A browser-based Amiga emulation for iPad and iPhone

[Steffest]

@yesplease Wow .... that's one slick web app!
Very very very well done.

(to toot my own horn, I'm a seasoned web developer myself, and I know an good web application when I see one)

No matter how cool the scriptedamigaemulator is, it's C-code that is one-on-one ported to JavaScript, including the quite horrible infinite loops to force a delay, choking everything up. (I mean no disrespect, awesome project nevertheless)

the vAmiga source is wonderfully clean and moving to webAssembly clearly the right path for a web version.

Excellent!
Thank you so much.

[yesplease]

Originally Posted by Steffest

@yesplease Wow .... that's one slick web app!
Very very very well done.
….
the vAmiga source is wonderfully clean and moving to webAssembly clearly the right path for a web version.

@Steffest thanks so much for your kindly praises …. the clean structure of the vAmiga emulation core was developed from the scratch by @dirkwhoffmann just starting in 2019. It’s wonderful what he created there.

Originally Posted by Steffest

No matter how cool the scriptedamigaemulator is, it's C-code that is one-on-one ported to JavaScript, including the quite horrible infinite loops to force a delay, choking everything up. (I mean no disrespect, awesome project nevertheless)

Hm we could make a shootout competition …. lets take these two to the test parcour then…

Benchmarking tool „chrome taskmanager“ … looking at consumed cpu time

Running vAmigaWeb vs SAE head to head in two chrome windows

the idle test …

running: Sysinfo4.4 a couple of minutes …

vAmigaWeb (wasm) = 36 cpu seconds
SAE (javascript) = 60 cpu seconds

vAmigaWeb consumes only 60% of the cpu power compared to SAE when not much happens in terms of chipset (blitter, copper, etc)


the pressure test …

Running: STATE OF THE ART demo until end

vAmigaWeb (wasm) = 23 cpu seconds
SAE (javascript) = 43 cpu seconds


vAmigaWeb consumes 53% of the cpu power compared to SAE when the Amiga custom chips are fully working.


findings: the javascript based SAE draws roughly twice as much power as its wasm based counter part vAmigaWeb …

vAmigaWeb is nearly twice as efficient


But as you said regardless of SAE execution paths being much slower … its an awesome piece of software too… one must also acknowledge that its development started much earlier when there was no wasm toolchain …

[aZtOcKdOg]

There has been some amazing advancements recently- amazing work! Slick is definitely the right word! Like butter! Glorious… thank you

[japandrej]

quick question - is there some internet connectivity/bsdsocket.library possiblity?

I know you want to keep it simple but now that we have the IMP3 working so well it would be just to good to play some online stuff through...

[yesplease]

Hi @japandrej

tl;dr: - no -

1. which port are we speaking of ?
I did look into Commodore Handbook for Amiga3000 and Amiga1200 and there is no such connector for it like Ethernet or so … or is that mentioned socket lib using Amigas parallel or serial port ? In case of serial port connection there is already a API to connect to the serial port of a vAmigaWeb instance see https://github.com/vAmigaWeb/vAmigaWeb/wiki/serial_port for reference

2. breaking the sandbox.
One might think because vAmigaWeb is a web app and therefore sort of ”present and online in the internet” that this would also presuppose that it could communicate easily with other servers in the internet… But this thought is misleading…

That is because browser engines in which vAmigaWeb lives together with its compiled c++ code inside a wasm memory space are very strict when it comes to connectivity to other servers. You can think of it as a sandbox in which connections to the outside world are restricted to the ”same server only” from which vAmigaWebs code was loaded from.

To connect to any server from a web app like vAmigaWeb would therefore require sending all traffic back to the same server which would have to act as a reverse proxy through which all information would be passed. Since it lives on a GitHub.io space which only serves static files there is no way to implement such a proxy.

[yesplease]

new vAmigaWeb version covers iPhone notch and dynamic island, redesigned virtual joystick and keyboard mappings

* the screen space around the notch and the dynamic island on modern iPhones is perfectly usable now.

