> Surely a
graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
> be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
There is a HTML browser that runs on MSX computers (!!!) called
FUDEBROWSER, look for it and his creator (Ricardo Bittencourt)
<off_my_lawn_moment>
The problem with old web browsers is that web content has grown up thinking
everyone has the latest features. It started innocently with Netscape, got
driven wild by IE, and is now being rammed into the stratosphere by Apple.
While graceful degredation works (to a limited extent) with CSS -- i.e.,
as long as your browser supports *no* CSS and doesn't even try, the page
will often come out in a useable if utilitarian manner -- it does not work
with JavaScript and, by extension, DOM. An out of date web browser is worse
than an intentionally limited browser like Lynx.
For this reason, I have always advocated different, hard to abuse protocols
that by their structure forcibly present some sort of functional skeleton to
everyone, such as FTP or Gopher. The Web is terribly unfriendly to incomplete
or old implementations. To function your browser must be completely
featureless, buying itself a sympathy <noframes> <noscript> where it can,
or completely featured -- inbetween, everything breaks. It's like a bottomless
uncanny valley.
This is why old computers are regarded as "useless" -- because the way we
exchange information is fundamentally screwed up.
</off_my_lawn_moment>
--
------------------------------------ personal:
http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems *
www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at
floodgap.com
-- I, for one, welcome our new C64 overlords. -- John Floren ------------------