Sierra Christmas Card 1986: A Computer Christmas
archive.org
archive.org
I know it's all open source. Maybe just an input box that captures keystrokes and proxies them over. That'd be the easiest.
How hard can this be?
(It's always important to not honestly answer that question with open source)
1. I'm not using a real computer
2. I'm accessing something built for real computers
3. The solution is to morph the thing I'm accessing around the device with horrible physical input/output that I'm using
At 2 of those steps (probably all 3), I think you've made a mistake. And, yeah, most people make all 3. That doesn't make them correct or the thing you're morphing to the lowest common denominator better.
From the creators' perspective, it's not the other way around; you're probably not going to be coding on a phone, for example. You're probably coding things on a real computer. When you're creating something new, whether you should cater that thing to mobile or not is a different matter. (Odds are, though, it's probably going to be a better experience when consumed on a real computer, too, just like for creating it.)
It has a CPU, some RAM, and I/O devices. It is a real computer, by any definition of “computer”. Just maybe not in a form factor you like.
> 2. I'm accessing something built for real computers
By and large, it’s not the people accessing the web who build it. Web developers just follow their audience.
> 3. The solution is to morph the thing I'm accessing around the device with horrible physical input/output that I'm using
It is not horrible, merely different. Some things are hard to do on a touch screen and easy on a keyboard, and some others are the other way around.
The thing is, mobile-friendly web design does not imply desktop-unfriendliness. In this case, it is easy to add an input to show the keyboard. Particularly compared to putting a whole emulator on the same page. It also would not change a thing for desktop users.
Anyway thanks for sharing.