I Built a Search Engine... for Vintage Computers!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 เม.ย. 2021
- The first 1000 people to use this link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/actionretro04211
It's no secret that the internet has become mostly terrible over the last decade or so. Long gone is the open web, and in it's place is a quagmire of ads, trackers and social media blobs that have gotten so complicated, we have to buy new computers each year just so Big Tech can track us better!
Well, forget all that. I've built a service that strips the modern web back down to basics - text and images. So far, in fact, that even ancient web browsers can handle it again!
Here's the story behind FrogFind.com and 68k.news.
💥 I've released the source to both FrogFind and 68k News under the GPL: github.com/ActionRetro/
💥 Mozilla's Readability library: github.com/mozilla/readability
💥 PHP Port: github.com/andreskrey/readabi...
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💾 For more vintage Apple stuff, please subscribe: th-cam.com/users/ActionRetro?s...
💾 Support these retro computing shenanigans on Patreon! / actionretro
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Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: www.amazon.com/shop/actionretro
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💬 Come talk about old computers on the BitBang Social Mastodon! bitbang.social
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#Vintage #Computer #Internet - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Checking out the Skillshare link really helps the channel! skl.sh/actionretro04211
Why don't you add different levels of compatibility, I would like mode for windows xp era?
I tested FrogfFnd on Dillo browser and it had some parsing issues on filtered pages, but 68k News worked fine.
does skillshare work on frogfind?
Fr
I thought IIe was a IIg cause the case I had a 2gs that had no hdd but ran offf 3.5 floppies, which could have been interesting for this If I still had it but that was 30 years ago.
This is one of those things that's so useful it feels like it would've been done long ago. I've seen a few solutions for browsing the modern web on older browsers, but this really takes things to a level of usability that I've been dying to see. Combined with what TheOldNet is doing, yeah, it's an awesome time for internet-connected retro computing. Great work!
Thanks man!!
@@ActionRetro Hey, thank you for doing this. A lot has changed where I live in the past few years, but still after a tropical cyclone or bad storm I might have to go up a tree with my smartphone to get a GPRS connection to get my family some connection to the outside, and a service that can strip down webpages like this helps a lot. Plus computers are really expensive and tend to stick around for decades, but the web has started advancing quite quickly to their exclusion, and we have machines that could really benefit from this.
It is absolutely a great time to be a retro computer user!
Hello!
Yeah, but can it load goatze?
That perfectly shows how bloated the modern web has become. Basically, all the stuff which is really useful and does not just waste your time (news, Wikipedia, web search) could have perfectly worked even on the 80s machines.
TH-cam is the most useful invention of mankind
@@beyondgenesis2954 no.
@@beyondgenesis2954 It can also be viewed on a 68k Amiga with a format conversion.
@@lepidotos Gosh, I love an amiga, I had an amiga 600HD and it was the bee's knees
@@bronwaith One of my dream computers is a 4000!
I love this so much, good old internet... no social media... no advertisements... just stuff to read and cool pictures
This is like a real time version of how my sph-i500 would sync web pages from my computer's dialup connection.... Cellular data was sloooooow back then :)
You just single-handedly got all my old computers on the web. That was a great idea. You rock!
This is literally the best / most important thing anyone has ever done for retro machines - AND not only that, there is nothing stopping people from using it on modern computers too! Please keep it up, for the love of all things sacred.
yes, not only shall I use this on my ibook clamshell, but now I will use it on my modern mac. I can finally read the news and not the popups!!!
Looks like he's sharing the source code so we can set up our own proxy servers 🙂 I'll be figuring out how to set that up when I can get a computer lab running in the coming months.
"And" isn't an acronym
@@the_motherfucker??? they didn't use it like acronym, they capitalized it to give the word emphasis
I started using the internet in 1989 - usenet, email, ftp, archie, gopher, etc. Web browsers were quite the novel thing, in 1993/4. Lynx via our SLIP/PPP accounts...ah, memories.
Yes and getting news from trn and using pine for email were in many ways better. ASCII Art rules
My friend I think you have offered us a way to save the internet from Madness
This is fantastic. Looking forward to playing around with it 🙂
So impressed and thankful for these sites :)
This keeps our vintage units working still. Please continue to make interesting videos like this Sean.
