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mike 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 21:12:55
#101 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2007
Posts: 406
From: Alpha Centauri

Quote:

Donar wrote:
[quote]Anyway we disagree, time will tell.

I agree ;)

Seriously this is the best news i've heard, ever.

But your right about pci-e, i mean, you need to have a fast enough cpu/chipset/mem to feed the gpu, (troughput) stuffing two Dual quad core nvidia 8800gtx on there would be great, but what good would it do if its running at 0.1% of its total potential. An agp card for gfx would do just fine, who needs more then some gddr3 anyway?

Only if having the incredibly über power of the cell cpu (or g5 perhaps?) would it be viable to add pci-e, maybe it would be possible to have this as an "add in later" thing?

I seriously love the project, i've been considering making you guys my new god's if thats ok with you ;)

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NomadOfNorad 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 21:30:10
#102 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 2-Jun-2003
Posts: 746
From: Jacksonville, Florida, USA, Earth, Sol system, Milky Way galaxy

@mike

What if they designed te machine around a PPC processor instead of a 680x0? Or had the 680x0 in there as a co-processor for emulation but the PPC as the workhorse?

Or is there a way for the 680x0 to run as an independent machine than the PPC part of it, but having the video output handed off to the PPC part, or to some external video-processing section, that's designed to then shunt that image onto a PCIe display card? That is to say, you create a separate, independent, dedicated processor to handle the PCIe display, a processor that runs at PCIe speeds, that monitors a "display space" addressed by the rest of the computer system, takes it and "plops" it onto the PCIe display card?

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CodeSmith 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 21:33:18
#103 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 3045
From: USA

@wegster

Exactly. I usually buy a new PC every 3-4 years, with a RAM and/or gfx card upgrade at the halfway mark.

IMHO, the NatAmi should not include PCI or PCIe slots, because for this kind of design the bus's bandwidth would be mostly underused (Zorro 3 could handle up to 150MB/s, PCIe x1 does 2.5GB/s). In other words most PCIe hardware plugged in would perform a lot slower than on a PC, adding to the cost without providing much benefit (one could make a case for 33MB/s PCI, but that's on its way out). I'd much rather have reasonably good built-in sound and graphics (especially if it has a backwards-compatible mode so I can run all my old stuff), and use low bandwidth means of expansion like clock ports and USB.

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Rob 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 22:08:39
#104 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 20-Mar-2003
Posts: 6344
From: S.Wales

@Donar

Quote:
I now think that if Clone-A has a big enough FPGA for NatAmi it can only be a host for a "low end" version.


Clone-A will not ship with an FPGA. The Amiga chipset and 68000 will be turned into a VLSI instead.

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TheDaddy 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 22:28:39
#105 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Sep-2005
Posts: 4499
From: Quattro Stelle

@CodeSmith

>>I have to agree with Donar here, the potential market for this thing is going to be limited to retro fans anyway;

And that is where you are wrong! No one would have given half a chance to Apple in the early 90's and look at them now! If we don't push ourselves to the limit Amiga WILL NEVER come back, never. We need to look at the bigger picture here, have dreams!

>>if you want to make a desktop computer these days and sell more than a few thousand, it has to be x86. I'd love to have a 68060 or PowerPC in a NatAmi, but let's be realistic here - price (especially at the very first stage) is a very important consideration. I'd even go as far as suggesting that the first few batches of NatAmis come with just a 68030, with a choice of 20MHz and 50MHz (there's a $40 difference). That would be reasonably fast, fairly cheap, and a lot more compatible with classic software than an '060.

I said it before, minimum 68060, MINIMUM! Also I am talking about a complete motherboard here with an expansion slot for PCI-Express, a few PCI slots, 1 PCI-e.

Think about it as a micro atx (not the full atx ones) motherboard for pcs, they come with onboard audio, gigabit ethernet and graphics slot (PCI Express) but for most people the onboard graphics is fine (in this case the enhanced AGA chipset) but give us the option!

Let's not make the same mistakes Commodore made and so many others after them. If you close the design too much not many people will buy it and I can't see the point of putting so much effort for the relative joy of a few thousands hardcore Amigans.

