# The Amiga is making a comback



## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Do any of you remember the Amiga computer platform? There is still a large following and many users that still have functional systems including myself. 

The NatAmi Project was announced recently and basically there is a new design being built that will incorperat much of the original feel of the Amiga but with all the new hardware making cpmputers run as fast as they do today.

This hardware project is dedicated to the still innovative system architecture of the Commodore AMIGA computer.

The basic concept is straight: Get the original Amiga design up-to-date.

The NatAmi approach is to rebuild the original system

* without emulation

* without abstraction layers

* without legacy drawbacks 


This means the system needs to be built from scratch. It will not use standard PC components when their adaption or implementation causes workarounds which limit preformance, functionality or usability. The priority is to build a very simple system design which is predictive, easy to use and fast responding like the amiga was/is.

The original creators put great effort and many thoughts into how to keep things simple. The NatAmi is intended to keep this guidline as the foundation of its system.

This concept is the project name: Native Amiga

The NatAmi does not revive or copy an A500/A4000. It will be a succeeding Amiga model not done by emulation - it is done by reconstruction. Up-to-date and good performing components are used to retain the efficiency. It will rely on the original philosophy - but remove old limitations.

The NatAmi is an AMIGA compatible machine, allowing you to natively run original Commodore Amiga software.

More info is located here


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

Very very cool indeed!

My first PC was an Amiga and I still have it and last time I tried it everything still worked.

Back in the day the Amiga destroyed everything else, but they never really marketed it properly and bad company handling did it in. 

I'll have to swing on over and read the article...


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

My Amiga 4000 is still running great I have the Video Toaster 4000/Flyer and use it from time to time.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

I have an Amiga 1000 from back when that's all there was!

I remember a friend coming over to check it out and he was trash talking it (in a fun loving way us guy's trash talk to friends  ) but soon he stopped all jokes and had his jaw dropped!

You have to remember this was back in the day that the 486 was just coming out. He had a 486 and just bought the then brand new SoundBlaster card that was still mono! When he heard my Amiga doing stereo and killer graphics he was flipping out! But the best came when I was looking through my hard drive(more on that in a sec) and I popped a disc in and started formatting it and went back to doing other things. I didn't think twice but he stopped me dead and asked how I was doing that? I asked doing what? and he asked how I was formatting something and doing things at the same time. IBM compatibles were still a long long ways off from even dreaming about multitasking!

Okay that hard drive... I bought a ram board that was the size of a house and I can't even remember how much ram it had! The drive... it was a whopping 20MB in size and I paid well over $300 for it! That wasn't a typo! 20MB was HUGE back then!

Man the fond memories though! I remember playing the original Prince of Persia on my Amiga, and Karateka was the bomb! And this thing could do graphics too! Aladin was rendered on an Amiga as was the POV perspective of the Terminator in the first movie.... Babylon 5 was all Amiga, and they used Amiga's for the wireframe rendering in Jurassic Park. There was nothing else out there that could do what it could.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Even today The OS runs circles around the PC if you consider it only needs 16mb of ram to run and takes up less than 80mb of disc space for OS3.5. 
With the Video Toaster I can still edit video real time without rendering sequences. Great for a machine from 1993


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