One of my favorite retro channels.
That really means a lot, thank you :)
All the guys in the Dreamcast community are gonna love this.
This is the coolest! Along with wiby, the old net, and based.cooking, the old net is coming back!
Personally I miss the 2007 web (the time I grew up), when everything was making the transition to the web we know today. That awkward phase was so cool and magical!
Ikr! I personally miss the 2010 days, when websites weren't so fat but were modern enough
does based cooking have a not https page?
@@thealterlion7163 Old browsers crap their pants on SSL and newer HTTP protocols.
@@thealterlion7163 You don't need HTTPS on a static web page. no private info being exchanged. as well as older browsers not liking it.
I personally feel like modifying the Invidious code to run on old IE versions using the Windows Media Player ActiveX control... or a really old version of Flash.
This is fantastic! Even on a modern machine, browsing the internet with all the bloat removed is the way it should be. My Pentium 90 and me have never been so happy. :)
aside from youtube or forums, this should be the default 100%
@@sparkie5571 No thanks! While i love the old ways i could never go back...
Me too! I use this on my modern machine now. I just wish there was a button to disable readibility mode on a page, as a few pages either don't load or don't play nicely with it. I can remove the Frogfind bit in the url bar, but that's more cumbersome.
I’ve wanted something like this for a few years since getting my A500 onto Wi-Fi. Thank you for your service! 👍🕹️ Your friend in retro, Perifractic
Thanks Perifractic! I hope it works great on your Amiga!
Let's take a moment and appreciate the link in the Digg screenshot "Flash powered email". I think that would make the cursed SE/30 extra cursed
Hahaha I knew someone would catch that!
Every time you bring out that Libretto I'm always impressed by just how sharp and vibrant that little display is. Must have been state of the art in it's day, and probably quite expensive as well. LCDs rarely age so well in my experience.
I remmber seeing the first one around 1996 in J&R computer world in lower manattan NY. was close to $2400. wanted it so bad but too expensive for my taste. I think I was 20 at the time and making $12 an hour. but had rent and utilties.
My PDA and vintage smartphone collection thanks you! But also I do, it really is a great way to read news on a modern machine. Absolutely no wait time. I'm really excited about the minimalist website movement going on right now. For a cleaner internet!
@@springchickena1 As far as vintage computing equipment goes webpages are pretty much the last thing you would use them for. People have these things primarily because they want to play games on their intended hardware or mess around with contemporary applications. Some people are fed up with massive bloated webpages, and are creating alternatives. Nitter, invidious, based cooking, this, probably more. The goal is to create a knock on effect that encourages more web developers to step back a bit and create no frills webpages
We have needed this for about 20 years! Thanks :)
@@springchickena1 Yeah. I know there are already modern browsers for XP and other older OSs.
The wealth of information now available again to even mid-1980's machines via this is insane. Such a great project you've done here! It just goes to show how much processing power goes to waste with the modern web. Love this.
This is simply awesome! When you stop and think about it, vintage computers can still serve a purpose. I would love to take an old Apple laptop to the coffee shop and brows the web. What fun!
yuh,cept can0ford pryseas!!...
FrogFind! Is so beautiful 😭
This could also be very useful for people with poor internet services...like me😅
Makes dial-up somewhat usable
@Imix Muan nice thanks for the links to light asf news
or for mobile data users in developing countries
Suggestion: when scaling images, simply pick a max value for one of the dimensions, then scale the other dimension proportionally, that will fix the distortion in the scaled images. If an image is 1280x720 and you want it to be no bigger than 400x300, just pick the largest dimension of the source image and constrain it to the largest target dimension, 1280 gets constrained to 400, then you just scale the 720 dimension by (400/1280 * 720) = 225. This preserves the original aspect ratio.
This is literally gods work! I always had to need push old tech and find some extra use. This even works with psions! It came handy, I already bought an old imac g3 and can use the internet under OS 9 !!! enough for my needs. Thank you for your effort, the result is amazing!
os9 ppc/68k has2be the place2www!!
This is such a good example of just how bloated the internet has become. Great work, i'm going to pull out my macintosh se and try this now.
The 90s called. They want their Internet back ;)
jokes.
If only they had internet this fast that long ago.
