Classic computing fanatic Cameron Kaiser has introduced again a tool from the times earlier than pocket-friendly always-connected moveable supercomputers, designed to allow you to take snippets of the World Net Net with you wherever you go: the Net-@wherever wearable.
“In 2001 you might get the Net-@nywhere (the ‘Worldwide Net Watch’),” Kaiser explains. “Load up the software program in your PC and slap it in its little docking station, and you might slurp down about 93k of treasured Net knowledge to scroll on the 59×16 display — 10 characters by 2 characters — to learn any time you needed!
“That’s, after all, if the distant host the watch’s Home windows 9x-based shopper accessed have been nonetheless up, on which it depended for just about something to obtain and set up.”
A real product of the dot-com growth, the Net-@nywhere works once more — at the least in addition to it ever did. (📷: Cameron Kaiser)
Launched in 2001, the Kinger Net-@nywhere tried to capitalize on the rising love of the World Extensive Net at a troublesome time: the dot-com bubble had already burst, although its full impact would not be felt till 2002. Regardless of this, web-hungry customers have been desirous to get their repair of the ‘internet on-the-go — with out having to hook costly laptops as much as payphones by way of acoustic couplers.
The Net-@nywhere promised an answer, downloading knowledge when you’re at your PC for later consumption — although being restricted to textual content proved a problem, and the gadget was laid to relaxation simply two years later because the BlackBerry household of keyboard-equipped ‘internet linked telephones rose into ascendancy.
“In addition to time and date, it additionally included an tackle e book (cellphone and e-mail), scheduler, knowledge browser (that is the place downloaded content material would go), a world clock, a every day alarm, a countdown timer, a ‘recreation’ mode, a cease watch/fundamental chronograph with lap perform, knowledge hyperlink and ‘graphic animations,'” Kaiser writes. “The info browser ‘can entry essential internet hyperlinks and knowledge.’ The handbook divides the clock into house time and world time modes and mentions reminder options for the scheduler (‘planner remind’) and as much as three ‘particular days’ you may rely right down to.”
The unique software program relied on a long-shuttered FTP website, however Kaiser was in a position to work out the gadget’s esoteric file format. (📷: Cameron Kaiser)
Really getting knowledge on there, although, must occur with out the unique server software program. Kaiser began by changing the long-defunct battery within the watch to show it nonetheless labored, then investigated the RS232 serial dock bundled with the watch. The bundled software program CD loaded superb in a Home windows 98 digital machine, Kaiser discovered, however whereas it could enable knowledge to be entered manually and synchronized to the watch it relied on a long-since-shuttered distant server to drag down dwell internet knowledge.
Sniffing the site visitors each between the shopper software program and the web and between the shopper software program and the watch, Kaiser set about creating “pretend web pages” the watch might course of — determining the “extremely contrived” format required step-by-step.
“We now have sufficient info to assemble a fundamental translation utility to show ASCII into watch encoding, after which to push the outcomes to the watch over the serial port,” Kaiser says. “To make this sensible, we’ll use dwell, freely out there textual climate knowledge from the U.S. Nationwide Climate Service as a knowledge supply, format it for the display, translate that into encoded packets and ship these packets.”
A compact utility pulls down climate knowledge from the fashionable internet and massages it right into a Net-@nywhere suitable format. (📷: Cameron Kaiser)
Chaining collectively a Perl script and a easy C program which may push knowledge to the watch, Kaiser was in a position to efficiently pull down dwell internet knowledge and push it to the Net-@nywhere. “[The] Perl script […] takes ASCII textual content on customary enter and encodes and packetizes it on customary output, and [the] fundamental C program […] takes a pre-packetized file and pushes it to the watch. For the demonstration I added two little formatter Perl scripts and a Makefile.”
Kaiser’s full, detailed write-up on the undertaking is on the market on the Previous Classic Computing Analysis weblog; the WebAny instrument is revealed to GitHub underneath the permissive BSD license.
