Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: melott on February 04, 2008, 04:00:32 PM
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I'm sure this has been asked before.....
Is there any hope of a modern type Web Browser on the 68k Amiga ?
I've searched the forums and didn't find much. It appears all hope is gone.
There is a multitude of good software for the 68k Amiga, but the one piece
lacking is a modern type web browser.
I have to beleave it can be done, a browser that will run on a box-stock
68k amiga (an accelerated machine would be a plus).
Maybe the Amiga community could take a lesson from the AROS group.
Offer a Bounty...
I can see why nobody has taken on the project, nothing in it for them.
I'm sure there are still some good coders left in the Amiga community
that are up to the challange, they just need some incentive.
Maybe two or three or more coders could form a group.
If enough people contrubuted (say about $50.00) to the Bounty it should
stir some interest in those skilled coders that are up to the job.
They could perhaps do a 'Lite' version for those who are just looking for
a Freebe and a full version with updates for those who contrubuted or bought
the full version.
I for one would contrubute ........
Mel
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http://www.ibrowse-dev.net/
Its not dead, only slow moving... :)
AFAIK. Also, I think the rest are either AROS, MOS or OS4
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There have been a couple of attempts, none which have finished. It's a rather major task.
Bounties are a good idea, seems to work for AROS. However, there is a significant difference. The main strength of AROS is that it's a proper community. It has a site from which the development effort is focused. There is no such thing in the Amiga 68k "community". I say "community" because there IS NO such thing as an Amiga 68k coding community. It's all scattered. There are a couple of places where you can find some 68k coders (both assembler and C/C++) hanging around, but they're not overly active.
So who would coordinate such a bounty system? The main problem would be lack of focus, because it would be about individual applications, unlike the AROS bounty system which is (currently) mostly concentrating on getting the operating system itself into shape.
So as great as it would be, I don't believe it would work.
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Just back port from AROS, should be easy, Bernd does it with afa.
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Quote
So as great as it would be, I don't believe it would work.
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I agree, it would be a hard one to get going.
These coders with the skills know who the other coders are.
I kind of thought that if a Bounty actually was to come
about, it might be handled by A.Org.
Mel
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I just want to clarify a couple of points in my last post. First I'd like to demonstrate what I mean by no active 68k coding community. These are the most active Amiga classic coding forums I know of:
EAB: The coding forum (http://eab.abime.net/forumdisplay.php?f=37) is for the most part assembler coding, and it's about programming the copper and how to make PNG render 1 millisecond faster. See for yourself.
UtilityBase: The AmigaOS Classic - C/C++ development (http://utilitybase.com/forum/index.php?action=vtopic&forum=3) forum has three new threads thus far this year. The AmigaOS Classic - Assembler (http://utilitybase.com/forum/index.php?action=vtopic&forum=11) forum has no new threads since December 1st 2007.
Other coding forums includes the Amiga OS Development (http://www.amiga.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9) right here at a.org. Then you have Amiga Development (http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=15&15917) at amigaworld. Hardly reassuring either.
There are some more coding forums, but they are mostly like the above.
Now, all the above sites are great, but there's nothing that suggests there are grounds for a bounty system leading to a modern Amiga classic web browser.
bloodline wrote:
Just back port from AROS, should be easy, Bernd does it with afa.
That's a good idea. AROS has the AmigaOS3.1 API. But I'm sure there are some extensions as well?
Sorry about being so negative, but I just don't think there is much future in AmigaOS classic. I love it, but I think we'll have to accept that there will be no more major development in this area.
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Oh, and feel free to refute any and all of my points. Nothing would please me more than being proven wrong. :-D
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Caius wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Just back port from AROS, should be easy, Bernd does it with afa.
That's a good idea. AROS has the AmigaOS3.1 API. But I'm sure there are some extensions as well?
Not really extensions. One would need to port Robs Ciaro gfx lib to the 68k as well... again shouldn't be too hard... as I think that is sits on top of GCX... probably be dog slow on a regular 68k... but UAE would run it just fine I reckon!
