We need an iBrowse replacement for 68k!!!

[Heiroglyph]

Haha, wait, what?  I wish!  :angry:

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.

[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!  

[Rabbi]

I find that NetSurf 68k has a lot of potential.  I prefer to browse the internet with it, as I previously was a firm IBrowse user on my NTSC A1200 with an '060 accelerator.

The 2 items I find most frustrating about NetSurf are:
1) defaults to a PAL screen, which one has to constantly scroll down to view if one has an NTSC Amiga.  I guess it can be altered in its setup, I guess, but don't know how to
2) to alter its "Settings" is a PITA, unlike anything useful that I've ever seen.  I don't even know how to make English its default language & to have it start at the American Google site instead of the Polish Google site.

I know, tell me to RTFM.  Couldn't the Settings GUI be made a bit more user friendly?

[wawrzon]

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.

zorro ram boards will not be of much assistance due to slow bus, it will make browser crawl no matter what cpu. but then the eventually upcoming fpga softcore boards may fill in the gap:

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=7

[SamuraiCrow]

The new FPGA accelerators may push limits all around.  A Vampire equipped a600 has 64megs fast DDR3 RAM soldered on the board.  As well as 060 performance in the experimental build.

[apj]

Finally noixemul version!

link

Should work without FPU.

[utri007]

Main question is :

What we could expect with it?

It can't be use for dayli web surfing, though it would make it possible with UAE
I can be used for "selected" sites, like amiga.org, amigaworld.net, aminet.net etc.
It could be used for temporay need of downloading stuff from internet. (Wich is most important aspect for me)

Build based for Chris OS4 native version would be very different thing than current 68k version wich is based to framebuffer version, wich is meant to be usd NO GUI systems and debugging. It is also build top of SDL

So possible future version of Netsurf based of Chris sources, IS NOT comparable with current version. It would have proper Reaction GUI, menus etc, selectable resolution/screen.

Screenshot here :

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

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Screenshot here :

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

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

[danbeaver]

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

And who color tinted his photo?

[Linde]

This is the same bullshyt "write and submit a patch" and "RTFM" mindset which pushes a lot of people away from F/OSS projects.

While many people have ideas not everyone is a do-er or a coder.  Responses like yours discourage people from providing ideas.

I don't know what a-pex does to support the Amiga community, but I certainly wouldn't discount his missive simply because he's not coding.

To be fair, "make a new browser" isn't really that much of a valuable or even novel idea, and the tone of the original post was that of someone who expects a new browser project to pop into existence as soon as some obscure version mismatch between two horrible pieces of software on the horizon is pointed out. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and if you have one and are not a "do-er", that response at least prompts the OP to consider what kind of effort such a project entails.

[QuikSanz]

Actually Netsurf may be a good fit for 68K's future. With some fixes and optimizations it could maybe get pretty fast. Add some functionality to it and you have a good start.

Chris

[Drummerboy]

Exist any Netsurf version to run in native Amiga Video chip set?.

[NovaCoder]

Exist any Netsurf version to run in native Amiga Video chip set?.

Yes, it's called NetSurf AGA (BETA).

A 'non frame-buffer' 68k AGA/RTG port would of course be preferable though.

[QuikSanz]

Yes but currently slow. They are working on it.

[Drummerboy]

I tried any time a version, but not work on AGA with C=1942.

So, i hope we can have a good news soon.

[matthey]

OK guys, I spent some time fixing up the 68k toolchain for NetSurf, so it now builds again and all the dependent libraries build too.

I've also spent quite a while fixing all the compiler and linker errors for the OS4 build, when passed through the 68k toolchain.  It now builds and runs (don't get too excited) as far as errorneously displaying the splash window as a long thin window at the top of the screen.  It then crashes, probably somewhere between initialising the DataTypes handler and initialising NetSurf.  If I run it on OS4 (yes, that earlier test was on OS3.5, just to check I got the same thing) I can ignore past the crash, and then it crashes creating the main window.

I should probably try to build a simple ReAction example to check that side of things is working, as the splash window couldn't be much simpler so it makes me think the macros are somehow screwed up.

I'll probably keep poking it with my stick but it would progress a lot quicker if I had some help.  Anybody?

Thanks for the work Chris. You have made a lot of Amiga changes and the C source code appears to be in good shape. It looks like you need help from someone with an AmigaOS 4 or Linux environment and with good cross-compiling skills using a newer version of GCC. That's not me but if you could build an executable that is close with SAS/C style debug and symbols then I might be able to help debug NetSurf. I doubt there is any way to get the SAS/C debug and symbols when compiling with a newer version of GCC (STABS or DWARF?) and compiling with vbcc would be more work. Do you use an ELF2HUNK utility to convert the new GCC output from 68k ELF to Amiga Hunk format? What version of GCC are you using?