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When the Amiga was created they first thought about the ideal machine they wanted to create and
when they got the philosophy ready they implemented it as best as possible. Because of that the
Amiga does not depend on its implementation - and this philosophy is what NatAmi stands for.
Compatibility and Legacy
The motivation for NatAmi is compatibility. The compatibility mentioned here is meant to the Amiga's
own philosophy. Legacy to a certain model is something different and has only second highest priority.
If it was the highest, the result would be a perfect replacement for an A4000
or A1200. Every extention ever made would fit perfectly - and the first thing you would be looking for
is a scandoubler or flickerfixer only to display a picture on a common VGA monitor.
The NatAmi will take care about legacy but not at all cost. If it does not hurt, legacy will be kept.
For example the '030 prototype can run both A1200 or A4000 Kickstart offering simply both IDE
register layouts, because it does not hurt to map the IDE controller both styles.
Anyhow effort will be spent to test compatibility and ensure high grade
compatiblity to existing software wherever possible.
Topics on Compatibility:
- The NatAmi is compatible to the OCS/ECS/AGA AMIGA chipsets.
- AMIGA Kickstarts 1.2, 1.3, 3.0, 3.1 are supported
- We recommend AMIGA Workbench 3.0 - 3.9 to be used
- AMIGA 4000/1200 register compatible IDE controller on board (enhanced, PIO and DMA)
- Existing AMIGA IDE harddrives can be used unchanged
- AMIGA DD/HD floppy support using standard PC Floppy drives.
- Floppy drive access can be redirected using ADF images on HD.
- AMIGA applications, games and demos that run on classic 68060-Systems,
will run on NATAMI as long as they have not any constrains to chipset timings/limitations.
- Direct hitting of the Amiga hardware works natively.
Querying CIA, and blitter registers will fully work just like on original AMIGA hardware.
All features documented in the Commodore Hardware Reference Manual, work as written there.
Enhancements will be described in similar style and quality.
- PS/2 mouse and keyboard can be used just as well as the original devices.
PS/2 devices are mapped to the original hardware registers.
Success of this compatibility:
The Amiga-community is still incredibly full of life! We got contributions to this project
and a fantastic response from many friendly people out in the community from the start.
We would like to credit:
Genesi for supporting our CPU evaluations
The technical skilled folks in the NatAmi-Forum and via Email:
Thank you for participating, your ideas and also your moral support
Thanks for Kickstart-Development Tools, we got sent by EMail
Manuel Jesus from storyboxink for the Natami-Logo design
The Team of ART - Amiga Round Table - being on your show was fun
The Amiga printed media and Amiga-online magazines
For updated webdesign-content and ideas: thanks Asaf, Leon and others
Many contributor we might have forgotten to mention!
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