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what about this then
Amizilla (http://www.moood.net/amizilla/version2/index.htm)
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JJ wrote:
what about this then
Amizilla (http://www.moood.net/amizilla/version2/index.htm)
Only two links on that site works. Paypal and the bottom link to the main SourceForge site. I also checked out the CVS repository at SourceForge, and from what I can see it's just a checkout of the Mozilla 1.7 repository, and a handful of additions like AmigaOS shared library support. There may be more, but I couldn't find it. Also the last update was 3 years ago.
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JJ wrote:
what about this then
Amizilla (http://www.moood.net/amizilla/version2/index.htm)
Yea JJ I feel you on that project, but..
Pressrelease: Amizilla Update
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!2005 06 28!!!!
AmiZilla is still alive- ROAar! :) This is a full update of what we've been doing for the last 6 months- work on the NSPR, XPCOM and how exe compiling is going. Plus we've started a multiplatform GTK->MUI(Zune)/Reaction abstraction layer- check out the screenshot and demo exe links!
I've been waiting on this thing (before2005) for so long that i forgot about it.....til you pasted the link again
:-D :-D
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Caius wrote:
JJ wrote:
what about this then
Amizilla (http://www.moood.net/amizilla/version2/index.htm)
Only two links on that site works. Paypal and the bottom link to the main SourceForge site. I also checked out the CVS repository at SourceForge, and from what I can see it's just a checkout of the Mozilla 1.7 repository, and a handful of additions like AmigaOS shared library support. There may be more, but I couldn't find it. Also the last update was 3 years ago.
Use this URL instead - Amizilla (http://www.discreetfx.com/AmiZilla.html)
Are there any Amiga programmers left that can take on a project like this? If I thought it had a chance I'd chip in more $$$ and I'm sure others would as well.
The code base for Firefox is too large for me to wrap my rusty C/C++ skills around and I don't have any Amiga API chops. Isn't there someone up to the task of porting it to Amiga?
I'd love to see it.
-Nyle
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That's more like it. My favourite item from their webshop: AmiZilla Classic Thong (http://www.cafepress.com/amizilla.9875668) :lol:
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Is there any way ordering a full version of iBrowse (probably a keyfile for the demo version)? As I can see, IOSpirit focus on Mac software, and not Amiga anymore. Any ideas?
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anyone notice " eyeOS " Web application by eyeOS Team
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@Phantom
Either list a wanted ad under classified here, or at amibay or amigaworld. Or keep an eye on eBay.
Or, wait and see and hope for the best. The IBrowse team hasn't said that they quit. But they haven't said that they're continuing either.
Those are the only legal ways to get IBrowse I'm afraid. I was lucky, and had a CD backup of my 1999-working amiga system.
But for new users of IBrowse... I'm afraid it's a though world... Most succomb to ask google for help...
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I'm not trying to pick a fight here.
If the iBrowse team gives up, it could be that they feel under-appreciated. Some one seems to be always posting "..when are we going to get a descent browser?". In truth, they produced the best browser the Amiga has seen so far (I've been happily using it for years.). It fits the Amigas strengths and it's aging CPU horsepower very well. With it, I can use yahoo, google, wikipedia, aminet, eBay, etc with no fuss at all. I can stream audio, get maps and satelite images, and download anything. In fact, it allmost never chokes on me (I can't say the same for any other aging OSes I use!). On the other hand, I don't frequent those sites that seem to aim at cutting the fashionable edge of surfing.
I have often wondered how usable a browser ported from another platform (that clocks 20 to 200 times faster and is used to a Gig of memory) would be on our now modest computers.
I'm grateful to have a browser as good as iBrowse, especially considering my Amigas were made years before there was a world wide web. I can't imagine the frustration of trying to get Amiga software for lower spec machines without having one machine on the net.
