RetroAge Artykuł, Wywiad Retro wywiad – Bartosz Kuchta (członek projektu NatAmi)
ArtykułWywiad

Retro wywiad – Bartosz Kuchta (członek projektu NatAmi)

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Axi0maT: Could you tell us a bit more about NatAmi? What is it? How is it related to the familiar classic Amiga?

Bartek Kuchta: The „Native Amiga”, or NatAmi, is an Amiga compatible computer. The Amiga custom chips have been rebuilt in hardware from scratch. The available specs and documentation of the real Amiga, such as the Commodore Hardware Reference Manual, were used to ensure hardware compatibility.

But NatAmi goes beyond compatibility and also boosts performance. Upgrades are added by following the guidelines and philosophy of the original Amiga creators. This is a major strength of the NatAmi project. And therefore, our hardware behaves like a new Amiga, continuing on where Commodore left off.

A comparison here may be helpful to illustrate these two points. NatAmi is similar to MiniMig, which is also an Amiga compatible developed from scratch. But while MiniMig’s aim was to develop an A500 equivalent, NatAmi shoots for performance: the fastest hardware Amiga compatible ever, surpassing even the A4000/060 in power.

Axi0maT:Which improvements and new features does the NatAmi bring to Amiga chipset?

Bartek Kuchta: Some of these new enhancements and features are:
– Much higher DMA performance
– 24bit audio output with 16bit sample support
– More audio channels
– Higher screen resolutions, like 1280×1024 or 720p HD
– More colors, bit depths of 16/24/32, meaning up to 16 million colors with an alpha channel
– Chunky pixel mode (No more chunky-to-planar routines, all graphics can be handled directly as chunky)
– Much faster Blitter
– New 2x efficient Blitting modes
– DMA channel for IDE disk controller

At the heart of the NatAmi board is FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) technology. Since these chips are programmable, the NatAmi chipset can be updated after purchase without needing to buy a new computer. When updates are available, you simply download and install new firmware.

Some of the planned future updates are:
– The 68050, a new 68k compatible CPU for high compatibility, good performance, and low cost
– Tami, an integrated 3D graphics and texture mapping processor
– Robin, a multimedia processor for small, math-intensive media workloops (e.g. decoders, encoders, DSP, and so on)

Axi0maT:In which way is NatAmi superior to the combination of „classic Amiga + GFX Card”? And how much faster is NatAmi chip ram than the chip ram in an A4000?

Bartek Kuchta: The classic Amiga’s features are NatAmi’s foundation. NatAmi’s enhancements are built upon that foundation. Unlike an add-on card, NatAmi can open new screen modes which are visible to the system in the same way as the old modes. Direct hardware hits works in the same way as on a real Amiga. The new and improved NatAmi copper, blitter, screen modes, and audio all work together like the classic Amiga. This opens a whole new world of possibilities for applications, demos, and games in the Amiga world.

Comparing to the AGA chipset, the target for the memory interface on the first NatAmi board is about 50x faster. Plus the new blitter can use the bandwidth twice as efficiently as the old blitter. This is a huge increase in performance.

Comparing to a graphics card is a little different. Graphics cards have a lot of power in and of themselves. But the interface to the rest of the Amiga system is slow. Copying data to and from the graphics card through this slow interface is the problem. But NatAmi does not have this bottleneck. NatAmi can work directly in chip ram at full speed, and without extra copying. So NatAmi may „feel” 10x faster than a graphics card Amiga.

Axi0maT:After the fall of Commodore, many different Amiga based solutions appeared on the market, like Pegasos/MorphOS and AmigaOne/AmigaOS 4. What do you think about them?

Bartek Kuchta: The Amiga design was very inspiring in two ways: the amazing hardware and OS. The various Amiga solutions try to continue on in this regard. The goal to revive the original Amiga chipset was planned by some but not achieved. But most solutions focus on the software side and tried to port the OS to PC type hardware.

The NatAmi approach is to have both the hardware and OS together again.

Axi0maT: How does the NatAmi compare to other Amiga related computers?

Bartek Kuchta: AmigaOne, SAM, and Pegasos place an Amiga inspired OS onto commodity PC hardware with PowerPC processors. They are nice solutions, but this means that the machines have nothing in common with the classic Amiga hardware. You cannot directly run the original Kickstart, Workbench, or legacy games on them. And although they have many improvements in their operating systems, much of the efficiency of the classic OS is lost due to abstraction.

