
Opera Gives That C64 Feel 397
howcome writes "Opera yesterday relased beta2 of the forthcoming 7.0 version. Opera now supports mulitple user style sheets and by selecting "Nostalgia" from the menu all web pages suddenly resemble Commodore 64 (screendump1 screendump2) from 20 years back. Also, there is a handheld emulator to see what a page will look like on a handheld device running Opera. To get you through Christmas, you can also use the "fast-forward" button. Try it on Google (screendump)!"
But what about the vic 20? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But what about the vic 20? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But what about the vic 20? (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot: Forcing Websites To Emulate The 300-baud Experience.
Re:But what about the vic 20? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:But what about the vic 20? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm really looking forward to when my fond memories have to be signed with a digital certificate in order for me to remember them. You know, to remove the possibility that I might remember something incorrectly.
Re:But what about the vic 20? (Score:5, Funny)
Hoping for 80 column view... (Score:2, Funny)
When you click on a link does a sound of the 1541 disk drive gronk, grind, and click?
Do you refresh with a SYS64738?
TTFN
sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore . (Score:2)
Re:sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
the engine is still faster then anything else I've used, and I've just about tried them all (especially on older hardware).
and as for opera not being the best... it's got quite a few people who've *actually* used it for awhile who believe it's far superior to anything else out there right now.
One of the first things to go onto my machine is opera, no matter what OS I'm running.
Sure, the c64 thing is silly... that's what it's intended to be... probably a coder just having some fun one day threw it in there as comic relief.
get-a-grip (not the shoes)
Re:sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore (Score:2)
before i got phoenix.
(well, the differences are VERY subtle, but hey, if i can have for FREE something that i'd need to pay with opera or warez.. darn ads. i also dig phoenixs default ui look more)
opera has it's uses though, the zoom function makes handheld webbrowsing a breeze.
a few differences a-side (Score:2, Informative)
Re:sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
One feature I miss in Phoenix is handling both the select-buffer and the cut-and-paste buffer in Xwindows, it only handles the select buffer. Opera does and I need it since I do a lot of cut and paste between web-pages and an internal tool written in Java (only supports the cut and paste buffer)
Another issue, which is a bug in Phoenix is downloading UNIX compressed files (.Z). Phoenix does not save them at all.
I can go on and on with differnces, but I don't need to. Both browsers are good and I'm sure Phoenix will be even better as their development goes forward. Browser wars are stupid. Test several browsers and pick the one that covers your usage. It may not be the same as everybody else chooses, but so what?
Re:sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore (Score:2)
Actually the retro-idea is probably ripped off from GTA3 Vice City. This game has it part of its introduction cut-scenes(yes to get you feeling confortable with the 80s).
Opera for the Mac (Score:3, Insightful)
Version 6.0 was just release (it's a Carbon app that runs on 8, 9, and X), and it's horribly slow, ugly looking, and uses non-standard keyboard shortcuts. I had very high hopes for Opera on the Mac, but this release has all but shattered them for me. It's almost the exact opposite of Opera 6.0 on Windows.
I've been using Opera on Windows for the best part of 4 years, and swear by it. However, I don't even bother with it on my iBook. Perhaps when they eventually release Opera 7 for the Mac (which will be a *long* way off) things will be better, but I'm not holding my breath...
Re:sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore (Score:2)
Re:sadly, they are not the world's fastest anymore (Score:2)
and as for opera not being the best... it's got quite a few people who've *actually* used it for awhile who believe it's far superior to anything else out there right now.
"
They obviously arnt web developers. Maybe to a normal (non-advanced) user Opera might be acceptable, But to anyone thats ever touched css Opera is unusable. Its one of the worst to render css in my experience (excluding ns3/ie3).
It has huge problems with spacing and linebreaks, and generaly makes it hard to work with.
If they can blatently break css and still be called a browser? 'cat' makes a pretty fast rendering engine to, though it has "a few rendering problems".
crashing isn't a problem for me (Score:2, Informative)
I've recently started using Pheonix and Mozilla, and have found that both are just as stable as Opera, except they do not have this feature, so my losses are more substantial, sometimes requiring me to search through my browser history to get back to where I was. I know that there is some sort of feature like this with the tabs extension, but it's not obvious how it works, and I never got it to.
