Timberwolf (a.k.a. Firefox) Alpha 1 For AmigaOS 152
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."
How responsive? (Score:1, Funny)
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No no, he's looking into it to see if it's faster than what he's currently using.
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Well, it should be faster than his C64. :)
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The Apple II version of Contiki does things in a way that's simultaneously very smart and absolutely fucktarded.
Because it doesn't support CSS or anything fancy, it grabs the page, and anything that it knows won't display, it discards.
To display more of the page, it makes another round trip to grab the page again.
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That is why you need the 4096 kilobyte external memory upgrade. The internal 64K is used directly by the 6502 CPU while the external memory can be used for caching of webpages, graphics, et cetera.
AmigaOS (Score:2)
Does this run on anything besides official Amigas? Does it run on anything fast enough to make Firefox worthwhile? If so, does it still support all the original Amiga software?
Re:AmigaOS (Score:4, Informative)
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".
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Honestly I didn't even know there were PPC Amigas. I'm guessing they won't run 68k Amiga software then.
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Originally the PPC stuff was done by an add-on card and you could still run 68k software AFAIK. I couldn't afford to upgrade to PPC though and ended up going to PCs instead.. I'm still slightly tempted by the whole thing just for fun.. with a decent browser then an Amiga could be almost as useful to me as any Mac or Linux machine.. then again if I'm going to bother buying a desktop machine I'd probably get it with Windows so that I could do a bit of gaming on it. If there's a PPC Amiga emulator out there I
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if those 68k are still made (not likely but hey) could one pull something similar in reverse? have the main cpu be a PPC and then offload the older amiga code to a addon 68k board? even the best amiga emulators seems to struggle at times, to i guess its more about the custom amiga chips then the 68k.
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Yeah I don't think it's emulating 68k processors that is the problem, we've been doing that for a looong time.. and any games I ran on Amiga emulators even 5 years ago were fine tbh. If you're having problems then you maybe need to switch around settings on the emulator.
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They run most system friendly m68k software through JIT emulation. You can, of course, also run UAE and variants thereof to run hardware banging software. RunInUAE is an almost entirely transparent method to do so.
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>>>By my definition, there were no native PPC Amigas (i.e., from Commodore); those were all 680x0 machines like God intended.
But Commodore(spit) sold the Amiga to other companies, and those other companies followed the Apple Macintosh example: Upgraded from the obsolete 68000-series to the new PowerPC CPUs. These later model Amigas are no longer Commodore(spit)-labeled machines, but they are still Amigas.
In retrospect the death of Commodore may have been one of the best things to happen for Amiga.
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"Official Amiga" is, I guess, the system running "Amiga OS" from whoever has the rights to call it that. The name has been shifted around a lot, but the PPC systems run an operating system directly descended from the m68k Amigas.
Macs run on x86 instead of PPC or m68k these days too.
The right to use the Amiga-related names lie at Amiga Inc. and Hyperion Entertainment CVBA (some usages exclusive to Hyperion - some on license). Hyperion works with third parties to deliver machines. The AmigaOne X1000 from A-Eo
In theory, it should work fine (Score:2)
I used Netscape 4.x and IE 4 (or 5?) on a PowerBook Duo 270c, which has a 68030 with 24 MB of RAM running MacOS 7.6. You know what? It worked fine, except (unsurprisingly) Flash animations.
As I know the power and culture of Amiga, which runs 32bit for ages to begin with, I can't see a reason why such a modern code like Firefox should suck on it, especially in days with PowerPC processors running Amiga.
If you mean A1200/A4000 Amigas by official, I really wonder about it too. For example if one could port 680
oops (Score:5, Funny)
| Guru Meditation Error |
Names & Shiny Objects (Score:2)
1) Why call it Timberwolf? To avoid the Iceweasel debacle?
2) Timberwolf sounds a whole lot cooler than Firefox.
3) AmigaOS looks pretty from the screenshots.
Named after Justin Timberlake (Score:1, Offtopic)
1) Why call it Timberwolf? To avoid the Iceweasel debacle?
The guy who wrote it has aspergers and is obsessed with Justin Timberlake.
2) Timberwolf sounds a whole lot cooler than Firefox.
Oh dear, another Justin fan!
3) AmigaOS looks pretty from the screenshots.
Note: Doesn't reserve the word "pretty" for females. Yep that about confirms it.
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This was the inspired effort of the lead marketing consultant (one of the grizzled developer's girlfriends).
Yes, this was the special insight of the aforementioned girlfriend -- she realized that there was a unique opportunity to capitalize on the zeitgeist: namely the Three Wolf Moon phenomenon and the popularity of the reality TV logging shows.
So does
Looks like Gurus will have a new gig (Score:1)
Awesome, now Gurus will be mediated to troubleshoot Firefox (I mean Timberwolf) issues.
