68kMLA Classic Interface

[wthww]

Hello MLAers,

I've been working on making a version of the MLA available for browsing on our favorite vintage macs. The interface can be found here:

http://classic.68kmla.org/index.html

Please give this a shot and let me know what you think! I would consider this in alpha as of now.

Styling is limited to make this look/work right on the oldest macs. If you have trouble browsing this from a modern machine, you'll need to clear your browser history since we updated our HSTS config to make this possible.

Known issues:

• Widgets/graphics are missing (I need help sourcing some icons)
• Pagination controls aren't yet in the template but work if you add a pageNum= parm to the URL.
• The HTML extracted from XenForo isn't perfect and will need a filter to make it more compatible with HTML 3.2.
• Images and embeds aren't handled right now, so danger Will Robinson! Certain 68k and PPC browsers won't like this very much on a per-thread basis.
• There's no error handling for forums that are permission restricted.

Special thanks to:

@joshc for giving my inspiration with MacHut.

And these awesome folks from the MLA IRC for being my guineapigs and letting me bounce this off of them in no particular order:

@zigzagjoe
@Hollie
@finkmac
@Scott Squires
@cheesestraws
@treellama
@jessenator
@Tashtari
@aperezbios

//wthww

 

[nathall]

Oh man, this should be cool! I’ll give it a shot in the next few days on an SE w/ MacWeb.

 

[volvo242gt]

I'll have to fire up on of my older machines and see how it works.

 

[Boctor]

Is Netscape 3.01 too picky for this? It seems to download the "node" pages fine but won't actually display them. Internet Explorer 3.01a handles everything just fine. Tested both of them on a real IIci and an emulated Quadra 800, to be sure.

 

[LaPorta]

This is a real nice, welcome addition. Will give it a go with Classilla on my PT Pro this evening. Thank you!

 

[wthww]

MacWeb

Let me know how this goes -- I'm not sure MacWeb supports tables. Should be interesting to see!

Netscape 3.01 too picky for this?

I'm not sure -- it may be (or it could be that it can't fail gracefully!) What machine was this on?

Will give it a go with Classilla on my PT Pro this evening. Thank you!

Looking forward to a report!


I'll continue to add some features to this. All feedback is welcome

//wthww

 

[Snial]

Hello MLAers,

I've been working on making a version of the MLA available for browsing on our favorite vintage macs. The interface can be found here:

http://classic.68kmla.org/index.html

Please give this a shot and let me know what you think! I would consider this in alpha as of now.

Styling is limited to make this look/work right on the oldest macs. If you have trouble browsing this from a modern machine, you'll need to clear your browser history since we updated our HSTS config to make this possible.

Known issues:

• Widgets/graphics are missing (I need help sourcing some icons)
• Pagination controls aren't yet in the template but work if you add a pageNum= parm to the URL.
• The HTML extracted from XenForo isn't perfect and will need a filter to make it more compatible with HTML 3.2.
• Images and embeds aren't handled right now, so danger Will Robinson! Certain 68k and PPC browsers won't like this very much on a per-thread basis.
• There's no error handling for forums that are permission restricted.

Special thanks to:

@joshc for giving my inspiration with MacHut.

And these awesome folks from the MLA IRC for being my guineapigs and letting me bounce this off of them in no particular order:

@zigzagjoe
@Hollie
@finkmac
@Scott Squires
@cheesestraws
@treellama
@jessenator
@Tashtari
@aperezbios

//wthww

Incredible! Well done!

 

[Boctor]

I'm not sure -- it may be (or it could be that it can't fail gracefully!) What machine was this on?

On both an emulated Q800 and a real IIci, with everything default. I wanted to be sure it wasn't machine-specific.

 

[greystash]

Very cool!! Thank you!

 

[wthww]

Updates as of 2025-12-19 17:24 PST:

• Updated colors and fonts to be a little easier on the eyes.
• Added basic pagination controls.

 

[wthww]

Question for folks:

Would you enjoy the ability to post from the classic page? I was thinking it could be implemented by using aTOTP authenticator on your MLA account. We'd also add a permission option in user preferences. The option would look like this:



If you clicked "reply" you'd be greeted with three fields:

• Text of your reply message
• TOTP Code
• Email address of your MLA account
  

We'd only support plaintext from the classic page.

So, what do you think? While there is inherent risk, transmission is momentary and I can't think of a better "middle of the road" option to allow this.

Thanks,

//wthww

 

[nathall]

I’d absolutely love it!

 

[nathall]

Let me know how this goes -- I'm not sure MacWeb supports tables. Should be interesting to see!

I’m not a web designer, but it doesn’t seem like MacWeb even gets a chance to try. I get the following with all the versions I have; 1.00A2 through 2.1.

 

[wthww]

seem like MacWeb even gets a chance to try.

Thank you for trying this! It's probably because MacWeb doesn't send the host header (not http 1.1) to tell the webserver which site it wants.

Next weekend I'll swap the classic site to he hosted on a machine without any vhosts configured. That should make the classic page load instead of the nginx default .

Thanks,

//wthww