Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: mikeymike on June 11, 2003, 06:20:05 PM
-
I couldn't believe when reading the related Slashdot (http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/03/06/11/128248.shtml?tid=126&tid=154&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99) article, the "requirement" for AmiZilla to run on a 68030. What plain of reality is whoever wrote the AmiZilla FAQ (http://www.discreetfx.com/AmiZillaFAQ.htm) on?
I've written to them about it. How stupid will this make the Amiga community look :-?
I think the FAQ should at the very least say PPC =>200MHz, or to be more realistic, 600MHz.
And guys, please don't talk about that you'd prefer developer time to be spent on another piece of software instead, we've been through that before :-)
-
See what I mean, mikeymike? Didn't I say this would happen?
-
agree on that... first priority should be ppc.. People who still run 68k and expect to run such major apps. :O
-
@ KennyR
If it was you I was arguing with before about it, I didn't realise you were talking about its mention in the FAQ, I thought you were saying that's what would be generally expected.
Scary, either way.
-
030 is enough!!!! i know as i played unreal tournament in 1280x1024x32 on my standard a1200 with 4mb fast ram yesterday in 200 FPS!!
bleh..
yes the amizilla shouldnt be aimed at anything below PPC!!! , 68k...well maybe one day...but 030???? well if that will be done it will be one heck of a slideshow even on a 060....well thats my guess anyway.
but hey...lets wait and see :)
-
As long as Amizilla is Openamiga compatible then it should be possible ot compile it for 68k, PPC and x86... with a suitable OS :-D
-
@ bloodline
So, no CPU optimisations whatsoever then? :-)
I think the phrase I'm looking for is "and the cow jumped over the moon" :-)
-
Well... A 68K version is needed if you want to run it inside of Amiga Forever/Amithlon/UAE. Also, MOS and OS4 could at least run a 68K version for a first cut/test... after which a PPC compile would be nice. :P
Anyway, there isn't a technical reason for not to work on a 68030, except that most people would probably go mad before they even open the first webpage. :P
-
Mozilla is already available on systems running UAE. :-P
-
Considering that OS4 isn't going to be ported to m68k at all, and [I think, not sure, could be wrong] MorphOS only runs on PPC as well, what's the point in writing Mozilla for m68k?
There is a technical reason for it not to work on a 68030. Infact, quite a few. First off, Firebird really is very slow on a 166MHz x86 box, let alone Mozilla. Secondly, it costs significantly in developer time to port to another architecture.
-
mikeymike wrote:
@ bloodline
So, no CPU optimisations whatsoever then? :-)
I think the phrase I'm looking for is "and the cow jumped over the moon" :-)
gcc amizilla.cpp -O3 ;-)
-edit-
but for A500 68000 7.14 Mhz, it'd have to be
gcc amizilla.cpp -O999999999999999999999999999999999999 ;-)
-
Let's not forget also that the users of 030 and 040 CPUs would be unlikely to have enough RAM or even HD space anyway, far less a GFX card - notice that AGA is not a requirement.
-
bloodline wrote:
As long as Amizilla is Openamiga compatible then it should be possible ot compile it for 68k, PPC and x86... with a suitable OS :-D
That's a great idea Matt.
If the frst major (recognizable to outsiders) application to be ported to next gen Amiga's is OpenAmiga compliant then it'll be a major PR coup for us.
Who's working on Amizilla then? Marktime? Whoelse?
-
FAQ updated
-
pot is soon 4000 now.. if i was a programmer with some spare time, i would for sure go for this..
-
It will run on a 030!!
But nobody said that it will be useable... It was not a requirement!
So.. maybe it will load up in 5 minutes, but it will run! :)
Anyway Mozilla is quite useable on a PPC 603e under Linux, so It would also good under AmigaOS. Maybe the 060 version could run too, but extremly slow...
-
bloodline wrote:
As long as Amizilla is Openamiga compatible then it should be possible ot compile it for 68k, PPC and x86... with a suitable OS :-D
CommodoreOne perhapps? :-P
-
It's worth reading just for the some of the funnier comments:first place:
"It's like Monopoly"
> Port Mozilla,Collect $3696
second place:
go directly to /dev/null
do not pass go
do not collect $3696
--------------------------------
made me chuckle
Siggy
-
FAQ updated for mikeymike yet again, thanx for the feedback, we strive for a clean and understandable FAQ.
-
It does sound silly to the rest of the world - mozilla for 030s, but mozilla running on a Mac Quadra 40Mhz/68040 was nowhere near as bad as I expected. It took a good while to load, but once it'd finished that thrashing about it was pretty usable. Not something I'd like to rely on browsing for several hours at a time with, but it made me want to just pat the little 040 for putting in the effort =).
The big problem was the UI, which seemed to take up half of the 640x480 res the machine was running in at the time!. Considering that's supposed to be one of its slower points, I imagine dropping that for a native UI would make things just a little better.
-
@ Pyromania
Updated for me "yet again"? :-)
680x0? Now it looks like it's supposed to work with any m68k CPU... but of course the problem is now you've recieved donations based on the terms you set up, you can hardly change a major item like removing m68k completely.
I think the pot would have to reach at least $20k (probably more) to actually entice some developers to do the work. Why? You're asking a near-impossible task. Compileable on HOW MANY operating systems/platforms? Think of it from an outsider-developer's point of view - this looks like a mammoth task multiplied by 10 due to those platform requirements, especially when they don't know what those platforms are.
Admittedly any press attention is good attention, but it can backfire if no-one takes on the project.
Can I ask what happens to the donated money if no-one takes up the challenge? No, I am not accusing anyone of corruption with this question, I am just interested.
