It's always useful to keep the forum open in case Thomas, Team Members and others have exciting information they would like to share. I don't understand why some people are acting like the project is dead. :( Of course it would be better if Thomas "spoke" to the public a lot more but I assume that's not his style.

The expectations for this project have probably been too high at times. My opinion is that Thomas isn't the one who created them. It seems to me that he has always followed his own unwavering path. Maybe he should have put his foot down at an earlier date, but on the other hand, it's not always easy to predict the outcome of things.

I think Thomas has always been aware that his project is not done overnight. Based on his earlier postings it's always been pretty clear that there's been remaining work. Of course it would be easier for people to deal with this if he said things like "this is going to take time", or if he had come up with an informal schedule based on his past engineering experiences. This "communication thing" is probably the main reason why some people have become frustrated.

IMHO Gunnar was the one who brought this project to the public. His shiny enthusiasm gave a lot of life to it. I must admit it's kinda strange that he suddenly and brutally left what he started. This seems quite mysterious to me, and even though people do not have any right to claim anything in this regard, I think it would be great if we could get an explanation from the chief himself. :)

Last but not least:

For those of you who feel that time is being wasted by checking out this site, why not do something creative instead? Learn how you can master Amiga Assembly language for example. Come back in one to two years' time and show us what you've created. At the time, perhaps the "Natami" is completed too. ;)

I would expect the demand for answers from a company but not individuals on a hobby basis.

Thomas has answered my questions about the Natami in the forum.

The team has previously stated that Thomas has other commitments.  The real question is whether the users in this forum could work their full time job and then program an FPGA board in the rest of their time and forget family, time and commitments.

Would you be happy if Thomas quit his full time job and went poor to deliver the Natami?  I'm being sarcastic but isn't Thomas's welfare just as important as our own?  Is he allowed to have a life or should he just slave over it?

If I kept my commitments and worked on the Natami, work would be sporatic and the results might be unpolished because you just want him to get it done.  A programmer and designer has to have a lot of uninterrupted time or he could lose his train of thought and the result wouldn't be good.

Probably you're right, but 162 posts in this thread and almost 9000 views make me think that my curiosity is shared by all, and can not pass unnoticed

Chuck T wrote:

Thomas has answered my questions about the Natami in the forum.

Yes, but that's a long time ago and this project has reached a turning point since then. In the wake of this, new expectations and questions have emerged. People feel better if they do not have to live with uncertainty.

Chuck T wrote:

The team has previously stated that Thomas has other commitments.  The real question is whether the users in this forum could work their full time job and then program an FPGA board in the rest of their time and forget family, time and commitments.

Yes, and I have no problem with that. I support Thomas's decision but I also understand those who call for a plan, what will happen next etc. Do you find it strange that people are wondering about these things and are curious about them? That's human nature. Do you find it strange that they would like to have more detailed answers to what's going on with the project? What if people didn't care at all? Completely disinterested in the whole thing? I'm sure Thomas appreciates some attention and recognition for what he has achieved so far. Anything else would have been surprising.

P.S:

I believe everyone here understands that Thomas has other commitments and a life outside the project. That's normal and I'm sure there is no one here who wants to see him completely exhausted.

Chuck T wrote:

Would you be happy if Thomas quit his full time job and went poor to deliver the Natami?  I'm being sarcastic but isn't Thomas's welfare just as important as our own?  Is he allowed to have a life or should he just slave over it?

Of course not and I really hope he knows his limitations. Most likely he's having a great time while he's working on the project, too! His health and welfare is the most important thing, of course it is! :)

Chuck T wrote:

If I kept my commitments and worked on the Natami, work would be sporatic and the results might be unpolished because you just want him to get it done. A programmer and designer has to have a lot of uninterrupted time or he could lose his train of thought and the result wouldn't be good.

That's true. Let's hope he finds the peace, motivation and concentration he needs to keep the ship on course. :)

Finally, I do not think things necessarily need to be either black or white as you apparently like to present them. ;) :)

What uncertainty is there?  Thomas has work and we have to work because human beings have physical needs; We have to work or we know what happens - we get fired, can't pay our bills, can't eat and we will become homeless.

I would like you to build a computer from scratch and tell me how long it will take you to do it.

I was on a message forum and I could go to college or spent time on the message forum.  Which was more important?  The users from the message board kept asking me to come back as if my life wasn't important or as if my future wasn't important.  They all felt they were more important than my grades.

If you want to divide Thomas' attentiion then you really are causing a hazard for each project because talking takes away from doing.  He can build or he can talk.

Some people at work think I can read and talk to them at the same time and that is when I start making mistakes because I can't have my train of thought divided like that.

My dad had dental surgery and was bleeding.  The doc put him in front of other people because of his age.  The other customer came to talk to me as if he was concerned and all he wanted was information to yell at the doc.  All you care about are yourselves.

