Curious about Natami

[Pat the Cat]

The "Native Amiga" concept.

Last I heard, from what I've read, they had decided to build around a soft CPU labelled "N68050"...

... and it looks like they've vanished. Almost like a nomadic tribe, struck their tents, vanished into the desert.

Anyone hear different? I'm just curious, it's not like I have a burning desire to get in touch with them.

But it seemed a novel concept. To me at any rate.

[ptyerman]

The majority of the Natami team is now with the Apollo or Vampire crews. There is still one guy supposedly working on Natami, but I don't know any particulars.
Perhaps someone more in the know will come along and fill in the blanks.

[grond]

The "N68050" is now the 68080 or Apollo Core and available in the Vampire accelerator cards. The Vampires are faster than even the Phase5 PPC Cards and faster than 060 accelerators by a factor of approximately 3. So far they are available for the A600 and the A500/1000/2000 but there will be cards for the other Amigas, too. Demand is high and production numbers relatively low. You can find more information on apollo-accelerators.com

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by grond

The "N68050" is now the 68080 or Apollo Core and available in the Vampire accelerator cards. The Vampires are faster than even the Phase5 PPC Cards and faster than 060 accelerators by a factor of approximately 3. So far they are available for the A600 and the A500/1000/2000 but there will be cards for the other Amigas, too. Demand is high and production numbers relatively low. You can find more information on apollo-accelerators.com

AHa, that explains a lot. Still leaves me with a few questions though... but thank you.

It is... no, my lappy battery is nearly dead, I'll leave it there... save for one thing.

Where is Natami, the lone individual who was supposedly left behind, or decided to part ways, or whatever?

Oh yeah, no disrespect intended with the nomad allusion. I have been a nomad many, many times. Have seen many, many places.

Must fly, I have an HD Caddy to put online today!

[grond]

You probably refer to the guy responsible for the chipset that made Natami special (Thomas Hirsch). I think he never actually abandoned his project but is just taking a long pause due to changing priorities. The Apollo Core team will also do a stand-alone which will be similar to what the Natami was about.

[Pat the Cat]

Right, thanks. The chip design people are awesome. Whatever crew they're currently part of, Apollo go way back away. Vampire looks awesome. Hardware is happening, people are making ideas become products. Natami wasn't just a pipedream. I'm so glad about that.

Not in a massive sales way, perhaps, but so long as your crew can stay afloat, that's what counts.

I have seen awesome stuff in the last week or so I resurfaced and explored the Amiga landscape, Stuff I suspected, had heard bits and pieces about but never quite saw. Maybe some people say I should have stuck with the crew I was with, but crews and people change. I mean one example, Phoenix... I always wondered if people would rebuild Amigas, but that was just beautiful to discover.

May many more beautiful times be had, with the Amiga. For many people, in the future.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

Right, thanks. The chip design people are awesome. Whatever crew they're currently part of, Apollo go way back away. Vampire looks awesome. Hardware is happening, people are making ideas become products. Natami wasn't just a pipedream. I'm so glad about that.

Not in a massive sales way, perhaps, but so long as your crew can stay afloat, that's what counts.

I have seen awesome stuff in the last week or so I resurfaced and explored the Amiga landscape, Stuff I suspected, had heard bits and pieces about but never quite saw. Maybe some people say I should have stuck with the crew I was with, but crews and people change. I mean one example, Phoenix... I always wondered if people would rebuild Amigas, but that was just beautiful to discover.

May many more beautiful times be had, with the Amiga. For many people, in the future.

perhaps I can say something about Natami... hardware and chipset was developed by Thomas Hirsch, there was no team behind it, just one man (forum discussions were misleading there). In that context development of apollo started as a independent project. Then there were changes at Thomas Hirsch (new job with lots of new things to learn) and then he officially took his hardware and chipset with him, ending Natami. That was the last thing I heared directly from him, I read somewhere that he has not completely give up the project and was working on the hardware which is oldfashioned today but I would not recommend anyone to wait for it.

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

perhaps I can say something about Natami... hardware and chipset was developed by Thomas Hirsch, there was no team behind it, just one man (forum discussions were misleading there). In that context development of apollo started as a independent project. Then there were changes at Thomas Hirsch (new job with lots of new things to learn) and then he officially took his hardware and chipset with him, ending Natami. That was the last thing I heared directly from him, I read somewhere that he has not completely give up the project and was working on the hardware which is oldfashioned today but I would not recommend anyone to wait for it.

