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Studio 8502 :verified:

Do I think Gopher should replace the Web? No.

Do I think the Web should evolve to be more like Gopher? Yes.

Do I think Gopher should become "The Web for Retrocomputing"? Yes -- specifically, that we should have native Gopher clients for every retro platform, and as a community should use them.

Gopher's design is such that pretty much every retro platform can support it, and it can, in theory, make for an almost ideal "micro-internet" for retro systems -- gopherholes can be built up to support any platform, archiving and curating old software, and releasing new stuff for retro systems. That's not a hack, it's using the technology as it was designed to be used.

Retrocomputing is a small-ish community, compared to fandoms or "social media" or whatever -- but it's still large enough to be viable just doing its own thing.

11 Jul 2023 at 18:32 | Open on oldbytes.space
38 comments
Will Furnass

@mos_8502 could/should Gemini be the middle ground here?

11 Jul 2023 at 18:46 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Studio 8502 :verified:

@willfurnass I haven't learned enough about Gemini as a service to form an educated opinion.

11 Jul 2023 at 19:00 | Open on oldbytes.space
Sebastian RenΓ© Higgins

@willfurnass @mos_8502 before one could do TLS under 16-bit DOS i'm guessing not...

11 Jul 2023 at 19:36 | Open on mastodon.sdf.org
mabs

@willfurnass @mos_8502 Gemini has a few fundamental issues, mostly around the implementation of TLS, connection security and the insistence of deliberately keeping it how it is and no improvements. Plus retro systems will have issues with the computation for the crypto layer.

But gemtext over a simplified implementation of http1 or http2; that would be a good middle ground.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:30 | Open on aus.social
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs @willfurnass Which gains what, over plain Gopher?

12 Jul 2023 at 3:31 | Open on oldbytes.space
mabs

@mos_8502 @willfurnass Essentially a deliberately simplified markdown language for ease of processing; for example, a link must be on its own line, not inline.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:32 | Open on aus.social
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs @willfurnass I mean, it's certainly possible to make a Gemini client on ESP32, and wire it to a retro PC via serial port, and use a native app as the user interface for navigating and downloading -- the ESP32 firmware would stay the same on every platform, but the native half would need rewriting for each.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:33 | Open on oldbytes.space
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs @willfurnass Gopher is even simpler -- the existing ZiModem ESP firmware could be used directly, with the client sending AT commands to "dial" a gopher server, then sending the requested path, after which the server closes the connection and the client takes the data and renders it to the screen however.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:37 | Open on oldbytes.space
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs Try it yourself: open a telnet connection (the equivalent of ATDT command in ZiModem) to gopherpedia.com port 70, then when you get the prompt, type "/" -- you'll get the raw text of the index page, and the connection will close.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:38 | Open on oldbytes.space
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs A simple client program could render that to the screen as a menu, like this:
12 Jul 2023 at 3:40 | Open on oldbytes.space
mabs

@mos_8502 Yeah, I ported a Gemini server to Python on a Pi Pico for fun.

I just remember playing with Gopher just as the web was really taking off (oh man I'm old).

A simple protocol is definitely required, but we also need to account for all the security lessons from the past 40+ years; the concern is that Gemini throws them out.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:42 | Open on aus.social
mabs

@mos_8502 Here's a rundown of the gemtext markdown, it's a more readable file format

gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/

12 Jul 2023 at 3:47 | Open on aus.social
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs And the comms protocol? Is there a good platform-neutral library that'd work on an ESP32?

12 Jul 2023 at 3:48 | Open on oldbytes.space
mabs

@mos_8502 That's why I say http 1 or 2; it's implemented nearly everywhere, and once you strip down a lot of stuff you don't need (POST requests, ignore most headers), like most basic servers and clients already do, it works really well: "GET /\n\n"

12 Jul 2023 at 3:52 | Open on aus.social
Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs Well, if the actual Gemini protocol but runs on the networking hardware (ESP32?) then it can be the real Gemini protocol - I just found a header-only library for dealing with that, which only seems to need openssl, which I'm pretty sure ESP32 can handle. ZiModem could pretty easily be extended with commands to fetch Gemini requests (ATDG?) and return the data over the serial link to the client computer -- then a native UI would take the data and render it as appropriate.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:54 | Open on oldbytes.space
Studio 8502 :verified: replied to Studio 8502 :verified:

@mabs The platform native part would only be responsible for talking to ZiModem via serial, and for reading and rendering the response into its UI for the user, as appropriate -- displaying text, or images, or downloading a file, whatever.

12 Jul 2023 at 3:56 | Open on oldbytes.space
Bits&Terminal Jeff

@mos_8502 Oh yes. I used gopher a lot in the early 90s and it's just about perfect for old machines - there's even a C64 GEOS gopher client that has been out for years. A gopher network could unite all networked 8 and 16 bit machines and their users.

11 Jul 2023 at 18:49 | Open on oldbytes.space
Studio 8502 :verified:

@jf_718 The most important thing, I think, in a Gopher client for a retro platform is to make it as simple as possible not only to connect and navigate, but to actually download the files being hosted. Dealing with XMODEM or KERMIT or whatever is a pain in the arse.

