Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

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vapor's picture
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Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

Guess the title says it all. Just want to make it work. I can get on the internet with Contiki but would like to figure out how to set up Twitter via web or client. Any help appreciated!!

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Re: Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

I don't know about the best solution, but I was recently wondering the same thing and found this interesting piece:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/apple-iie-hacked-into-twitter-station-still-looks-better-than-m/

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Re: Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

hello vapor,
i´m not expert about twitter - to tell the truth - i avoid it - due to my disagreement to the security issues related with twitter and the fact that my private thoughts about twitter are that some people must have a strong tendency to a kind of electronical exhibitionism or narcism - but thats just my privat opinion....

anyhow back to the topic: as far as i understand twitter - its used as a plugin to several kinds of browsers....
so first of all the plugin: as far as i know that plugin is programmed in java.....

this shows the path to hunt for.... you must find a version of java to be able to run natively on the IIGS ....
this will be the very first difficulty, because as far as i remember there is no java availiable to run nativly on the IIGS ( even if i would ignore the fact of the limited RAM-amount availiable ... 4 MB on the IIGS is much for the IIGS but for JAVA this is nearly no amount at all .... the smallest Java-version that i remember was released in the early 90´s at the beginning of the web and it was designed to be running on the old mac-series with at least 8 MB RAM..... so there is the first point to hunt for....

the second problem would be that as far as i remember that java-version was designed to run at the 68000 processor-family and i fear that there was no version availiable, that was able to run at the 65816 or 6502 familiy.... my first idea would be, to hunt at the open source platforms in the java-platforms and support-forums to find probably a old version that would fit for the required demands ( low usage of RAM - native operateable on the 65816 ).....

the the third problem will be, that probably twitter is only able to run at the modern browser-platforms and that it plugs in to the TCPIP-calls of the modern operation-systems and therefor no version is availiable that could plugin to contiki..... ???

sure your first thougt that it would be fine to get twitter - as a text oriented application - to also run at a text oriented browser used on contiki - seems a solveable task .... but the problem raises in detail...

the TCPIP-comunication that is provided by the operation-system contiki is a very basic kind one and i´m not sure that it supports several of the needed advanced duties ... TCPIP and TCPIP is not allways the same.... the protocol solved several steps in the evolution of the protocol itself ....

next: if i remember correct also with twitter some kind of basic shape-graphics are used... and i don´t remember that i ever have seen a version realy only textbased.... and keeping track on the friends-list and keeping updated with the contacts is up to my knowledge a RAM-eating feature of twitter... so that would be the next question to search an answer for....

how large is the smallest version of a twitter plugin ?

bear again in mind that at a modern handy 4 MB RAM-usage is nearly nothing.... modern handys are supplied with at least 256MB or more.... a modern smartphone has some 2 to 4 GB of RAM..... compared to that 4 MB at the IIGS is just a ant compared to the elephant of a modern smartphone.....

sincerely
speedyG

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Re: Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

I don't know about the best solution, but I was recently wondering the same thing and found this interesting piece:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/apple-iie-hacked-into-twitter-station-still-looks-better-than-m/

hello bushnrvn,
the link looks cool at the first sight..... but... the display area below for the second picture stays dark.....
to tell truth i still doubt that it´s possible....
the picture displayed in the first does not realy view like connection realized at contiki.... contiki-prompt has other display.... it seems more like a edited graphics that fakes a twitter communication - upmore to the fact that the uthernetcard causes at the IIe just even more problems - due to the restriction of the RAM-mamory.... and most RAM-cards at the IIe do block-switching with the RAM ... - not to talk about contiki running on the IIe.... i can´t imagine JAVA to be able to run at the IIe !
sincerely speedyG

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Re: Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

Ryan Suenaga wrote a Twitter client for the Apple IIGS a few years back called 'IIter'. It was sloooow (well, the Apple II was slow) and probably won't work now, due to Twitter API changes since then. Ryan made the source code available, but I can't find it at the moment. Some asshat scalped his domain and now nothing useful is to be had there. Ryan passed away in 2011.

And, there's this news:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/03/twitter-tells-third-party-devs-to-stop-making-twitter-client-apps/

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Re: Best way to use Twitter on Apple IIgs w/ Uthernet card?

By using the way back machine I was able to pull up Ryan's page. Version 1.0 is still downloadable from it with also a description of how it works.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110208162754/http://www.ryansapplesoftware.com/

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