You mean the 80s...that 2e is older than me
No, it's ours now. Take this bloated pile of monopolized corporate web 2.0 garbage instead.
Signed, 2021
-PS We're keeping Yellow eBay, too.
UNdaaMapszzJaaa...
###...ATH0
An awesome project that greatly increases the usability of retro machines, and it's released as free software under the GPL! Nice!
He walks the land, a god among mere mortals and he saw they were sad and unto them he gave frogfind and all rejoiced.
ive been after something like this for ages, thanks for making it happen
this is not just an awesome service for vintage pcs but also people with bad internet connections or limited data plans who rely on savind data when using the internet. great work!
it gives me ideas of trying to use a vintage mac as my only computer for some time...
Don't.
Same, but with my Commodore Amiga 500 with an accelerator.
Classilla time :)
This could be the best thing ever for vintage Macs and PCs! It is obvious that the reason most old computers become obsolete is due to internet browser system requirements and security. Now there is an extremely viable option to keep old iMacs, iBooks, and 68ks up and running.
My favorite thing to do on my old iMac was dialing up the internet in the evening to do some internet reading, now it’s back! Thanks SO much!!!
We need more people to add to this. If we can make this mainstream for old hardware, we could save a BUNCH of old machines from going to the landfill. Not only that, but by making old hardware viable, this could even drive down current hardware prices so that people who only need basic web browsing and a word proccessor to do much don't need to by a new machine.
This is amazing, I’ve been kicking around a similar idea but haven’t pulled the trigger yet to get a text based browser to expose via telnet for use on even older computers. Good job!
Truly awesome. I've been looking for something like this for so long, and to have it work so well is an absolute bonus! I truly thank you, you are a hero for the vintage computing community.
How did it take so long to see this, this is amazing! Nevermind *retro* browsing, this really illustrates the bloatware currently present on modern websites, and we've barely touched into web 3.0 now...
This is great, considering of my real garbage internet at night
This makes the 3DS browser more useful than it ever was (even with that google mobile phone view thing it used ) and by extension the DSi and DS browsers too, not quite vintage computers, but quite under powered machines.
I love FrogFind! I've replaced my default search engine on my Chrome and Firefox browsers with it. I love the old school, text-only style of Internet! I was a 14 year old teen dialing up and using IRC back in the 90s, I remembered how much more fun we had without ridiculous pop-ups and embedded Ads slowing down page loads!!
This site does not have a certificate. so its not secure
Man that brings back fond memories of when I first discovered the web. I was a freshman in high school. I went to an event at OSU in a computer lab. I was mesmerized. It was like water for a desert with information.
The work you just did, brought back HTTP2 incompatible hardware to the internet, and that's just awesome.
Really impressive 😱
May I do a little suggestion?
Do your proxy available as a DNS server, so automatically redirect the web as a simple version for vintage computers 😉
0geeSpoX!...
This is the best project which i see this year. Thank you very much for this project! Respect to you! Vintage Computer Never Die!
Absolutely love this, it works great in modern browsers as well as old. Inspired me to turn my old x220 into an Amiga 4000 laptop. Given it a nice old fashioned widescreen resolution, and paired with these services and browse 2.55 its perfect. I hope you keep working on ways to make the modern web palatable on old machines, because honestly I'm in awe.
Watching your stuff since like you had 300 subs I think. It's awesome to see how far you've come - loving it and keep it coming! Also, goddamn, what you've done here is great achievement.
Thanks man!
Excellent! Good job man! Internet news on an Apple II, and everything else. Just awesome.
Dude, I´m so happy I kept all my old stuff. This is sweet, Good Job, Mate!
This has to be among the best three videos on TH-cam!! Man! I run FreeBSD on a Libretto and I'm old enough to remember what it was like when the Internet was new...
This is such a great work you did! It opens a whole new world for my vintage Macs. Thank's a lot!
Love it! Seriously this is such a useful tool! Thank you for the work!
So this is so serendipitous because I was just writing an article for a kid's tech magazine about the history of the web and exploring how usable it still is with oldschool text browsers like lynx, to try and make some points about how bloated everything is now. Definitely want to point them here as an additional thing to learn.
