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Puni/Void
12th July 2008, 10:36
An update has now been posted on the homepage of the Natami project in the Questions & Answers section.

For those of you who wish to visit the Natami homepage, try this link (http://www.natami.net/index.htm).


Natami Design Goal

Goal of the consumer version of Natami is to create a very affordable Amiga design.
An Amiga that is powerful enough to be useful for today's typical tasks.

Our goal is to develop a single chip (a complete Amiga in 1 chip) that will be used easily to build inexpensive new Amiga compatible systems.

We would like to offer this chip for little money to every company that is interested, allowing them to produce new Amiga systems.

Goal for consumer version of Natami:

* Complete Amiga on a chip
* Amiga compatible hardware
* Run original AmigaOS and Amiga applications
* Play old and new Amiga games
* Truecolor 24bit gfx and 16bit audio
* Size between a big USB key and iphone
* USB, Ethernet and flashdisk support
* Boot AmigaOS in 1 second
* Immediate system on/off
* Surf Internet, watch online videos.
* DivX, Xvid, DVD playback
* Volume production costs of less than $100

We think that in this area the AmigaOS still has some major advantages.

The original AmigaOS is very efficient. The combination of this very efficient OS and the usage of the powerful SuperAGA, will result in a very swift computer.

The computer experience will be much faster than a PC with comparable clockrate. Think about what you could do with a A4000 with AGA and then think that SuperAGA is about 100 times faster.

Our goal is not to sell these systems only by ourselves. We are fully aware that our development team is very good in development but not able to sell effectively these systems to the mass market.

The Natami will not be a competitor to a Wintel Desktop machine, nor will it be a PlayStation 3 killer.

Natami Roadmap

Our road-map looks somewhat like this:

* Natami60 developer system will come out summer 2008.
* The Natami60 dev-board has two main purposes.
- Allowing early developers to develop/port software to Amiga.
- Allowing more people to verifying the SuperAGA chipset to be error free.
* When the dev-board are out we will focus on three things:
- Designing the cost reduced Natami version.
- Developing our Next Generation 68K Core
- We will add new feature to the SuperAGA chipset

:thumbs:

Buleste
29th August 2008, 15:32
I'm a bit late with this but at the beginning of August this was posted on the Natami forum.

Good news:

Thomas has finished the hardware-design! We now have
to wait for the 1st board getting produced, which will
hopefully be before our announced deadline "end of summer 2008"!

What to expect when the PCB is there? At this point Thomas
will start the bring up. We surely can and will bring many
more news and pictures!

Please keep in mind, that this process may encounter problems,
that are typical for a system bring up process. Thomas will
deceide at some point, that the system is suitable for other
developers and testers to join. This will be the time, when we
collect and process the orders and also can announce the price.

Stay tuned!

Obviously as no one knows if there will be any problems there is no news on a release date for developer/tester boards and no news as to prices. Again obviously the price has not been determined either but if the more demand there is, the greater the production run, the lower the prices. Keep visiting the Natami forum for more updates.

Puni/Void
30th August 2008, 11:39
You can find more info on this in this (http://forum.classicamiga.com/showthread.php?t=2583) thread. ;)

Buleste
30th August 2008, 14:45
OOOPPPPPSSSSS sory about that P G. Must've missed that one.;)

Puni/Void
1st September 2008, 12:27
No probs, mate. :cool:

I keep visiting the Natami forum to read the latest news about the project. It seems like they've come a long way now. They still claim that the developer boards will be out soon, so the day when we get to see the first reviews and movies might come soon.

I've also noticed that developers are interested in making new games and software for the platform. Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Buleste
15th November 2008, 10:41
This is the latest news on the Natami board

Hi altogether,

we'd love to post hardware-footage, but we
are also waiting for the board and you can trust us
that we will post pictures ASAP, when it is physically
available.

There have been more optimizations on the design:
Thomas is a perfectionist with a lot of experience so Gunnar
and me as software-people of course would love to have the
board ASAP - as everybody here. But we trust the strategy
to design it as good as possible instead of doing compromises
in a sloppy hurry. For instance he choose high class components
for the analog audio output and did extensive testing before
on this matter. Even if this takes time, it is important to
work with foresight, instead of - like in most payed projects
nowadays - to make compromises so often, just because of time
frames and tight budgets on development - with a bad or
mediocre product as the result.

And as everybody who works hard for more than 40 hours a week to make his living will understand, the time for a fun-project is sadly somewhat limited.

