A web browser for your PC Transporter?

[sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us]

Over in comp.misc, someone posted this:

https://github.com/jhhoward/MicroWeb

It's somewhat amazing that it's taken them this long, given that SIS has
been around for ~20 years, and that there's even a system-level HTML tool
now to enable Webber. A casual glance indicates similar capabilities: no
scripts, no HTTPS.

--
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[Gary Gray]

On 1/3/22 13:00, sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
>
> It's somewhat amazing that it's taken them this long, given that SIS has
> been around for ~20 years,

It's not taken this long to get a browser for MSDOS... there have been
other text-based and graphical browsers starting in the 90's, such as
Arachne (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne_(web_browser)). I
believe that can run on an IBM XT (although not well... I can't recall
if I had much success when I tried it on my XT). It's a pain to set up,
however, as you need to get obscure device drivers and network stacks
installed and configured. MicroWeb is much easier to set up networking
wise, because the network stack is built into the application. The cost,
however, is only one mTCP-based application can run at a time because
they assume exclusive access the the network hardware. In that respect,
a IIgs with Marinetti beats it hands down.

I assume you mentioned the PC Transported tongue-in-cheek. You might be
able to run MicroWeb on it, but it won't be fun. The Transporter doesn't
have a way to access a network card in the host. (I suppose if you were
clever and dedicated enough, you could reverse-engineer the shim code
that gives the PC Transporter access to the Apple II host's hardware and
add network support. Sounds like an incredibly hairy task even if you
are well-versed in both the Apple II and PC architectures).

MicroWeb (well, actually, the mTCP network stack it runs on) does
support a serial line internet protocol. And the PC Transporter can
access the Apple II's serial ports. However, the PC Transporter starts
dropping characters on the serial port above 4800 baud. At that slow a
baud rate, most of your bandwidth is going to be eaten by the network
protocol/packet handling overhead.

Even so, maybe I'll give it a shot on my PC Transporter-equipped IIgs.
It's been a while since I've played with it.

[sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us]

Gary Gray <gg...@nospamplease.org> wrote:
> I assume you mentioned the PC Transported tongue-in-cheek. You might be
> able to run MicroWeb on it, but it won't be fun. The Transporter doesn't
> have a way to access a network card in the host.

Somewhat...mainly as a way of getting it at least somewhat on-topic. I've
never had a PC Transporter, but even at that, I know it doesn't have ISA
slots through which it could be expanded. Might a SL/IP or PPP stack run on
it, communicating through either on-board serial ports (if present) or the
host system's serial ports?

> MicroWeb (well, actually, the mTCP network stack it runs on) does
> support a serial line internet protocol. And the PC Transporter can
> access the Apple II's serial ports. However, the PC Transporter starts
> dropping characters on the serial port above 4800 baud. At that slow a
> baud rate, most of your bandwidth is going to be eaten by the network
> protocol/packet handling overhead.

Never mind the previous question, then. :)

> (I suppose if you were clever and dedicated enough, you could
> reverse-engineer the shim code that gives the PC Transporter access to the
> Apple II host's hardware and add network support. Sounds like an
> incredibly hairy task even if you are well-versed in both the Apple II and
> PC architectures).

Hairy indeed.

[James Hall [VE3MYZ] FN25dj. 73]

On Wednesday, January 5, 2022 at 10:44:37 a.m. UTC-8, sc...@alfter.diespammersdie.us wrote:
> Gary Gray <gg...@nospamplease.org> wrote:
> > I assume you mentioned the PC Transported tongue-in-cheek.

Happy New Year!

I do remember using my PCT with my Rom1 GS to connect to my local freenet via TCP and a text based web browser back in the 90's on a 9600bps modem.

I also remember Scott helping me with setting up script/shell enviroment about the same time frame with my shell account at university. GNO!

I still have the PCT with the 800k disk image. It was not real fast but did work. Now i just have to go through the box's and find the floppy. lol

Originally i purchased the PCT because of the price! And it came with 768k ram that GS/OS could use, that was my /Ram5 drive, i got the one with no coprocessor. There was one that came with the coprocessor, but it was a fair bit more. I never did get around to adding one to the empty socket on mine. I enjoyed using the card. I had a lot of fun setting up the 800k image. They is a utility that lets you create a larger single image file that you can format for MSDos. That was after i picked up a EZ-Drive 128MB cartridge drive, was it.? It's a good card, you don't really need the extras; serial port stuff or even the external video adaptor.

ve3myz [James]