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This is a sort of continuation of a prior thread I had made about the least powerful hardware that could use Gemini. I honestly feel bad about this as I have neither real hardware of the era, nor do I have coding experience. However in theory Gemini would be great for retro enthusiasts as it would give them something compsritovely resource light while also being actively worked on. Projects like The Old Web exist, and frankly make me smile as it gives old hardware a way to Web, or at least explore the web that was, somewhat natively. However I feel trying to force Big Web on such old machines is 'solving' the square peg round hole problem with a sledgehammer. Problem is while gopher roots would hint at the audiance here has a higher than average number of retro enthusiasts there is no gurentee at anyone caring to see what, say, Lagrange can be ported to. I also have another thought for devices that can't natively do tls involving both a client, and a pi zero, or Arduino, or even something built into that wifi to serial port device (forget the name but that is just so danged handy to have if you retro.) To handle the security bits so that those older devices can join in on the fun. Let the web demand more and more resources. Give old platforms as well as new access to Gemini. I just... Don't know if anyone here is actually interested in Doing The Thing. I just think it'd be neat and would get coverage by people like Micheal mjd, lgr, etc alongside.
On 7/12/2021 4:56 PM, Andrew Singleton wrote: > This is a sort of continuation of a prior thread I had made about the > least powerful hardware that could use Gemini. > > I honestly feel bad about this as I have neither real hardware of the > era, nor do I have coding experience. However in theory Gemini would be > great for retro enthusiasts as it would give them something > compsritovely resource light while also being actively worked on. > > Projects like The Old Web exist, and frankly make me smile as it gives > old hardware a way to Web, or at least explore the web that was, > somewhat natively. However I feel trying to force Big Web on such old > machines is 'solving' the square peg round hole problem with a > sledgehammer. > > Problem is while gopher roots would hint at the audiance here has a > higher than average number of retro enthusiasts there is no gurentee at > anyone caring to see what, say, Lagrange can be ported to. > > I also have another thought for devices that can't natively do tls > involving both a client, and a pi zero, or Arduino, or even something > built into that wifi to serial port device (forget the name but that is > just so danged handy to have if you retro.) To handle the security bits > so that those older devices can join in on the fun. > > Let the web demand more and more resources. Give old platforms as well > as new access to Gemini. > > I just... Don't know if anyone here is actually interested in Doing The > Thing. I just think it'd be neat and would get coverage by people like > Micheal mjd, lgr, etc alongside. Yeah, this is quite the good idea.
Tell that to the guy on another topic arguing that 'oh this old hardware is useless.' personally the response posted was perfect in explaining that mentality is what generates e-waste. Jul 12, 2021 6:59:16 PM stern <stern at tilde.club>: > On 7/12/2021 4:56 PM, Andrew Singleton wrote: >> This is a sort of continuation of a prior thread I had made about the least powerful hardware that could use Gemini. >> I honestly feel bad about this as I have neither real hardware of the era, nor do I have coding experience. However in theory Gemini would be great for retro enthusiasts as it would give them something compsritovely resource light while also being actively worked on. >> Projects like The Old Web exist, and frankly make me smile as it gives old hardware a way to Web, or at least explore the web that was, somewhat natively. However I feel trying to force Big Web on such old machines is 'solving' the square peg round hole problem with a sledgehammer. >> Problem is while gopher roots would hint at the audiance here has a higher than average number of retro enthusiasts there is no gurentee at anyone caring to see what, say, Lagrange can be ported to. >> I also have another thought for devices that can't natively do tls involving both a client, and a pi zero, or Arduino, or even something built into that wifi to serial port device (forget the name but that is just so danged handy to have if you retro.) To handle the security bits so that those older devices can join in on the fun. >> Let the web demand more and more resources. Give old platforms as well as new access to Gemini. >> I just... Don't know if anyone here is actually interested in Doing The Thing. I just think it'd be neat and would get coverage by people like Micheal mjd, lgr, etc alongside. > > Yeah, this is quite the good idea.
Andrew Singleton writes:
> Let the web demand more and more resources. Give old platforms as well
> as new access to Gemini.
>
> I just... Don't know if anyone here is actually interested in Doing
> The Thing. I just think it'd be neat and would get coverage by people
> like Micheal mjd, lgr, etc alongside.
I'm somewhat interested, I just don't have access to older hardware. I
can probably get somewhat older operating systems running in emulation
or virtual machines (OS/2, Windows 95, Mac System 7), but they'll still
be running on pretty modern hardware, even if I limit the RAM (etc)
available to them. I know even less about 8-bit micros; I was a kid
when I used them.
I have some development experience on OS/2, but not on the others.
