Excerpts from ANDY <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> :
> I've seen a lotta 486's with 'socket 4' which will
take 586 class chips upto 133. I've seen 133's for
sale at 15-20$.
Some of the 486's also have both 30 and 72 pin DRAM,
and that too is pretty cheap, 4$/meg, 10$/8 meg. I ran
Linux Mandrake on a 686 amd 166 with 32meg that did
pretty well, no more than a coupla seconds from closing
one post in email to opening the next. About as fast as
Arachne does it with a 486 DX4-100.
Where do you find RAM chips < 64 MB these days? My current old computer could
use a 32 MB SIMM for a 72-pin slot, but if I could find it, it might cost more
than 256 MB RAM new. It would increase my RAM from 20 MB to 52 MB. CPU is
Cx486DX2-S at 66 MHz, not upgradable on current motherboard. I don't really
want to spend more money of this old computer.
> With regard to Arachne, I like it, but it crashes or will
not display half the webpages any more. Then too, when a
donated computer gets into the hands of NGO staff, it'll
be Netscape that some of them will be familiar with. Most
wouldnt know Arachne from a phobia.
But if the platform hasta be shipped with anything less
than Ben suggests, then Arachne is the only solution.
IBM Web Explorer for OS/2 Warp 4 was more outdated, showed its age sooner, with
no support for Java, Javascript, https, frames, redirection, and some other
things I couldn't identify. IBM Web Explorer had a fair amount of crashes.
But DOS Lynx386 + a graphic image viewer (LXPIC, Pictview, Display, for
instance) might also serve, can run respectably on hardware where Netscape would
crawl.
Webmasters need to be reeducated to cut out the fancy stuff like Shockwave,
Java and Javascript. Most users are looking for information, not glitz.
> In many remote areas, logon time will be priced by the
minute, and the fact that Arachne logs on faster will
be important. In those areas, they wont be surfing the
web anyway, but they will want email, and Arachne is
setup very well to do email offline, and then upload on
the next logon, saving them a lotta money.
There is also UKA_PPP aka NOS-BOX which can be set up for a script, can handle
mail and news, and some other things like htget and ftp. Arachne still lacks
NNTP support, and what about that 128th-character bug in Insight?
(some snipping)
> Dont wanna forget the UPS. If you keep the
power load low, so is the price. I've seen a
150 watter at 30$, but a 300 watter is 60$,
and a 500 watt UPS is 120$. You'd think there'd
be a break as the power goes up, but I aint seen it.
and the above only getcha 8-20 minutes. If you run
a store, and the grid goes down, and you wanna keep
the cash register POS software working, the batteries
to keep a full blown windoz system operating will cost
more than you can afford.
Do you mean watts or VA (volt-amps)? Watts = VA / 0.7 approximately. I might
need APC BackUPS Pro 650 with a new desktop system.
Using older computers in the Third World that would otherwise go to the landfill
would benefit the environment.