USER_AGENT (Score:5, Funny)
So does anyone know the exact string the browser identifies as?
I am thinking I should set my browser to match this.
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Hmm..Perhaps we should make Amiga appear to the most popular OS on the Internet...
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That would be a great joke :)
Wow (Score:1, Troll)
You do all know that Amiga OS 4.1 is new, right? (Score:1)
This isn't the old Amiga OS running on old hardware. This is a new version (as in 2000's) of the Amiga OS to take advantage of newer, more powerful hardware etc.
Re:You do all know that Amiga OS 4.1 is new, right (Score:4, Informative)
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Oh yeah? (Score:2)
Mac user: Your sad devotion to that dying religion hasn't helped you conjure up the stolen Commodore glory!
Amiga user: I find your lack of faith disturbing. Pinch. Pinch. Damnit. Why isn't it working!?
Timberwolf video (Score:1)
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Exciting news for AmigaOS users (Score:1)
For all four of them.
I am anxiously waiting for the ZX Spectrum port.
I thank you on behalf of Amiga Web Surfers (Score:2, Funny)
Both of them.
What about the CoCo? (Score:2)
Seriously, where's the CoCo love!? ;-)
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You can mark this as flamebait or whatever, but this was clearly posted here because of the novelty of porting a modern, popular program to an obsolete OS.
Which means that the obsolete OS still has users -- so I think my question has some merit.
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It's not AS obsolete as one might think, amiga OS 4.1 update 2 was released in 2010. Amiga OS 4 was released in 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_OS_4
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Yeah, you never get any interest or stories about proprietary OSs [slashdot.org] round here, certainly not... And no one ever liked PowerPC, right.
Because it's OSS (Score:1, Informative)
You can mark this as flamebait or whatever, but this was clearly posted here because of the novelty of porting a modern, popular program to an obsolete OS.
Which means that the obsolete OS still has users -- so I think my question has some merit.
The wonderful thing about open-source software is that "because you can" is a perfectly valid reason, as are "because I personally want it" and "because it's a challenge."
If this was an announcement of, say, Microsoft Office or Adobe CS5 being ported to an obsolete OS, you'd have to wonder about the sanity of the company in question.
Re:...really? (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>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 [lmgtfy.com]
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.
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Uh, age is not a measure of obsolescence. Rather, something is obsolete when it falls sufficiently far below current baseline standards. It sucks, and it didn't deserve it, but AmigaOS is obsolete. Think of it as WALL*E if that helps soften the blow.
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>>>something is obsolete when it falls sufficiently far below current baseline standards.
And who decides those standards? YOU? hahahahaaha. You clearly know nothing about this subject. There are many people using Amigas to surf the web, listen to music, and/or watch videos just as easily as we use our Macs or PCs to do the same tasks. The Amiga exceeds whatever "baseline standards" you have floating in your close-minded brain
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Memory-protection.
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Multitasking. Oh oops, the Amiga does make that baseline, it's the Ipad which doesn't :)
Still, at least we no longer have to put up with people criticising the Amiga for its lack of Flash or Java - such "limitations" are now considered an advantage.
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3rd-party apps are not allowed to use the functionality, but the ipad OS multitasks just fine.
Speaking about obsolete (Score:2)
If we are talking about "didn't deserve but..." thing, Apple PowerPC, including G5 (which is 64bit) has been obsoleted by Apple right after 10.6 release.
It gets security updates, Safari update but at the end, core OS (including open source parts and most importantly, drivers) doesn't get updated. That is not some eccentric platform either, it is 64bit to begin with.
Amiga OS users say they got last OS update a year ago. What is obsolete? Amiga or PowerPC Mac, from $250 billion Apple Inc?
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Well yes by that definition, AmigaOS is obsolete for me, but I'm not sure it's a good definition. By that standard, IphoneOS is obsolete for me.
The definition of "obsolete" is "no longer in use or no longer useful".
If it's being used by people, then "no longer in use" doesn't apply. It's no longer useful to most people who once used AmigaOS. But again, it depends on the person - it's evidently still useful to those who are using it. Also note that this definition doesn't apply to those people who never used
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Yep, fair enough, withdrawn.
Re:...really? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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>>>No memory protection
(cough) (whispers) That hasn't been true since 1992. Per usual the Amiga had this feature before either Mac or PC had it.
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Are you talking about enforcer? That really was more of a developer tool - chances are if enforcer kicked in you could either (try to) debug or reboot because at that point the app was unusable, and so was the rest of the machine (especially if enforcer kept looping).
At any rate I wouldn't call it memory protection.
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AmigaOS 3.x and 4.x both have memory protection, same as a modern Mac OS X or Windows 5.x/6.x have memory protection.
