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Timberwolf (a.k.a. Firefox) Alpha 1 For AmigaOS
An anonymous reader writes "We're happy to announce the availability of the first alpha release of Timberwolf, the AmigaOS port of the popular Firefox browser. Timberwolf needs AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 installed. Please read the documentation for information about usage and limitations. This is an alpha release, meaning it will have a lot of problems still, and be slower than it should be. We are releasing it as a small 'Thank you' to all those that have donated in the past to show that development is still going on. Timberwolf is available on os4depot.net. For further information and feedback, check the Timberwolf support forum on amigans.net."
I think you answered your own question...
If it ain't broke, DON'T fix it.
| Guru Meditation Error |
Waiting for an amusing sig.
People use new PowerPC Amigas because they can. Classic Amigas are at least collectible because they were 10 years ahead of their time when they came out. They have held their value well.
PCs depreciate very quickly by comparison. The fact that every new version of the OS needs more hardware each time drives the value of used PCs through the floor.
I can understand why people think the next-generation Amigas with the PowerPC chips are not so great though. They use commodity hardware internally instead of doing original stuff like Commodore did.
So does anyone know the exact string the browser identifies as?
I am thinking I should set my browser to match this.
...and Commodore64 application development continues unfalteringly.
I can understand it perfectly. It's the novelty, the nostalgia, and the challenge. If people think they'll enjoy the results, why not?
--
I'm not sure what you mean by "official Amiga". OS 4.x is strictly PPC, and specifically "AmigaOne, SAM440EP and Pegasos II" (from the "AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2" link). By my definition, there were no native PPC Amigas (i.e., from Commodore); those were all 680x0 machines like God intended.
I guess that just goes to show you the unsettled state of what's considered "Amiga".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
It's quite simple:
The most used software of todays computers for most people is the web browser.
So having a decent web-browser make AmigaOS much more usable. And for most else it already have good software. Sure it may not be the state of the art for video editing or something such but for everyday use everything is there and people enjoy their old apps I assume.
Origyn Web Browser is a Webkit based browser for MorphOS and AmigaOS4:
http://fabportnawak.free.fr/owb/
http://os4depot.net/share/network/browser/owb.lha
Someone has obviously made it possible to play Youtube videos from within iBrowse, which atleast back in the day was an Amiga browser not based on any other engine which I know of:
http://os4depot.net/share/network/browser/ib_youtube.lha
iBrowse web page:
http://www.ibrowse-dev.net/
Looks like it got a flash plugin for MorphOS:
http://www.ibrowse-dev.net/news.php?id=1169229504
And there exist a PPC-version of AWEB:
http://os4depot.net/share/network/browser/aweb.lha
Enough people use it that they have donated more than 5000 euro to get it ported to that page. I don't know if it handles the donation from the old project which was about the same think, getting a modern browser (gecko) on AmigaOS.
New as in april 30th, 2010 even...
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
If you have to ask, then you're not a nerd. Go away. Shooo!
Camping on quad since 1996.
>>>an obsolete OS - I think my question has some merit.
Your question makes an invalid assumption, which is why it was labeled "flamebait" or "troll" by moderators. AmigaOS 4.1 is just over 1 year old. You can that "obsolete"? Hardly. It's younger than the Vista, XP or OS X 10.5 operating systems many of us are still using. - And "I didn't know" isn't a defense when you're only a mouseclick away from google: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=amigaos+4.1
The Amiga hardware is a bit slow (~800 megahertz), but then again it's always been a lightweight OS, so it doesn't need much speed. The original Amiga did true multitasking with just 0.25 megabytes of RAM and the modern Amiga OS is just as efficient.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Even more practical than that, a tenant literally just handed me some cash, I'm popping into my Amiga software (I created with CanDo years ago) as we speak to record the transaction, with records going back almost two decades. All my banking/financial stuff I do w/Amiga software.
Okay technically my daily use "Amiga" is currently WinUAE running on my laptop, but I always wanted a laptop Amiga (and I have an A4000 and A500 still kicking, actually bought the A4000, my second, just a couple years ago for ridiculously little money from an Amiga dealer).
So the answer is you can still do some things easier on an Amiga, but web surfing via AWeb was annoying (and no Flash), that's what took me to a Linux box and ultimately to Windows. However I miss ARexx integration, standard through all software, to this day--AutoHotKey in Windows is a poor substitute.
I have MP3s that were brought over from my Amiga, as well as digital photos from way before digital cameras were mainstream, heck the background screenshot on my cellphone is carried over (was digitized with DCTV and composited/converted to JPEG with ADPro).
Just because it's not currently being promoted doesn't mean it doesn't work! Heck, it was easier/cheaper to connect my PDA to my Amiga than it was to connect it to my laptop.
No memory protection is one reason why Amiga OS is fast. Unfortunately, it's also a big reason why it's obsolete, regardless of the chronology of its latest updates.