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It is very depressing that Firefox still hasn't been ported to AmigaOS/MorphOS/AROS. I mean look at this:
(http://images.drobe.co.uk/extra/ff2ros.jpg)
If someone has ported it to RiscOS then why not Amiga? Especially when there is a $10,000 waiting for the first person who does! I mean who uses RiscOS anyway!?!? I used it once at school and it was superbad!
I remember when the Quake source code was leaked and it was a matter of days before an Amiga port appeared. When ID released the Doom and Descent source all of a sudden there were loads of ports!
The fact that no progress has been made in porting Firefox must surely be a symptom of the fact that most of the hardcore devs have left the Amiga scene. :-(
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beakster2 wrote:
If someone has ported it to RiscOS then why not Amiga?
The RiscOS version is intended for Risc PCs, surely not for the old Archimedes type of machines. So expecting Firefox or similar browsers for 68k is pure nonsens. From the RiscOS wiki (http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Firefox): "most users will find performance unacceptably slow on sub-300MHz machines".
There is promising development for PPC Amigas though. Origyn (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2425) is progressing quickly and maybe Sputnik (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/photo.php?lid=2883) should be mentioned aswell.
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I think a lot of people in this thread underestimate what it is they're asking for here.
In my day job, I'm a software developer specializing in real time graphics and visualization using OpenGL under Windows. I've also developed for Linux and back in the day I wrote some BASIC programs on my old Amiga 500. I've taken a renewed interest in the Amiga and now have a 1200 that I'm teaching myself to program (screens, windows, sprites, etc).
There are several obstacles to getting a "good" web browser on the Amiga.
The first issue that I'm noticing is everyone wants something different. Some people want small and fast, some want full-featured. So depending on which way you go, half of the users won't like the browser.
Next, there's a huge variety in Amiga hardware. Do you want a browser that runs on a 512k Amiga 500 or a 256 MB PPC accelerated A4000 with a true color video card? It's very difficult to write something with that huge range of hardware targets. Unlike the PC, there is much less abstraction in place to help you scale things. Heck, I'm even noticing some of the C examples I've found for OCS chipsets aren't working right on my AGA Amiga, and they're using OS function calls to do their drawing! This means that any development that is going to work across multiple different Amigas would have to have a different back-end for each one. It's many projects wrapped into one.
People seem to think that the $10k for porting Firefox to the Amiga should be a big incentive. It's not, it's a joke. The project would probably take a developer who is experienced on multiple platforms and with all the different web technologies over a year of full time work to do, and he has to make the investment up front - no one is paying him while he develops, only if he gets it to work. Someone with that type of experience could be making $10k per month at his normal job. Web browser development isn't fun and sexy like games are, so people aren't likely to tackle such a difficult job in their spare time.
Lastly, I don't think a Firefox port is the right way to go anyway. I have 5 tabs open on my Firefox right now and it's using 90 Mb of RAM and probably assumes virtual memory will be available if needed. Please raise your hand if your Amiga has 1/10th of this memory available. Think of all the external tech libraries that it probably depends on that would also have to be ported. Is there a png library for Amiga? XML parser? Javascript interpreter? Java virtual machine? Flash player?
Despite all this negativity, I do think there could be a market for a lite, fast browser that works on 68k Amigas. It should be doable to make something that just does basic html (I'm thinking just tables, frames, text, and images) and works smoother than iBrowse (why can't iBrowse even scroll smoothly?), but it would be more like Lynx with a mouse than Firefox.
If I were to make something like that, would people buy it? Does anyone here have an idea how many total sales iBrowse had?
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@Merax ...
Just look at the number of users here at A.org ......
For a reasonable price I think most would buy a reasonably
performing Browser. You are correct in saying you can't
satisfy everyone but somthing that runs on say an A500
will satisfy enough ppl to make it worth while.