Last edited by TheDaddy on 17-Jan-2008 at 10:35 PM.

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TheDaddy 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 22:34:16
#106 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Sep-2005
Posts: 4499
From: Quattro Stelle

@wegster

>>Heh, 'future proofing'? Come on. There was some merit to that in the earlier days of computing, when new CPUs, RAM types/controllers and GFX cards weren't coming out every six months and when motherboards cost $500+

That doesn't mean you HAVE to buy a graphics card every six months! Especially in The Amiga market, who is going to write drivers for an-every-six-months graphics card? I have built pcs for years and my pc is always a top of the range one, I have changed graphics cards twice, from a 9700pro to a x800xt PE. Then I changed the system BUT only because the architecture changed, from AGP to PCI Express, otherwise I wouldn't have changed anything.

I think it would be more cost effective having a system like the one I am talking about than having an "enhanced" AGA chipset which in 2 maybe even 3 years would have to be re-enhanced!

>>It seems you're trying to take a hobbyist project and turn it into a large company, with $, to produce something that will 'WOW!' people today outside of the Amiga community. I just don't see that one happening - it simply isn't the 80s any more.

I am optimistic you see, I like to think that the remaining few thousands Amiga developers and people with ideas are too.

Last edited by TheDaddy on 17-Jan-2008 at 10:37 PM.

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TheDaddy 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 22:47:00
#107 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Sep-2005
Posts: 4499
From: Quattro Stelle

@mike

>>I agree ;)

Seriously this is the best news i've heard, ever.
But your right about pci-e, i mean, you need to have a fast enough cpu/chipset/mem to feed the gpu, (troughput) stuffing two Dual quad core nvidia 8800gtx on there would be great, but what good would it do if its running at 0.1% of its total potential.

It depends on who is using it, if you are happy reading emails then you are only using it at 0.1% of its total potential but imgine one day you think:"I might as well run Quake tonight and have a few hours of fun...." no lsow downs no 15-22 FPS but 300+, then move onto Shogo, Wipeout and Q3! Some 3D rendering programs? High demanding Audio software...


>>An agp card for gfx would do just fine, who needs more then some gddr3 anyway?

AGP has gone, it might do but why keep hanging on old technology? You can hardly find AGP cards new these days and also why in all these years after the demise of Commodore (when Amiga WAS top notch technology showing everyone how it's done) we have had to ACCEPT inferior hardware.

Think about it, we got thrown the scraps from other manufacturers, we are still using EDO RAM for goodness sake!

>>Only if having the incredibly über power of the cell cpu (or g5 perhaps?) would it be viable to add pci-e, maybe it would be possible to have this as an "add in later" thing?

Correct but let's put down the foundations now, let's look at the future, a motherboard which COULD accept Cell, design it that way, with a mind to the future or at least give us a modern set up.

>>I seriously love the project, i've been considering making you guys my new god's if thats ok with you ;)

I would love that and I love the project too, but I really feel that if we don't ask now, we will have to hang about for more scraps from Apple!

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mike 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 22:51:25
#108 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2007
Posts: 406
From: Alpha Centauri

@NomadOfNorad

Very interesting idea, but is it possible at all?
Of course designing it around the ppc is one possibility, but ppc are very expensive. Everyone might not want to drop that much money into a machine to replace a broken Amiga for instance.

Lets be frank, when this gets finished, it will cost, just by the sound if, it will cost, and if we got everything we wanted, i dont know if the federal reserve or rather the norwegian oil money would buy one board. Thats assuming it has a 8-16 Core Cell PPC.

But on the other hand the 68060r60 cost next to nothing. So does the FPGA. Which would make for a pretty cheap, probably almost drop in replacement for an Amiga A3/4000. Which to top it off is an A5000, and even then, days probably wont come much better when you flip the on-switch. ;Ş

The fastest classic Amiga ever makes for a pretty good sales pitch too.

