What would be REALLY cool for the TI...

[Omega-TI]

Back in the early day's of the World Wide Web, there were TEXT ONLY browsers. What would really be neat is if there was a stripped-down text only browser for the TI that one could use to hit a few sites. Using the F18A, one would have at least 80 columns, you might be able to check email, possibly read the listserv or a couple of other minor things.

 

It would be for the "just to see if it could be done" aspect. Would it even be possible to pack that much HTML handling code in 32K or would one need the new 512K cartridge to hold a browser?

[samishal]

I think you woudl probably need the 512k cart to holf the browser but I think that you would be able to test the concept with the help of an Arduino with and Ethernet shield so that you wouldnt need to implement in TCP/IP stack just the interface between the Arduino and the TI.

[Stuart]

As the TI would be so limited in what it can actually display (text - no problem, but text in tables? text in frames? different fonts? different font sizes? font formatting? etc.), how many HTML tags do you think would need to be supported? I think I would be surprised if 32K wasn't enough.

[Gary from OPA]

I think the browser itself could be fitted within 32k, with solid good only assembly code.

 

But the problem is video and graphics, you need alot of ram for that, and more pixels min. 800x600, even the v9958 on my tim could not go that high with its 192k of ram.

 

And you need so form of extra cache or ramdisk or very fast hard drive to store all the incoming data with its graphics, styles, fonts an html coding, even a web page without any graphics can be just 1mb in plain html.

 

Then there is problem more and more websites use javascript for their fancy stuff, like right now i am typing this message in reply box, that is javascript with ajax loading.

 

You could try making a 'mobile' browser to force the website to output limited dataset, ads, graphics, less javascript for a older mobile phone, that might be idea, but then alot of websites don't have that opton thanks in part to growing usage of today's smartphones, so only big name sites might work like m.facebook.com and m.google.com those you might be able to browse on TI with limited mobile browser setup.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Gary from OPA

[CosmicBoy]

Why not use gopher instead of html?

It is more text based.

[+Ksarul]

How many Web sites still support Gopher? Not too many, I would suppose.

[Omega-TI]

I think the browser itself could be fitted within 32k, with solid good only assembly code.

 

But the problem is video and graphics, you need alot of ram for that, and more pixels min. 800x600, even the v9958 on my tim could not go that high with its 192k of ram.

 

And you need so form of extra cache or ramdisk or very fast hard drive to store all the incoming data with its graphics, styles, fonts an html coding, even a web page without any graphics can be just 1mb in plain html.

 

Then there is problem more and more websites use javascript for their fancy stuff, like right now i am typing this message in reply box, that is javascript with ajax loading.

 

You could try making a 'mobile' browser to force the website to output limited dataset, ads, graphics, less javascript for a older mobile phone, that might be idea, but then alot of websites don't have that opton thanks in part to growing usage of today's smartphones, so only big name sites might work like m.facebook.com and m.google.com those you might be able to browse on TI with limited mobile browser setup.

 

Hey, that would finally give me JUSTIFICATION to invest in a 1meg SAMS board if anyone started making them again! You know, as long as it would be USEFUL and all. It would be kind of poetic to use a TI in the TI forum.

 

The mobile browser idea is fantastic, I'm sure someone MIGHT be able to reverse engineer existing coding from a source, strip it down for text only, translate it, and code for the TI.... (not an easy project to be sure, even for you 'uber programmers' here)

I do see the chicken & the egg scenario here too, what's the point without the memory card? It really would be a way to exercise the F18A's full potential though, not to mention an opportunity to sell some hardware and get some excitement in the community with a whole new application for the old girl.

[Gary from OPA]

You know TI had their own 'protocol', the TEII cart. has its own lang. to render sites with alot of info, graphics, it is wonderful read to see how things have changed, and what might have been possible if the world contiune on pass the '83 crash, with sites outputing code to match the TEII lang. to produce multicolor sites with graphics etc on your TV monitor.

 

Oh'well you get need my TI PEBOX with its 32megs of RAM and you will be fine, I infact designed a super-AMS board but it was never produced, and did the original pcblayout for Asgard for their AMS project, that was horror story I wish to forgot at times the ugly of OPA's history, but it would be nice to see a proper new memory card design for the TI99, and that brings back my idea of updating the DSR for the CF7 to make it more useful similar to how I designed the RAMBO addon for the Horizon ramdisk to give programmer a way to access more pages of memory, of course it easy to have a big one long memory space, instead of bank switched but with the right tools like a new assembler and compiler you never would notice you program is using a ton of little banks of memory swapped in, infact TI designed macros and more ref/def type statements to handle that in source code and I almost finished an better assembler to produce object-linked code from huge source complied into banks of memory, another project I have to get back into working on.

 

I really have to look more into F18A and see what it can do compare to actual V9958 type setup which sadly never got used as much as it such for new programs, even tho tons of them were sold to users back in the day, it seems now there is more of want to develop on the TI with new stuff, then before it was just end-users, now it core group of people building things and doing stuff, more so then back in day.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Gary from OPA

[Bryan]

What I'd rather see is the emergence of a retro-web. Something specifically designed for older systems and more akin to what we used to do on online services. It could even support limited graphical elements. Right now people are doing things like Telnet BBS, but it doesn't really tie it all together very well.

[Omega-TI]

 

Right now people are doing things like Telnet BBS, but it doesn't really tie it all together very well.

 

I know what you mean. There is always 'something else' I want to do. For instance I'm toying with the idea of setting up my spare TI system in another room of the house. Since the second system is not HDX equipped, and too far away from the main system, I'd like to be able to telnet to it over the local network.

 

If somebody could write a telnet based server for the PC, it could be useful to ANYONE with any model/brand of classic computer, not just the TI. Of course the programs on the classic computer side would all be different, but essentially work the same way. Imagine a telnet based server on the PC, but on the TI side it might resemble CF2K visually, but when you select a program to copy, it would handle all the commands to the UDS-10, download the files and put them on the TI. It would essentially be a front end for the UDS-10 that also saves downloads.

 

Almost any classic computer with an RS-232 can use the UDS-10, most people run PC's or can emulate them in Mac's. This kind of software would probably be used by a lot of people... and maybe become a standard of sorts for the classic computing community.

 

But heck, even a simple personal BBS (mainly a download section) for the PC that would handle telnet connections would be helpful.

[+arcadeshopper]

 

I know what you mean. There is always 'something else' I want to do. For instance I'm toying with the idea of setting up my spare TI system in another room of the house. Since the second system is not HDX equipped, and too far away from the main system, I'd like to be able to telnet to it over the local network.

 

If somebody could write a telnet based server for the PC, it could be useful to ANYONE with any model/brand of classic computer, not just the TI. Of course the programs on the classic computer side would all be different, but essentially work the same way. Imagine a telnet based server on the PC, but on the TI side it might resemble CF2K visually, but when you select a program to copy, it would handle all the commands to the UDS-10, download the files and put them on the TI. It would essentially be a front end for the UDS-10 that also saves downloads.

 

Almost any classic computer with an RS-232 can use the UDS-10, most people run PC's or can emulate them in Mac's. This kind of software would probably be used by a lot of people... and maybe become a standard of sorts for the classic computing community.

 

But heck, even a simple personal BBS (mainly a download section) for the PC that would handle telnet connections would be helpful.

 

Um.. write?

 

Ever hear of linux? telnet built in, file xfer protocols built in? how bout a raspberry pi?, run windows? that's ok you can use cygwin or run a vm.. mac has unix on board, just enable telnet

 

Greg