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MicroWeb Browser How-To

Jake Page Icon Posted 2022-03-05 4:53 PM
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With developer jhhoward's products ( https://github.com/jhhoward/MicroWeb ) and C:Amie’s software modifications, users of the 110LX/200LX at last have a working browser available.

This How-To explores the setup of an ethernet-to-wifi serial adapter and the use (along with its occasional drawbacks) of the MicroWeb browser for DOS.

NECESSARY HARDWARE/SOFTWARE:

1) HP serial cable (null modem adapter not needed)

2) ESP8266 ethernet-to-wifi serial adapter such as this: https://www.tindie.com/products/theoldnet/rs232-serial-wifi-modem-fo...

3) firmware and internet software: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token...

4) C:Amie’s modified MicroWeb browser (this will replace microweb.exe in Step 3's zipped directory): https://github.com/HPC-Factor/MicroWeb/releases/

5) Overview of the adapter’s setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S35-jFSMEf8 and its actual wifi setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pruyb2enrU&t=0s

SETUP:

The firmware downloaded in Step 3 must be flashed. A desktop Windows flasher is in the zipped package and one simply links the adapter to the desktop with a micro USB cable, starts the flasher and flashes the included theoldnet_serial_wifi_ethernet.bin file.

The firmware’s default 115K baud setting can be employed. In other serial port setups, the Palmtop often must be dumbed down to lower baud numbers, but I have not found 115K to be problematic.

DNS resolution issues have not yet been resolved, so a proxy is necessary. For hit-or-miss https browsing, AnalogX ( http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/proxy/Freeware.htm ) can be effective, but more sites can be browsed by converting https sites to http via Retro-Proxy, whose setup can be found here: https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=20403&po...

Our indefatigable joval has also found proxy victory with WRP, and while I am not versed in that program, it is well worth exploring.

One can set the proxy manually at c:\ prompt or add the line to the start.bat:

set http_proxy=your-wifi-ip:3000 (for Retro-Proxy)

set http_proxy=your-wifi-ip:6588 (for AnalogX) 


After successful pinging (explained in the videos listed above), browsing is next. jhhoward’s original MicroWeb is incredible work. Stable, lightweight, it’s a browser I use on my DOS machines with great, even astonished pleasure. MicroWeb renders sites as text but without the starkness of lynx. The pages are more attractively displayed and easier to navigate.

However, MicroWeb’s default fonts are far too small for the 200LX screen and they cannot be adjusted. Nonetheless, C:Amie, who doesn’t even own a Palmtop, was able to hardcode larger, bold-ed fonts for the MicroWeb, and the result is an easy-to-read web page despite the diminutive Palmtop screen.

MicroWeb’s parameter to utilize the Palmtop’s CGA graphics is now hardcoded as well.
–i
which reverses the LCD to black on white, is still needed for convenience, or a user can push the On button and the forward slash to produce the same turnaround.

CAVEATS:

1) The ESP8266 needs powering but at the same time needs very little. One can run the ESP with a micro USB cable connected to the desktop, but for mobility, a power bank is obviously necessary. The rub: most power banks will simply shut off after a brief connection to ESP8266, believing the ESP to be a device fully charged.

– this power bank has a small form factor and will provide uninterrupted power to the ESP.

2) Hard crashes on the Palmtop. Before you set up MicroWeb, back up your Palmtop c:\ drive. Often, heavy sites such as bbc.com or washingtonpost.com will crash the Palmtop, forcing a hard reset. Lighter sites - csmonitor.com/layout/set/text/textedition, lite.cnn.com, lite.poandpo.com - will render without crash. frogfind.com is the best workaround. Accessing bbc.com, for example, via frogfind will stay crash-free in all cases tested. Surfing with MicroWeb is more an exercise in finding/testing your favorite sites rather than bouncing around the web.

CONCLUSION:

I hate to gush but I cannot stress enough the success of this modified browser. On my 200LX, I have worked with Arachne, lynx, anything else I could find, but only with poor outcomes. Remarkably swift at 115K, stable if sites are hand-picked, this wifi/browser setup is the real thing for the Palmtop.