What about Zorro bus compatibility tho? Im thinking toaster and all the other goodies. You could probably make a whole new range of advanced software designed for this board if its done right, which it seems to be ;>

What about making it independent, either running on the ppc, or ppc and 68k , or both? It might not make it a classic amiga anymore but it would make it a hopefully Cell PPC desktop. Which is a totally different sales pitch again.

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mike 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 23:01:16
#109 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2007
Posts: 406
From: Alpha Centauri

@TheDaddy

Actually, the most important part is to get it over to the Coldfire. Which costs less then chips. When i think about. The Coldfire accepts AGP, DDR and USB. Not PCI-E. Besides, Nvidia released the 8800 ro was it the 7800 or something as an AGP card, but that doesnt mean that we can use it, simply because we dont have the drivers.


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TheDaddy 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 23:01:36
#110 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Sep-2005
Posts: 4499
From: Quattro Stelle

@CodeSmith

>>In other words most PCIe hardware plugged in would perform a lot slower than on a PC, adding to the cost without providing much benefit

That's it, you have given me the answer!

We are not try to compete with a pc, a pc will always be faster than anything else because it has 90% of the manufacturers behind them.

But once we have the ball rolling...

Let's not be stuck in the past.
If someone told me:"This is the new Amiga, it is a micro atx factor, it has:

onboard gigabit LAN
onboard high quality audio
onboard enhanced AGA with SVGA out
inbuilt scandoubler with flicker fixer
TV-Out
2 or 4 memory slots for up to 4GB RAM or more
1 PCI-e
1 PCI-Express for graphics cards
2 SATA II connectors
1 CPU Upgrade slot for PPC/Cell/whatever

I would buy it tomorrow!

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wegster 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 23:08:42
#111 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Nov-2004
Posts: 8554
From: RTP, NC USA

@TheDaddy
Again, you are trying to get a single person to act like an entire company, rather than the hobbyist/retro system it is. I'd love to see it, with PCIE, USB2, etc., but I'm unsure this is the goal of the project, or if it will even become commercially available.

I'd love to see the natami engineer register or post, however, moreso than people acting like he, as a single person, should somehow 'act like the next Commodore'

@Biggun - are you in contact with him? If so, can you ask him to take a look at this thread?

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wegster 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 23:20:23
#112 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Nov-2004
Posts: 8554
From: RTP, NC USA

I emailed him per contact info on the domain, with a link to the thread, we'll see if he responds..


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TheDaddy 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 17-Jan-2008 23:28:59
#113 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Sep-2005
Posts: 4499
From: Quattro Stelle

@wegster

>>Again, you are trying to get a single person to act like an entire company, rather than the hobbyist/retro system it is. I'd love to see it, with PCIE, USB2, etc., but I'm unsure this is the goal of the project, or if it will even become commercially available.

All I am saying is if the guy can manage to implement that type of motherboard we would have an awesome machine, the REAL next Amiga.

I am not saying he should act like the next Commodore or Dell, I am saying that if he can bolt on a 68030, now he is talking about a 68060 and BigGun said a ppc could be a possibility why not go all the way? If I had his skills I would do it.

Also I bet it is going to be more difficult to source AGP and old cpus than more modern ones, maaybe more expensive too?

@Biggun - are you in contact with him? If so, can you ask him to take a look at this thread?

It's just my opinion, these are personal opinions. It's a dream, a dream most Amigans share, if it can't be done then fine, let's keep walking along with the same machines we have had for the last 16 years, maybe with an accelerator board that costs the same as a new pc with Vista on...

We have seen this before, lots of people attempting to make a new Amiga but somehow always underpowered and then people moan that they can only get 20fps, if that with "modern" games, and we all know that we like Shogo, WipeOut, Quake1,2,3 and so on, or the rendering takes ages...

Honestly we need a shake up, who is ever going to buy an Amiga (and I am including the hardcore base here too) and let's be clear about this if they can do 99% of the stuff on their MACS or Windows based systems.

Anyway...

Last edited by TheDaddy on 17-Jan-2008 at 11:45 PM.
Last edited by TheDaddy on 17-Jan-2008 at 11:32 PM.

