CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmllegacy-app
user3332315
user3332315

Reputation: 141

Convert modern web pages compatible with 1990s' browsers?

I'm thinking about surfing the web with WorldWideWeb running on NeXTSTEP (in virtual machine), but at this moment there are few (and hard to discover) webpages compatible with it. Let's ignore JavaScript and other new features of the web since WorldWideWeb stopped receiving updates, just care about the static HTML and CSS — are there good ways to convert them? Maybe in other words, compile them into the original HTML. No need to do it so perfect, I think, just make elements look expectedly, to an acceptable extent.

Maybe this demand is rare and/or weird so Google cannot give a solution? I have no idea... Anyway, it seems to be a part of Software Archaeology. If there isn't existing wheel for that, I'll try writing one myself.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 417

Answers (1)

Wander Nauta
Wander Nauta

Reputation: 19695

I think the only way to do this would be to turn the web pages into images and show those. (I hope your version of WorldWideWeb supports inline images - the older ones didn't.)

Here is a link to an experiment that used WebKit to do the actual rendering, then sent the rendered result to the ancient browser. It seems to support OmniWeb at least, so it could work out of the box with newer WorldWideWeb. If not, you can probably modify it so that it does.

Example image

A script that works as an actual HTTP proxy and also turns the image into an imagemap - so you can click links - is here. I don't know if WorldWideWeb supports image maps, or proxies for that matter.

Good luck!

Source: Both scripts and the image above are by Antoni Sawicki/Tenox. WRP, the proxy, is GPL-licensed.

Upvotes: 3

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