Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles
Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles
游戏主机上的网页浏览器
Video game consoles have a long history with web browsers. From the advent of the World Wide Web, consoles have been trying to get online. Browsers on video game consoles were initially very much an attempt to provide a cheap gateway to the web for a casual audience lacking technical expertise, though as time progressed they’ve become a greater and more integrated part of systems. This article takes a look at browsers on video game consoles in detail, though only covers official web browsers. Many consoles have browsers installable via custom firmware and homebrew, but they’re beyond the scope of this post, as are non-web systems such as Satellaview and online services that didn’t provide a browser, such as XBAND, Sega Meganet, and Sega Channel. Game console browsers were of interest to web developers for a period while personal computing devices and mobile browsers were still establishing themselves. Overall, the development of console browsers provides an insight into a juvenile web, slowly growing and establishing itself, as well as an insight into game console user interfaces.
游戏主机与网页浏览器有着悠久的历史。自万维网诞生以来，游戏主机就一直在尝试接入互联网。最初，游戏主机上的浏览器主要是为了给缺乏技术背景的普通用户提供一种廉价的上网途径；随着时间的推移，它们已逐渐成为系统更重要、更整合的一部分。本文将详细探讨游戏主机上的浏览器，但仅涵盖官方网页浏览器。许多主机可以通过自制固件（Custom Firmware）或自制软件（Homebrew）安装浏览器，但这超出了本文的讨论范围；同样不在讨论范围内的还有非网页系统（如 Satellaview）以及未提供浏览器的在线服务（如 XBAND、Sega Meganet 和 Sega Channel）。在个人计算设备和移动浏览器尚未成熟的时期，游戏主机浏览器曾一度引起网页开发者的关注。总的来说，主机浏览器的发展不仅让我们得以窥见互联网早期缓慢成长与建立的过程，也反映了游戏主机用户界面的演变。
CD-i
CD-i
The Compact Disc-Interactive format and hardware created by Philips and Sony was an ill-fated attempt to bring interactive multimedia to the masses. Development on the project started in the mid ’80s, and home players arrived in 1991. The CD-i’s inclusion as a ‘game console’ here is debatable as it was designed for and touted with much broader capabilities. However, towards the end of its life it was marketed much more as a game console, and it is as a game console that it is best known today – especially thanks to the infamous Mario and Zelda games. With a modem and a CD-Online disc (known as Web-i in the United States) released in late 1995, users could access the web in a very rudimentary manner. The term ‘internet-lite’ is seen paired with the CD-i frequently, for not only was the internet and indeed the entire World Wide Web burgeoning, but the CD-i was a rather limited machine that wasn’t well equipped for supporting the full-scale web.
由飞利浦和索尼开发的交互式光盘（CD-i）格式及硬件，是一次将交互式多媒体带给大众的失败尝试。该项目始于 80 年代中期，家用播放器于 1991 年上市。CD-i 是否应被归类为“游戏主机”尚存争议，因为它在设计之初被赋予了更广泛的功能。然而，在其生命周期的末期，它更多地被作为游戏主机进行营销，且如今人们也正是以游戏主机的身份记住它——尤其是因为它那几款臭名昭著的《马力欧》和《塞尔达》游戏。随着 1995 年底调制解调器和 CD-Online 光盘（在美国被称为 Web-i）的发布，用户可以以非常原始的方式访问网络。“轻量级互联网”（internet-lite）一词经常与 CD-i 联系在一起，因为当时互联网和整个万维网正处于萌芽阶段，而 CD-i 本身是一台性能相当有限的机器，并不足以支持全功能的网页浏览。
The main menu of CD-Online Disc 97-10. The browser worked and had links to various web portals but was very limited, even given the primitive web of the time. The CD-i’s limited RAM meant that it could store very little, and that simply using the browser would overwrite other values in memory, such as preferences and game saves. The idea was that the CD-i would be a cheaper, TV-based computing device, available at a price point lower than typical home computers that could make it the gateway to the internet for the less technologically literate. During 1996, the CD-i KeyControl keyboard was released, as were additional CD-Online discs. The idea being that new discs would be released periodically with additional games, software, and peripheral support. Records indicate six discs were released in total, with later versions including the ability to develop and deploy your own homepage. By late 1998, CD-Online was winding down on the CD-i, with a version of the service launching for PCs during the turn of the millennium. Throughout the early 2000s it fizzled out and domains went offline, with everything CD-Online coming to a complete close in the mid-2000s.
