which reminds me which one of these three is the best storage format?

*Commodore GCR
*MFM
*RLL

That is great.  Congratulations.  I wish there were more people like them.  Did you notice the disclaimers were still up on the site?

[Quote]A note to our visitors. As we are still very actively working on the project things can still change. Also, quite some work needs to be done on the software side - it can be that some features do not make it into the "1.0" version...[EndQuote]

Did you notice that the 68040 was being used and isn't an FPGA that you have to design?  It means they don't have to spend time building the chip because it is done for them.

[Quote]Q: What USB stack is used?
A: We are still working on that![EndQuote]

When is it available?

"Right now the UltimatePPC is in active development, we expect to be able to take pre-orders at the end of 2012."

Did you notice the words "active development" and "expect to"?  They aren't exactly promises and the debugging isn't done and stuff isn't finished.  Revision means you have to get stuff fixed or replaced which means you have to spend your hard earned cash.  End of 2012?  You mean it isn't finished.

It could be finished.  What about a status report to the potential bugginess of the card?  You want it out by the end of 2012.  If it is late, do you think they will have time to successfully test and troubleshoot it?  I hope so.  What about long term testing?  There are over 500 parts that could go wrong.

Even the team you mentioned has limitations.  Why don't you allow others to have limitations as well?

[Quote]Right now it is impossible for us to respond to every single email. If you want to get in touch with us because you want to contribute driver code, please send us an email at contact at ultimate ppc dot nl. We will try to get back to you. For all other questions please use the public Amig a fora. We will try to monitor the following two fora when we have some spare time![EndQuote]

In all fairness, they aren't even done under project status as their web page hasn't been updated:

[Quote]•Implementing drivers and OS compatibility, no estimated completion date yet
•Testing, no estimated completion date yet
•Production of boards, no estimated completion date yet[EndQuote]

One team has a full system and the other one doesn't.  Both teams have work done.  One team is making promises without being done and the other team is not making promises.  Both teams can deliver and both teams might not.  There is 100% certainty that the Natami isn't making empty promises because there are none.  There is a question to whether the other team's projected outlook of pre-orders at the end of 2012 is realistic or not but if they should fail and it doesn't look like they will but if they failed it would mean you allowed yourself to believe the best intentions.  I'd rather rely on empirical data than hope over truth.

Maybe.... but ....

Hardware Section wrote:

The MX board is available for developers since Feb. 2011 and will be produced for customers. The MX board is fully operational and is fully able to run AMIGA software. The MX board FPGA is more powerful than the LX board. The FPGA size is dimensioned to hold SAGA, 3DCore and CPU Softcore.

....and ......

take a look to the question+answers section ...

nothing has been promised but nothing has been denied

....and if you could read that section today for the first time, what would you think? Hey .. wow ... follow the forum so let me find out when it's ready!!

Chuck T wrote:

Can't you wait like everybody else?

I firmly believe that everyone has lost patience, but they make the best of a bad situation. (firmly!!)

Chuck T wrote:

If you are unhappy about it now, you would be unhappy about them selling it with a revision being necessary.

A revision will always be necessary even if the project seems perfect

Chuck T wrote:

Are you sure if you bought it that they would be working fast enough to keep you happy or would you be a disgruntled customer?

The real fuel :)
The life is short and the crisis presses!!

;)

I think a wise manager would try to keep us all together.

I went broke as a young college kid with the Amiga and the upper class could afford all kinds of changes to a computer but not the lower class and not the middle class.  Some people have no concept of money and others do.

Some people are wise with money and they thought the Amiga 2000 was overpriced.  If you do a run of computers, those who try to afford it the first time around might not afford to upgrade the second time around and that hurts programmers because then you have to write for two systems instead of one or you have two incompatible systems.

It also destroys the buying power where you get a cheaper rate on buying thousands of components instead of just hundreds.

I would rather have people from the industry making decisions.  My boss has been in business longer than me and they don't take many of my ideas because they have tried everything.  And my boss likes to do things all at once instead of going back and forth because it is inefficiency. 

If you want to slow down development, start having them produce the boards and you won't have AVA right away and then it might take more years to get it because they will be concentrating on other aspects of the project and incompatibilities could creep in.  When Commodore made a product, one of the things they did was freeze a design once it was completed and you can't if you are going to add AGA and incompatibilities can creep in.  I vote "NO" and I want the Natami team to not only finish the board but to do it right the first time and for them to have all their ducks in order.

One last question and then I put my mind at rest.....

Are you (100%) sure that the project Natami will be released?

  I think if you see distributors like them getting onboard then you know it is the real deal because they almost guarantee you a delivered product or your money back because they are reliable.
 
 

If it wasn't going to be released, there is nothing you can do about it anyway so what good does it do to worry about it?  You can't legally make someone produce it and if you could,  they could make life miserable by putting bugs in the software and hardware.  So why worry about something you are powerless to change?

I have heard of kickstarter projects reaching a million dollars but the question is how or whether the Natami team will qualify:

[Quote]
¡Backers consent to Kickstarter and its payments partners authorizing or reserving a charge on their payment card or other payment method for any amount up to the full pledge at any time between the pledge and collection of the funds.

¡Backers agree to have sufficient funds or credit available at the campaign deadline to ensure that the pledge will be collectible.
[EndQuote]

You are not charged until the project funding deadline is met AND that the required funding goal is reached. If the funding goal is not met, any obligation is freed.

Like in the Viva Amiga case, you can either be a supporter or preorder the item in various packages (like the top package had a signed amiga 500 by some key amiga people on top of the other items).