_KhlER3L
Oops (Score:3, Insightful)
Opera just made a mistake, in my opinion, with that. I liked how they kept the browser streamlined and stripped down; this new feature is, possibly, a sign of creeping featurism and surrender to the forces of software bloat.
Oh well. I guess if I want a simple browser, I should stick to Lynx.
Re:Oops (Score:2)
I'm running an earlier beta of it right now, and I had similar concerns. I can tell you, though, that I really like how you can drag anything to just about anywhere else. I'm looking forward to sitting down and really tweaking this interface.
But Opera has been getting smaller (Score:5, Informative)
Have you been using Opera recently? Like over the last couple years? The new betas are really pretty speedy and also smaller than the 6.x release versions. I just downloaded the last beta and the latest production release. Here they are:
[wee@host tmp]$ ls -l
total 6836
-rw------- 1 wee wee 3588280 Dec 18 16:06 ow32enen605.exe
-rw------- 1 wee wee 3397867 Dec 18 16:05 ow32enen700b2.exe
My boss and I were talking about this very topic. They've apparently re-written the rendering engine from the ground up. We suspect that they use the same engine in the desktop versions as in the embedded versions. Then they tack on JavaScript and Java and the various UI bits to make each platform-specific release.
Whatever they do, they haven't succumbed to to creature feep. They've done just about the opposite: they started fresh and the result is a faster, leaner browser. Of course, I've only used the windows version a couple times, but it was noticeably nimbler than the 6.x Linux versions.
-B
Re:But Opera has been getting smaller (Score:3, Interesting)
I am posting this from 6.11 on Linux, and I have to say there are still some issues with Opera. This afternoon, I went to the computer lab here on campus to print something (can't do that from my Linux box - the printers are on a different net). These machines run Windows NT 4 and I had installed Opera 6.0 on them a long time ago to avoid the woes of MSIE. I noticed that the text I printed wasn't justified, although it clearly had to be according to the style sheet, and it actually is justified in 6.11/Linux (and in Phoenix 0.4/Linux, too). Opera also still doesn't implement JavaScript DOM support very well, despite its otherwise fabulous standards compliance. On Linux I notice that it sometimes crashes unpredictably, and what really annoys me is that if I empty the address bar using ^A ^K, it copies the contents to the clipboard, making pasting URLs a pain. I suspect that at least the latter issue is Qt's fault, but I might be wrong there. (I'm a GTK+ aficionado anyway...yes I know, Xlib is the one true toolkit.) Having ventilated my frustration, I have to say that on the whole Opera is a great browser; slim, fast, good standards compliance, tabbed browsing, popup blocking, cookie filter, cheap, and European.
Re:But Opera has been getting smaller (Score:5, Informative)
Also 6.05 appeared to have a bug, that caused it's downloads to suck up all it's reasources if the server was fast enough, causing you not to be able to do anything while downloading. This is not the case with 7.0b1/2.
It also has some very neat features with regards to testing websites, such as debug with outline etc. Also it's sidebar can display each and every link on a page.
I like it. I like it a lot. I switched to Mozilla for a while but went back to Opera for several reasons, and 7.0 really solidifies Operas lead in my eyes. It would be nice however, if the stuff like e-mail and ICQ were plug-ins instead of built in. It might not make a difference wrt size or speed, but it'd be nice
Re:But Opera has been getting smaller (Score:2)
> smaller than the 6.x release versions. . .
> started fresh and the result is a faster, leaner > browser.
I said the exact same thing about Mozilla somwhere around tree years ago when they were at milestone 18. It wasn't too long after that that the cute little monster went on a eating binge devouring entire operating systems worth of code bloating it into the great white whale of a browser that is it now.
