@BigGun

Quote:

BigGun wrote: @Mrodfr Quote: Mrodfr wrote: Hello, An old (I think) link found on amiga-news.de about natami. http://www.natami.net/ This is Thomas home page for this project. No offence but it would be cool if web designer could help him here.

That site isn't bad, but parts of it are broken. Click the 3rd and 4th "icons" on it and it gives you a 404. Also, the PDFs on the site are corrupted or something. The Adobe PDF reader (on my Windoze peecee) won't read em, and suggests they might have been emailed with the wrong encoding, or something.

I hope he fixes these issues...

_________________
"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

@BigGun

I notice only one thing that seems to be missing, 10/100 Ethernet. With that it would fit into my collection perfectly.

Chris

@QuikSanz

That is a point. Just about all desktop-style computers these days come with that built into the mobo! But why stop at 10/100 Ethernet? Go ahead and make it 10/100/1000 Ethernet!

_________________
"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

@NomadOfNorad

The PDF's, if you load them into a text editor, are just an HTML file stating that the files are missing.

@QuikSanz

Quote:

QuikSanz wrote: @BigGun I notice only one thing that seems to be missing, 10/100 Ethernet. With that it would fit into my collection perfectly. Chris

I have an old PCI Ethernet card for you if you want to buy it.

@NomadOfNorad

Not a bad idea as long as it still can go slow enough for legacy machines and doesn't increase the price that much.

Chris

@Samurai_Crow

I'm not sure I want to use up a PCI slot for ethernet, might need it for something else.

Chris

@Samurai_Crow

Quote:

Samurai_Crow wrote: @NomadOfNorad The PDF's, if you load them into a text editor, are just an HTML file stating that the files are missing.

Hehe! Figures!


@Samurai_Crow

Quote:

Samurai_Crow wrote: @QuikSanz Quote: QuikSanz wrote: @BigGun I notice only one thing that seems to be missing, 10/100 Ethernet. With that it would fit into my collection perfectly. Chris I have an old PCI Ethernet card for you if you want to buy it.

PCI ethernet cards can be had for $15 at Office Depot. I've picked up several of them over the years there.


@QuikSanz

Quote:

QuikSanz wrote: @NomadOfNorad Not a bad idea as long as it still can go slow enough for legacy machines and doesn't increase the price that much. Chris

Ethernet cards and routers automatically adjust to the available speed. The router will give speed 10 to the port that goes to a machine only providing speed 10, while still providing speed 100 to all the other machines going at speed 100. I don't think there's gonna be a problem with legacy machines failing to keep up.

@QuikSanz

Quote:

QuikSanz wrote: @Samurai_Crow I'm not sure I want to use up a PCI slot for ethernet, might need it for something else. Chris

Depends also on how many PCI slots it has. If there's only one then... yeah, I wouldn't want to waste it on something as mundane as an Ethernet card.

_________________
"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

The price of Natami, 'if finished' would be no less than at least ¤1000

@Ancalimon

And you know this because...?

_________________
"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

Quote:

TheDaddy wrote: @Mrodfr This would be the next evolution in the Amiga line with real Amiga dna: 1) it's basically an AGA machine with better graphics and sound 2) Compatible with old software 3) Able to accept a 68030, 060 or PPC (for OS4) 4) It has the Amiga custom chipset feeling If they managed to integrate some powerful 3D acceleration it would be awesome.

We have thought about this.
As you might know I took part in developing on 3D Zorro card MANY years ago. (With was never produce: Too late too little)
I have the FPGA sources still laying around and know out of my head how to build a 3D core.

I think it would make sense to add a HW texture mapper that can do the basic stuff as mipmapping, ALPHA etc in HW to the Natami.

Combining an ALTIVEC CPU, Copper and the Texturemap blitter will give very nice results.
The Altivec CPU can do the 3D coordination (matrix) transformations and store them as lists the rectangles to be drawn.
The copper would contoll this list and feed the blitter perfectly.
The blitter would paint the texture maps then.

