Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

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cogvos1

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/27 11:47 #41

Just popping in

@Samurai_Crow

Hi there,

So it was built using publicly available knowledge. That's clever!

Quote:

Samurai_Crow wrote:
@cogvos1

Also, it would only need to reverse engineer or patch a Kickstart ROM if they used Coldfire. Now that it seems they are trying to produce a 68040-equivalent in the SuperAGA chip itself, which will work with existing ROM images from Cloanto's Amiga Forever package.

I thought that they were planning to embed a 68000 in the FPGA, rather than a 68040? Got to admit that worried me slightly as I thought the 68000 was 16 bit, but the 68020+ were 32? I don't think the addressing would matter since that would be handled by the 68060 in the developer board and the coldfire on the production(?) But what about the maths functions? Also didn't 68040's have MMUs and built in FPU's where as 68000's don't?

Still beats me how they re going to fit all this into a Coldfire CPU. I mean how big are these things?

As to using the Kickstart - it makes a lot of sense having this as a file on the disk - and booting using something like Grub in Linux which loads itself and then the system - so that we can get around all the fun of multiple boots. My A1200 needs to boot 3 times if I use fusion. Once to load the cold start stuff, once to patch the kickstart and then finally to work!

J.

Samurai_Crow

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/27 18:22 #42

Just popping in

@cogvos1

The 68040 had partial FPU implementation in the main processor but not the full implementation. As for the MMU it is unlikely that they will support that since it would make the whole processor core slower.

Also note, that I said 68040-equivalent. They won't be doing the out-of-order execution that the 68060 did and sacrificing all of the compatibility of the 68030 and 68040. The main idea is that they are going to try to clock it at about 200 MHz so in-order pipelining may be sufficient. If they can make a 200 MHz 68030 it will be more compatible than an '040 or '060 or certainly any Coldfire.

-edit-
It seems they are dropping the idea of using a Coldfire because it would be more work adding the necessary compatibility than just making a 68000 series core with a high clock speed.

Mr_DBUG

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/29 21:09 #43

Just popping in

@Atheist

I sure would get a NatAmi with a 68040/AGA ..
But it had to be REALLY bugfree !

And it should have a ADF emulator so you could select ADFs from a SD card or CF card totally transparent to the system.

If It was 99% reliable hardwarewise Id pay 2500 NOK for this.. thats 500 USD. Plus taxes ..

Im damn sure there are enough (linux,amiga,c64,Morph) geeks in the world who could be swayed to trying out such a product.. They might very well sell 10000 or more.. (Unless the USA attacks Iran and destabilizes the world seriously.)

lazi

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/29 22:44 #44

Just popping in

@Mr_DBUG

Quote:

Mr_DBUG wrote:
@Atheist

I sure would get a NatAmi with a 68040/AGA ..
But it had to be REALLY bugfree !

And it should have a ADF emulator so you could select ADFs from a SD card or CF card totally transparent to the system.

If It was 99% reliable hardwarewise Id pay 2500 NOK for this.. thats 500 USD. Plus taxes ..

Im damn sure there are enough (linux,amiga,c64,Morph) geeks in the world who could be swayed to trying out such a product.. They might very well sell 10000 or more.. (Unless the USA attacks Iran and destabilizes the world seriously.)

You will not get NatAmi with a '040/AGA. The first devboards are planned with 68060 cpu and with the SuperAGA "chipset".
If you will get one, then you could use IDE HDD for storage, and maybe WHDLOAD for retro gaming.
The developers wants to create a new Amiga follow-up, not a retro stuff like the MiniMig.
You underestimate the price. I think it will be around 1000 USD for the devboard, and that is a fair price for me.

Look around the Natami forum posts at www.natami.de for details.

Bye!

Atheist

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/29 23:42 #45

Quite a regular

Quote:

Mr_DBUG wrote:
@Atheist

I sure would get a NatAmi with a 68040/AGA ..
But it had to be REALLY bugfree !

Hi Mr_DBUG,

Excellent to hear from you and lazi (and others).

Seems that they are a bit of a moving target at the moment.

However, if you go there and read the reply to my query, "Technical Questions On NatAmi Improvements" in the Q/A forum, I think that you'll see that they are very competent and want only the most accurate translation possible......

That's all I ever really wanted, the same system, but faaaassssssssttttttt!!!!!!!

They even want to recreate the 68030, and make it virtually 100% 68000 compatible, with FPU and no MMU, due to the MMU actually slowing down AOS1 through 3.9 simply by being there, and NOT being used. How dedicated is that?

Me, I firmly believe in AOS as it originally was. Multi-tasking, not multiuser, nor MP capable. It is the LAST of it's kind.

Quote:

Mr_DBUG wrote:

And it should have a ADF emulator so you could select ADFs from a SD card or CF card totally transparent to the system.

I see no reason why it wouldn't be extremely easy to set it up yourself, or someone surely will make a drag and drop implementation.

Quote:

Mr_DBUG wrote:

If It was 99% reliable hardwarewise Id pay 2500 NOK for this.. thats 500 USD. Plus taxes ..

If I can raise the money, I'd pay 4x that much..... It's STILL less than what I paid in 1989 when I bought a brand new A2000 with NO hard drive, and 1 Meg of chip ram. The 1084 not stereo monitor was $500 more and it would have been $50 more for the 1084S. That's in Canadian $ and before tax.

Just imagine. I bought a 180 Meg SCSI Fujitsu drive in 1990 or 91 for $907 for the A2000 AND needed to buy a GVP Seriese II Impact card to use it too!!!!!! (Card cost another $300 and it could be populated with 8 Megs of fast ram, which I did in 1990, at $70 per Meg of 60 nanosecond* ram. Total cost a little more than $860.)