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Zylesea 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 0:10:14
#114 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 16-Mar-2004
Posts: 2263
From: Ostwestfalen, FRG

@TheDaddy

I guess you misunderstand the intention of the Natami. It is *not*
meant to resurrect the C= Amiga.
It is a hobby project. The designer is not the one who will show the
industry how to design a new top edge board. No his intention is to
build an Amiga as it might have been one generation after the
A4k/A1200. When finished it would represent the technological state of
the mid/late nineties. but not of 2008!
The author works in Stuttgart (hint IBM has a big department in
Stuttgart). In his daily work he is deep involved with the Cell
technology AFAIK. thus, he does know what's technologie's state of the
art.

The Natami is not, but it is state of the art in a one man show and
how to build an improved Amiga. I think it is great what he does and i
also believe it might turn into a successful project for the
retro community - but no wy it will be an alternative to an Apple
computer or a generic WinPC.

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TheDaddy 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 0:16:38
#115 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Sep-2005
Posts: 4499
From: Quattro Stelle

@Zylesea

>>I guess you misunderstand the intention of the Natami. It is *not*
meant to resurrect the C= Amiga.
It is a hobby project.

I am not misunderstanding anything, from what Big Guns said there is a chance of having a PPC card to stick in there. Now I am thinking, if this guy is able to go the extra mile maybe we'll have a hell of a machine.

>>The designer is not the one who will show the
industry how to design a new top edge board.

I don't think it's his intention...

>>The Natami is not, but it is state of the art in a one man show and
how to build an improved Amiga. I think it is great what he does and i
also believe it might turn into a successful project for the
retro community - but no wy it will be an alternative to an Apple
computer or a generic WinPC.

I am confident that one day we'll have the kind of motherboard we all look for...I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that...how many years have I spent with Amiga....1985-2008...23 years! WOW!

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mike 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 0:33:17
#116 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2007
Posts: 406
From: Alpha Centauri

Implementing usb-1/2, agp, pci for that matter will probably come trickling along as time passes. But it wont be easily done without making the steps over the the Coldfire Cpu, and remember, no ones been able to do that yet. Besides, he's already made major improvements over the a4000, take the IDE speeds for instance ( if i remember what was said in this thread ) i'd be happy just with that!

The ide speed is pretty much all that is holding the a4k back from being quite fast. Even with the ec030 running at 25mhz

Last edited by mike on 18-Jan-2008 at 12:34 AM.

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HenryCase 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 1:31:08
#117 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 12-Nov-2007
Posts: 728
From: Unknown

@Rob

Quote:

Rob wrote:
@Donar

Quote:
I now think that if Clone-A has a big enough FPGA for NatAmi it can only be a host for a "low end" version.


Clone-A will not ship with an FPGA. The Amiga chipset and 68000 will be turned into a VLSI instead.


Are you sure Rob? Where did you get that information from?
AFAIK, Jens is working with Dennis to ensure the Minimig source will run on Clone-A, and there wouldn't be much point in doing this unless Clone-A has an FPGA.

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Zardoz 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 1:39:23
#118 ]
Team Member
Joined: 13-Mar-2003
Posts: 4261
From: Unknown

@Rob

Quote:
Clone-A will not ship with an FPGA. The Amiga chipset and 68000 will be turned into a VLSI instead.


Into an ASIC, you mean. VLSI is a broad term that includes FPGAs.

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BigGun 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 7:29:57
#119 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 8-Aug-2005
Posts: 438
From: Germany (Black Forest)

@wegster

Quote:

@Biggun - are you in contact with him? If so, can you ask him to take a look at this thread?


Thomas told me that he has no account here but was trying to register one to be able to asnswer some questions.

Cheers

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Donar 
Re: MeKa 2008 (Amiga Party) (SHOWN WAS NEW AMIGA HW!)
Posted on 18-Jan-2008 8:45:03
#120 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 12-Nov-2006
Posts: 117
From: Germany

Sorry had a problem with this post, see next.

Last edited by Donar on 18-Jan-2008 at 09:15 AM.
Last edited by Donar on 18-Jan-2008 at 09:13 AM.

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