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CERN Launches Line Mode Browser Emulator

Posted by Soulskill on from the out-with-the-new-in-with-the-old dept.

itwbennett writes "As part of the project to preserve the world's first website and all of the accompanying technology, CERN last week launched a line mode browser emulator. To make the browser experience authentic, the developers recreated how terminals would draw one character at a time by covering the page in black and then revealing each character by erasing a character-sized rectangle from that cover, one-by-one, line-by-line. They also recreated the sound of typing on older keyboards, specifically an IBM RS/6000 keyboard, by using HTML5 audio elements."

4 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Looks familiar... by ak_hepcat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Almost exactly what browsing with lynx looks like on my CIT-101e VT100 dumb terminal that i still have, and still works.
    It's been a workhorse since 1989 or so, and has yet to fail.

    Granted, i don't keep it ON all the time.

    Now, is CERN going to make an archie/veronica tty client for the web as well?

    --
    Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
  2. I might look into it. by gallondr00nk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It'll be better than using the beta.

    Yes, that was a cheap shot, I admit it.

    1. Re:I might look into it. by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately I'm finding it difficult to disagree with you.

      When there wasn't an unlimited amount of screen or an unlimited amount of graphics capability, interface designers had to be very diligent in how they used what they had. With only eighty columns and twenty-five rows, or if you were lucky, one-hundred-thirty-two columns and forty-four rows, there wasn't a lot of room for waste or poor design.

      Modern web designers have embraced the ooh-shiny parts of modern HTML specifications but haven't held on to the basic purpose, to efficiently convey information. Beta is an example, embracing eye-candy at the expense of that which the site's purpose is for, to convey information that's mostly text-based.

      I also used to use Lynx/links/elinks as testing for what I wrote. I haven't written HTML in a big way in some time, but I imagine that most pages will fail the text-mode test.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  3. Keyboard sounds by Guest316 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've occasionally startled people by identifying their brand and model of computer or terminal over the phone just by the sound of their keyboards. Membrane keyboards have deprived me of this form of amusement though.