[Info-vax] Ghostscript and HTML Browser on X86

[Andreas Gruhl]

Jan-Erik Söderholm schrieb am Mittwoch, 14. Dezember 2022 um 18:15:11 UTC+1:
> Den 2022-12-14 kl. 15:37, skrev chris: 
> > On 12/12/22 15:36, Arne Vajhøj wrote: 
> >> On 12/12/2022 10:07 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote: 
> >>> In article <tn7fft$1i5h$1... at gioia.aioe.org>, =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?= 
> >>> <ar... at vajhoej.dk> writes: 
> >>>> Web browser is an entirely different story. I think the short 
> >>>> version is that it will not happen. 
> >>> 
> >>> I remember when people were saying that VMS on x86 would never happen. 
> >> 
> >> x86-64 became more capable and Alpha and Itanium was dropped, so 
> >> suddenly there were a business case for porting VMS to x86-64. 
> >> 
> >> Maybe it is my lack of imagination, but I cannot see any change 
> >> in circumstances that would create a business case for web browser 
> >> on VMS. 
> >> 
> > 
> > Ridiculous situation, for any modern os not to have html browser 
> > support. Admin and other everyday tasks have required the use of a 
> > html browser for decades now and the lack of puts vms at a serious 
> > disadvantage from a systems management point of view. People still 
> > think a text only interface is good enough in 2022 ?, complately 
> > naive. 
> > 
> > Not easy to build Firefox, tried it here, endless dependencies on 
> > other packages, but it will be needed, vms kicking and screaming or 
> > not... 
> > 
> > Chris 
> >
> I must have completely missed the whole "web-thing"... 
> 
> I thought that any web-browser must have a web-server to actually 
> do any "work" at all. You cannot do much with a browser alone. 
> 
> Only having a browser on VMS doesn't help much... 
> 
> And if you have a web server on VMS, the browser can run anyware. 
> 
> And it is much more practical to use the same browser that you use 
> for everything else, the one on your laptop/desktop system. Or is 
> you plan to use the VMS browser for all your other everyday tasks?

You do not neccessarily need a web-server.
We use the browser to display HTML-files which we have just generated on the VMS server.
That's the equivalent of launching a text editor to allow the user to inspect a freshly created text file.
The difference is, that HTML offers enormous advantages over text files (rendering, navigation, table layouts etc.).
By using a local browser we can directly point it to the desired file (and even some location within this file).
And we enable the output image to flow directly through the already established X Protocol connection without the need to open additional communication ports. Works excellent on Alpha and Itanium.

Andreas