I'll offerThomas to give him my FPGA sources.


Regarding PCIe: to be honest I'm not a big fan of PCIe.
PCIe is good for devices with high throughput (Big Raid-controllers)
but PCIe runs a protocol (just like ethernet) and this protocol will by design create very high latencies.
For a usages as for example as CPU slot, there are definately much better options than using PCIe.


Cheers
Gunnar
[edit typos (why do I never see them when writing)]

Last edited by BigGun on 17-Jan-2008 at 07:21 AM.

_________________
APOLLO the new 68K : www.apollo-core.com

@BigGun

One problem with PCI vs PCIe, though, is that PCIe is also the new standard for graphics cards, rendering AGP and the like obsolete, and therefore disappearing them from the market. On the other hand, as for regular PCI, I imagine as more machines ship with PCIe slots in them, the market will eventually stop making PCI cards in general.

I suppose it'll be awhile before regular PCI completely goes away, but AGP is already on the way out, and therefore machines will eventually have to come with at least one PCIe slot, just so that people can update their display capabilities.

_________________
"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

I suggested having a look at Clone-A as a potential NatAmi host some posts before. After seeing more information about NatAmi e.g.

Natami:
Chipram 32bit Data + Adresslines
Fastram 32bit Data + Adresslines
CPUSlot 32bit Data + Adresslines
PCI 32bit Data + Adresslines

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. I think i read somewhere that Jens and Oliver probably would take a smaller Bus size 16/8/whatever Bit with increased Data Rate (double/quad pumped so to speak) to not use so many Data Lines to the FPGA - feeding 32 Bit Registers with it.

But at least Clone-A should be in a mid price range so that more people could consider buying it, even if they do not get full speed. I see the next problem at producing larger quantities e.g. 100 (to get production costs down a bit) of a final NatAmi design for a private person (especially if costly parts are used).

I really see no point in adding PCIe or a PPC970 to a souped up AGA design... keep this thing in balance with PCI maybe AGP and a 68060/Coldfire/"embedded" PPC as processor. I do not think the intention of NatAmi is to be a Dual Xeon Killer. As much as i like the Idea of a "Super Amiga" it has to be in a certain price range to attract more than 30 die hard Amiga Fans.

Last edited by Donar on 17-Jan-2008 at 09:14 AM.

_________________
<- Amiga 1260 / CD ->
Looking for:
A1200/CF CFV4/@200,256MB,eAGA,SATA,120GB,AROS

Quote:

If you want to produce these devices according to current European law you cannot use those processors offered at ebay (old non RoHS chips). RoHS versions of the 68060 are bloody expensive...

I'll check the production date when i get my next 68060. I heard prices for the 68060 go down rapidly if you take them in quantities from Freescale (e.g. 100). A work around could be to ship NatAmi with a 680x0 soft core and a CPU Card with empty socket - people could source their own 68060 for it.

_________________
<- Amiga 1260 / CD ->
Looking for:
A1200/CF CFV4/@200,256MB,eAGA,SATA,120GB,AROS

@Donar

>>I really see no point in adding PCIe or a PPC970 to a souped up AGA design... keep this thing in balance with PCI maybe AGP and a 68060/Coldfire/"embedded" PPC as processor. I do not think the intention of NatAmi is to be a Dual Xeon Killer. As much as i like the Idea of a "Super Amiga" it has to be in a certain price range to attract more than 30 die hard Amiga Fans.


I see lots of points in having the evolution of the A1200/4000 (in this case the Natami) but with future-proof upgrade paths.

If you are presenting just a machine that has a better AGA chipset, running 680X0 cpu and code, with no PCI-Express, no DDR RAM and no Gigabit Ethernet I can tell you now, NO ONE, apart from the few hardcore Amigans, will be interested.

This will limit the sales to a few thousands MAX!

There is no WOW factor and it will fade away after a few years.

We need to re-capture that WOW factor, you need to re-create that 1985 atmosphere, which is difficult considering the hardware already out there.