Thank you for the great retro resource for the internet information surf. I’ve worked on dozens of old Apple Macintosh metal and plastic clad pizza box and metal towers and the restoration of these units does not disappoint. Sometimes only a replacement battery and a reset of the cpu (pressing several keys on start up) is all it takes to bring back a Mac from la-la land. I will have to pay-more-attention to your key board finger placement for those boot-up shenanigans. Serious note: Do not open a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitor or TV if you do not have experience working around deadly voltage and amperage levels. It only takes a few thousands of an amp (electron current) to stop your heartbeat and a CRT can generate tens of thousand of volts (the force needed to push a lot of electrons). We appreciate that Mr. Malseed is working on a boob-tube and not us.
Absolutely fantastic! Exceptional work. it is so great being able to use the internet once again on older computers. Thanks!
This is a game changer for me, the usability of old computers is so much better becasue of this. Thanks so much for doing this on your personal time.
Excellent thing, well done. I note that on my own website the separated links to images on the FrogFind generated pages are actually the thumbnails and not the full size versions, so they look pixelated when shown at 'normal' size.
I love this for much better viewing of modern sites that have absolutely no reason to be loaded with videos and javascript. The one thing that hurts it for me is the images. I'd love the option to either not compress them or compress them less as well as the possibility to show them inline. It looks like the RFC for cookies was from later than HTML 2.0, but I don't think it would be that bad to have a settings form for controlling some simple options to store in a tiny cookie (this would only be overhead for someone who's changed from the defaults).
AWESOME! In a fraction of a second I was learning about Majorana Fermions and 'FAIR' data reporting to eliminate "cherry picking" problems in scientific analysis and journalism in general. I tested it and found that the information was obtained in apx. a quarter of the time a google search required. I get the feeling that this is the beginning of something really big. Keep at it, lets see how good it can get.
This is fantastic! Even works on my PSP and old Nintendo DS perfectly! You've earned my subs.
This is excellent! I was just thinking about this yesterday as I was trying to surf the web on an old Psion PDA (using a Raspberry PI as a PPP server and router) and NOTHING works anymore. I was going to look to see if someone had solved this, and your video just happened to show up in my feed before I tried searching! Thanks so much!
Absolutely fantastic! Someone suggested both of your sites to me for a recent video I did on the Amiga plipbox. Your sites makes Amigas totally usable with the internet!
You're my hero. I've been wanting to use some old 8 bit machine for my daily computing tasks and this pretty much makes that possible.
This is just so incredible, had a bit of fun playing with this on my Toshiba Satellite 4000CDS. Currently only over Win2k (IE 6 only, so far) with a WLAN pcimcia card, now I have a reason to really find a pcmcia ethernet card for Win3.11 on it.
You really are allowing people born in the late 90s to experience something we thought we'd never be able to do. Load up Netscape on pre 9x Windows and actually use the internet. Wild.
I'll get back with my x86 vintage Windows experiences on the Toshiba, but it currently only has the original 4GB HDD (Fully 100% still operational) which is limiting, so I'll be ordering an SD adapter for it for more room to play with.
Can't wait to try this on my dream cast and PSP
*Awesome!* At the beginning of the video I thought of Contiki. What a pleasant surprise that you featured it! After watching the video I got immediately to the sites to see how they would parse my language special characters (áàâãéêíóôõúü窺) as even modern websites now and then have problems with it (due to different encodings). To my _second_ surprise they came out perfectly!! Congratulations on the amazing job!!!!
this is so brilliant, amazing to get older machines running on the web. thank you - incredible
This is awesome, Sean. Well done! 👏👏👏
I miss when websites were... Simpler. When if you wanted to do something, you used a program, and you did it efficiently.
This is incredible! Great resource for my vintage PCs.
This is great. I have several macs from 1999-2000 time frame, and it works. I even pulled up my personal site and it rendered all the text just fine. The photos were a little stretched (probably because of the more recent browser I was using with a different machine), but still good. Fast and easy to use. Thanks.
Thank you for doing this! My old gadgets can really make use of this. Will test on my old PDAs. Please keep them up!
This is so useful even if you aren't trying to use a vintage computer. Using the internet without intrusive advertising is wonderful.