However, NatAmi is hardware compatible; NatAmi actually is an Amiga compatible machine. The hardware features which made the Amiga so innovative, like the DMA driven audio, blitter, copper, and so on are at the heart of the NatAmi hardware. And on top of that is Amiga OS 3.x — even plain OS3.x can run directly on the NatAmi hardware just fine. Legacy software can also run directly on the NatAmi hardware, no emulation required.

NatAmi and OS3.x bring back the the tight integration and efficiency of the classic Amiga.

Axi0maT:How is compatibility for old games and software dealt with on NatAmi?

Bartek Kuchta: As mentioned before, NatAmi is Amiga compatible by design. Most legacy games and software should run well on NatAmi. And because it uses FPGAs, incompatibilities can be fixed in firmware updates.

Axi0maT: From technical specs available on the official website, it seems that your hardware won’t be a speed-demon and has no chance to compete with latest computers on the market. So, why make NatAmi? Who is the target market?

Bartek Kuchta: We do not aim to compete with mainstream machines. Our goal is to build the fastest and most powerful Amiga compatible hardware. This goal was reached. NatAmi is more powerful than the fastest Amiga 4000. We also plan on making it better over time.

The target market is anyone who would like the legacy hardware and OS with enhanced performance; it is almost a bridge between the computing of today and yesteryear. The NatAmi brings back the fun of the late 1980s and early 1990s. NatAmi brings back the ease of Amiga development. But the NatAmi can handle today’s requirements for web-surfing, watching movies, or listening to mp3s. NatAmi keeps the friendly Amiga experience while drastically improving overall performance.

Axi0maT:Will there be developed any new games for NatAmi?

Bartek Kuchta: Yes. In fact, we have been working on a retro-arcade style game called 194X Deluxe. It is a sequel to 194X, written some time ago by Gunnar von Boehn. It is a vertical scrolling shoot’em-up game, something like 1942 Joint Strike and Strikers 1945 Plus. The game uses a higher resolution than previous versions, and introduces effects which were impossible on the classic Amiga. The intention is to have the magic and class of an oldskool game while testing out the NatAmi hardware.

There is also another jump’n’run game in development, kind of merging between the Castlevania and the Wonderboy series. The game will introduce NPC helper character that follows player during the game. Innovative animation approach will make use of the 3DCore, allowing object transformations (like scaling, rotating, zooming etc.). There will be even a beautiful giant owl which player would be able to fly on….

Axi0maT:Perhaps it is time for a few personal questions. Who is Bartek Kuchta and what was his beginnings with Amiga computers?

Bartek Kuchta: I am a student at one of the universities in London. My beginnings with the Amiga started at end of August 1994 when I got a 512k A500 as a gift.

Axi0maT: You are the only Polish in the NatAmi project. How did you manage to get onto the team?

Bartek Kuchta: Gunnar needed someone who to work on 3D models for demos, so I offered my help. I was quickly invited to the team. It was a very happy day for me 🙂

Axi0maT: What is your role in the NatAmi project?

Bartek Kuchta: I am a graphic artist there. My responsibility is to make logos, models, art, and graphics for use in various aspects of the project, e.g. the favicon on the NatAmi website was done by me.

Axi0maT:What Amiga games do you remember the most and why?

Bartek Kuchta: Nicky Boum, my first jump’n’run. Lethal Weapon, another I spent ages playing with. North & South, probably the very first game which introduced me to the fun of gaming with another human being 🙂 I have spent 72 hours (with short breaks for sleep) conquering new lands in Dune II. And my favorite, UFO: Enemy Unknown ECS version (later AGA). I had even written a simple editor for the PC version.

And why? In my opinion, these were games with soul where the creators put in a lot of thought and feeling. They were not the mass produced, cookie-cutter games we see today.

Axi0maT: Retroage readers may be interested in what games do you mostly play in your spare time? On which platform?

Bartek Kuchta: I still play XCOM: Defense today 🙂 It’s an amazing game, in my opinion, and a lot of beautiful memories remain. I really enjoy running the Sega Megadrive emulator to relive kicking Dr. Robotnik’s ass with Sonic.

I was literally mesmerized with Homeworld. C&C Generals and The Settlers 10th Anniversary were pretty interesting too (I loved The Settlers on the Amiga). Also the tiny but addictive Simutrans. And Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, when I want to play with another human being.

I would like to say thank you to all the NatAmi Team for eagerly supporting me during this interview. Thank you for the interview, Axi0maT. All the best to Retroage readers!

Axi0maT: The Retroage team thanks you for the interview. We wish you good luck. We will keep our readers posted on the project’s progress, and look forward to its release.

NatAmi Project Home Page:
http://www.natami.net/

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