Re:Oops (Score:3, Informative)
Check one of the other links [slashdot.org] to the pictures provided in this thread, and you'll see that it is merely a rendering function to display html in a particular manner. It's not even a skin, a la Netscape or RealPlayer, it's nothing more than a manner of formatting the page (in a clunky and unusable manner). In other words, it almost certainly has zero effect on performance.
Re:Oops (Score:2)
That's right, you can accomplish a C64 look in 4K of CSS code. Pretty nice proof-of-concept, if you ask me.
Re:Oops (Score:2)
But, you know what? It's the best search engine out there, so it can't be causing that many problems. Likewise, I've never seen a better browser than Opera.
Theme for Phoenix (Score:2, Funny)
as soon as you make one (Score:2, Informative)
What about the IRC script? (Score:2)
The "War" portion of the script looked interesting, though I was never L4M3Rz enough to employ it... I was on IRC to chat, not compensate for my personal insecurities by kick/banning people, and taking over their channels.
What happened to IRC anyway? I've been on a few times recently, and it's just not the same. All the old guard are gone, and it's all "RU Single??" messages.
Sorry for the nostalgia; that C-64 screen really got me going...
opera's dying (Score:5, Funny)
Re:opera's dying (Score:2)
Cartridge Linux? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cartridge Linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
Move along - all been done before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that link is to a screen shot.
I love Opera, but (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if software is proprietary closed source I think an open bug reporting system is a good thing because it keeps some boring work away from developers - namely searching for duplicates.
Re:I love Opera, but (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I love Opera, but (Score:3, Informative)
Images down... (Score:4, Funny)
(By the way, don't click that link, someone's computer would explode)
/. fx (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the screendumps:
screenshot 1 [aboleo.net]
screenshot 2 [aboleo.net]
Re:/. fx (Score:2)
Good to see testing for 64 comatibility! (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe with the C-One [c64upgra.de] us 8-bitters can get closer to a real 8-bit Opera browser... :-) Of course it would probably have to run under Wings [igs.net] or Wheels [ia4u.net] though
Never say it's impossible, it will just make people want to prove you know nothing.
C-64 nostalgia (Score:2)
Opera's new marketing campaign (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Opera's new marketing campaign (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Opera's new marketing campaign (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it was Impossible Mission. Man, I wasted so much time on that game. Here's a good site for it:
http://members.tripod.com/~impossible_mission/ [tripod.com]
Below the Root (Score:3, Informative)
In any case, I loved that game so much that I bought the book [fantasticfiction.co.uk]. There's an entire series, in fact. The book really explains what was going on in the game. It's an interesting read if you're a Below the Root fan.
Impossible Mission (Score:4, Interesting)
The truly sad thing is that I was able to beat it again. The first time I tried it. That's just...creepy.
"Destroy Him, My Robots."
*step* *step* *step* *BZzzzzzzssszzszzzt*
*step* *step* *jump* "AaaaahhhhhhAAaHHhhhhhhhh..."
That game was way ahead of it's time.
I'd love to see a modern 3-D viewpoint version of it. I think with a behind-the-avataor camera viewpoint like Tomb Raider it would work well. And of course, the guy would have to do a flip every time you jumped, for no aparent reason.
Re:Impossible Mission (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, so it's not actually impossible? Fucking false advertising.
For Handhelds and Cell Phones... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah yes, retro style... (Score:3, Funny)
It's amusing to see retro styles like this coming to our modern computers. All those fancy blinking lights and millions of colours and yet people still enjoy and actively use styles that are supposed to represent 16 bit or 8 bit GUIs or CLIs.
