Internet web browser....

[Malakie]

Hi all,

Is there an internet web browser for Amiga that is up to date and works in most environments and most websites?

Malakie

[Malakie]

Aweb and Ibrowse are definately lacking.. I will try that beta out and see how it does.. Would love to get a nice current browser for Amiga since I hate using a PC.

Malakie

[Malakie]

Like everyone I am normally forced to use a PC for internet work.  However I have a laptop that is configured solely with AmiKit and works like an Amiga laptop from bootup on.  Thus would like to get better Internet capabilities.  

[Malakie]

LOL   You can actually Browse on the C-64!!   Never knew that.. so cool!  It is STILL my favorite computer ever of all time.  Wish I still had one to be honest.  I also had an SX-64 and loved it.. Man how I wish I still had one.

Anyhow, it is to bad more high end developers are not still around and working on Amiga projects.  Ultimately that will be the cause of the true end if that does not change.  If no one writes code, the machine is useless.

I would prefer to browse the Internet on my Amiga but alas based on the comments, it appears that is just not to be.

Malakie

[Malakie]

Tenacious wrote:
Gee Wiz!

Don't take any one's comments as gospel (except maybe mine, grin).  It's clear A.org members represent the entire spectrum of expectation. We have no shortage of negativity here. It's often shocking to me how people go on at great length about how limited, out-of-date, poorly concieved, under-powered, unusable, hobyist-only, games-only, collectable-only, unworthy of serious consideration, etc, the Amiga is.  All this on a site founded to promote and celebrate what a unique and relevant experience operating an Amiga can be.

Experience it for yourself!

You will then be more useful and better informed.

Heh... believe me I realize this.  I also agree with you that it is ironic in the sense of what people say here and on other sites.  As long as the two systems I do still own function, I will keep using them for many things I do in computing.

I have been absent for quite a while and am trying to catch back up on things.  I must be coming across as a newbie..  other than being way behind on news, the latest software and so forth, I am a long way from being new to the Amiga in any fashion.   There are some areas I have fallen behind on in terms of what is happening, the latest and greatest and what does and does not work.  Simply trying to catch up.

In fact, I could probably safely say I have had more inside experience with Commodore and the Amiga than many around.  I say that because I was part of the Commodore and Amiga team from the mid 80's to early 90's.  Working for Commodore was pretty nice especially since it happened to be my favorite computer company starting when the vic-20 came out.

It worked out great in terms of my careers as well.  I started in the US Navy, got hurt, was recruited by CBM, worked there, also started small Amiga dev company.. then  Amiga and CBM died, went back to work for government in law enforcement, got hurt again to where I am pretty much out of the game and am now sitting here typing on my computer keyboard trying to catch up on all that I missed, all that has changed and where things stand.

Malakie

[Malakie]

Tenacious wrote:

@ Malakie

Sorry.

What ya apologizing for?   ;-)   You didn't say anything wrong at all.. Just letting you know I am versed to save you some typing!   :-D

[Malakie]

From a technical standpoint, the Amiga and its networking capabilities are easily up to par for Internet browsing.  The problem has nothing to do with the Amiga hardware itself.  In fact an A500 or A1000 (with appropriate ram and networking additions could handle net traffic with ease.

The problem does come down solely to software.  And not just someone writing a browser.  It comes down to someone writing a browser for the Amiga!  There is a big difference in an app written using PC standards and Amiga standards.  You code a browser based and actually USING Amiga hardware (custom chips etc) as it was intended and designed and you can blow away any PC browsing experience.

And therein lies the problem.  How many top level, high and low level coders are left that truly know Amiga hardware well enough to write a browser for the Amiga and not just because of it?

For those that disagree.. think of it this way...  The Amiga can ray trace and produce awesome sound and handle graphics like no tomorrow.. BUT ONLY with software written specifically for the hardware allowing it to do it with that great design and those custom chips.  Yet it cannot be utilized and coded to handle awesome internet browsing?

Had I that level of coding experience I would do it... alas I am and was more of a hardware guy than a coder and never put myself down to really getting into the coding side of the Amiga.... wish I had now.... but then again I was busy enough working on the hardware!   :crazy:

Malakie

[Malakie]

Jiffy wrote:

And to be honest, although I realize the limitations of AGA (I really love my 1200) I fail to see why it would completely cripple any browsing experience. AGA is, although old, a very capable chipset which can display graphics nice and fast. You can use all kinds of graphics software with it and to this day be amazed at the quality and speed of it and then people are trying to tell me it's almost impossible to display a lousy webpage with some teenie-weenie pictures splattered across without grinding a pretty hefty 1200 to a halt because of AGA?

Again, if it is possible to (more or less) display a frakking webpage on a 1 MHz 8 bit computer with 64 KB ram, I expect the same page to be displayed immensely superior in terms of quality, speed and usability on a 50 MHz, 32 bit computer with 64 MB ram and tons of extra hardware. And although that webpage is indeed displayed in a better quality, the difference is not as big as I would expect it to be when comparing the hardware. The same webpage is displayed múch faster, in higher quality and with many, many more features with much less errors while viewing it on a lousy 486 running a piece of crap like IE6! I frakking hate that 486 just for being able to display a bloody website correctly and with an acceptable speed which my A1200/2000/3000 can't! ;-)

Again it comes down to simply coding for the hardware design.