I would buy ... (I run an acellerated A3k)
Mel
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I wouldn't buy a browser, for what it's worth. Web browsers have always been free (or bundled) on modern systems, and as has been noted, the browsing experience on a 680x0 Amiga will never come close to Firefox/Mozilla, Internet Explorer, or Safari/WebKit on a modern system.
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For "raising hands": I have 130Mb on my A1200... :afro:
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I want a fast lightweight Amiga browser that reliably supports all standard html, the latest javascript, and has a flash plugin. This would be very useful even without style sheets, JAVA or similar as already mentioned. ClassAct would be nice to use as the GUI as it is supported in AmigaOS 4 as well as classic. There is already a very good start to this with AWeb...
http://aweb.sunsite.dk/
The source is freely available so if your a programmer then download it from the site above and have a look. I'm more of an old Amiga assembler programmer who has come back to the Amiga but I hope to at least get it compiling on my Amiga and help with some debugging and minor changes after I get my Amiga situated. Thanks to anyone helping on this project.
P.S. There is a recent 68000 version of AWeb on the link above. It's probably slow but I bet still useful to someone.
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Trev wrote:
I wouldn't buy a browser, for what it's worth. Web browsers have always been free (or bundled) on modern systems
To an extent true. But Opera for one was at a premium to begin with, true there was a free version, but it was limited, and had ads.
For the Amiga back in 98-99 I bought IBrowse1, upgrade to IBrowse2, Voyager3 and Aweb-II.
No matter how you look at it, mozilla.org has made a business of it's free FireFox. Opera has a business with their Opera Browser. And Microsoft and Apple must have their IE and Safari for their OS'.
Amiga Inc and Hyperion should have made a browser for OS4, and Amiga Inc should have made a browser for OS3.5 and OS3.9. But they didn't, because they didn't and still don't have the resources.
So this leaves enthusiasts, and third party developers.First ones will work for free, but it requires a certain level of dedication, motivation and free time. MorphOS and AROS seems to bring that to the table, so one day we might have Traveller and Sputnik. Certainly OS4 with OWB also has provided the needed spiff to a developer.
Now for third parties, money is needed. And for it to be money in it. There needs to be users willing to pay. And the majority of Amiga OS 3.x users are voicing that they are not. IOSpirit probaby felt this when they were selling IBrowse, and this is probably the reason to why they aren't anymore.
The only scenarios that hold any hope for OS3.x users are:
- A port of Traveller
- A port of OWB
- A rejuvenated IBrowse with a release 4(3 is already stated not to be a "perfect modern browser", and noone knows if or when that will be).
Traveller is the one hope I think that has most substance. Because it's being made for AROS which to some extent is OS3.1 compatible. But it's the one which is least complete atm.
So if you want to do it all, and an Amiga is your only computer, you need to learn how to code then... And you need to learn to do it well.
PS: I'm not asking for trouble, just calling it like I see it.
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Opera is free now... ? I remember way back when I got the free version with ads and paid for it to support it and get rid of the ads. But, the peecee with that install went away a long time ago. I have installed Opera (for free) on several peecies and Sparcs with no ads, no limits, nothing. I can only assume it is just free for everyone now.
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And there lies the problem. How does one become a compitent programmer? Do it yourself, or continue to wait.
no new updates to aweb apl though slow, it was promising and stable!
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@arnljot
I've been a casual programmer for the last 10 years or so, and I'm not at all interested in making money off the things I do. (I'm also not a GPL advocate, so I guess that makes me a computational moderate.) There are more than a few capable programmers here and elsewhere, but porting a project like Mozilla takes time. Most folks like to get outside a bit, spend time with family and friends, sleep, and live their lives.
Programmers are also notorious for getting bored or disenchanted and moving onto other projects. What amazes me is not the programming itself--anyone of average intelligence can learn to do that--it's the steadfastness (and often temerity) with which it's done.
Regarding legacy Amigas, they're certainly capable of running a modern browser, but users would have to be realistic about performance expectations.