Maybe it's more evident for me to see these trends because I wish I was back in the days Amiga began, though at this age, with more programming knowledge and a wad of german Marks to buy Amiga from commodore. Then I'd hire this aspiring student from Helsinki Uni called Linux Torvalds, lock him into a room with an Amiga 500, some computer running Minix next to another one running some BSD unix, a bunch of programming tools and with an infinite supply of an odd mixture of Guiness/Red Bull. After a few months of hyper-evolution, Linus would crank out a basic kernel and a few nicely ported programs, including word processors and other office relics that were used back in '83, along with some basic GUI. (Think of xfree68x 0.0.1)
After this, program developers would be VERY interested in the Amiga, a system running mainstream office programs based on the proven reliability of unix. Game developers would start to prefer the graphical powers and the motorola processors of the Amiga and Microsoft would be out of business before they even started. Or they'd start to develop for the Amiga, ruining my whole fantasy as it would simply turn the tables, making Amigas with Windows XP mainstream in 2002 and x86 based pcs a rarity, only to be maintained by a bunch of zealots who would make religious fundamentalists blush... :( Dammit, I hate it when I kill my own fantasies! *sob*
handheld stylesheets (Score:2)
That's a pretty neat trick for pages whose designers aren't thinking about the bigger picture (the Hiptop does something similar), but a real pain in the ass for those of us who are building pages "the right way" (i.e. XHTML for content, CSS for layout). This is particularly annoying in that Opera claims [opera.com] to fully support W3C CSS Mobile Profile 1.0 [w3.org]. As far as I can tell, it doesn't.
Re:handheld stylesheets (Score:2)
Bleh (Score:4, Funny)
Next up: lynx mode? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why would I want that? lynx is the best way I can think of to browse the web as a handicapped person would. Also, I don't want to open up another browser besides Opera to get that functionality.
Re:Next up: lynx mode? (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, you're right -- I use Lynx to test my sites for handicapped and vision-impaired accessibility. If a site can be read on Lynx, it can be read by anyone.
I'm nostalgic... (Score:3, Funny)
page rendering (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:page rendering (Score:2, Insightful)
What is everyone's beef with Opera? Nearly every complaint I've read here today about it has been absolutely bogus.
Wheel mouse (Score:4, Interesting)
Get with the times, wheel mouse work with Mozilla/Phoenix/IE and Netscape, how about supporting it in Opera?
BTW, I hear it works fine with logitech mice, but all I have is m$ rodents.
Re:Wheel mouse (Score:2)
Re:Wheel mouse (Score:2, Interesting)
No no, Opera's been doing it the same way Opera has done everything for ages. Keyboard shortcuts for everything, and sensible combinations for new features. Opera did many things FIRST (open link in new tab, open new tab in background), so is it their fault people decided to be different when building Mozilla?
Shift click also makes more sense than using the middle button, which many people don't even have (and Windows doesn't have 'Emulate3Button' mode).
Re:Wheel mouse (Score:2)
Re:Wheel mouse (Score:2)
"AutoScroll" simple sucks, id rather use arrow keys or page up/down keys. "Auto Scroll" reminds me of those quicktime VR movies, enough already.
Scroll Wheel Works (Score:2)
With 7b1 you sometimes have to click the focus into teh frame you want to scroll, but it does work.
I don't know about Linux or OS X, so YMMV in those environs.
Re:Scroll Wheel Works (Score:2)
Ya, I cant swear if mouse wheels work on opera linux version, but I know opera doesnt like M$ intellimouse explorers. But isnt the intellimouse explorer the most popular mouse out?
I'm using the newest drivers too, at http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouse/download_
Its not my hardware, its not just me. If it was just me, there wouldnt be posts on opera newsgroups about the same problem.
Also, my MS intellimouse explorer (i have models 2&3) work fine in Phoenix, IE, and every application.
Re:Wheel mouse (Score:2)
Exactly, seems to be only real MS intellimouse explorer mice. strange.
Re:Wheel mouse (Score:2)
opera's ui (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:opera's ui (Score:2)
Opera is fine but: (Score:2, Insightful)
I would love to change browser, but I won't accept a browser that doesn't render all the pages I visit. Give me a non-IE browser that renders as large a percentage, and we've got a deal.
I know real nerds prefer text-only (in theory anyway
And let's not forget: IE is a very nice browser in itself. The only real reason I want to switch is because suspect to see DRM and the likes in IE Real Soon(TM). Heck - every time I upgrade to a newer version it's a couple of cents out of MS's pockets for the bandwith - what other browser gives you that satisfaction?