3.x was released in 1992
No memory protection but... (Score:2)
Really, a lot of people jumping to PC ship always wondered how come Amiga could work without memory protection.
Why? Basically, we had some real mean Amigas (A3000, A4000) which were in use at production, sometimes in live TV (titling etc, still used) and I never remember any of them crash. 3d titling animations like stuff sometimes required days to render and at the end, you always had the result, not some "guru meditation". Such machines were never turned off, rebooted, always used in hot environments, hea
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The 68000-based Amigas (500,600,2000) crashed all the time, due to lack of an MMU. But the models you were using (A3000 and 4000) had modern CPUs (68020 or higher) with built-in MMUs, and that's why they were so stable.
Obsolete? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, you might call it obsolete. But it still(!) runs circles around so-called modern systems when it comes to interface responsiveness, and elegance of OS design.
Whenever I have to struggle with Pain(t)ShopPro or, even worse, GIMP, I wish for DPaint, and MaxxonCAD might not be a contender for AutoCAD, but it was way easier (and more affordable) for casual use.
And the development environment around SAS C with its blazing fast compiler that could produce ass-tight code (Try making a "Hello World!" program i
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Re:...really? (Score:5, Insightful)
...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?
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Really? From all the things you chose in life, you choose THIS? ;) ;)
O...k...
I mean, do whatever makes you happy.
But... what the hell, dude?
Shall I invite you to a party with some girls?
Or skydiving maybe?
Or racing a rally car trough South America?
Or even just writing a game.
You know... for great justice!
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I don't do any development for old systems - I was just saying I can understand the appeal of it. I have actually gone skydiving...and paragliding...and bungee jumping (but I can't drive). And that's only in 20 years on the planet. That's fun for a change, but TBH, I prefer spending more time tinkering with machines and instruments. A general interest in the Universe is a wonderful thing to have.
And it gets you laid pretty often if you can also engage in conversation ;-)
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Second.
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Thirded.
Glee? (Score:2)
So, are you suggesting it's not socially acceptable for slashdotters to watch Glee? What if they watch it streaming online? How about if they pirate it?
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Some of them didn't even have air-con or sat-nav!!
Navid you have messed up. Enjoy your skydiving.
Re:...really? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:...really? (Score:5, Informative)
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/ [fabportnawak.free.fr]
http://os4depot.net/share/network/browser/owb.lha [os4depot.net]
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 [os4depot.net]
iBrowse web page:
http://www.ibrowse-dev.net/ [ibrowse-dev.net]
Looks like it got a flash plugin for MorphOS:
http://www.ibrowse-dev.net/news.php?id=1169229504 [ibrowse-dev.net]
And there exist a PPC-version of AWEB:
http://os4depot.net/share/network/browser/aweb.lha [os4depot.net]
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.
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No doubt I'll be called a troll but really shouldn't you put your mad skillz to a better use?
And people with the best skills has shown time and time again that they prefer to put it into something they enjoy, hence the demo scene (though some has of course decided that food was a good idea, and hence moved on to developing games or whatever.)
Lots of applications "suffer" from programmers ego by having functionality which may not make sense, be very useful or mostly bloat the application just because "it would be cool to be able to" / "I wonder if I could ..", maybe less so the more commercial, larg
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>>>Quite. It's dead Jim, give it up...How many Amiga systems still work? So 3 other people download it, say WOW, and then never use it again? No doubt I'll be called a troll but really shouldn't you put your mad skillz to a better use?
>>>
If Amigas are dead why can I go buy a brand-new system, right now, for less than $1000. If Amigas are dead why is a new model being released in just a few months?
The only thing that's dead here is your curiosity. You'd rather jump to false ASSumptions, r
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Aaaaaaactually... Firefox was originally ported to RISC OS 5 years ago.
http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Mozilla_Firefox [riscos.info]
IIRC, there's issues with GTK2 preventing a Firefox 3.x port from being usable, but there is Firefox for "Acorn OS."
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What's next? a DOS version
DOS isn't a operating system, it is a system that operates disks. Porting Firefox to DOS would pretty much require you to write a modern operating system first. The disk/file support that comes with DOS just scratches the surface.
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Don't forget about the settings for the network card, and the video card, and a DOS extender...
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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 o
Reality Check (Score:2)
Could someone with mad hacker skills and way too much time on their hands please post some figures comparing the computing power of an Amiga to an iPad?
I'm just nostalgic as anyone else who started messing with computers in the 70s and I remember the first machines I used and owned with great fondness. But you have to recognize that your "hobby time" spent with antique hardware and software is of very little benefit to the world.
Which is why it's called a hobby.
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Sure. This is the computing power of an Amiga:
.
