Anywhere to get Ibrowse from?

[Franko]

On my OS3.5 CD there is a fully working version of AWeb but having never used it I'm not sure if you need to have 3.5 installed on your machine for it to work...

[Franko]

I'm using Aweb 3.5.9 beta in my 3.1 setup. Slow as hell, but fully functional. Images and javascript plug-ins seem to require an FPU, as they work OK in my A1200 with Blizzard 030 MKIV and FPU but crash the whole machine in my 3.1 FPU-less ACA630 accelerated Amiga 600. Turning those plug-ins off solved the issue, but I'd like to take a look at Ibrowse anyway.

--

Having just recently finished disassembling AWeb into 68K source code I have already noticed plenty of scope for improving/optimising the code. It was originally written in C and so is a bit bloated and not as efficient as it could be, I really need to start with the optimisations and give the newly compiled code to someone to test (until I finally get a my own miggies on the net)...

[Franko]

I'll happily test

Well as soon as I've optimised it and checked it out I'll send it you to test out...

Interesting what you say about the crashes on 3.1, wonder if it can trace that problem in the source code now...

[Franko]

It could be down to me lacking datatypes for images or whatnot, as it only occurs with images enabled.

When I first installed OS3.5 AWeb was part of the installation even though my miggies aren't on the net I did try it out with some Amiga Format coverdisk CDs browsing locally (I think you call it)...

It never crashed but it was very slow at drawing pages even on my 2 060 boards, I deleted it a long time ago but I think I'll install it on one of my 030 machines with OS3.1 and test it with the Amiga Format coverdisks to see if I can reproduce these crashes and figure out what's causing them...

[Franko]

@ TheGoose

No problemo, best if as many folk as possible can test it in case I make any mistakes while optimising it, no idea though how long it will take me though as being originally written in C the codes pretty messy...

@ TCMSLP

It's really quite simple enough to do, more time consuming than anything else, just a simple case of reverse engineering and tracing all the subroutines. That's one of the main reasons I don't code in C too inefficient especially with all those unneeded jumps & subroutines C code produces...

Even though I know nothing about Web Browsers it's like disassembling any piece of code, you don't really have to know what it's use is, your just simply looking to make the code more efficient and tidy it all up wee bit...

[Franko]

Wasn't the source code for Aweb released as PD?

Yes, someone here pointed me towards it a wee while back but it was C source code...

[Franko]

It seems that the only way to legally have somewhat unrestricted version of IBrowse is to purchase AmigaOS 4.

Code: [Select]


7.Workbench:Utilities/IBrowse> version IBrowse FULL
IBrowse 24.43 (22.12.2006)


Just popped OS4.0 into this Macs CD drive (didn't even realise it was on there) and one of the docs says this

*** 22-Dec-06 IBrowse 2.4 released to the public ***
*** 22-Dec-06 IBrowse 2.4 OEM built for AmigaOS4 ***

-sb- Misc master password fixes to avoid displaying the passwords when not
      authorized to do so

-sb- BUGID 1524: Master password can now be set multiple times during a
      session

-sb- BUGID 1523: Fixed a potential security hole with repeated chars as
      master password

-or- Don't show a second consecutive master password requester when
      submitting a form when there's already a password entry for the site

-or- BUGID 1525: Fixed image icons in the images dir not being freed
      after reading

Does that mean IBrowse is PD now cos if so then anybody want a copy...

[Franko]

Franko: can you diassemble OS4.1 and convert it to x86?

Nope... I don't have OS4.1 and haven't got a clue what x86 is...

[Franko]

@Franko

AWeb is open source, here you have original sources:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~yrozijn/aweb/

There are updated and bugfixed sources somewhere, it used to be at aweb.sunsite.dk but the server died and nobody uploaded the sources to sourceforge so I guess it's dead forever.

Cheers Crumb, but I've already downloaded them and their written in C, I only code in 68k...

[Franko]

Hehe, C is a language, 68K, you probably meant the 68000 series of processors by Motorola?
You can not code in 68K, there is no such language.
The assembler language for 680x0 is very easy to write and understand and the best assembly language that I have used, with great opcodes (I coded in Z80, 6502, 65816 and x86 assembler as well).