PERFECTLY? *rofl* (Score:5, Insightful)
If having needless application windows showing up all the time is your idea of perfect, you can keep it - I'll take my 'imperfect' browser any day.
Re:Opera is fine but: (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line for me as a user has nothing to do with the technicalities behind - more sites work with IE so that's what I'm using, even though morally I ought to switch to punish MS for their evil doings.
You don't have a problem with the sites that don't work, because you avoid them. That's like saying it's not a problem to have a car 5 metres wide, because you just avoid all the roads where it doesn't fit. I'll be damned if I'm going to go though all that hazzle to fight the fight against the evil nonconformists - in that sense I'm definitely not geeky enough.
And plzz... I'm choosing the browser that I like best after trying all the alternatives. Am I morally obliged to use ecological, non-bleached, standards conforming, open source browsers? Crusade someone else Lionheart.
Other new stuff (Score:5, Informative)
I'm quite impressed with this second beta. With betas like this, IE7 better be damn good to not get yawned at
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Great Feature (Score:4, Interesting)
The nostalgia feature is great.. and completely useless. No wonder people don't take this web browser seriously.
Check out the real deal (Score:3, Interesting)
HyperLink [armory.com]
The Wave [videocam.net.au] (under geos on c128, so it's cheating)
wonder if they got the bugs out (Score:2)
Opera 7 (Score:2, Interesting)
simply the best (Score:2, Insightful)
Some browsers are better for certain things, but I think Opera studied how people actually use their browsers. For instance, when you click the back button in Opera, your previous page is there *instantly*.
It renders pages waaaay faster than anything else, and it comes with a decent e-mail client.
Not that I don't have complaints, though. The toolbars & buttons waste screen real estate. Fortunately, you can download some nice skins and small buttons. Ultimately you have more control over what it looks like.
I like IE & Mozilla, but I realize how great Opera is when I use them.
What happens when... (Score:3, Funny)
Small Screen Rendering Isn't a Big Deal (Score:3, Informative)
Not the Opera I know... (Score:3, Funny)
Where is the giant banner add offering something I don't care about?
All joking aside I wish Opera the best, but I couldn't imagine using it when there are other [mozilla.org] viable options.
20 years ago?!?! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Silly question (Score:3, Insightful)
I dont see whatever is suppost to be pointed out in the screenshot.
Sorry in advance
Yup, Nostalgia (Score:4, Funny)
Odd, why don't I remember that?
Re:Business strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
Like Final Cut Pro->iMovie, DVD Studio->iDVD, and the iPod+iTunes combo, among other things.
Re:Business strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can't be the best, do something kind of zany and creative in hopes of keeping your business afloat.
Okay, maybe you have not used Opera lately, but many people, including smart people like Joel Sponsky, would argue that Opera is the best. Considering what a small market they're dealing with (those people who don't use IE and are willing to pay for a web browser), the fact that they're still around should be enough evidence of this.
Hey, I guess they figured it works for Apple and could maybe work for them.
Apple is simply meeting a niche demand for stylish computers that are almost as good a price/performance value as competing PCs. You pay a small premium for a stylish design, which is worth it to many people (e.g., people who wear nice athletic gear or drive Mitsubishis).
I think you're either a) jealous that you can't afford Opera or an iMAC, or b) one of those Linux freaks who thinks they have a right to get everything for free. Either way, you're definitely not older than 16, so come back when you're grown up. Thanks.
Re:Business strategy (Score:2, Funny)
Wow...I never had heard of Mitsubishis being considered 'stylish'. German cars, yes, but a standard Japanese car?. 'Nice athletic gear,' well, perhaps stylish to your standard frat boy or hip hop artist, but most people would consider "stylish" being something like Kenneth Cole, Armani, Gucci, D&G etc. etc.
At least thats my definition of style....shoot...i just realized that if thats style, i'm the lamest person around! ha ha :)
Re:Business strategy (Score:2)
Re:Business strategy (Score:2)
But I'm not paying for Opera. I have to ignore a little ad banner in the upper right corner, but that's not so bad. Yeah, it costs me a teeny tiny bit of bandwidth, but I've saved that much and more by suppressing all the annoying Flash/Java ads and popups. As an added bonus, I'm running it swiftly and happily on an old PII/300.