Thank you for the response.

I'm a patient, patient guy. TBH I never really expected upgrading classic Amigas so much was even viable.

Vamped A600s are running rings around 604e equipped A4000s. Never saw that ever happening.

[eXeler0]

@Pat the Cat, sound like you had a break from Amiga for a bunch of years.
I used to follow Natami "with one eye" while not being very active Amiga user (meaning all Amigas stored away in the basement) but in the end it *was* the promise of a reignited 68k Amiga that got me back to being active again.
Its really been picking up speed the last 1.5 years or so. And now we are a whole bunch of ppl with Vampire equipped Amigas and stuff like AMMX optimized software is starting to show up (so suddenly you can play movies @640x360 on your old Amiga)

It's still very much a "beta tester" experience, but its pretty impressive, so if you wanna "come back" for real, now's a good time.

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

@Pat the Cat, sound like you had a break from Amiga for a bunch of years.
I used to follow Natami "with one eye" while not being very active Amiga user (meaning all Amigas stored away in the basement) but in the end it *was* the promise of a reignited 68k Amiga that got me back to being active again.
Its really been picking up speed the last 1.5 years or so. And now we are a whole bunch of ppl with Vampire equipped Amigas and stuff like AMMX optimized software is starting to show up (so suddenly you can play movies @640x360 on your old Amiga)

It's still very much a "beta tester" experience, but its pretty impressive, so if you wanna "come back" for real, now's a good time.

Well, I always wanted to "check in", in the sense of contributing some more work for the Amiga. I did learn a lot about recasing and mobilizing Amigas. I've certainly never gotten rid of all my kit, and it's about time I at least organized the heap.

When I checked out of Amiga Format, I still had about 2 cubic meters of back mail addressed to me. That alone took a year and a half to shed from the load.

But, I wrote a bit, earned a 4:2:2 mixing desk, and did some gigs with the two of the beasties in a travelling case. It's not like all I did was write a lot of old bollocks that was more popular than Penthouse at the time. That's all gone, in terms of hardware, but I think I've still got quite a bit of my old executables intact, and they should still be quite fun for other people to enjoy sometime. It's not like I ever released them after I coded them. They vary a lot in requirements, but some should work fine on a low end Amiga, with a suitable 8 bit sound sampler and mic attached. You can wire straight into a DJ soundsystem but that can cause issues, a mic'd up sampler does the trick nearly as good.

I thought, let's see if you can do that, help other folks VJ if they want to. Didn't realize things were as hot as this on the Amiga till I stepped in and had a chat.

[Tigerskunk]

I remember how drab everything looked ten years ago.

At the moment though, it's really a great time to be an Amiga-fan again.

I think the fans, "the scene" so to say, took the Amiga back to where it belongs, so we got lots of great new 68k-hardware, new cases and keys, and even game development takes up some steam again with new releases on the horizon everywhere.

And I think it will even get better in future.

( And these stupid "Red/Blue/Black-fanwars" are finally almost over. )

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I remember how drab everything looked ten years ago.
)

Really? You ain't seen a classic Amiga really blow minds till you seen it running a particular piece of mine. The original, as it were.

It's like any demo, you've had enough after an advert length or more. Unless it's listening to a piece of music that you are emotionally attached to. Then it can... well, I'll just have to shut up and put up, soon as I can.

Realtime sound FFT analysis with graphical feedback related to bitmaps and colour strobing. Pseudo 24 bit psychedelia, synthetic synasthesia, on OCS or later Amigas, Yah mon. See any music. Hear any vision.

Very nice principle code to understand if you've got a bunch of analogue inputs to monitor on a digital system in real time. Limited to 8 bit audio though, and VERY limited in other respects. But the source might be of educational use alone to study. It's certainly not system or WB friendly, very hacky. Could be adapted to use system 8520 CIA timers, but would not be as sensitive SNR ratio higher ratio in operation, I think.

[Locutus]

So where is this amazingness?

[Pat the Cat]

Awaiting working hardware to make it all available. Should be up in, oh... piece of cosmic string size.

Or are you a quantum uncertainty guy, when it comes to that sort of Planck length subject with regard to time?

Anyway, this is V2 of alternative amazingness in the meantime. Almost certainly a repost, but it's still kind of amazing, so please be patient, I'm a busy gusy juggling with lasers currently.

http://www.htwins.net/scale2/