I am giving my old computer to a friend. It’s a 486. I never tried to access the Internet with it. My guess was it would be so slow as to be pointless. Can anyone address this based on experience? Thanks !
I had a 486 at work for over a year, and I was able to access the net with it. It worked pretty well, as long as I didn’t have more than a couple of windows open.
TMR
If you believed in yourself, and tore enough holes
in your pants, there was always a mist-filled alley
right around the corner.
It would probably be pointless for graphic-heavy things such as QuickTime movies, streaming audio/video, etc., but for simple text pages with some graphic elements, it ought to be OK.
The modem speed will matter more than the processor speed for those. A good 486 (how many Mhz? That’s pretty important!) should be able to handle most simple text + still graphics pages.
Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@kozmo.com
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
I was using a 486 up until a couple of months back. There are some drawbacks as far as sound and animation, but as far as basic functionality like email or viewing more or less static HTML pages it’s not that bad.
The connection to your ISP will have a greater effect than the processing speed of your PC (multimedia excluded).
If you try it, you’ll probably be better off using that vintage software as well. If you put windows 98 with IE 5 on it, it’ll never load, due to bloated nature of today’s software.
Arjuna34
I used to get on the net with an old 386. Didn’t have windows, so after getting to a UNIX prompt (I was in school at the time) I used PINE for E-mail and Lynx for a text-based browser. A year or so later I ‘upgraded’ to a 486 and was able to run Win3.1. That got me on the net with Netscape and Eudora. No problems, really. It will be slower today due to increased content in pages, and there will be plenty of things your friend will be unable to do / see, but that should not stop anyone from getting on the net. (I am assuming there is a modem in the machine. If not, they are cheap enough now). I’d go into the preferences of whatever browser I was using and turn off java, etc., and stop it from automatically loading pictures, sounds, movies, etc. You can get to all of those with a right-click anyway, so no need to clog the system up. Good luck!
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
The most important thing for able to surf the net is the ability to run a browser. Remember, the net is 30 years old or so. Most calculators have enough processing power to interact with the net.
The major concern is Web access, which is fairly recent compared to the rest of the 'net. Looking at the system requirements for the ISP I work for, all that is requrired is 80 megs of disk space and 16 Megs of RAM to run IE5. You will need at least IE4 to run most web pages properly.
And Cmkeller. You work for kozmo? the roving mini-mart? when’s that going to be available south of Seattle?
You will find problems with audio and video as mentioned but as far as access is concerned there should not be any problems at all. I use a 486 at home for internet and it works at relatively the same speed as my Pentium when viewing standard pages.
Think of your modem as the bottleneck rather than the PC itself. It doesn’t matter what type of PC you use as long as it can run the basic DUN and browser software, it’s the modem speed that affects the access speed.
Mine is. It’s not so slow that it’s pointless, but then I have low expectations. I’m not trying to do sixty-eleven different things at the same time. Everything that everyone said above, double.
Go ahead and give your friend the computer. He may not thank you, but he probably won’t curse you for it, either. Any Internet access is better than none. It’s a starting point. And if he just absolutely hates it, he can always give it to someone else, who can give it to someone else…
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
There are a half dozen browsers, like Opera, for 486 computers, so, you know, it must be internet capable 
Try Juno for free web & email…its very simple. www.juno.com but you need w95 for it.
kbutcher:
Well, in the Seattle area we also serve Bellevue. I know Portland is one of the next cities we’re scheduled to open in (as well as Houston and San Diego).
I don’t know where exactly Auburn is and/or how urban it is, but population density (and prevalence of Internet usage) is a very important part of our strategic team’s planning of what areas to serve. (I’m a programmer; I don’t have a say or all the info in those matters.) A lot of people here in the New York City area ask me when it’ll be available in New Jersey or Long Island…many of our own employees can’t get our service! All I can say is, suburban service, if it’s in the cards at all, is probably in the far future (> 1 year from now) rather than near future.
On the other hand, if I hear differently, I could let you know.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Keep in mind that you can go to most massive electronic stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Micro Center, or hell, maybe even Staples, and pick up a computer that’s like ten times as powerful for a few hundred dollars. They sell low-budget computers specficaly for internet usage.
Sure, you can get by on a 486, but I certainly wouldn’t want to.
We put our old 486 in one of the kids’ room so he could do his homework on it. It has 64 megs of RAM, but is otherwise not particularly upgraded. With a 33.6 modem he has no problem getting on and surfing the Web, downloading MP3 files and watching those damn hamsters dance.
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
My roommate used to browse with Netscape 2.0 running under Windows 3.11 PC on a 40 MHz 386.
Disable Similes in this Post
Thanks everybody for your input. I’m sure the recipient will be happy. She works in food service and donation is her only option for a computer. Her native language is french so I’d appreciate any french-site feedback.
The problem with IE4 (and Navigator 4) is the amount of memory they take. They are both software hogs - on my Pentium 200 MHz system Navigator takes 35 seconds just to start. On an older system, you’ll likely not have lots of memory available.
This being the case, I strongly recommend the Opera browser ( http://www.opera.com ). Its installation program fits on a single floppy disk, uses little memory, but still can run Javascript and fully display frames and tables. The problem here is that Opera costs $35, and your friend is probably pretty cheap.
By the way, Opera is my standard browser, even on my 400 MHz machine.
I’d recommend using Netscape 3. Works beautifully on a 486 (I used it on mine, back in the day), it’s java and javascript capable, rock solid, and it’s freely available. A French language version is available [here](ftp://archive :oldies@archive.netscape.com/archive/navigator/3.03/shipping/french/windows/windows95_or_nt/navigator_standard/n32fr33.exe)
(or you can go here - http://home.netscape.com/download/archive/client_archive3x.html - for the index of all NN3 versions)
EEP! Sorry about the long icky link… I was trying to fix it so it wouldn’t do that :-/
Opera runs Java but ONLY if you later install Java seperately & java is a BIG program.
The old IE & Netscape are free & you can get them on the net.