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."
Re:...really? (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Re:...really? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:...really? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 ;-)
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.
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 in less than one K of executable on a "modern" system) is still on my mind. Especially with its support back then - far superior over what I get today with the different commercial development systems I use.
Yes, it might be obsolete, because it had no memory protection, but a MMU is not the solution for for all the problems out there. No memory protection also made interprocess communication way easier, and if you consider how well Amiga programs interact with each other via a system-wide AREXX scripting engine, the lack of an MMU is neglectable.
At least editor-wise I finally found something at least comparable to the decade-old super-duper-editor CygnusEd: Notepad++. The sad part is that NP++ does not run on Linux...
Re:...really? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, you never get any interest or stories about proprietary OSs [slashdot.org] round here, certainly not... And no one ever liked PowerPC, right.