Is becoming increasingly difficult to follow your reasoning.
There is no logical justification to ignore completely the forum.
In fact there is one and only one, the will not to respond. Everything else is speculation.

@------------------ THOMAS --------------------------
  give us an answer to appease our expectations or I begin to think that you have completely abandoned the project at least for now. And if so let us know.

Whoa whoa whoa, take it easy bro.
NatAmi is still in the works, although it is now a bit more underground. Thomas will be here with the news when he feels he has something to announce. This may actually be a good thing, for he may be doing stuff faster when he's on his own.

In the meantime, we can chat about various Amiga stuff, and some team members may occasionally bring some piece of news. I still have faith, and am enjoying the ride.

;) No problem. A bit of brutal pragmatism :P

because I never thought that it was a scam neither I've never said that

Chuck T wrote:

Lorenzo, did you ever answer the question?  How many computers have you made from scratch and how long would it take you?  No one has answered this question to date and the reason is they don't want to have to deal with the answer.

No, I never created a computer from scratch, I played with Spartan6 boards for hobby, but I do not think I can build a computer from scratch (I have difficulty to adapt the core tg68, say nothing of make the whole system).... But I do not claim it,
I think the team Natami is far ahead and I do not think that now the fans require a perfect product, even for me, underestimate the availability of "amiga average (old) user" to update the firmware several times.
  The important thing is that it is as flexible as possible to future improvements and forced as little as possible from today's demands

I will convey 2 stories of what happened to me just 2 weeks ago.

I have windows 7 Professional 64 bit, my legitimate copy (yes, paid for by me).

I have 16 Gigabytes of RAM.

The GeForce GTX 570 video card with 1.25 Gigs of RAM
Memory Clock 1900 MHz (3800 data rate)
Graphics Clock 732 (MHz)
Processor Clock 1464 (MHz)

i7 2600 4 core CPU, 3.4 GHz.

2 * 60 GB SSD drives in striped RAID to read data faster....

NOT IMPRESSED!

Not impressed by boot up or graphics, or sound..... OR SPEED!!!

Got practically NOTHING on my hard drives and they're NEARLY FULL!!!!

I bought Diablo III at midnight on Monday, release day.

The box says you need 12 Gigabytes of hard drive space.

I made 12 Gigs available....

It WOULD NOT INSTALL!!!!!!

Turns out it needs FIFTEEN POINT ONE GIGABYTES FREE to do an install!!!!!

AFTER installing, it ONLY was using SEVEN Gigabytes of hard drive space.

windows COULD NOT INSTALL the game without FIFTEEN GIGS available for a SEVEN Gigabyte video game!!!!

Story 2 related directly to the first.

After that, I had only 2 Gigabytes of computer system RAM available.... I was running NOTHING except for the anti virus program and whatever the heck windows uses so that it can work. No other extra software was being used, but because of "how I work" only 2 Gigabytes of RAM was free of 16 Gigabytes of RAM available...

I started google chrome. It starts in it's default page not displaying anything from the internet.

I clicked on google.com. google chrome freezes for a few seconds... THEN QUITS! I try again, it does the same thing!

GOOGLE CHROME NEEDS MORE THAN 2 GIGABYTES OF RAM AND 1.25 GIGABYTES VIDEO RAM COMBINED TO WORK!!!!!!

Computers have become an UTTER DISGRACE to how they should be.

I will wait for the NatAmi no matter how long it takes you guys to complete the project!

I want nothing less than to use a genuine REAL AND PROPER computer.

I absolutely thank you for your efforts and believe they will all be worthwhile.

In the meantime, to get my Amiga fix, I have just bought an A1200 from e-bay, have to wait about 5 days for delivery.  It looks in new condition with no creaming of the case/keyboard.  To go along with that I have ordered a scan doubler(Indivision AGA Mk2) and a 68030/42MHz 64mb ram accelerator card (ACA-1231/42) both NEW products from Vesalia online. It will be a real blast from the past but with some nice little improvements.  Obviously not a patch on the Natami, but should keep me going.

My original Amiga was the A500 which I loved for years, alas no longer own. It will be interesting to play with the A1200 which has an internal 4GB CF HDD and is plenty of space for the OS, games, and apps.  Everything was much simpler then and somehow more enjoyable. This is part sentimentality I know, holding onto the golden era of home computing, but so what?

I will still use/need to use my PC's as that is where my work is.  Also, I do have applications that I like and use on them, so my time will be split between old and new.  I hope, a happy balance.

Anyway, I think the Natami project is great and my favourite from the current Amiga-type computer/emulator options, it being faithful to the original in terms of hardware, a new 68 processor!  Emulators are clever but still not an Ami!  The PPC derivatives are clever but to me, a world away from Amiga. They are computers made to run OS3.9 etc., and have to emulate a real Amiga to run legacy code.  The other FPGA computers are good, but Natami concept is better.

Future and Previsions are just illusions. Sit down, enjoy your life and have a NatAmi when it's done ;)