-
Older versions of Mozilla work on 68040 Mac's so this task is not impossible, the porting has already started.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amizilla/
Amiga/MorphOS/WinUAE/Amithlon share a common API so while hard porting to all of them is not unreachable.
Lets not forget that the AmiZilla initative has given the Amiga lots of good press in none Amiga news camps.
http://news.com.com/2009-1088-984352.html
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/03/06/11/128248.shtml?tid=126&tid=154&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99
Your feedback is always welcome mikeymike.
-
Pyromania wrote:
Older versions of Mozilla work on 68040 Mac's so this task is not impossible, the porting has already started.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amizilla/
Amiga/MorphOS/WinUAE/Amithlon share a common API so while hard porting to all of them is not unreachable.
Lets not forget that the AmiZilla initative has given the Amiga lots of good press in none Amiga news camps.
http://news.com.com/2009-1088-984352.html
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/03/06/11/128248.shtml?tid=126&tid=154&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99
Your feedback is always welcome mikeymike.
Would it be possible to make one of the requirements of the Amizilla port to be "100% OpenAmiga Compliant", or a least encourage developers to code for the reference platform?
This would be a major PR coup to try to unite the community factions.
-
I will have to study up on OpenAmiga before I can answer that question. I am a quick study so I will begin my reading about OpenAmiga now. Got any links for me?
-
Pyromania wrote:
I will have to study up on OpenAmiga before I can answer that question. I am a quick study so I will begin my reading about OpenAmiga now. Got any links for me?
http://openamiga.tk :-D
We are still defining and refining the minimum platform specification for maximum portability betwen Amiga compatible OS's atm. So any ideas you have will be appreciated. AREXX compatibility is one addition yet to be added.
-
I think the FAQ should at the very least say PPC =>200MHz, or to be more realistic, 600MHz.
Mozilla 1.3 runs great on my Intel Celeron 400MHz, 196Mb RAM, win2000 and I have also seen it working on a Pentium II 233 MHz, 128Mb, win98 quite fine as well.
So I think your "realistic" 600MHz requirment "too much". Plus think, that it will run on a very less bloated OS than Windows...
-
Plus think, that it will run on a very less bloated OS than Windows...
What, like Linux for example? It's been a while since I ran Mozilla on Linux, but I guess it is probably still slower on Linux than Windows :-)
Mozilla 1.3 runs great on my
I guess "great" is a very subjective term, because I don't think any recent version runs great on my parents' P3-550/256MB NT4 box, and that is a well-set-up machine! To get Mozilla to run "great" on my PC (http://www.legolas.com/mikes/mypc.txt), I run it entirely from a 256MB ramdisk! Then it starts as quickly as IE does any time.
-
What am I hearing?
Hmm... I have a 68030.
When I was at Uni, just to prove it could be done, I used ShapeShifter to run Netscape (albeit, an old and not-so-cumbersome version) better than any Amiga browser at the time.
In fact, if I hadn't been able to hotKey back to WorkBench, I might have moved over to the DarkSide.
AmiZilla should be a cakewalk.
benJamin
At 680x528, you can watch Quake draw the frames, flowing down the screen like waterfalls.
Much faster than Cinema4D! :-)
-
What am I hearing?
Hmm... I have a 68030.
When I was at Uni, just to prove it could be done, I used ShapeShifter to run Netscape (albeit, an old and not-so-cumbersome version) better than any Amiga browser at the time.
In those days Mozilla had nothing to do with Netscape. Try running Mozilla on your 030 Amiga now, and you'll get a nasty surprise. Cakewalk, no way.
Mozilla is still slow on a 600MHz machine, never mind an 030!
-
I remember in 96 when I used to surf the interenet on my A1200 w/dkb Cobra 030@28mhz w/33.6 modem and Ibrowse! :P
-
In those days Mozilla had nothing to do with Netscape
In that todays Mozilla is larger and more encompasing than Netscape was? - Yes that would be true.
But Netscape has always been Mozilla (a parody on the name of an earlier browser - Mosaic) -- and of course the old joke (when the name was changed to Netscape) it's spelt N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e but pronounced 'Mozilla'..
But when all is said and done, I think the only reason to port Moz to the Amiga would be 'name recognition' on the browser.
Honestly, I'm not really that fond of it.
Siggy.
-
But when all is said and done, I think the only reason to port Moz to the Amiga would be 'name recognition' on the browser.
When it is all said and done, the main motivation is that there is no Amiga-platform browser that fully supports current web standards, like DOM and CSS. Actually it doesn't matter what the browser is called. The functionality is what people are after. For example, Genesi is trying to market MorphOS but a major handicap is the lack of a fully functional web browser. They even are doing, or trying to do, STB deals based on the Pegasos. Obviously this will require a modern browser too.
Just like NetPositive was a major weakness for the BeOS platform (OK, it's a fine lightweight browser but only HMTL3 compatibility), Voyager, IBrowse and AWeb will hold back acceptance of AOS and MorphOS (no offense meant to their developers). A new browser or a port or a major overhaul of an existing browser would be necessary for both AOS and MOS; AmiZilla is one approach that may work. If it doesn't there'll have to be something else or else this will be one more reason for these OSs not to survive.
-- gary_c
-
Yep, Gary_C, it's pretty freakin' simple, hey? ; } ...But somehow the subject has carried a lot of baggage. If our browsers are so freakin' fast how come their version numbers only go up a notch every 3 years? ; }
I'm actually hoping that a port of say Firebird would have all the teams/individuals with an Amiga browser in their care examining their priorities and either joining in on the Amizilla effort or quitting entirely or getting more happening for their products.
But I understand their predicament entirely, and I do appreciate the early years of sevrice those browsers gave me.