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I agree that a browser 100% up to modern standards would likely be ridiculously slow, especially on 68k machines. (Personally, I'd much rather browse on a modern computer anyway. The ability to boot up IBrowse and handle online banking might be cool novelty fun, but torturing myself and my Amigas with something like Firefox sounds terrible.) From my perspective, IBrowse strikes a nice balance between being reasonably capable of handling the "basics", while retaining (very) good performance.
There's a somewhat up-to-date 68k version of ICab, and while I admittedly know exactly _nothing_ about programming (outside of some pretty wicked BASIC skillz, LOL), perhaps an amiga port of that would be easier than shooting for the stars with something like Firefox.
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iCab appears to be closed-source. I didn't see anything mentioning source code on the iCab site.
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As far as classic Amigas go - Web browsing will be extemely limited no matter what you do. Lets face it - you'll need either an AGA machine, or a graphics card just to look at a page with any kind of graphics. You'll need acceleration to use the web for anything short of an experience akin to pulling hangnails.
Then there's speed - I remember trying to use Netscape in the 90's with a 386, and later a 486.. and the experience was anything but zippy. Netscape itself didn't get that much better over time either - it became bloatware in the extreme.
Netscape/Mozilla to Linux was an advent I actually watched and followed - again, on computers of the time made me think that browsing on Linux was going to be a pie in the sky too.. It wasn't so much Opera, Konquerer, Mozilla, etc got better (though they did) - it's more the machines got faster.
Something that isn't going to happen with classic Amigas right now.
For giggles load up UAE and Ibrowse if you have it - and go through various settings in an attempt to view this website... you'll see what I mean.
Which brings us to browser choices.
Unless I can be shown otherwise - Amizilla is a dead dead dead project... I remember reading up with excitement when it was suggested - I remember getting tinglies when I saw it had it's own website.. it even had it's own Eric Schwartz mascot (which is like a AmiCommunity stamp of approval). The last news I can find is August 2006 - and nothing I can download, test, look at. Even if I did - I'd be using what, something ported from 2003 source? Hardly 'up an date' browser - fails on all fronts really...
AWeb on the other hand had a software update January 2008.
Browsing their site (which I might add is easier than the hodge-podge of websearching on Amizilla) I see how they want a 'classic' browser experience AND a modern one... Seems they realize the realities and are trying to address them - the project still has activity, it has something I can download and USE... It's not as ambitious and sexy as porting mozilla, but I've seen a million and one sexi sounding open source projects with an empty CVS too.
If I were more proficient in system and network programming - I certainly know where my time and effort (were I looking to get into a browser project) would go... As it is, reading this thread and looking over the options - I know where my support will go.
I'm not trying to yank anyones chain - I'm just trying to look at it realistically.
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huh? but this site looks pretty good in Ibrowse on a real amiga. It's just the lack of CSS support that annoys me, if there were CSS support I think most sites would work nicely in Ibrowse.... I don't think javascript support is as important as some kind of CSS support...
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SuperTurbo wrote:
huh? but this site looks pretty good in Ibrowse on a real amiga. It's just the lack of CSS support that annoys me, if there were CSS support I think most sites would work nicely in Ibrowse.... I don't think javascript support is as important as some kind of CSS support...
Now tell us the spec of the Amiga and compare to what I wrote above and see if what I've said is true.
I know it looks ok with either an AGA machine or a machine running a graphics card (and OK being the operative word here)- I've done it with Ibrowse and Amithlon several years ago.
BUT, if you start going down the spec from there you'll find things getting slower, nastier, and more cludgy. If you go all the way down to an unaccelerated A2000/500 you start to find things unusable (in the sense of how the web operates today).
Remember too - this is what I'd consider a BASIC website by todays standards.
The web has moved on - it's capabilities have expanded to take advantage of todays technology.
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well, most sites today still consists mostly of pictures and text, and probably will for some time to come. Of course if you want to see flash animations/applications or web-tv on an ordinary amiga then you can forget it (with some exceptions).
