Wallops: New low-end IRC client for Macintosh



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Author	Wallops: New low-end IRC client for Macintosh (Read 22980 times)
Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	on: February 12, 2022, 14:54 It's an IRC client with modern features that works down to System 6 and a 68000 CPU like the Mac Plus, Mac SE etc.. Wallops supports MultiFinder in System 6 and will run in the background and of course runs fine on System 7 and up to Mac OS 9 as well. If you use it e.g. together with Knezzen's IRC bridge, you can use a Mac Plus to do Instant Messaging (Facebook Chat, Discord etc.). How cool is that! :-) Bonus points for making the code open source, so you can have a look on how networking is done classic Mac-style. Screenshot: http://images.macintosh.garden/2022/02/12/wallops.jpg https://jcs.org/wallops (needs modern browser or SSL proxy)
Last Edit: February 13, 2022, 11:32 by Bolkonskij
Knezzen Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot	Reply #1 on: February 13, 2022, 10:29 Lovely! This should be our preferred IRC client for System 7 Today as well. Need to test it out

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #2 on: February 14, 2022, 13:57 Indeed, I've been playing around with it and I'm impressed, this is a low-end yet very well made IRC client. I like it much more then e.g. IRCle and its quirky interface.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #3 on: June 25, 2022, 15:29 Need to push this back up again - this has become my favorite IRC client for Mac OS 7 as of late. So nicely designed. Nothing fancy, just plain good IRC at awesome speeds. In fact, I just booted into System 6 on my IIci and I could use Wallops to write Knezzen messages via Telegram. Not bad for what is essentially 1989 tech! So I really recommend looking into Wallops if you're looking for a lightweight IRC client on Mac OS.

Knezzen Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot	Reply #4 on: June 27, 2022, 18:36 I like it a lot, but I can't find any way to resize the main window, it always starts up taking up the whole screen. I guess it's fine on a compact Mac, but quite annoying on my MDD which uses a 1920x1200 resolution

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #5 on: June 27, 2022, 19:10 Yeah, he coded it up deliberately for his 512k Mac I think. It runs very nicely on my Mac IIci but that one runs on a 640x480 resolution.

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #6 on: June 27, 2022, 22:01 I truly appreciate the effort but from the screenshots it doesn't look more sophisticated to me than smIRCle.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #7 on: June 28, 2022, 06:51 Sophistication wasn't the aim when developing it, the developer deliberately chose to close a gap in IRC clients that will work with older Macs and that will require only minimal resources while offering basic IRC capabilities with no frills. Hence Wallops works with next to any Macintosh that can run Mac OS, except the 128k. The fact that his software can run on a 512k Macintosh and allows you to chat online with it is something that makes me tip my hat in respect.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #8 on: September 17, 2024, 19:06 Yay, version 2.0 of Wallops has been released! Quote from: the author This release features an overhaul of the interface bringing tabs allowing multiple channels and private message queries, including a number of other new features and bugfixes: - Support window resizing, using an initial window size based on the screen size - Connect-time settings (server, nick, password, etc.) are now saved to a preferences file in the System folder, rather than as resources on the binary itself; this prevents accidental sharing of saved passwords and avoids having to re-enter settings every time the software is updated - Add per-user queries which simplify private messaging back and forth with a single user; can be opened with /query <user> or by double-clicking a user in a channel nick list - Much improved tab and window redrawing - Optimize nick list sorting and building, especially on large channels; on a large channel with 750 users, this operation went from 62 seconds to 33 on a Mac Plus - Only auto-scroll a message buffer to new messages when not scrolled to the bottom, making it easier to read old messages on busy channels - Implement support for many more server numerics and commands - Implement additional commands like /clear, /op, /umode, and /disconnect (the full list is in the README) - Add global menu options to suppress channel "junk" such as joins, quits/parts, and nick changes - Make Desk Accessories work from the Apple Menu - Do case-insensitive matching of slash commands - Add a setting to suppress MOTD printing which can speed up connections on slower machines, since MOTDs can be very long on some servers - Add a custom about dialog Download from the author's website

Knezzen Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot	Reply #9 on: September 24, 2024, 13:20 It's a really great update! It's for sure my preferred client.

Mk.558 4 MB Posts: 7	Reply #10 on: October 13, 2024, 01:12 I like it. Unfortunately I had too much instability, with out of memory errors (even after bumping the memory allocated to 1024KiB) and crashes, whereas Homer 0.94 keeps working.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #11 on: October 13, 2024, 13:07 I'm experiencing a bug myself on my IIci running System 7.1. In contact with the author trying to figure out what's wrong. It does run perfectly fine on my G4 running OS 9. I sure love it's new tabs feature, makes it such an efficient light-weight messenger

Knezzen Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot	Reply #12 on: October 14, 2024, 13:01 Works fine here on my end Homer is a classic, btw!

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