[HN Gopher] Show HN: FocusedEdit - a classic Macintosh to web br...
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Show HN: FocusedEdit - a classic Macintosh to web browser shared
text editor
I built a classic Macintosh text editor that allows users to do
shared bidirection live editing with a web browser on a modern
computer. Essentially it allows allows you to really quickly and
easily share and edit text snippets on a classic Macintosh. I've
tested the software on System 2.0 through System 7.6.1, but it
should work on all PPC and 68k Macintoshes running up to MacOS
9.2.2 assuming they have a modem serial port available. In
addition to the github repository, I wrote up a blog post here:
https://henlin.net/2022/10/02/Introducing-FocusedEdit-for-cl...
outlining how to get up and running. Both the repo and the blog
post have a demo gif to help explain exactly what FocusedEdit does
as well as how it works. If you have any questions or decide to
try it out on your Macintosh or in an emulator, let me know! I'd
love to hear about it!
Author : camhenlin
Score : 63 points
Date : 2022-10-02 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| I love the classic box art, and love the concept of building new
| tools for beloved legacy systems like this.
| digitalsankhara wrote:
| Yes, I love the art too, capturing the era of that design style
| very well. I'm feeling nostalgic for my old Classic MacOS (I
| have a MacOS 9.2 hard disk sat here waiting for me to buy a
| replacement machine).
| akkartik wrote:
| Why do you call this bidirectional? It doesn't look like you can
| edit in the web browser and pick up the edits inside the
| Macintosh emulator?
| camhenlin wrote:
| Yep, it goes both ways! You can paste or edit text that you
| want to edit on the Classic Mac in to the web browser as well
| akkartik wrote:
| Oh nice!
| bitwize wrote:
| This is a nice little utility that supports a conjecture of mine:
| Powerful modern computers can enhance the utility, and extend the
| useful lifespan, of old computers.
| bananamerica wrote:
| I guess I have to be that guy: Emacs have a mode/Browser addon
| combo for that :P
| camhenlin wrote:
| Sure but with emacs you'd have to do it in MacTerm or another
| chunk of telnet software, set up a LocalTalk network, etc.
| whereas this only requires a serial cable and also gives you a
| native Mac UI to do your editing in
| II2II wrote:
| It is far simpler than that: set up getty on a Unix system to
| monitor a serial port, connect the Macintosh via serial, then
| use a telecommunications program (like MacTerminal, ZTerm, or
| ClarisWorks).
| bitwize wrote:
| Until you solve for Emacs not following the Apple HIG, it's
| a complete nonstarter for classic Mac users.
| II2II wrote:
| If you're suggesting that most classic Mac users would
| not enjoy Emacs, then I would agree. That said, software
| such as MacTerminal and hardware such as extended
| keyboards (both from Apple) existed because people were
| interested in accessing remote applications and services.
| If someone was logging into a Unix system, Emacs could
| have been available to them.
|
| It is also worth noting that there was interest in
| applications that violated Apple's HIG written for or
| ported to the classic Mac. I don't know if Emacs was one
| of them, but vim certainly was. Vim certainly does a
| better job at violating the HIG than Emacs!
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I think more precisely Vim does a *different* job of
| violating the HIG than Emacs does.
|
| I don't recall there being a successful Emacs port to
| classic Mac OS -- I would have been very interested in
| the early to mid 90's. The Mac editor landscape was
| actually pretty sparse if you wanted something
| sophisticated/integrated/customizable. There was Alpha,
| which was Tcl-based. MPW's editor wasn't customizable to
| the same degree. BBEdit existed, but it was actually
| quite bare bones at that point; even today it's still
| pretty fixed-function.
| Maursault wrote:
| > I don't recall there being a successful Emacs port to
| classic Mac OS -- I would have been very interested in
| the early to mid 90's.
|
| Correct. Apple had emacs removed from A/UX because it
| took up too much space. Though some built it on their
| Macs in the late 1980s, it didn't have full
| functionality, at least not without headaches.[1] But
| A/UX came with vi, which worked well.
|
| [1] https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/comp.unix.aux/1989-Septem
| ber/003...
| akkartik wrote:
| What is the goal? Is it to make using the classic Macintosh more
| ergonomic in a modern world?
| camhenlin wrote:
| I want to include my classic Macs as a part of my daily
| workflow. I've been using this recently to type up emails, long
| slack messages, and confluence docs for work. I even used it to
| type up the markdown that drives the introductory blog post I
| wrote at https://henlin.net/2022/10/02/Introducing-FocusedEdit-
| for-cl...
| akkartik wrote:
| That sounds wonderful.
|
| It's too bad I missed the cultural milieu of the classic
| Macs, so I lack the motivation to go down this _particular_
| road with you. But I 'm on a nearby track with other simpler
| (and non-retro) computing stacks.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Interested to hear your particular stacks!
|
| I personally have enjoyed some toying with 9front and Uxn,
| and am always interested in others.
| akkartik wrote:
| Thank you! Yes, uxn is cool. I seem to gravitate towards
| systems with more memory:
|
| https://github.com/akkartik/mu
|
| https://love2d.org (e.g. http://akkartik.name/lines.html)
| MikeYasnev007 wrote:
| digitalsankhara wrote:
| I like your idea and I'd not heard of CoprocessorJS. If I had
| only a serial port for networking (e.g. the Mac Classic I wish
| I'd never parted with), I'd be tempted to emulate tail -f on the
| Mac side sending to the filesystem on the "remote" machine but
| not bi-directional. But, IIRC, AppleTalk to ethernet adaptors
| existed I think so maybe that's the route I'd go.
|
| Writing on the Mac to a remote file for onward processing is
| cool, so have fun.
| camhenlin wrote:
| I developed CoprocessorJS to assist with building out these
| sorts apps. I used it to develop this application and one that
| I posted a few months ago for interacting with iMessages:
| https://github.com/CamHenlin/MessagesForMacintosh I have a few
| other ideas for classic Mac apps that I'll use CoprocessorJS
| for as well
|
| Here's a blog post explaining my reasoning behind
| CoprocessorJS: https://henlin.net/2021/12/21/Introducing-
| CoprocessorJS/
| digitalsankhara wrote:
| Thanks for the links and enjoyed reading about your technical
| creativity. I hadn't appreciated the extent of the C library
| on the Mac side. Lots of possibilities for integration.
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