But also consider this; Javascript is such an inadequate standard that web-developers have to take precations when using it, because Javascript is supported differently in dfferent web-browsers Javascript is not what I would call a relible standard (such as xhtml). Of course CSS have this problems as well, but is generally better supported by most web-browsers. Also, considering the high bandwith costs of web-tv and the fact that Flash is not a standard component in any web browser and is also copywrighted by adobe, makes ordinary text and graphics plus HTML the dominating web standard for some time to come. So I guess the web won't evolve as quickly as some people want it to.
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CSS will be present in next version of IBrowse and it's already being coded for sometime now, just slowly.
I think HAM8 support for classic Amigas would be a great thing for browsing, too late of course, but there's still many classic machines at use even if some just as a hobby, that it would probably make a diference a convince more people to register.
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Ham8 is so slooooow and has some graphical bugs, but it still would look nice I think :)
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maybe we have to wait AWeb with a complete support to CSS, javascript and a decent Flash player plugin..
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SuperTurbo wrote:
well, most sites today still consists mostly of pictures and text, and probably will for some time to come. Of course if you want to see flash animations/applications or web-tv on an ordinary amiga then you can forget it (with some exceptions).
But also consider this; Javascript is such an inadequate standard that web-developers have to take precations when using it, because Javascript is supported differently in dfferent web-browsers Javascript is not what I would call a relible standard (such as xhtml). Of course CSS have this problems as well, but is generally better supported by most web-browsers. Also, considering the high bandwith costs of web-tv and the fact that Flash is not a standard component in any web browser and is also copywrighted by adobe, makes ordinary text and graphics plus HTML the dominating web standard for some time to come. So I guess the web won't evolve as quickly as some people want it to.
You didn't answer my question.
The spec of the machine you're browsing with. And would it be a spec you'd consider typical of most Amiga users today - in affordability and accessability?
As for the standards on the web - I'd offer that the standards are (and have been) set by the people using it. Modern browsers should support the modern web. High speed internet nowadays is pretty cheap - for me it's been affordable since 2000 (when I didn't make much at all) and nowadays it's on par with what I used to pay for dial up in the 90's.
A modern browser should be able to view the majority of a modern web - and my point being that as the Amiga falls further and further behind it's less feasable for people to try and make a modern browser that the hardware won't support in a handfull of years... sad state of reality. I can't fault folks for stopping development. For the handful of folks that will have or will be able to upgrade to a point where their machines can feasibly do this - it's a good idea to throw support behind the very few projects that is still in existance....
In this thread we have people saying that they'd like a browser for a 500...... I'm here to serve the coffee - you got it: Alynx.
I can TECHNICALLY browse the web on a C64... but is that what you'd call 'web browsing' by todays standards? In 95/96 I got a ppp account, amitcp, and Amosaic, and with a graphics card started pulling up webpages with graphics - this astonished some PC users because it was doing it better and faster than their 386's.... nowadays this simply isn't the case.
Whatever Amiga hardware and OS come in the future - they should include some form of modern browsing if possible, if they're to be taken seriously by todays computing standards.
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Jose wrote:
CSS will be present in next version of IBrowse and it's already being coded for sometime now, just slowly.
I think HAM8 support for classic Amigas would be a great thing for browsing, too late of course, but there's still many classic machines at use even if some just as a hobby, that it would probably make a diference a convince more people to register.
Good to see Ibrowse hasn't gone the way of the dodo - it's been my favorite Amiga browser since the Amosaic days.
If they do this, I'd buy another copy (my 3rd).
For HAM, I was thinking the same thing when trying to wrap my head around how the Ami could support the web without throwing major dollars into the machine. But yeah - theres the speed issue, and also the issue of whether it's viable for someone making a commercial browser to spend time developing that, or spending that same time bringing their features up to as close as they can to todays specs.
I really hope more people who are able support Aweb - it's pretty much one of the last viable options for folks to rally behind.