But....

If you have the original C sources, disassembling the compiled code and then making optimizations by hand is useless job that will very little gain.

Better recompile the C sources with newer compiler, make switches for more optimizations (VBCC on Amiga68K is the best compiler I used for optimizations). If you still feel that the C source code is slow, you can replace C parts with inline assembler parts that you think you can improve. Slowly replacing them, you may end up some day in entirely written in assembler browser. But disassembling and recompiling - its mostly a waste of time, especially when you have the source code.

I know but there are many different versions of "Assembler" langauge so I simply call it 68k or M68K as most Amigans will know what I'm talking about...

Wouldn't touch C with a barge pole, no matter how much the compiler optimises it you still end up with code that's bloated and inefficient in my opinion. Disagree that you think disassembling and recompiling is a waste of time, it is necessary for me when the original source code is only available in C.

The whole point of doing this is once you have disassembled the actual code for someone who only codes in 68K (and I'll keep using that term cos I like it ) it's then easy to study the code and optimise/replace/debug or even add new features to the original software and then end result is highly optimised code which generally runs faster than the original C compiled version

[Franko]

When the C produces bloated code, you can replace specific parts of the source code with native assembler instructions (inline assembly). I used it a lot when coding for Apple 2 with the CC65 cross compiler. In some situations I end with full source code in assembler, that started as nicely written C program, but was too slow for 6502 processor

Just don't like C, to me there is no point in mixing the two (C & Assembler) as I only write stuff for the Amiga and have no interest in any other platform then to me coding in 68K is the best way to go as I don't need to have code that can be easily recompiled for use on another platform...

(Plus to me coding in Assembler on the Amiga is far more easy than any other langauge...

[Franko]

I used to advocate the Assembler a lot, few years ago. The I switched to C and still use Assembler, but C is better for the following reasons:

C is universal - no matter if you write for CP/M, Gameboy, Apple II, Amiga, AmigaOne, Windows or Apple Mac. The C syntax is still the same. In some cases you even use the same compiler. I have coded for all these platforms in C and had much less troubles than when writing for these platforms in Assembler.
C is high portable. I wrote a game eight years ago in C for Amigas with 680x0 processor. Later I easily ported it to Amigas with PPC processors, Apple Macs and Windows! I can easily port it to IPhone, Symbian, QNX and Linux if I wanted to. If it was not in C, I would had a hard time porting it in to all these platforms.
C is easy to find. You can easily find books on C and no matter if it is for Windows, you can learn from it for your Amiga programming projects.
C is very close to the the Assembler. Its so close that you can easily skip assembler and go for C and have the same programming power at hand, only easier and better.
C is easy to spell. You can not misspell it like the asssembler.

As I've already said it doesn't matter to me that C is "Universal" I only code for the Amiga, C64 & VIC20 and have no need, wish or interest to write code that can be easily transferred across different platforms...

Assembler language is easy to find too...

C is nowhere near close to assembler, C is for folk who can't be bothered or don't have the time to learn a machine specific assembler language or for folk who specifically want to make their code portable and I have nothing against that , it's just not the language for me that's all...

I seriously doubt no one ever make a spelling mistake when writing in C, just as I occasionally makes mistakes when coding in assembler but what does it matter the compiler soon tells you you've made an error...

I've been coding in Assembler since I got my first VIC20 in 82 and over the years have tried C, Fortran etc... etc... and my personal choice for coding is Assembler, no point in trying to convince me otherwise, it's just my own personal preference...

[Franko]

x86 is the normal term used for intel/amd processor based systems. The general PC (and mac's nowadays).

IBM compatible / clone as they were called back when you were only 120 years old.

Well why cant you just say "IBM compatible / clone" in the first place... much easier to understand...

Anyway cheeky young whippersnapper I was only in my late 80s back then...

I'd hit you with me zimmer frame if only I had the strength to lift it...

Now where'd I park me steam engine...