- Opera - Project Magic, A New multiplatform browser that will support amiga -

A new browser is about to appear for the amiga platform, it is called Opera
and is currently available for PC. Soon there will also be a Mac and an OS/2
version of it and versions for Linux, Unix, Beos and AMIGA!!! is being 
considered, it is up to YOU if an AMIGA version will be released.

The Amiga has now been present on internet for a long time, and we have 
aplications available to use most of the internets services.
For example, our Email-proggies, Newsgroups-readers and IRC proggies are
as good as any one available on pc or mac, to not say better, and without 
any doubts we have the best Telnet-clients there is.
There are only two areas that the amiga unfortunately, has bad or no support at
all for, those are ICQ and Web-browsers.
Now don't get me wrong here, sure we have some browsers available for the amiga,
Ibrowse, Aweb and Voyager are all good coded browsers and for some pages
they are really good. The problem today is that they DO NOT support
JAVA or all CGI-SCRIPTS correctly and even if the coders of these browsers
are really good they have one big disadvantage to the PC and MAC coders of
browsers out there... They can't implement any teqnique in their browsers
before it has already been available on PC and MAC for quite some time,
and because of that Amiga users is left far behind in this fast evolving
part of the internet.

I don't believe there is one single Amiga user on the net who hasn't happened
upon a page that is said to be really great, and then Discovers that it won't
work on his amiga. Though our browsers are pretty efficiently coded they 
only support a small part of what The PC and MAC browsers support.

The reason to this is that the poor Amiga coders out there have no access
to any source at all when it comes to browsers.. They must look on the PC
Browsers and try to make their browser do the same things, this is unfortunately
not that very easy and as you probably have noticed this does show in both
Aweb, Ibrowse and Voyager. But this problem could soon be but a memory.

A new browser has recently been finished for the PC and it is on it's way to
appear on the MAC and on OS/2 aswell.
The authors of this browser is also considering to have a version of it made for
Linux, Unix, Beos and thanks to a mail I sent them a while ago for the AMIGA.

The coders of this browser will have an advantage no coder of an amiga-browser
has ever had before.. They will have full access to the source code of the
Pc version of it and the only thing they will have to do is to rewrite it
for amiga, aswell when a NEW THING is presented on the WWW these coders will
have a lot of other coders on different platforms to back them up.
This means that Amiga users won't have to wait forever before the latest things
on the WEB comes to Amiga.

So what is OPERA, well the original idea of it was to make a browser that would
work even if you don't happen to have the latest and hottest processor and tons
of memory. Opera does support JAVA and Frames and is way faster than Netscape
and Explorer on the PC. 
There is a lot more to read about it on their homepage at: 

http://www.operasoftware.com

So, what can YOU do to make this browser appear on the AMIGA???
Well, all you have to do is to go visit Operas homepage and tell the nice
guys there that you want an ex of this Browser for your Amiga.
There is a special email address on their page where you should send your 
order.

If 3000 Amiga users where to do this there would be no question what so ever
for this browser to be ported for the amiga, accually 2000 were enough for
them to decide to make a version for the macintosh so a version might appear
even if there aren't this many people that shows their interest.
Why they want 3000 people is that with this amount of copies sold there will
be enough money to pay some amiga coders to do the work.

If there are any good Amiga coders that work in C++ or Assembler out there
and you are interested in converting this browser for a smaller fee, don't 
hesitate to contact the people at OperaSoftware.

And a last word, this is a cryout to all you Amiga users out there...
THIS!!! is your chance to make a difference, this is your chance to get
quality software and softwarecompanies to support the Amiga. 
If you DO want your Amiga to survive, Do visit Operasoftwares homepage and
give them a mail. If not you could aswell go and throw away your amiga buy 
a peze and be a nerd like everyone else...


With hopes for the future, AMIGA WILL NEVER DIE!!!

Mikael Svensson  (hotaxid@hem.passagen.se)



Go visit Operasoftwares page NOW! at:

http://www.operasoftware.com

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