SlipKnot-sytle browser for QL

[tofro]

Re-sampling images to the lower text resolution in real-time (or at least endurable time) would be way beyond the capabilities of a QL or QL-alike, IMHO. (Note that is actually more work than rendering the images directly - The QL has no text mode. Even text is graphics).

I think the way SlipKnot works, that could be on the server side and a more suitable image could be transferred over to load more quickly. That's how SlipKnot worked in the day on pre-Windows 95.

No offense intended, but: I really don't get it why people repeatedly come back to the idea of having a working browser on the QL. Much more capable 68k platforms like high-end Amigas or Atari STs have failed on that before. Even on an Amiga Vampire v4 (which has capabilities way beyond anything we have) browsing the Web is still a very boring experience.

None taken. I think that comment could be said about any endeavor that a hobbyist applies to their favorite machine. I'm sure there are people out there wondering why the heck we use limited hardware and/or software when better stuff is available and some free (i.e. Linux as an OS for example vs the latest Amiga OS, SMSQ/E, TOS, etc...).

Well, I'm absolutely fine with ambitious endeavors that drive a historic machine to its limits - That's one of the main attractions - at least to me - for using old hardware. But a working Internet browser is by far too ambitious when it challenges even modern computers like a Raspberry Pi.

[bwinkel67]

But a working Internet browser is by far too ambitious when it challenges even modern computers like a Raspberry Pi.

You are correct. I'm just intrigued by the retro wifi modem and using it more than just browsing old BBS sites, since it does most of the networking for you. And the fact that SlipKnot was designed for non TCP/IP stack browsing just opens this up. In any case, I doubt the QL will drive interest, but if an Amiga or classic Mac could use that type of browser and it spawns a github project, then someone (maybe me) could explore a branch for the QL.

My initial interest was really more about browsing the web more easily on my classic early 90s Mac (PowerBook180), and though I could go the route of going with something like AsanteTalk over LocalTalk and find an old version of Mosaic/Netscape, it would be cool to get a far better experience using the wifi retro modem telneting into a UNIX site (like sdf.org) to get some browser communication going. You can do limited stuff with their new BlueSCSI using a Pico with wifi, but that hardly works well and only on older non-SSL pages (i.e., sure, I can use Action Retro's FrogFind but that's not all that exciting). I actually use my PowerBook in a few lectures in one of my OS classes just to show a 90s GUI and how cooperative multitasking worked, but to then get it to hit the web might be a fun thing to show students too -- i.e. we weren't as primitive in the 90s as I'm sure they think we were

What SlipKnot could do is circumvent all the heavy lifting and move it to the server side. It reminds me of a browser I used on my iPhone (who's name I forget) about 10 years back that basically had things like flash and HTML5 run on a server side and on an iPhone (I think it was an iPhone 4 at the time) you could run any page flawlessly since it had its own interface between server and iPhone that was stable (i.e. the server worried about updating whatever was needed to run the latest media). Not sure what happened to that but I know I used it for a few years when I was streaming a lot of Justin.tv and VaughnLive.com media and it worked really well.

I did find the author on Facebook. He's now a math teacher and it looks like it's been a few years since he posted anything. He does still have his shareware website, so I'll try that as well. Want to ask him if he'd be willing to open source his browser (which is for Windows only) and then see if some of my Discord friends on the various retro sites would be interested in taking a look at it.

[Edit: btw, I go to at least a conference every year, and most occasions I present paper and I've always wanted to use my PowerBook 180 casually to do a PowerPoint presentation and see if anyone notices. My presentations are pretty bare bones as slides go, so that would work. But to then add the ability to hit up a web page would also be cool. What's preventing that right now is that I need to rebuild the battery so it's truly portable again. Could I ever do that with a QL, that one is trickier, but Easel might be something that could display presentation-like stuff. I think the comments there might be "what a cool keyboard, what is that?"]

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I can not see this working, as most web pages are HTML 5.

But if there are any ASCII text based web pages the system may work.

So why not use an existing Text based browser for the QL: Lynx

I like the Group Slipknot,..

[bwinkel67]

Hi,

I can not see this working, as most web pages are HTML 5.

But if there are any ASCII text based web pages the system may work.

So why not use an existing Text based browser for the QL: Lynx

I live the Group Slipknot,..

You misunderstand how it works. If the server-side does most of the work and then transfers some media converted to QL screen images (think dithered and not full-screen like we use in some of our sprite-based X-mas cards) along with text via file transfer, and the client-side QL software just displays it, that would be a very efficient. The bottleneck would be the serial port transfer (which was the bottleneck for SlipKnot on Windows at the time as well) -- you'd need at least a Hermes to get better baud rates. The QL render engine, if you could call it that, would just have to display text and small QL screen images to show a page.

The resolution wouldn't be great but the page display would be pretty quick (again think of how quickly we can display a small software sprite on the screen...if the images are only 20% of the full screen size it would go pretty quickly). Plus you could also go the route of some web-based email readers (like one I use as an alumni for my old school still to this day) that only creates place holders for images and you can click each if you want to fill it in. That would make a page with lots of images load instantly and it would be up to the user to choose which image to fill in (and could be a setting for the QL client-side browser)

Here's the site to read up on it: http://micromind.com/slipknot.htm

[XorA]

https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

Might also be useful for the current discussion, I havent personally tried this but Ive seen people using it for pre-processing for the Amiga.

Markdown mode would suit the QL I think.

[bwinkel67]

https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

Might also be useful for the current discussion, I havent personally tried this but Ive seen people using it for pre-processing for the Amiga.

Markdown mode would suit the QL I think.

Oh cool...I'll look at that.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

Where can I get the QL render engine?

[bwinkel67]

Hi,

Where can I get the QL render engine?

It hasn't been written yet as it's a proposal. I think first step is to get the SlipKnot source code and put it on github. Then maybe a version other than Windows could be created via a port. Then we'll see about a QL version which will require a bit more on the server end to translate jpg to screen images, etc...

Btw, on a tangent topic, I really like the sdf.org site that gives you access to a free UNIX server (with limited access). For a $1 you can open up all its features (done to avoid SPAM bots from using the service). Aside form ssh access, it even allows for telnet, which is great if you are using a wifi retro modem (like Simulant) as you can use it to get access to a Unix site (like I used my QL back in the 90s). It even has a vintage feature to connect to it differently. It reminds me a lot of freewha.com, where both seem pretty organic as their web interface is pretty simple.

https://connect.sdf.org/

I haven't tried the Simulant retro wifi modem route yet but I think it should work since the modem uses telnet (for my account I created a password I don't use elsewhere since obviously telnet is not secure).

[swensont]

> No offense intended, but: I really don't get it why people repeatedly come back to the idea of having a working browser on the QL.

It is exactly this kind of thinking that keeps guys like us from dating supermodels.

[dex]

Go go Gopher!