See it? Now this is the computing power of an iPad:
o
And that's about as exact an approximation as we need... computing power is not a complete metric for comparing computing systems. More important is the computing ecosystem -- the applications available, the restrictions on use of the system, etc. I'm s
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>>>computing power of an Amiga to an iPad?
Well an iPad won't let me play my favorite game - Elite. So that's why I keep my Commodore 64 and Amiga running, even though they are slow as snails. As for MODERN Amigas versus an iPad - I have no idea.
The latest Amiga will be released soon, with a 1500 megahertz PowerPC. So about the same as the first Mac G5, but with a much better operating system.
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If only someone would port Oolite [oolite.org] to iOS. There was a rumor that Elite would be available in the C64 emulator [manomio.com] for iPhone/iPad but it's not there yet.
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Okay.
Now try playing Red Storm Rising, or other keyboard-intensive game, using an emulator. I've tried but because the game was specifically designed for the C64 keyboard's layout, it's nigh-impossible to play on a PC or Mac keyboard. The keys don't match up
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Both users should be very impressed.
And ya, it's not flamebait. Silly mods.
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Some people simply like Amiga OS. The way the Amiga does screens (every application on its own desktop at its own resolution) and the fast boot time and the datatypes system are all pretty nice innovations that you don't get with other platforms.
Re:...really? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to ask, then you're not a nerd. Go away. Shooo!
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Well, as a geek born in the 90's I'd like to understand why people still use Amigas...
If it's just for the coolness I can easily appreciate it, hell, I ran Windows 3.11 for a few months on my Core 2 Quad as my primary OS just because I could, but otherwise are there any significant applications or niches Amiga OS fills that aren't quite addressed by modern Unix or Windows operating systems?
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Windows 3.1 came out in 1992; the Amiga, in 1985. 7 years is a long time in the computer industry. And yet, the Amiga was a far better GUI-based OS. That's why it's so important to so many geeks. I'm still sad about the (original) company's tragic end as a PC-contemptible manufacturer.
I don't know whether anyone still uses an Amiga as their day-to-day machine, but it wouldn't surprise me too much. My Amiga 500 (with sidecar 30M HD, 3M of RAM (I think) and 68010 CPU) is deceased, but I wish I could boot
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If the big questions (why?) are asked in good faith, as I think this one is, it is a great opportunity for people with answers to come out and educate the masses.
Rather than opposing the question, maybe you should put some work towards an answer, as I haven't seen any satisfying one in this thread yet.
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That's not really fair. I owned an used an Amiga until '99 or so and was very active in Amiga newsgroups and mailing lists. I'm not a hater by any stretch of the imagination, and I think my nerd credentials are up to date. And yet, I think that's a valid question: why do people still use Amigas? I can't imagine any objective way in which they'd be better than another modern desktop. Subjectively, sure: some people just want to use something different. That's cool. But nostalgia and quirkiness aside, are the
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Nostalgia is a huge reason, but you asked for more. Many times it's more fun to code for older machines due to their architectural simplicity. Sometimes people enjoy assembler coding, which can be easier on them. Some people see unfulfilled potential and want to see how far they can push the hardware beyond its expectations. Many of these machines were never pushed to their limits because techniques were discovered after the machine's popularity shrank. Some people want to be different. Fooling around with
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Because some of us just can't let go.
And, to be fair, OS4.1 and beyond is pretty good and is only available for new PPC hardware (like the Sam440, as well as the upcoming Sam460 and X1000). It comes with lots of GNU tools, gcc, a decent browser that actually works, good internet connectivity, and so on.
yes really (Score:2)
Why not? Do we have this discussion everytime on Slashdot there's a story about say Macs? (Or maybe we could ask it of Windows:)
It's not like people are still using A500s. And even for those that are, there are occasional stories on other old systems too (e.g., classic Macs).
Why not have a story on historical classic platforms - this is meant to be "News for Nerds" isn't it, or have we turned into "Consumer News for iPad users" already?
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Anything starring Rob Schneider or Ben Stiller? The first 15 seconds of the movie is usually the limit of what any normal person could stand of them.
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That would actually be an awesome universe! I remember the Amiga people were bright and happy and smart. Kind of like Apple people today, except they were more fun and they weren't scared of hacking and open source thinking.
It could have happened, too. There was this weird period where everything shifted. It was when Lucasarts released X-Wing on the PC and nothing else. I know guys who bought whole $2000+ systems just to play that game. (Such was the power of Star Wars before Phantom). Imagine if Luc
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"That hasn't been true since 1992. Per usual the Amiga had this feature before either Mac or PC had it."
The IBM PC AT had hardware memory protection in 1984 and ran flavors of Unix that supported it. Windows first got memory protection in Windows/386 in 1987. OS/2 had it from the start in 1987. Windows NT also had it from the beginning although that was 1993.
"In what alternative world are you living ?"
Indeed. Not in yours.