Dave Haynie, former chief engineer at Commodore and designer of a lot of classic Amiga chips, recently expressed his views on the Natami Project and the X1000 on Amiga.org. I thought it might be interesting for Amigans so I cross-posted it here:

Quote:

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. If this X1000 thing was the second coming of the A1000 (it's not, and honestly, not that interesting), it has a built-in limit, since the CPU is already discontinued. And add to that the FPGA basis... there's some serious hacking potential there, I think. Particularly if they're not full yet This isn't going to replace everyone's need for a fast PC, but then again, running original AmigaOS, you don't really need to be. As long as the cost stays in reach of the hobbyist, this could do well.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=631463#post631463

This is very encouraging for the Natami Team! I share his views completely :)

Last edited by Forcie-NatamiTeam on 14-Apr-2011 at 10:30 AM.

@Forcie-NatamiTeam

How far along is Natami anyway? What are the tentative release dates?

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Sam

@Forcie-NatamiTeam


And any rough idea yet how much it will cost?

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@Akiko

Around 700-800 euros for a board. But I guess if you want the ultimate 68k machine then it's worth it.

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@WolfToTheMoon

Yes, worth the money. I hope it will be less than 700 EUR.

I take it that it will be running kickstart 3.1?

Last edited by -Sam- on 14-Apr-2011 at 11:43 AM.

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Sam

@Forcie-NatamiTeam

Quote:

You're not just a PC with a PowerPC CPU and some VGA chip

Quote:

X1000 thing...[...]..... not that interesting

Funny and ironic words from a men that designed the PIOS One (a mere PC with a PowerPC cpu) and wanted it to be the next gen AmigaOS compatible machine

I agree with him about the Natami part though

Last edited by Fransexy on 14-Apr-2011 at 11:58 AM.
Last edited by Fransexy on 14-Apr-2011 at 11:56 AM.

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@-Sam-

I read somewhere else that the team are currently running 3.9 but that is should also work for the others in the 3 series.

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@Fransexy

Quote:

Funny and ironic words from a men that designed the PIOS One (a mere PC with a PowerPC cpu) and wanted it to be the next gen AmigaOS compatible machine

Which also never got anywhere near as far as ACube have managed with 2 released systems under their belt so far in a time that is much, much harder to be successful.

Everyone's opinion is subjective. I am sure there are lots of people that will see the fact that OS4/MOS or AROS runs on a machine is continuation enough of the 'Amiganess' value.

True - I would prefer Natami style custom hardware too - but not having it is not the end of the 'Amiganess' of a machine and any sensible strategy would realise the cost of doing custom hardware 'right' and so would only build that into the mid - long term of any range of new machines. Any come back would have to start with PC commodity parts in order to build up te cash to be able to even begin to contemplate custom hardware.

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Sam

@TiredofLife

That would make sense. Thanks.

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Sam

@Fransexy

Not ironic to me. The PIOS-One would have been primarily a Mac-compatible, competing in the mainstream on speed and price. 14 years ago. That business case was destroyed by Steve Jobs. What's incredible is that the reinvigorating of the Amiga-scene in 2011 apparently rests on a PIOS-Two.

Chris

Last edited by clebin on 14-Apr-2011 at 12:35 PM.

@Fransexy

Quote:

Funny and ironic words from a men that designed the PIOS One (a mere PC with a PowerPC cpu) and wanted it to be the next gen AmigaOS compatible machine

No, it was a quad PPC CPU mobo and he and Andy were working CAOS which, IIRC, ended up in their Met@Box STB.

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Dammy

@clebin

Quote:

What's incredible is that the reinvigorating of the Amiga-scene in 2011 apparently rests on a PIOS-Two

If done years ago it would have been the cheapest way to get the kickstart the market - but as we know - no-one has the resource to do anything properly. So we end up with half-way houses all the time.

It cannot be re-invogorated now - but if it was then it would still be the logical place to start.

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Sam

@clebin

I agree. It's incredible that some people, like me, choose what they like. They should choose what other people think it's better, not what they want.

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@Forcie-NatamiTeam

Who is this Haynie with his negativity? Obviously the x1000 is not targeted at people like him or anything to do with him. It is targeted at the amigans.net subset that want to utilise all the modern features of the x1000 that os4 supports.

Besides once the os4 developer community are unleashed onto this 'military spec' hardware , I'm sure the SuperAGA and the soft060 of the nataimi will be running on XMOS no problems. And you can hook up LED lights to it too!

Last edited by cheesegrate on 14-Apr-2011 at 12:53 PM.

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@Fransexy

I think the difference is that then he saw that as a possibly viable mainstream platform, while today Natami vs. X1000 is a question of deciding between two decidedly niche platform and subjectively judging which one is the "most" Amiga.

If he's not (any more) bothered about getting a day-to-day computing platform that's narrowing the gap towards "required" minimum performance for most people for their main computer, then it's not surprising that he prefers the Natami. But the X1000 *is* trying to narrow the gap and retain some "Amiga-ish" properties within the constraints of very severe financial constraints, and that of course massively limits it in other respects.

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@cheesegrate

Quote:

'm sure the SuperAGA and the soft060 of the nataimi will be running on XMOS no problems.

Never mind that the Natami cores aren't open, but even if they were (or if the Natami team would want to port them), this just plain isn't possible. It's not the type of thing the XMOS chips are for - they're nowhere near powerful enough to emulate chips of that complexity at a reasonable speed (if at all - they're severely memory restricted).

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@cheesegrate

Quote:

Who is this Haynie with his negativity?

Quote:

I'm sure the SuperAGA and the soft060 of the nataimi will be running on XMOS no problems

(sometimes I like your jokes)

On the more serious side, even 680x0 emulation on SAM440ep is probably faster than proposed "68050" solution for Natami.

@-Sam-

Quote:

True - I would prefer Natami style custom hardware too - but not having it is not the end of the 'Amiganess' of a machine and any sensible strategy would realise the cost of doing custom hardware 'right' and so would only build that into the mid - long term of any range of new machines. Any come back would have to start with PC commodity parts in order to build up te cash to be able to even begin to contemplate custom hardware.

I love what the Natami team is doing, but I actually prefer the Minimig/Replay approach myself as a potential path towards revitalizing the classic range. While they're slower and more limited for now, it has the advantage that the cores are or will be open source, and the schematics as well. Short term the Natami team has the advantage of a very dedicated group.

Longer term, the Minimig/Replay approach has the advantage that more people can tinker with it (for example, since I've been whining about lack of a proper MMU for the Natami softcore, if I'd like one for the Replay board I could put up a bounty and try to get one, or pick up the skills and try to add one myself).

Both can keep surfing on dropping FPGA costs and improving performance.

I don't think either will ever reach the "mainstream", but they don't have to in order to be great fun and be viable niches

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@vidarh

Quote:

I don't think either will ever reach the "mainstream", but they don't have to in order to be great fun and be viable niches

I think you could apply that to the whole Amiga 'thing'.

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Sam