You have got to give the punters the option and make them think why would I want to spend $£$£ on this when I can get a PS3 or a MAC or a PC.

If there is the chance of having this new machine with the OPTION of installing faster CPUs on a card and better graphics cards then we have a winner.

Basic configuration:

Natami with AGA+ and 16 bit Paula, CPU slot for PPC cards, PCI-Express for graphics cards.

I am not an engineer so I don't know how to do this but IF it can be done we should persue this instead of having another Amiga clone.

_________________
www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Quote:

If you are presenting just a machine that has a better AGA chipset, running 680X0 cpu and code, with no PCI-Express, no DDR RAM and no Gigabit Ethernet I can tell you now, NO ONE, apart from the few hardcore Amigans, will be interested. ... There is no WOW factor and it will fade away after a few years.

There is no WOW factor in having a machine with PPC970, DDR Ram and PCI Express that has no Software to make use of it and costs double than a x86 PC with DDR3 and PCIexpress 2.0 either... I can tell you now, NO ONE, apart from the few hardcore Amigans, will be interested.

This will limit the sales to a few hundreds MAX!

_________________
<- Amiga 1260 / CD ->
Looking for:
A1200/CF CFV4/@200,256MB,eAGA,SATA,120GB,AROS

@Donar
>>There is no WOW factor in having a machine with PPC970, DDR Ram and PCI Express that has no Software to make use of it

The software will come, programmers can knock out amazing demos pretty quickly.

>>and costs double than a x86 PC with DDR3 and PCIexpress 2.0 either... I can tell you now, NO ONE, apart from the few hardcore Amigans, will be interested.
This will limit the sales to a few hundreds MAX!

I am not sure. If you give a good specced machine, with good backward compatibility (to attract old Amigans who still have some software kicking around or just want to play their old favourite games) but at the same time modern and quite competitive with an enhanced version of OS3.9 and the possibility to run OS4, Linux, Morphos and AROS and not just an improved A4000 you see that if won't be just a few hundreds anymore.

Anyway we disagree, time will tell.

_________________
www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Quote:

Anyway we disagree, time will tell.

At least we can agree on that.

_________________
<- Amiga 1260 / CD ->
Looking for:
A1200/CF CFV4/@200,256MB,eAGA,SATA,120GB,AROS

@TheDaddy

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

@TheDaddy

Quote:

TheDaddy wrote: @Donar >>I really see no point in adding PCIe or a PPC970 to a souped up AGA design... keep this thing in balance with PCI maybe AGP and a 68060/Coldfire/"embedded" PPC as processor. I do not think the intention of NatAmi is to be a Dual Xeon Killer. As much as i like the Idea of a "Super Amiga" it has to be in a certain price range to attract more than 30 die hard Amiga Fans. I see lots of points in having the evolution of the A1200/4000 (in this case the Natami) but with future-proof upgrade paths. If you are presenting just a machine that has a better AGA chipset, running 680X0 cpu and code, with no PCI-Express, no DDR RAM and no Gigabit Ethernet I can tell you now, NO ONE, apart from the few hardcore Amigans, will be interested. This will limit the sales to a few thousands MAX! There is no WOW factor and it will fade away after a few years. We need to re-capture that WOW factor, you need to re-create that 1985 atmosphere, which is difficult considering the hardware already out there. You have got to give the punters the option and make them think why would I want to spend $£$£ on this when I can get a PS3 or a MAC or a PC. If there is the chance of having this new machine with the OPTION of installing faster CPUs on a card and better graphics cards then we have a winner. Basic configuration: Natami with AGA+ and 16 bit Paula, CPU slot for PPC cards, PCI-Express for graphics cards. I am not an engineer so I don't know how to do this but IF it can be done we should persue this instead of having another Amiga clone.

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+, but nowadays, most systems have simply become a commodity- you may increase the RAM or swap a graphics card, likely once, then it's cheaper to replace the system soon enough.

RE: Sales of a few thousand - I think that would be an overly optimistic number, but it depends on the pricing.

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.

_________________
Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!