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There once was a "web server" running on an Atari 800 that wasn't a web server, nor did it implement TCP/IP, but sent requests over RS232 to a simple BASIC program on the Atari 800. Perhaps that was the one you were thinking of? Check out the webpage.

You must have forgotten that there was a site hosted on an Atari 800.

On a similar note, there's a site hosted on a 17-year old Mac Plus. Not quite as old as an Atari 800, but still impressive.

D.

Okay, then, children of the modern age (where we live in a world so tied together with wires that Pangaea ain't goin' nowhere!), you tell me if this is a predicament or not.

In the 1980s, you could look up from your Commodore 64, hours after purchasing it, with a glossy feeling of empowerment, achieved by the pattern of notes spewing from the speaker grille in an endless loop. You were part of the movement to help machines sing! You were a programmer! The Atari 800 people had BASIC. They know what I'm talking about. And the TI-994A guys don't need to say a word, because the TI could say it for them!

The old machines don't compare to the desktops of today, or to the consoles of today. But, sadly, current versions of Windows have no immediately accessible programming languages. And what's a kid going to do with Visual Basic? Build a modal dialog? Forget coding for XBox. Requires registration in the XBox Developer Program. Otherwise, you gotta crack the sucker open. GameCube? GameBoy? Playstation 2?

Coding Just Isn't Accessible

Yes, there are burgeoning free SDKs for many of these platforms. But they are obscure and most children have no means of actually deploying or executing the code on their own hardware! This is obvious to us all and likely doesn't seem such a big deal. But ask yourself what might have happened had you not had access to a programming language on an Atari 800 or a Commodore. You tell me if this is a predicament.

It turns out, most of the kids in my neighborhood are exposed to coding through the TI calculator. A handful of languages are available on the TI and its processor is interesting enough to evoke some curiousity. But this hasn't spread to its PDA big brothers, where young people could have more exposure to programming. And undoubtedly the utility of a language on the Palm, Pocket PC and others would be useful to many.

So what's the problem here? We have no shortage of new languages, but they become increasingly distanced from the populace. Are the companies behind these platforms weary of placing the power of a programming language in the hands of users? Is there not a demand any longer? It's got to be some kind of greed, power, money thing, right?

Perhaps this is just another reason to push Linux and BSD on consumer systems. Still, are scripting languages easily accessible to beginners on those systems? OSX has made several scripting languages available (including Ruby and Python), but most users are unaware of their presence.

I should mention that Windows is equipped with its own scripting host for developing in JScript and VBScript. But the use of the scripting host is (I believe) under-documented and limited for beginners. Try doing something useful in a script without using Server.CreateObject. Let's not let kids touch the COM objects, please!

The Christmas List

I'm thinking a toy language for consoles and desktops alike could be monumental. I'm not saying it needs to be cross-platform. A language for GameCube that took advantage of platform-specific features could be more appealing to GameCube users than a language that used a reduced featureset, but could execute on a handheld. Really, we live in a world where both choices should be available.

As for essential features:

1. Transportable code.

On my TI-994A, I could make a little, animated Optimus Prime from pixels. Insert cassette. Record. Pass aroun

Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with spammers?
Peasant 1: quarter them!
Sir Bedevere: And what do you quarter, apart from spammers?
Peasant 1: More spammers!
Peasant 2: Videogames!
Sir Bedevere: Correct. Now, why do spammers quarter?
Peasant 3: ...because they're... Videogames?
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether he is a Videogame?
Peasant 1: Dominate Japan with him!
Sir Bedevere: But don't we also dominate Japan with excessively cute rodentia iconography?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Now, do videogames withstand a slashdotting?
Peasant 1: No, no... Throw him to the Trolls!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else does not withstand a slashdotting?
Peasant 1: Apples!
Peasant 2: IIS!
Peasant 3: Very small rocks!
Peasant 2: Debian! KDE Mirrors for minor upgrades!
Peasant 1: Mindstorms Segway Scooters!
Peasant 2: Beers cooled by Jet Engine exhaust!
Peasant 3: Matrix Movies!
Peasant 2: The RIAA!
Peasant 3: Churches! Churches!

King Taco: Atari 800s!

All Peasants: Ooooooooo....
Sir Bedevere: Exactly! So logically...
Peasant 1: If... he... computes as fast as... an Atari 800... he's a videogame.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore?
Peasant 1: ... A spammer!
Peasant 2: A Spammer!
crowd: A Spammer! A Spammer!

Bedevere: Who are you who are so wise in the ways of mob logic?
King Taco: I am CmdrTaco, King of the Geekins.
Bedevere: My liege!

Oh Ok, how about I make it easy and just ask for the Apache port? That will never happen either because: [sniped random idiocy]

you mean like this?

It took me a whole 2 seconds of searching on google to find that. If you knew anything about computers you would know the following:

1) WinCE is as much a 'real' OS as Linux and Windows (premtive multithreading, protected memory, sockets, etc)

2) You don't need a 'real OS' to run a webserver and you never did. You can run a web server on an Atari 800.

3) The quality of the OS has nothing to do with the quality of the Excel port.

Makes me wonder: What is the oldest server (equipment age) that has been Slashdotted?

Didn't someone have an Atari 800 hooked up through a terminal server and running a simple webserver written in BASIC? That would be older than this.

(It got /.'d all to hell, too.)

yes, sortof

Actually, try something with about the same power as a TI86. This was slashdotted about a year ago.

Slashdot had an article about this webserver setup using an atari 800. It is apparently no longer up, but google cache is a wondeful thing.

They did not use a network card, but instead used a terminal server connected to a serial port and a very clever basic program.

Someone seems to already have done it. And it was on slashdot as well.