Some have compared say an A4000/04 to a i486 pc.    I disagree there again.  Now if you run two identical programs coded exactly alike, one compiled on PC and one compiled on Amiga, then ok yea they are equal.  But if you code the Amiga version specifically to take direct advantage of hardware, that Amiga will run comparable to any machine today in terms of processing power.  Speed up the Amiga processor clock more and one could easily beat even top level PC's today IF the code is specifically written for the Amiga hardware design.

And I can prove it.. or I could proveit that is if the Battletech centers were still around and operating.. I doubt any of them are today.

For those that do not know, the Battletech centers were built in a number of cities including the first one in Chicago.  They were basically 16 individual {bleep}pits networked together, each with its own Amiga 500 heart and soul inside, running a FULL 3D virtual {bleep}pit simulation of FASA's Mechs from their Battletech series of games.

You see I was part of the team that help get those running and on a personal note, man was it freaking cool!!   :-D  Sitting in your OWN actual Battlemech style {bleep}pit with controls on each arm rest, pedals, main screen and buttons and knobs... as if you were sitting inside an actual Battlemech, and knowing there were 15 other people sitting in their own {bleep}pits ready to battle it out with you in on of the first true 3D simulation systems back then.

Anyhow, there came a time when the designers were having some problems, especially with not only rendering speed but main game engine processing speed.  My team (from the company I mentioned earlier I started) came in and it was kind of a nice coup on the programmers they had there.  They had spent weeks tweaking, changing, rewriting, altering and anything you can think of to the code to get it to run at a speed that was workable.. The best they had managed was 4 or 5 {bleep}pits at once and that was really pushing it.   Obviously not acceptable by any means.

I remember that day because it was a major breakthrough for the centers to become a true reality.  First, they had tried numerous 3D accelerator cards on the A500 boards but none worked.  Constant crashes, hardware faults etc.  This was some really high level code remember for what they were trying to do.  So the first thing I did was have them plug one of the hardware products we produced... which once I give the name here, I am sure some of you will have heard of.

We plugged Sapphire 020 cards into each and every {bleep}pits A500 board.  I was absolutely sure our small little board would do what was needed even though the big names had failed completely to work in this situation.  I do not know why I knew my card would work, but I just knew.  It took about 5 minutes to plug one Sapphire into each {bleep}pit board and power all of them up.... and for the very first time we had 16 fully running {bleep}pits without them crashing.

BUT frame rates were still not anywhere acceptable.  At first I was wondering what the heck was going on... then I realized two things.  1) the code was compiled with NO 68020/30/40 optimizations.  BTW, the Sapphire 020 was a bare bones 68020 & 68881 processor board with NO RAM on board.  Our design utilized the Amiga's own onboard ram instead of relying on its own.  This made a HUGE difference in compatibility.... thus the reason our little card became known for being one of the most compatible accelerator cards.  

But to get full benefit, you needed at least a 1meg Amiga and the code you were running needed to be compiled with the 020 optimizations turned on.   Many Amiga users back then did know that nor realize how many software apps back then really did not reach full potential because of this one over-site by programmers.  Had more software done and been compiled this way, well..let's just say many people are not aware of the real speed even an A500 could reach.
Once I pointed this out, the programmers recompiled a few main code libraries and programs for the Battletech code and we then ran another test.  And wham, in just 30 minutes they went from a system that was starting to look as if it may never truly become viable to 16 full {bleep}pits up and running at the same time with nary a crash AND with very nice frames per second rendering.

However that was not the only issue.  We also pointed out that much of the code was NOT even touching on or taking ANY advantage of the Amiga's main strength...  MULTITASKING via the custom Amiga chipset!  It took them some weeks of work, but they recoded to take true advantage of not just the Sapphire 020 board but the inherent Amiga custom chips and well the rest is history.  From what I remember, there were 17 centers built around the world in many major cities.  Now that I think about all this, I wonder if any of them are still actually running.. would that not be cool!

Suffice it to say, those programmers learned one small but hugely important thing about the Amiga.   You cannot code it like a PC or any other computer in the world because it is just far superior - even by today's standards and yes, it is STILL today in my personal opinion, a system that if we had people coding for it the way it was designed, would be blowing away even the dual core 2.8GHz system I am typing on now.

Had Commodore not died, today we would have Amiga's running on 68220 (heh) chips (yet still at a clock speed of only around 500 mhz or so - remember, 7.16 mhz started this whole thing!), a custom Amiga chipset design that had grown at the same pace as the pc market's advances have and if this had happened, we would have an Amiga that would probably be closer to a multi-processing, hyper-threaded, Cray than anything the PC OR Mac world could even attempt to match.

In my opinion, Take an Amiga 4000 with a 68060 or 68080, a nice Video graphics card and appropriate ram etc etc and some properly written Amiga code coded for the custom chipset and it will blow away any system in the PC market today running an equivalent software package.

[Malakie]

Redfox:

Yea I got the answers I was looking for.  :-)   Not what I was hoping for but not much I can do about that..

Malakie

[Malakie]

Do you have an URL for that by chance?

[Malakie]

InTheSand wrote:
Hi,

See this thread for comments on the 68K version, and here for the OS4 version.

Not tried either. I agree with the previous poster(s) that Amiga web browsing in general is one of those "because I can!" things, and not for day to day use unless visiting lightweight sites or PDA-enabled sites.

 - Ali

Hi,

I downloaded the version at the url's you posted.  But I am not able to find a link anywhere for v1.3.  The only version I could find is 1.24.  Do you or does anyone else have a link to the latest?


EDIT:  Ok perhaps I am missing something in my reading...  This browser is ONLY for OS4.0 and NOT available for OS3 users?


Malakie