* redesigned the virtual touch joystick with various different selectable types and a configurable deadzone.

* define your own custom key board mappings even for non Amiga keys
e.g. Meta+S => save snapshot, Meta+R => restore snapshot, Alt+J => swap joystick ports, and more

* added a setting to prevent dimming or auto off on supported browsers... very useful for viewing demos (needs latest iOS 17 for PWA mode)

* added a fullscreen button to the menu bar on supported browsers

version history at https://vamigaweb.github.io/doc/index.html

runnable on your iPhone via https://vamigaweb.github.io

(installable by saving it to your homescreen with the share button)

[yesplease]

new vAmigaWeb update delivers reworked virtual keyboard with key stroke sounds, vibration and transparency, improved xbox controller analogue sticks

* new accurate/consistent virtual keyboard layout thanks to the modern CSS3 grid layout concept

* adjustable virtual key cap size

* automatic scaling of the key caps so that the keyboard layout will use the complete screen width (responsive design)

* sound feedback on touching/pressing the keys (adjustable via settings)

* haptic feed back on key press (short vibration impulse) on supporting devices.

* different transparency levels for better usage in landscape mode (you will see underneath the keyboard what you have typed) (adjustable via settings)

* an adjustable margin to the bottom (so that the keyboard is always rendered on top of iPhones/iPads home indicator bar)

* all analogue sticks on an external controller should be recognized and work properly now. Tested with wireless XBox controller on iPad.

runnable on your iPhone/iPad/Android/other via https://vamigaweb.github.io

(installable by saving it to your iPhone/iPads homescreen with the share button in safari)

[Bren McGuire]

it does not accept extended ADF format, can this be added? otherwise this is very impressive!

[paraj]

Originally Posted by Bren McGuire

it does not accept extended ADF format, can this be added? otherwise this is very impressive!

It does support extended ADF at least when extension of file you insert is ".adf"

[Bren McGuire]

it didn't work for me i put the Turrican 3 extended ADF in there and it just stood there stuck in the "insert disk" screen please give it a test

Originally Posted by paraj

It does support extended ADF at least when extension of file you insert is ".adf"

[paraj]

Originally Posted by Bren McGuire

it didn't work for me i put the Turrican 3 extended ADF in there and it just stood there stuck in the "insert disk" screen please give it a test

Ah yeah, those aren't supported: https://github.com/dirkwhoffmann/vAmiga/issues/432

[dirkwhoffmann]

vAmiga (Mac) informs the user with the following error message:

"The file is encoded in an outdated format that was introduced by Factor 5 to distribute Turrican images. The format has no relevance today and is not supported by the emulator."

Maybe Yesplease can show a similar message in the web version:

@Yesplease: Internally, an ERROR_EXT_FACTOR5 exception is thrown when one of the Turrican image is detected.

[yesplease]

many thanks @paraj and @dirkwhoffmann

@Bren McGuire

vAmigaWeb shows now like vAmiga (Mac) the aboves text message when one tries to insert an ADF with this special outdated extended ADF format (it is only used on factor5s turrican backup disks ...)

[yesplease]

new vAmigaWeb v2.6 upgrades vAmigaCore and improves file usage

* imports previously unmountable files on a disk (DD/HD 880KB/1.76MB), e.g. single files such as demo.lha ( [ Show youtube player ]), todos.txt, space_ship.iff, blitter_force.asm

* extended ADF files are recognized by header bytes regardless of its file extension

* select files from folders inside a zip file, improved zip file support

* upgraded to most recent vAmigaCore v2.6 for increased machine compatibility

-------

version history at https://vamigaweb.github.io/doc/index.html

runnable on your iPhone/iPad/Android/AppleVisionPro/other via https://vamigaweb.github.io

(installable by saving it to your iPhone/iPads homescreen with the share button in safari)