This is crazy awesome! Who are you using for hosting/what are the specs of the machine? I bet this doesn’t take too many resources to run well
Thanks! I have it up on Digital Ocean with pretty low specs
Its the best thing happened in retro computing.Great work.
Just this *HUGE THANK YOU*. I'm using your Frogfind when I need to go full text-mode.
Despite having inbuild adblocker on the Opera browser, there's way too much input on the Internet and I have been looking for an all text-mode method to use.
Seriously man; thank you so much for all your effort into making these two sites. Truly awesome work!
Hell yeah!
I miss when the internet was so pure and untracked
I can also see this being useful for accessibility software, for those who are vision-limited or use screen readers.
I have used this on my IMac G4 and Amiga 500. Both work great. It is a fantastic service that you have provided for the retro community. Next stop. A commodore 64 on the world wide web
That's quite a title BUT...you deserve it. I really hope that will start a trend and people want to enjoy more of that peaceful experience from the newsPAPER experience from other times through your searchengines.
I guess you made it all opensource so that it can live on whenever you decide to cut hosting the service.
Also i wonder if "Bitrotting" has to do somethings with why the Netscape software didn't want to run on your MacPlus...so much to archive properly...
I love this, man. Great job. Definitely going to use this on my old 486 & Pentium machines!
Thanks!!
This also works wonders on my old Nokia 6230i phone over a GPRS connection. It actually makes it possible to look up some things on the go now. Thanks for making it, much appreciated!
Broadband connections enabled "web 2.0", any lazy hack could make a "pretty" web page.
People that used dial-up understood what interwebs was: just a bbs with pictures and no download protocols. :D
This is really brilliant Sean! You are brilliant!
I have used frogfind a LOT without knowing about your channel. I ju st saw your channel yesterday, watched the video where you can Minecraft on a old Mac and subscribed.
Nice job.
Ten years ago I was working on a project that turned HTML into Gopher. Didn't go over to well.
Fantastic job dude!!! A lot of thought put in to the interface and optional images. So tired of the modern bloated internet with javascript nonsense and ads everywhere you go. I do miss the days people had the patience to actually read things. This kinda tech definitely encourages that, and probably would really help people needing more accessibility options as well. Great contribution to the retro community!!!
You've given me a way to read the New York Times and other news sites again. I don't often read the NYT but when I want to see some random article I'm always frustrated by their JavaScript which blocks the page unless you pay. No longer! You've given me the upper hand again. Thank you!
Tried it out on my Quadra 950, works like a charm! Thanks for your efforts!!!
I gotta say, this is so dang cool. Honestly reading the news in all-text is so much less stressful!
This was great! And your SCSCI to ethernet on the Mac Plus seemed to be a LOT faster than when tried similar back in the 1990s on my Mac SE using a 14.4k modem over the serial port and PPP/SLIP.
Can’t wait to try this on some of my vintage machines! What an invaluable resource!
My wifi-enabled 486 laptop with just 8MB of RAM and Win95 loves frogfind. It really amazes me, as others have said, how fast this ancient hardware is for web browsing when you strip away the bloat. This is one of the coolest contributions to the retro community ever.
Thanks Matt, that really means a lot! Glad you're getting use out of it.
This is seriously cool stuff! Good job
Omg, my pentium 166 mmx thanks this, you theserve all the respect and love for the retro computing community. New subsc here!!!
this is awesome. I will def be using this, even without any old PCs, sometimes i just need a reader view that's no fluff, and i can just pass the website through frogfind and get to the chace.
Absolutely BRILLIANT.. this lets us grab info without the Garbage attached today even on Modern machines it is such a relief.. .. Thanks and Well Done you.
i was just looking for exactly that when i dusted off an old ibook a few weeks ago. this really breathes life into retro hardware. also it may function as an educational time machine for young folks eager to see the past but with contemporary content.
EFFING GENIUS!!!! Kudos, amazing work!
Seriously the coolest thing I've seen in retro computing in a really long time. I'll have to give this a try on my 486 laptop and my PPC Macs!
Thank you so much for this! I brought this up on my old Kindle Keyboard this morning and it worked like a charm!
Great work!!! Outstanding in fact.. it even makes the browser of my ebook reader useful!
That is pretty cool! Spend most computer time on a terminal accessing my servers. Text web is still very useful