TODAY, I can buy my DREAM MACHINE for less than half, factor in inflation, less still, AND try to factor in the increase of performance of a NatAmi across the board!!!!!

Why would anyone say "it's not a very good deal"???????

It's NOT peeeeecee xpee.

This is an enormous leap from what ever was available in an Amiga, 99.9999999% compatible, AND brand new components!

Imagine AOS a 500 K to 3 meg OS running and doing things windows 98SE COULD NOT do!!!!!

Now we finally have the PROOF!

Quote:

Mr_DBUG wrote:

Im damn sure there are enough (linux,amiga,c64,Morph) geeks in the world who could be swayed to trying out such a product.. They might very well sell 10000 or more..

I fully agree!

(I think there are some Atari TOSsers out there that would go nuts for this!!!

)

* I bought it by mail order, and ended up getting 70 nanosecond ram instead, barsteds.

Support Amiga Fantasy cases!!!
How to program: 1. Start with lots and lots of 0's. 10. Add 1's, liberally.

"Details for OS 5 will be made public in the fourth quarter of 2007, ..." - Bill McEwen
Whoah!!! He spoke, a bit late.

joerg

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/30 2:42 #46

Just can't stay away

@Atheist

Quote:

They even want to recreate the 68030, and make it virtually 100% 68000 compatible, with FPU and no MMU, due to the MMU actually slowing down AOS1 through 3.9 simply by being there, and NOT being used.

Nonsense. There is a minimal slowdown you aren't able to notice only if it's used, and only if it does much more than the kickstart ROM mapping which is all AmigaOS 3.x itself used it for (if you use "CPU FASTROM").

Quote:

How dedicated is that?

Sounds more like clueless, and that they don't even have any idea yet what they want to create ...

First they are seriously thinking about using an incompatible?CPU which is way to slow for running a m68k emulator (ColdFire), and now they want to create a system you can't use for developing software because you can't even use the simplest debugging tools like enforcer?

lazi

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/5/30 18:51 #47

Just popping in

@joerg

Quote:

joerg wrote:
Sounds more like clueless, and that they don't even have any idea yet what they want to create ...

It seems for me that they are firmly resolved to launch the devboards with a real 68060. If so then the MMU will be there.
The next step is still under evaluation...

NovaCoder

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/6/20 4:08 #48

Just popping in

I'd rather see an official updated 1200 myself. A more modern case, built in CDROM, flicker fixer, IDE Express, maybe an 68030 with modern memory support. Basically a brand new 100% compatible RETRO machine :)

All very cheap and easy to do with existing HW. I'm suprised they never did this, oh....maybe it's because they turned their back on the whole classic market ;)

[it would also need an updated retro OS of course!]

Mikey_C

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/6/20 7:01 #49

Amigans Defender

@NovaCoder

Quote:

NovaCoder wrote:
I'd rather see an official updated 1200 myself. A more modern case, built in CDROM, flicker fixer, IDE Express, maybe an 68030 with modern memory support. Basically a brand new 100% compatible RETRO machine :)

But, what would be the point of that? you may as well just emulate it on a cheap PC. It wouldn't sell to the masses would it? The potential market would be very limited indeed.
"Here buy this retro Amiga, it has an on board processor dating back to the very early 1990's" (that's sooo last centuary)

Quote:

All very cheap and easy to do with existing HW. I'm suprised they never did this, oh....maybe it's because they turned their back on the whole classic market ;)

[it would also need an updated retro OS of course!]

Cheap? how can it be cheap? It would cost a bomb to tool up a production line to produce retro hardware. Not to mention having to re-fabricate old chips/components no longer available.

As to the Updated Retro OS - its out already and its called AmigaOS4.

Mikey C

No cause is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it.

NovaCoder

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/6/20 7:30 #50

Just popping in

@Mikey_C

Quote:

Mikey_C wrote:

But, what would be the point of that? you may as well just emulate it on a cheap PC. It wouldn't sell to the masses would it? The potential market would be very limited indeed.
"Here buy this retro Amiga, it has an on board processor dating back to the very early 1990's" (that's sooo last centuary)

Quote:

All very cheap and easy to do with existing HW. I'm suprised they never did this, oh....maybe it's because they turned their back on the whole classic market ;)

[it would also need an updated retro OS of course!]

Cheap? how can it be cheap? It would cost a bomb to tool up a production line to produce retro hardware. Not to mention having to re-fabricate old chips/components no longer available.

As to the Updated Retro OS - its out already and its called AmigaOS4.

The retro market is actually quite big if you think about it. Of course there is always emulation which is less hassle but some people like to have the HW to play with. I think it would be more viable to re-produce an updated but still retro 1200 than something like the NatAmis which is neither modern or retro.

gregthecanuck

Re: Can 1,000,000 NatAmis Be Sold? YES!!

Posted on: 2008/6/20 11:02 #51

Just popping in

I must say after visiting the forums at www.natami.net my impressions of the project team went up significantly. Gunnar von Boehn seems to have a very thorough understanding of what needs doing and the advantages/disadvantages to various approaches to an issue.

They are developing what I would probably call an Amiga 5000. This is what you might expect to come out of C= after the A4000. This includes better graphics (including rudimentary 3D support), better sound, better CPU, improved system throughput, built-in scan doubler, etc...

The best part is that in the long run this functionality sounds like it will be condensed down to not a lot of chips - similar to the Minimig but not quite that simple.

My hat's off to these folks - if they can see it through it will be a kick-ass system. The next-gen things they are discussing, such as a custom N68070 CPU (next-generation 68040/68060) and possible SIMD extensions sound quite interesting.

More power to them.

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