Posting from Mac Plus with System 6

[MacMan]

I have just succeeded in getting my Mac Plus on the internet through broadband using my Sonic ethernet to SCSI adaptor. I am posting this message from the Plus using NCSA Telnet running under System 6.0.8. "Telnet?" you ask... It's a nifty little trick using a certain telnet-based web community server under a guest account.

I have had this Plus online before with a 14.4K modem but this is the first time I have had it operating on a modern, fast connection.

 

[pqhf5kd]

Verynice. Id really need to get round to getting a ethernet to SCSI for my classic.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

MacMan, you could also use MacWWW, although it's very buggy. MacWeb, Lynx, and WannaBe will all run on a 68000, but I think all three need System 7.

Another option would be if you have an OS X machine, install Lynx on OS X, and telnet into your OS X machine to Lynx from there.

 

[MacMan]

MacMan, you could also use MacWWW, although it's very buggy. MacWeb, Lynx, and WannaBe will all run on a 68000, but I think all three need System 7.
Another option would be if you have an OS X machine, install Lynx on OS X, and telnet into your OS X machine to Lynx from there.

Yep, I tried MacWWW back in the days of dialup but it was appauling! I'm pretty sure the others do need System 7 as I have done some experimenting with them. My Plus does have 7 on it but using System 6 is just that bit more special!

I'll definitely look into Lynx with an OS X machine, sounds like a good little project.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Apple has an entry for Lynx on their Download site.

It's easy to install with that download, and I've just confirmed that only five steps are needed to use it over Telnet:

1. Download from the link above.

2. Double-click 'install.command'

3. Type your user password

4. Enable "Remote Login" on the OS X machine in the "Sharing" Preference pane

5. Telnet in, then type "lynx"

(Note that OS X by default requires that you actually use the ssh protocol, not the older telnet protocol. this MacOSXHints article says how to enable plain-ol' Telnet, if your Telnet client doesn't support ssh. Although it looks like a simple "sudo service telnet start" is enough to do it, from comments to that linked article.)

In fact, I had typed this in Safari, but just copied and pasted the post into Lynx to actually post it.

 

[Quadraman]

I need an SE ethernet adapter. I haven't seen one for a while.

 

[Charlieman]

MacWWW is pretty useless because it only supports HTTP 1.0 or earlier. Most websites are run on servers that provide HTTP 1.1 compatibility (required for multi-homing?) so MacWWW is well broken. The source code was available for several years in the early 1990s -- does anyone have a copy?

 

[tomlee59]

MacMan, you could also use MacWWW, although it's very buggy. MacWeb, Lynx, and WannaBe will all run on a 68000, but I think all three need System 7.

Almost -- WannaBe won't run on a 68000, sadly.

MacWWW (Samba) is the only system-6 compatible browser, but it is pretty much useless. And as you mentioned, it's extremely buggy. But it is a wonderful historical artifact.

 

[tomlee59]

MacWWW is pretty useless because it only supports HTTP 1.0 or earlier. Most websites are run on servers that provide HTTP 1.1 compatibility (required for multi-homing?) so MacWWW is well broken. The source code was available for several years in the early 1990s -- does anyone have a copy?

I once managed to track down one of its authors (thanks to a mutual friend-of-a-friend at CERN). Sadly, he says his copies of the source were lost in a computer systems upgrade many years ago. So, hopefully someone else "out there" has it sitting on a floppy, just waiting for a digital archaeologist to rediscover it...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Dang, if I had remembered this thread yesterday, I would have posted about how I discovered a long-lost branch of MacWWW 2.0 that supported HTTP 1.1 and HTML 3. (Which would make it a moderately current standards-compliant browser.)

 

[Charlieman]

I once managed to track down one of its authors (thanks to a mutual friend-of-a-friend at CERN). Sadly, he says his copies of the source were lost in a computer systems upgrade many years ago. So, hopefully someone else "out there" has it sitting on a floppy, just waiting for a digital archaeologist to rediscover it...

Thanks for the feedback, Tom. I suspect that originally the correct verb was "mislaid" amongst a mass of backup tapes, but "lost" may be true today. During a clear out at work recently, I rescued some floppy disks containing X.25 Coloured Books software, so you never know what might turn up.

 

[tomlee59]

I had assumed that it was mislaid, as well. Perhaps (probably) to inhibit my bothering him any further, he insisted that it was actually lost. Perhaps one day in the distant future a CERN archivist will come across an old backup tape and post its contents. Until then...