Thank you, thank you, jhhoward and C:Amie.
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2022-03-05 6:55 PM
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If anyone has any ideas on how to solve the stack space issues to stop it deadlocking the CPU and forcing a hard reset, please let us know.
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frisser Page Icon Posted 2022-03-05 7:02 PM
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This is great! Have to find the correct cables but I think this is not difficult to find.
I'm a web developer so maybe (if everything works) I'm going to create some tools for it. Have some ideas!
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ArchiMark Page Icon Posted 2022-12-09 5:00 PM
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WOW!!!

This is great!

Wasn't aware of this until now, since I just a 200LX again....

Will have to try and get this working.

Thanks, Jake!

Mark
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Jake Page Icon Posted 2022-12-10 3:01 AM
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Couldn't have happened without C:Amie's hacking; the default font is unreadable in the 200lx.

Jake
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ArchiMark Page Icon Posted 2022-12-10 4:26 AM
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Quote
Jake - 2022-12-09 7:01 PM

Couldn't have happened without C:Amie's hacking; the default font is unreadable in the 200lx.

Jake


Kudos to C:Amie!

Excellent work!
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ShadowMaster Page Icon Posted 2023-01-26 7:09 PM
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Oh I love this.
The only handheld I still have around (and use) is a HP200LX so I'm 100% going to try this.
I've been wanting to try configuring an ESP8266 as a wifi "modem" for a while, but apparently I am a tad too late to that party.

A few thoughts:
Considering that the ESP8266 should have enough processing power to connect and retrieve HTTP content itself (The current HTTP stack implementation for ESP devices is pretty decent as far as I know) there's nothing preventing us from offloading some of the web-page fetching to the ESP. This would require, however, for the browser to be modified in such a way that (if connected to an ESP), it would not treat it like a packet-based device, but as a device capable of fetching the pages directly. This would solve any web stack crash AND maybe even the HTTPS problem.

This would require a fully custom ESP firmware that performs web fetches on command (relatively easy) and replacing the DOSNet.cpp driver in the browser with a custom driver (Slightly more challenging, but shouldn't be that terribly hard).

I would love, however, if the ESP could still act as a packet-based device, because outside of web browsing I'd love to use the ESP-based solution for telnet, ftp, ping, etc. And all those tools need to do packet-based requests.
Creating an ESP firmware that can do both things could be the tricky part.
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Jake Page Icon Posted 2023-01-26 8:28 PM
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If you make any progress on these ideas, please let us know.

JHHoward's development of the MicroWeb browser does seem on hiatus. I believe the last contribution is still C:Amie's

Jake
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ShadowMaster Page Icon Posted 2023-01-27 11:48 PM
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Took a quick look at the ESP "modem" firmware and it does support retrieving web pages on its own already so that's already a good starting point for a test run.
Hopefully this weekend I can play with this a bit, but the first step would be putting together an ESP "modem" and getting the software to compile "as-is".

Will definitely report if I make any meaningful progress, or if any of my experiments are of actual help to make this work better.
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ShadowMaster Page Icon Posted 2023-01-30 5:44 AM
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ShadowMaster - 2023-01-27 6:48 PM

Took a quick look at the ESP "modem" firmware and it does support retrieving web pages on its own already so that's already a good starting point for a test run.
Hopefully this weekend I can play with this a bit, but the first step would be putting together an ESP "modem" and getting the software to compile "as-is".

Will definitely report if I make any meaningful progress, or if any of my experiments are of actual help to make this work better.


First: Thanks for the guide Jake, and for the modification, C:Amie.
I managed to put together the ESP8266 "modem", and configure and run the software on DOS Box (something I normally do before moving into the 200LX) this weekend. It works great (once it's properly configured and assuming you run a proxy). Despite the problems I was having, troubleshooting them was really easy by following this post.

But even under emulation, it crashed my whole (Windows) machine at one point. As I wasn't even using the browser (just PING-ing and FTP-ing, and telneting into the modem to configure it) this leads me to believe that there's definitely something going on with the modem stack/driver, and not necessarily with the browser (and big enough of an issue to crash a whole windows system while the software runs in DOSBox emulation). It could have been a completely unrelated accident, but just to verify: Anyone got any crash while *not* using the browser ?
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