Anyway - the main point is: everything IS advancing, even if not
with rocket-speed. Slow but steady progress will bring this to a success. Being devoted and not dependent on anybodies budget or licence makes this effort and Thomas unstoppable.

I know it doesn't tell us much but be assured that the project is still ongoing and that unlike PC and Macs the delay is because they want the board to be perfect and with few or no bugs at all.

tonyyeb
15th November 2008, 11:03
I hope this does come to something close to what is being promised. I've held off buying a Minimig, SAM, Pandora, A4000 etc... in the hope that the next big Amiga thing is just round the corner!

Buleste
19th November 2008, 13:00
I have read on the forum that they hope the 060 based dev boards to cost around (but hopefully under) $500 and the final board to be even less. 6 months ago that would have been less than £250.00 which is less than what it would cost to buy a Blizzard 1260 so if they can do it then it looks like it'll be at a bargain price.

tonyyeb
19th November 2008, 13:03
Hopefully production boards will be even less then. Got a link to the post with the price in?

Buleste
19th November 2008, 13:11
@tonyyeb
This (http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1&note=2853&order=&x=7) IS the link you're looking for.

tonyyeb
19th November 2008, 13:19
Is this the post you are referring to?:



I hope the Dev Boards are less than $500.00 USD but is still not known.

The dev boards will come with 060 CPU card. The Consumer version will come with CPU in FPGA and should a little bit better on price.

Chris

Buleste
19th November 2008, 13:26
That's the one. If you read the FAQ one of the aims is to have a volume production FPGA board to cost less than $100 to produce but being as there's still a lot of work to do and that's only production costs I would say that that's a little optimistic and end price will be more.

tonyyeb
19th November 2008, 13:28
Its a shame he says "hope the Dev Boards are less than $500.00 USD but is still not known."

I was hoping it was definate... meaning more progress had been made on sourcing parts, assembly etc... A hope isn't good enough for me i'm afraid.

Buleste
19th November 2008, 13:45
I think considering it's a non professional outfit I think they're doing much better than Hyperion ever did with developing OS4 considering it took them 5-6 years before they created a final version. Besides in my original post I said they hope the cost will be around $500.00. With a bit of luck the design will be finalised soon so that dev boards can go into production. Don't forget these are guys doing this in there spare time using their own money so it's bound to take time. Besides they're just trying to get the last of the errors out so they may be able to produce something by the end of 1stQ 2009.

tonyyeb
19th November 2008, 13:48
Don't get me wrong. I think what they are doing is fantastic, I wish I had 10% of the ability of some of the people on the project.

But unlike some people I like to live off facts and evidence. "I'll believe it when I see it" is a good way of putting it. Good luck to all involved, ill be watching for updates and hopefully eventually making a purchase... but lets see some dev boards in the flesh first ;)

Harrison
19th November 2008, 15:11
This is true. A lot of homebrew hardware projects get started with a lot of promises and initial excitement, but then come to nothing. I'm also hoping this turns out to be everything the developers have said it will be because I will definitely be buying one if it is. :)

TiredOfLife
13th December 2008, 18:25
Espcially in Amigaland.

Still if it happens, I'll buy one.

Puni/Void
5th May 2009, 21:16
The Natami website has been updated with new content during the last months. Head over and take a look. :)

Here's a link to the Natami Team page (http://www.natami.net/contact.htm). New members have apparantly joined the team!

Harrison
5th May 2009, 22:26
That is great news that the project is still gaining momentum and continuing along. I don't care if it takes a couple more years. I will probably still buy one if it is finally produced. :)

Buleste
1st August 2009, 21:50
Some Natami news. The new evaluation dev boards have arrived and have been constructed you can find some hardware pics here (http://www.natami.net/news.htm).

As a side note there will soon be a Coldfire based ST PCI board coming out. More information can be found here. (http://www.natami.net/news.htm)

Harrison
3rd August 2009, 16:58
Cool. What happened to the ColdFire based board for the Amiga? It sort of never arrived after they showed off the test board.

Buleste
26th September 2009, 16:43
The first NatAMI baseboard is up and running. Go here (http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1&note=11215) for lots of whooping and techy speak.

Tiago
5th February 2010, 18:06
any more news from Natami? Long time i don't see any news...
Is the project running?

