We need an iBrowse replacement for 68k!!!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Dumb question, but NetSurf is 4.0/4.1 only, right?  Any chance of back-porting it to 3.9 systems?  Thx!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Does it make a difference that OS4.1 runs on a PPC CPU?

Or are we expecting a 5 ounce sparrow to carry a 1 pound coconut?

Sorry I didn't read the whole 178 posts in this thread. Post #176 mentions (quote) "yes, that earlier test was on OS3.5". So I would assume that at least at some point NetSurf ran on classic systems. Maybe I should just google it, lol. :p

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Thanks for the clarification! Sorry I'm not a coder so not of any actual help, but maybe post a video of it working under 3.x in it's current state, and start a Kickstarter or something? I think there's a lot of people clamoring for an updated 3.x browser.

IMHO AmigaKit should fund it or send some programming help your way.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

@yasu

only if it was really a cheap bounty. ibrowse isnt anymore up to todays standards than aweb is, which already is open. and i doubt that the community needs more bounties for almost worthless code it cannot even maintain after it was opened.

The only difference is that Aweb is horrible, Ibrowse actually works.  

I know I'd throw in at least a C-note for an updated Ibrowse, am sure a few others would do the same.  Then a bunch more would come along and say "it should be free, blah blah".  The Amiga-wheel goes round-and-round, lol.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

AI guess I need 128MB like high end Amigas had 20 years ago. It's not a high cost.

Haha, wait, what?  I wish!  :angry:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Seriously, most accelerators can hold 128MB or you can get a Zoram for 3000/4000 for under a hundred bucks and you're not going to get far on the modern web without at least an accelerator card.

If RAM was the problem preventing a decent web browser, it's available and won't break the bank. That's all I'm saying.

IMHO, it's the CPU speed, but I don't think the amount of RAM used is a deal breaker.

Fair enough, if you have an A3000/A4000.  That kind of sets the bar pretty high though.  Systems with ACA accelerators could do it.  Personally I've been struggling to find 16MB GVP SIMM's for my A2000 accelerator for over a year, and not had a single bite.  That's another thing I would fork over good money for - some damned 16MB SIMM's for all the proprietary GVP accelerators still floating around out there in Amiga-land.  Would make them a lot more useful if someone would make up a batch!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Screenshot here :

http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/netsurf/ns.jpg

Looks good!  Who is that imposter George Jones?  :lol:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

The most feasable way to bring a modern browsing experience to classic Amiga, would be a with a dedicated proxy server that renders and optimize web pages for a dedicated browser on the Amiga. Something akin to what Opera does with Opera Coast and Opera Mobile, and I believe Google does too with Chrome on mobile. SSL complicates things though

I've used the amiga.org proxy server and it works fine.  On the flipside I've also used that Opera Mobile gimmick, which compresses websites so they "theoretically" load faster.  In my experience the additional processing made them load much slower.  Just my .02 cents.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I've fixed a lot of bad crashing on startup and other problems, to the point where NetSurf now works - mostly - on an (emulated) AGA machine.

NetSurf post-3.3 ALPHA for AmigaOS 3.5+ (save everything, back up, etc before using!)

Does not run on actual classic systems.  Well, it sort of does (better than previous versions).

What I did:  Unpacked archive and installed contents to RAM:NetSurf.  Assigned it there.  At this point I still had 54MB of memory free.  Loaded NetSurf, it asked for "TBImages" assign, I assigned it to the NetSurf: directory.  It opened a "NetSurf Output" window complaining about "unable to open fonts".  Main window opened and I got the welcome screen.  Tried to load Amiga.org.  It consumed nearly byte of available memory.  System was still functional and stable, but too slow to be usable (even scrolling up & down the page took 20+ seconds to refresh).  Here's what it looked like:

Also I couldn't quit because there was no "close" icon, and not enough memory left to open a pull-down menu, haha.  

Edit: Looks like my first two problems were the same utri007 posted about.  Still a big improvement over previous versions, most of which wouldn't even open for me!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Not sure if this is helpful info or not, but I am using diskfont.library version 45.8 (08/30/2010), my ENVARC: font cache is enabled, and I have both FONTS:CGTriumvirate.otag (205 bytes) and FONTS:CGTriumvirate.font (4 bytes) installed.

Running OS3.9 with BB1-4 plus (*ahem*) "a few other patches".  I am not running MCP.

If any of that info helps your troubleshooting?  Thanks for all your hard work on this!  I'll need to find your post about cutting down on the memory usage, haha.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'm not sure what MCP does

I believe it's mentioned somewhere that MCP can interfere with the way the system caches fonts, that's why I mentioned it.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Still waiting for your log file, Mike

Working on it now.  FYI NetSurf still won't run from hard drive.  If I so much as click on the icon or enter it's name from the shell, results in immediate system lock-up or reset.  But it runs "fine" from RAM:.  Go figure.

Edit: also it would not run with the -V option enabled (even from ram: ).  Started to load, did the font-scanning thing, asked for the assign for "TBImages", then locked up the system.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Aaargh!  It's being especially unfriendly today.  Just tried for the 5th or 6th reboot.  Got a whole bunch of font errors (the usual ones), then when I tried to resize the window so I could see my title bar, it froze the system again.  I get no love from this program!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

A little progress!  It consumed 53MB of memory just to load http://www.google.com.  And not even with images.  On the bright side, at least it's no longer defaulting me to Google-Poland, like the old version was!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I notice it asks for those fonts *a lot* (first screenshot).  But eventually (when it feels like working) it will load the page (second screenshot, Google search for "amiga").  I didn't get much further than this, it ran out of memory and started giving "Timeout was reached" messages in the Output window.