Re:Business strategy (Score:2)
> an old PII/300.
This is impressive _how_?
I'm running on a PII/233, and regardless of which browser I use
(Mozilla, Netscape 7, Opera, Phoenix, Konqueror, Amaya, Arachne,
Netscape 4 (ick), K-Meleon, Galeon,
pretty much exactly the same -- and unless I'm doing something in
the background that's lot more CPU-intensive than web browsing,
my CPU-utilisation-meter almost never goes past 50%.
Web browsing speed depends almost 100% on three things: bandwidth,
RAM, and latency (in that order). CPU speed, unless you're trying
to use a 486 (or worse), is a complete non-issue.
The whole "Opera is fast" argument just doesn't fly with me. Opera
loads pages in the same amount of time as any other browser. The
only way to speed it up substantially would be to not retrieve some
of the content (such as images and plugins, perhaps), but almost any
browser can do that if that's the effect you're after.
I have Opera, and I use it from time to time (mostly for testing
pages to see how they look in it), and I'm unable to perceive any
increase in speed over other browsers.
Opera does have a smaller footprint than the big boys, but that's
a separate issue; smaller footprint only means faster if you're so
low on system resources that you're using a swapfile, and if that's
the case you've got bigger problems than your web browser.
Hey craaack smoker! (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you ever built a web page or designed an interface? From your comments I'm going to assume the answer is no, and that you are either a DBA, marketing dude, or otherwise non-interface aware individual.
I do a lot of interactive consulting, and I can definitively say Opera is the worst of the four major browsers available (four being IE, NN, MOZ, and Opera). Why?
1) The "opera speed" is a factor of page caching choices made by their dev team. To that end any browser cna achieve an increase in parsing speed if their willing to put logic behind a caching system and virtually force users to employ cached data.
Remember that generally techies bypass all caching and force the browser to "always download a new version of the page", so folks who want to guarantee they get a current page don't get this speed gain. The reasons date back to the early caching fiascos of the major browsers as THEY attempted to make use of caching to "increase their speed."
Yes, most folks leave these elements active by default and will have faster browsing, but at what cost? It is COMMON for new elements of a page not to be detected, and then the user has an outdated page.
2) Opera 7.0 is a catastrophe. I've tested the browser against a whole bunch of DOM standardized code (DHTML, Javascript, etc.). It doesn't even implement BASIC rules properly. window.open properties? Not supported. Page x/y positioning and detection? Not supported, or when it is it's only in relation to an interior "window" that totally defies standardized browser behavior.
I was beginning to support Opera in all my scripts, but after testing the betas I've been forced to acknoeldge I won't do so going forward. The differences betwen 6.01 and 7.0 are ENORMOUS, and 6 is actually MORE standards comliant the 7!!!!
Thanks god opera's market share is small enough to ignore. If it works for them fine, if not they can scream at Opera's dev team.
-rt
Re:Hey craaack smoker! (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone can check Opera's specs pages [opera.com] and see that you are lying through your teeth about Opera 7 not being very standards compliant.
Re:Nostalgia! (Score:5, Funny)
Enough. It's enough times now. Please, dear sweet Jesus, enough.
Re:Screendump PNG Bad? (Score:2, Informative)
Info on PNG [libpng.org]
Re:Finally!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it just me... (Score:4, Interesting)
I completely agree with you about the clutter. It's one of my biggest bitches about most modern software - everything is lousy with button bars, speedbars, coolbars, iconbars, minibars, whatever. The first thing I have to do after installing something is turn pretty much all of it off. KDE apps are particularly bad offenders here - the default layout of KWord gives me something like 8 lines of text. What really bugs me is that 80% of these buttons are useless. Does *anyone* ever use the toolbar icons for cut/paste/new file?
Re:Reason enough for me to try opera (Score:2)
I've been told by the Opera Linux team that Opera 7 for Linux is what they're working on and will share the Windows version's engine.
Mirrors (Score:2, Informative)