Buleste
6th February 2010, 10:35
I've just had a look at the Evaluation Baseboard Bringup thread on the Natami page and whilst there is no major news at the moment, development is ongoing to getting the evaluation board running properly. As you can imagine getting the board designed and built was the first major hurdle. Now getting all the chips running together and the software working. It's a long and winding road.

Buleste
16th March 2010, 16:39
This is the latest news on what is working on the baseboard and what is not.

SyncZorro Interface ... preliminary (PCI) version
Copper ................ fully implemented
Video DMA ............. fully implemented
256 colour regiters ... fully implemented
Video priority ........ half implemented
Scandoubler ........... fully implemented
Audio DMA ............. o
VGA out ............... working
DVI out ............... o
PCI ................... o
IDE ................... o

Harrison
16th March 2010, 16:51
Great to see work is still continuing with the project. Lets hope it gets finished this year.

Buleste
16th March 2010, 18:51
I would imagine the baseboard and 060 evaluation boards will be done by the end of the year but the code for the custom CPU will take a bit longer.

Phantom
16th March 2010, 20:37
Good to see progress. Ah my lovely money.... (X1000, Natami....) :rolleyes:

Buleste
25th March 2010, 17:01
Another quick update although fairly important.

http://www.natami.net/gfx/NatAmi16_LX/bringup_7_sprites.jpg


It is now possible to move the mouse pointer (from the last picture) now with a real Amiga mouse. For that Interrupts are working correctly and the CIAs are now fully implemented. It also means that the serial I/O CPLD is also working correctly. So all I/O ports are available now to the system.



Frame generation ...... ECS, fixed 28MHz pixel clock
SyncZorro Interface ... preliminary version
Copper ................ fully implemented
Video DMA ............. fully implemented
256 color registers ... fully implemented
Sprites ............... 16bit linebuffer
blitter ............... o
Video priority ........ half implemented
Scandoubler ........... fully implemented
(new) Interrupts ............ fully implemented
Paula DMA control ..... fully implemented
Audio out ............. o
VGA out ............... working
DVI out ............... o
PCI ................... o
IDE ................... o
(new) CIAs .................. fully implemented
Disk DMA .............. o
Serial Port DMA ....... o
(new) Slow peripheral I/O ... fully implemented
(Joy/Mouse/Keyb/PRT/DSK/SER)
Fast RAM controller ... o
Kickstart flash logic . o
15k Video out ......... o
15k Video in .......... o
Audio in .............. o

Harrison
25th March 2010, 17:08
Nice. It's progressing much faster now. :)

Buleste
25th March 2010, 17:16
I'm also sure that there will be much debate as to which pointer will be default. The 1.3 or the 3 version or a more windows like pointer. Then there is the busy pointer should it be the hourglass, clock or maybe a boing ball. I foresee many snags the closer a fully functioning board comes to fruition.

Harrison
25th March 2010, 17:40
So true. The anal part of the Amiga community will only prolong its development, that is for sure. Especially A.org members! ;)

Buleste
25th March 2010, 18:48
We should start a new topic about what pointless legacy items should be carried over to any new Amiga.

Teho
25th March 2010, 19:08
Right.

All error messages should be Guru Meditations. Every single one, even the simplest attention messages! In fact, the word 'error' should not exist in it, it should be replaced with 'Guru' in every instance! IF IT DOESN'T I'M NOT BUYING IT!!! http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s37/Tallhill/smileys/argh.gif (http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s37/Tallhill/smileys/?action=view&current=argh.gif)

Buleste
25th March 2010, 19:34
In that case it should have the Speach synthesiser from WB2 so that every Guru sounds like Stephen Hawkins.

Harrison
26th March 2010, 01:22
Now I would buy that for sure! :lol:

Buleste
1st May 2010, 18:12
This was posted a couple of days ago.



IDE
Now after establishing a reliable two-way communication to the "Westside" CPLD the system can reach components which are located "far out" there. After the audio data which only uses one way IDE interface is now working and gives access to an attached harddisk.

http://www.natami.net/gfx/NatAmi16_LX/bringup_11_bootmenu.jpg


If you look close in the picture you'll see the gadgets are incorrectly drawn. This is due to the still missing line mode in the blitter. I already made some modifications to the natami-blitter enabling me to implement the line mode correctly but further changes are needed. The blitter even got its fill mode but this is not of much use without the line mode.


