used TurboCalc on AmigaOS4, and it work fine, but having said that there are newer and better spreadsheet application for AmigaOS, “Ignition” its 68k but it has fewer of the limitations of TurboCalc.

Amigawriter is to out of date for my taste, thinking about supported file formats and so on, shore there tools like AntiWord to convert .doc files to text and so, and lose the text formatting, I don't like that.

 “Cinnamon Writer” is my suggestion as replacement its native AmigaOS software, AbiWord that's also nice office application.

Libreoffice is not yet ported to AmigaOS, but you can use Google docs, works fine in Odyssey Web browser.

Besides every thing I can't do on AmigaOS, I need to do on Linux or Windows anyway, so sure there are some programs that used to be nice on AmigaOS3.x but most of the software is so old.



Shore that's the point of any hobby.

but there are mostly no newer ones on AmigaOS. So I see no sense to spend lots of money for it. On 68k there is lots of to look at, many programs and library (partly developed in years) are forgotten and have to be found again :-), hidden gems so to say. That is the fun to me. And there is no problem to start with it, you can use almost every hardware for it. Web Browsing is the only thing where NG really is ahead. It is a playground today, not a potential replacement for Windows/Linux/Mac like some seem to hope with Aros/AmigaOS or MorphOS.

Everybody shall have his fun, be it with new FPGA based hardware implementing 68k or X1000/X5000, and not try to explain the others do the wrong decision. Rational both are senseless.

[LiveForIt]

Raytracers like Reflections,

Not tried it, but often when you compare old programs to new programs, there big difference in details, filters and effects, water effects in Autodesk Maya for example, looks real. While we do not have Maya on AmigaOS4. We do have Blender and it can produce decent quality images.

graphical programs like TV-Paint  

Works on AmigaOS4 (does not need UAE),
But it does not support PNG, and so there might be better applications for job like Gimp or Sketchblock.

countless PD or Shareware.

Maybe a few items (HippoPlayer), but rally nothing I need or most use.

More impotently nothing of this requires a NatAMI, even if HippoPlayer does not work on AmigaOS4, it work in E-UAE, so its not a issue.

[LiveForIt]

So I see no sense to spend lots of money for it

NatAmi is not going to be free, thats for shore, I don't think money is a issue, seeing how much money people have spent on hardware upgrades for Classic Amiga; acceleration cards, graphic cards, and all sort of Clock port exception upgrades. Looking at signature, it looks like some have there own private museum with all models ever created.

It is a playground today

AmigaOS has always been playground for hobbyists, shore it has been used in some commercial settings.

not a potential replacement for Windows/Linux/Mac like some seem to hope with Aros/AmigaOS or MorphOS

AmigaOS4 is a potential replacement for Windows/Linux/Mac, if it was not for Skype and Spotify and a few games, I'm shore there are people who don't need this things, and do manage with just AmigaOS.

I only recently installed Linux, for one thing only, I have managed with out Linux for years.

Most things you don't even need a computer to do this days, with Android tablet, and smart phones.

Everybody shall have his fun

Some thing for every one.

[wawrzon]

I create my own software, if I need some thing. That my hobby.

Yes but can you name any 68k software that is worth using today?

sounds as if you need to program just everything you are using yourself. what are these incredible programs that surpass all 68k applications in quality, may i ask?

Not tried it, but often when you compare old programs to new programs, there big difference in details, filters and effects, water effects in Autodesk Maya for example, looks real. While we do not have Maya on AmigaOS4. We do have Blender and it can produce decent quality images.

since you apparently dont need amiga backwards compatibility, and claim only to write own programs or use linux ports you really might be better off with any brand of linux where your software is genuinely coming from and where it isnt limited by shortcomings of os of your choice.

well. i guess you know that yourself very well. this means there is no more reasons to use your os as to use amigas or their fpga clones, its a question of sentiment and subjective definitions, so each and every argument you used against amiga and its software may be used against the os of your choice as well.