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From: TRS-90 <matthewmpower@gmail.com>
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Subject: Getting the (US only) Weather Forecast on a Vintage Machine
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2022 03:21:49 GMT
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Getting the (US only) Weather Forecast on a Vintage Machine

Assuming that one has an internet-enabled vintage machine (my IIgs has the Uthernet II, Webber, Contiki and other free software), how to get current weather forecasts for some area of the US?

I thrashed about with this for forever and a day. I banged around on The National Weather Service quite a bit (including FTP and warnings from Google) and then I found a solution that works very well.

Just do it in the URL. Use airport codes, and send them to FrogFind, which is an amazing piece of software from ActionRetro. I picked a small prop-plane airport about five miles from my home and used it's IATA code of K12N like this:

frogfind.com/read.php?a=https://forecast.weather.gov/zipcity.php?inputstring=K12N

Instant results from the NWS. Tried it in Contiki (took a bit of typing) and it works fantastic.

I switched over to Webber (by Speccie) and did the same. The correct data loads quickly, but the font is a bit hard to read in Webber. I am not sure if it is Webber or FrogFind with the font issue. However, it works. The nice thing about Webber is being able to save the URL in favorites so I don't have to type out that rather long address.

Ultimately, I was able to reach my goal of quickly reading the weather forecast on an Apple II. I do wish Contiki had an option for a saved URL, but I'm not the coder who could do something like that.

Thanks for reading. Posted from an Apple IIgs.

Matthew