[Coco] How about a CoCo Web Browser?

[Andrew]

> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:11:38 -0400
> From: "RJLCyberPunk" <cyberpunk at prtc.net>
> Subject: [Coco] How about a CoCo Web Browser?
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
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> 
> OK now that they have a wireless blue tooh "RS232" pak for the CoCo that 
> would and should allow it to use the PC it links too as a server to connect 
> to the internet wouldn't the next logical step be to develop a CoCo web 
> browser?
> 
> One that is at least text based with limited graphics capability like this 
> one developed for the Apple II here: 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMzgp7xTp1k&fmt=18

I think a minimal graphical web browser (ala WAP) is possible, maybe 
written in C under OS-9 (or pure assembler, or maybe a mix of assembler 
and CBASIC-3), provided that a major part of the system is a "host 
server" program that translates the WAP-like requests into standard 
browser requests, translating the returned data into "WAP" format (or 
downloading the "WAP" format directly if the page is referenced as such) 
and delivering it back to the custom browser running on the CoCo.

Graphics could thus be made faster by translating/scaling the 
information on the host server into something fast for the CoCo. It 
wouldn't look anywhere near as good as the original, of course, given 
the graphic limits of the CoCo - but it should be somewhat 
recognizeable. It might even be possible to use "tricks" (ala Sockmaster 
and others) to allow for higher-color special displays, ie: "click here 
to see the hires version" links or buttons.

The translator software would probably be best written using Python, 
Perl or even possibly PHP (or a combo of the three), running under *nix 
(Windows users could run it under Cygwin). I don't think C would be 
necessary, as most of the conversions of graphics and other things could 
be handled by libraries already written (usually using C) for such 
tasks. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't already an HTML 4.0 to WAP 
converter library available; the graphics could be handled by any number 
of libraries, such as ImageMagic. Speed wouldn't be an issue for such a 
server process written in higher level languages because the grunt work 
(needing such speed) could be handled by existing libraries available as 
native compiled code.

Heck - I wish I had the time, it sounds like it would be a fun project 
(I have all the tools and enough skill, just no time, unfortunately - I 
am in the middle of a long-term robotics project).

-- Andrew L. Ayers, Glendale, Arizona