CD-Online Disc 97-10 的主菜单。该浏览器可以运行并提供了一些门户网站的链接，但即使以当时的原始网络标准来看，它也非常受限。CD-i 有限的内存意味着它能存储的数据极少，仅仅使用浏览器就会覆盖内存中的其他数值，例如用户偏好设置和游戏存档。其初衷是将 CD-i 打造成一种更便宜、基于电视的计算设备，价格低于典型的家用电脑，从而成为技术水平较低人群的互联网入口。1996 年，CD-i KeyControl 键盘发布，随后又推出了额外的 CD-Online 光盘。其构想是定期发布新光盘，提供额外的游戏、软件和外设支持。记录显示总共发布了六张光盘，后期版本甚至包含了开发和部署个人主页的功能。到 1998 年底，CD-Online 在 CD-i 上的服务逐渐减少，并在千禧年之交推出了 PC 版本。进入 21 世纪初，该服务逐渐式微，域名相继下线，CD-Online 的所有业务在 2000 年代中期彻底终结。
Sega Saturn
世嘉土星 (Sega Saturn)
Sega’s 1994 console, the Saturn, gained internet access in late 1996 with the release of Sega Net Link – a tiny device with a custom chip and 28.8kbps modem that fit into the cartridge port. For the Net Link, United States based company PlanetWeb provided their PlanetWeb Browser as the ‘NetLink Custom Web Browser’, an efficient and lightweight browser with a bespoke engine which was tailored and released for various devices in collaboration with manufacturers. Reading PlanetWeb’s frequently asked questions page from 1997, it is clear their browser was built carefully to target television-based devices and existing consoles, making it optimal for the Saturn. Due to televisions having low-resolution screens compared to dedicated monitors, the PlanetWeb browser made use of ‘proprietary software technology for displaying clear, readable text and sharp images on an ordinary television.’. In other words, ‘the Browser features such advances as anti-aliased fonts’. For its time, and given it is on an extremely limited console, it is remarkably fully featured.
世嘉于 1994 年推出的土星（Saturn）主机在 1996 年底通过发布 Sega Net Link 获得了互联网接入能力——这是一个插入卡带槽的小型设备，内置定制芯片和 28.8kbps 调制解调器。对于 Net Link，总部位于美国的 PlanetWeb 公司提供了他们的 PlanetWeb 浏览器作为“NetLink 定制网页浏览器”。这是一款高效且轻量级的浏览器，拥有专门定制的引擎，旨在与制造商合作，为各种设备进行适配和发布。阅读 PlanetWeb 1997 年的常见问题页面可以发现，他们的浏览器是专门针对电视设备和现有主机精心打造的，因此非常适合土星主机。由于电视屏幕的分辨率远低于专用显示器，PlanetWeb 浏览器使用了“专有软件技术，以便在普通电视上显示清晰、可读的文本和锐利的图像”。换句话说，“该浏览器具备抗锯齿字体等先进功能”。在当时，考虑到它运行在一台性能极其有限的主机上，其功能之全面令人惊叹。
The browser has an inbuilt magnifier that can zoom to multiple levels, image support, history, bookmarks, an address book, the ability to download files temporarily, and full parental controls for filtering. That is in addition to all the configurable options and settings available in a menu accessed by pressing Start. There is a wide selection of themes with different cursors and sounds – any of which wouldn’t be out of place in Kid Pix, with blips and bloops and springy sounds of all varieties. The main Net Link page in version 2 of the browser. Each district of the city is a navigable hyperlink. Each time PlanetWeb boots, a random splash screen is shown. Net Link was tied in to the Saturn’s wider online gaming capabilities, allowing ‘On-Line’ battles. Beyond direct multiplayer, it also built a community around the console. For a while PlanetWeb hosted a game exchange mail-in forum allowing users to email in their Saturn game saves via the browser to share them with other people. PlanetWeb also launched Planet WebMaster, a web development and hosting platform that people could use with their browser. In the United States of America, two versions of the browser were widely distributed. Version 2 and version 3. Version 3 brought greater optimisation, more legible fonts, and IRC support. Neither of these versions supported frames, however, instead displaying them as text links. The final version of the browser was Beta 4.035, which was never released physically and was only available as a downloadable update. Version 4 introduced full support for displaying frames inline, more IRC commands, more shortcuts, faster input, etc.
该浏览器内置了多级缩放放大镜、图像支持、历史记录、书签、地址簿、临时文件下载功能以及完整的家长控制过滤功能。此外，通过按下 Start 键进入的菜单中还有各种可配置的选项和设置。浏览器提供了多种主题选择，配有不同的光标和音效——这些音效听起来就像《Kid Pix》里的声音，充满了各种电子哔哔声和弹跳声。这是浏览器 2.0 版本的 Net Link 主页，城市中的每个区域都是一个可点击的超链接。每次启动 PlanetWeb 时，都会显示一个随机的启动画面。Net Link 与土星主机更广泛的在线游戏功能相连，支持“在线”对战。除了直接的多人游戏外，它还围绕主机建立了一个社区。有一段时间，PlanetWeb 托管了一个游戏交换邮件论坛，允许用户通过浏览器发送他们的土星游戏存档，与其他玩家分享。PlanetWeb 还推出了 Planet WebMaster，这是一个用户可以通过浏览器使用的网页开发和托管平台。在美国，该浏览器主要有两个版本广泛分发：2.0 版和 3.0 版。3.0 版带来了更好的优化、更清晰的字体和 IRC 支持。然而，这两个版本都不支持框架（frames），而是将其显示为文本链接。该浏览器的最终版本是 Beta 4.035，它从未以实体形式发布，仅作为可下载的更新提供。4.0 版本引入了对内联框架显示的全面支持、更多的 IRC 命令、更多的快捷方式、更快的输入速度等。