Frame generation .......... ECS, fixed 28MHz pixel clock
SyncZorro Interface ....... preliminary version
Copper .................... fully implemented
Video DMA ................. fully implemented
256 color registers ....... fully implemented
Sprites ................... 16bit linebuffer
blitter ................... basic implementation.
Block and fill mode done, line to come
Video priority ............ half implemented
Scandoubler ............... fully implemented
Interrupts ................ fully implemented
Paula DMA control ......... fully implemented
Audio out ................. fully implemented
VGA out ................... working
DVI out ................... o
PCI ....................... o
(new) IDE ....................... fully implemented
CIAs ...................... fully implemented
Disk DMA .................. 880k and 1790k, read only
Serial Port DMA ........... o
Slow peripheral I/O ....... fully implemented
(Joy/Mouse/Keyb/PRT/DSK/SER)
PC mouse and kbd support .. o
Fast RAM controller ....... o
Kickstart flash logic ..... o
Battery-backed up clock.... o
15k Video out ............. o
15k Video in .............. o
Audio in .................. o

woody.cool
1st May 2010, 22:04
That's exciting news, mate.

As for the above discussions about legacy stuff that should be in the Natami: as long as the pointer looks WB2.x/3.x like with the stopwatch busy pointer, I'll feel right at home, but saying that, I really don't care that much, as long as the usual Pointer preferences are available.

It would be nice, however, if the OS was 'skinnable' to make it look 2.x/3.x like OR to make it 1.3 like :lol:

Buleste
1st May 2010, 22:34
On the Paula front whilst the DMA is fully implemented and producing sound it is only at the 6 and 8 bit level and because Paula is a strange beast (it was improved in the 1200,3000,4000) it still has a few quirks. On some Paula's the L/R channels are reversed even though the design is basically the same and it's these quirks and what to do about improving the Paula that has to be solved.


@Woody
Why the hell would you want a 1.3 skin? Too much blue screen for my liking. However if you could do a MWB skin, Newicons skin, Glow icons skin as well as whatever they use that would be good.


BTW someone did a cruel April Fools joke that basically said that Amiga Inc had approved the Natami and that the latest OS would be Natami compatible and that the Natami could be officially classed as an Amiga.

woody.cool
1st May 2010, 22:39
@Woody
Why the hell would you want a 1.3 skin?
Just for a laugh :lol:

Buleste
25th May 2010, 15:14
I hadn't looked at the NAtami pages for a while and all of a sudden there are pictures of a Natami Party for all the developers showing the Natami up and running Amiga software. Visit here (http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=1&note=20767&order=&x=0) to have a look.

Phantom
25th May 2010, 15:38
Nice, but when? :dry:

Harrison
25th May 2010, 16:26
That is really cool news. Software now running is a huge leap forward for the project. It was going so slowly for so long. I was unconvinced by a video I saw today on youtube showing the NatAmi running Giana Sisters as it only showed the screen and not the hardware, but these photos show a lot more promise of where the project really is.

Lets hope it now gets continued to a final production system, and doesn't head the same way as all the other promising projects.

Buleste
25th May 2010, 16:52
I think more promise would be shown with an AGA game up and running as at the moment it is using an altered C-One/MiniMig core and after watching this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rydE7wa_5d0&fmt=18) video and looking at the WB screen then it could easily be stuff running on a 1200 with 4MB or so of RAM runing OS3.9.

Harrison
25th May 2010, 17:16
Still, it is a promising start as it is at least showing something functioning.

Buleste
1st June 2010, 17:27
The 2MB Chip RAM limit has now been breached!!! At the moment the Natami is running with 16MB Chip RAM however getting the full 256MB Chip RAM is proving frustrating for the development team at the moment as is utilising the full fast RAM.

Harrison
2nd June 2010, 19:26
Will be great if they can though. Will finally remove the barrier of Amiga chipset limitations holding the system back for so long. No need to separate graphics cards if they can manage this. 256MB of chip ram would be brilliant.

Buleste
3rd June 2010, 09:46
Apparently you'll be able to config the Natami to as much or as little Chip Mem as you want out of the first 256MB.

Harrison
3rd June 2010, 10:14
I really do hope this project gets completed and goes into production. I think out of any such project this is the true evolution of the real classic Amiga legacy, allowing real Amiga software to natively run, and providing a truly powerful Amiga for us all to enjoy.

Buleste
3rd June 2010, 10:22
There is another of these FPGA projects that has an AGA amiga core up and running although the web site (http://www.fpgaarcade.com/index.htm) doesn't have much info on it.