11 Jul 2023 at 19:01 | Open on oldbytes.space
EndlessMason

@mos_8502 can i get a gopher client for the game cube?

11 Jul 2023 at 18:53 | Open on hachyderm.io
Feico de Boer βœ…πŸ πŸ‡³πŸ‡±

@mos_8502 Personally I think BBS'es fit the retro idea better. If it's tcp based instead of dialup makes sense.

11 Jul 2023 at 19:05 | Open on mastodon.familie-de-boer.net
Studio 8502 :verified:

@fdboer BBSes are nice, and we should also have them, but they're a lot more trouble to keep running than a Gopher server.

11 Jul 2023 at 19:06 | Open on oldbytes.space
ClaudioM

@mos_8502 Not surf if it's possible, but it would be nice to have a site detect the browser accessing and display WWW or Gopher accordingly.

11 Jul 2023 at 19:09 | Open on bsd.network
Studio 8502 :verified:

@claudiom Possible, probably. I doubt anyone will go to the effort.

11 Jul 2023 at 19:10 | Open on oldbytes.space
πšŠπš—πš—πšŽ.πŸ’•

@mos_8502 What's your favorite Gopher browser?

11 Jul 2023 at 19:22 | Open on tech.lgbt
Cenbe
Studio 8502 :verified:

@cenbe Terrific. How about one that works with a modern wifi modem in text mode?

11 Jul 2023 at 19:30 | Open on oldbytes.space
Csepp 🌒

@mos_8502 Maybe framing it in terms of permacomputing or technological accessibility is better than focusing solely on retrocomputing.

12 Jul 2023 at 2:48 | Open on merveilles.town
MSavoritias

@csepp @mos_8502

that was my thinking too.
Does gopher support UTF or accessibility?
If not its very excluding and it should evolve to do so.

12 Jul 2023 at 6:41 | Open on tilde.zone
Studio 8502 :verified:

@msavoritias @csepp Gopher doesn’t specify a text encoding. Accessibility is the operating systems’s job. Retro computers have… somewhat limited options there. Although I imagine a serial braille display could be made to work with most of the text based ones.

12 Jul 2023 at 6:44 | Open on oldbytes.space
MSavoritias

@mos_8502 @csepp

i was talking about urls too for unicode.

Accessibility is not necesserily the systems job. it can be made easier with alt text for example on websites. or captions.

12 Jul 2023 at 6:49 | Open on tilde.zone
Studio 8502 :verified:

@msavoritias @csepp I’d be interested in how you’d apply that to an 80x24 cell character display with a fixed 256 character font.

12 Jul 2023 at 6:50 | Open on oldbytes.space
MSavoritias

@mos_8502 @csepp

fair. thats the same problems i have with irc btw. Its lightweight sure, but not as accessible as is for example.

Which as it was pointed out I would like to move from a mentality of old was better or just retrocomputing. To one that is more about bringing the modern guidelines into a stack that is lightweight like retrocomputing.

12 Jul 2023 at 7:08 | Open on tilde.zone
Studio 8502 :verified:

@msavoritias @csepp I would wager that those goals are a bit at odds. Accessibility is inherently complex, as different people have very different (perfectly legitimate) needs, and a lightweight approach practically insists on a one size fits all solution.

12 Jul 2023 at 7:13 | Open on oldbytes.space
MSavoritias

@mos_8502 @csepp

I respectfully disagree.

If we are not looking to have accessibility in the space then all we do is just continuing the cycle of exclusion that has been happening for decades now in the tech space.

I mean thats why we are all talking about it anyway right? Because we have modern stacks and tech excluding us from using them. Due to them requiring constant hardware upgrades and updates.

In that sense a "solution" without accessibility is not a solution at all.

So lets not exclude people that need the same way we are excluded. Our solution needs to take everybody in mind to create an equitable computing for all. Otherwise we just exclude the same people that could be our advocates.

We need to stop that cycle.

@mos_8502 @csepp

I respectfully disagree.

If we are not looking to have accessibility in the space then all we do is just continuing the cycle of exclusion that has been happening for decades now in the tech space.

I mean thats why we are all talking about it anyway right? Because we have modern stacks and tech excluding us from using them. Due to them requiring constant hardware upgrades and updates.

12 Jul 2023 at 7:40 | Open on tilde.zone
F4GRX Sébastien
MSavoritias

@f4grx @csepp @mos_8502

good question.

it does support utf urls and alt text. so it is in a better position than gopher on that. accessibility is also mentioned once in the spec for visually impaired people.

Im a newbie too in the space so i bet there are people that can answer more concretely on this. ^

Sadly gemini seems to have some of its own problems though that i wonder if they are ever going to be fixed. I have this in mind:
daniel.haxx.se/blog/2023/05/28
Not that i agree with all of it.

@f4grx @csepp @mos_8502

good question.

it does support utf urls and alt text. so it is in a better position than gopher on that. accessibility is also mentioned once in the spec for visually impaired people.

Im a newbie too in the space so i bet there are people that can answer more concretely on this. ^

12 Jul 2023 at 7:03 | Open on tilde.zone
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