--
Jason McBrayer | ?Strange is the night where black stars rise,
jmcbray at carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies,
| but stranger still is lost Carcosa.?
| ? Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow
On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 23:56:32 +0000 (UTC) Andrew Singleton <singletona082 at gmail.com> wrote: > This is a sort of continuation of a prior thread I had made about the > least powerful hardware that could use Gemini. > > I honestly feel bad about this as I have neither real hardware of the > era, nor do I have coding experience. However in theory Gemini would > be great for retro enthusiasts as it would give them something > compsritovely resource light while also being actively worked on. > > Projects like The Old Web exist, and frankly make me smile as it > gives old hardware a way to Web, or at least explore the web that > was, somewhat natively. However I feel trying to force Big Web on > such old machines is 'solving' the square peg round hole problem with > a sledgehammer. > > Problem is while gopher roots would hint at the audiance here has a > higher than average number of retro enthusiasts there is no gurentee > at anyone caring to see what, say, Lagrange can be ported to. > > I also have another thought for devices that can't natively do tls > involving both a client, and a pi zero, or Arduino, or even something > built into that wifi to serial port device (forget the name but that > is just so danged handy to have if you retro.) To handle the security > bits so that those older devices can join in on the fun. > > Let the web demand more and more resources. Give old platforms as > well as new access to Gemini. > > I just... Don't know if anyone here is actually interested in Doing > The Thing. I just think it'd be neat and would get coverage by people > like Micheal mjd, lgr, etc alongside. I have some old Windows PDAs that could use a Gemini client and a 32 bit Windows 7 dev machine. I was trying to get the last version of Qt that supported Windows CE running on that machine, but I didn't get far. There were also no readily available pre-built clients for 32 bit Windows 7 that I could find.
A Gemini client running on old ebook hardware - like a Kindle - would be great. On Thu, Aug 5, 2021 at 3:59 PM raingloom <raingloom at riseup.net> wrote: > On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 23:56:32 +0000 (UTC) > Andrew Singleton <singletona082 at gmail.com> wrote: > > > This is a sort of continuation of a prior thread I had made about the > > least powerful hardware that could use Gemini. > > > > I honestly feel bad about this as I have neither real hardware of the > > era, nor do I have coding experience. However in theory Gemini would > > be great for retro enthusiasts as it would give them something > > compsritovely resource light while also being actively worked on. > > > > Projects like The Old Web exist, and frankly make me smile as it > > gives old hardware a way to Web, or at least explore the web that > > was, somewhat natively. However I feel trying to force Big Web on > > such old machines is 'solving' the square peg round hole problem with > > a sledgehammer. > > > > Problem is while gopher roots would hint at the audiance here has a > > higher than average number of retro enthusiasts there is no gurentee > > at anyone caring to see what, say, Lagrange can be ported to. > > > > I also have another thought for devices that can't natively do tls > > involving both a client, and a pi zero, or Arduino, or even something > > built into that wifi to serial port device (forget the name but that > > is just so danged handy to have if you retro.) To handle the security > > bits so that those older devices can join in on the fun. > > > > Let the web demand more and more resources. Give old platforms as > > well as new access to Gemini. > > > > I just... Don't know if anyone here is actually interested in Doing > > The Thing. I just think it'd be neat and would get coverage by people > > like Micheal mjd, lgr, etc alongside. > > I have some old Windows PDAs that could use a Gemini client and a 32 > bit Windows 7 dev machine. I was trying to get the last version of Qt > that supported Windows CE running on that machine, but I didn't get far. > There were also no readily available pre-built clients for 32 bit > Windows 7 that I could find. >
Luke Crook writes:
> A Gemini client running on old ebook hardware - like a Kindle - would be great.
Someone is working on a client for Kobo ebook readers, but I don't know
how far it's gotten.
If someone wrote a Gemini plugin for KOReader, it would be able to
support lots of devices, but it might not make sense to write a general
client as a plugin; maybe a feed aggregator would make more sense. I
believe that's something that could be done in Lua.
--
Jason McBrayer | ?Strange is the night where black stars rise,
jmcbray at carcosa.net | and strange moons circle through the skies,
| but stranger still is lost Carcosa.?
| ? Robert W. Chambers,The King in Yellow
On 2021-08-05 04:23PM, Luke Crook wrote: > A Gemini client running on old ebook hardware - like a Kindle - would > be great. There's a Gemini client for the reMarkable tablet: https://github.com/irth/rmgem It's of "barely usable" quality but it can make Gemini requests, all the issues are UI issues rather than issues with doing the networking stuff. Possibly wouldn't be too hard to port to a kindlet for jailbroken Kindles or something? ~nytpu -- Alex // nytpu alex at nytpu.com gpg --locate-external-key alex at nytpu.com https://useplaintext.email/
I just realized my reply was only sent to Luke and not to the list. Posting here for future reference. On 06 Aug 2021, Alex // nytpu wrote: > Possibly wouldn't be too hard to port to a kindlet for jailbroken > Kindles or something? I tried creating a Gemini browser as a Kindle Java app (Kindlet) but turns out Kindlets can only make HTTP and HTTPS requests. Requests to any other port are blocked. The SSL/TLS libraries are also rather old so I doubt they will work with most Gemini servers. Most HTTPS websites can't be accessed. The only solution seems to be running a proxy on the Kindle, in which case you might as well use its browser for rendering. I have installed the gneto proxy on a jailbroken Kindle 4 NT (2011) which allows visiting Gemini from its built-in web browser by pointing it to http://0.0.0.0:8065. This works quite nicely so far. I'm planning to release my setup/init scripts eventually and I'll post in this list when I do. https://github.com/pgorman/gneto I'd love to have an HTTP/HTTPS (due to very old SSL/TLS), Gemini and Gopher proxy on the Kindle. I might get around to modifying gneto sometime. Go is great for this kind of thing since cross-compiling for the Kindle as of Go 1.5 is as simple as env GOOS=linux GOARCH=arm go build Best regards, Sotiris
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