I have a residential telephone line which I use for all mundane purposes of life with satisfaction.
Can anyone please tell me the answers to the following questions:
What is the minimum modem I need to surf the net as fast as my telephone line can feed into the computer?
What is the minimum processor?
What is the minimum video card?
What is the minimum sound card?
What is the minimum monitor?
What is the minimum speaker?
What are the minimum drives?
What are the other minimums I need?
For the sake of economy, I am very partial to used components however far from the state of the art technology, provided they are still functioning and can last indefinitely like my telephone at home.
Thanks for all practical and reliable advice you can provide me.
For plain vanilla dialup, you can use the crappiest computer you can find and still surf. As long as it will support a 56k modem, you’re fine. You’ll want at least a 256-color video display, but 16k colors or more is better, with a resolution of at least 640 x 480. Your ISP’s software will mostly dictate the minimum system requirements, in terms of OS, disk space needs, and RAM requirements.
A 56k modem is the end of the road for modems. There will never be any faster for that medium. Any computer built within the last 9 years should be able to support one. A 56k modem shouldn’t be able to tax any modern system’s resources so you are safe with that. You would need a hard drive but it doesn’t need to be very big 500 megs or so will do. All of the other stuff that you list are just bells and whistles.
Oh boy, we are talking about the extreme low end of computing here. If that is truly all you want to do, then a Pentium I 200 mhz with a 2 gigabyte hard drive running Windows 95 or 98 will easily do the task. Those run only $50 dollars (or less) on Ebay. It doesn’t take much to do basic web surfing these days. Most people just give those types of computers away for free.
Somebody will be along shortly to say something about Linux; I feel sure (from what I have read and heard) that if we’re talking minimum hardware spec to run a browser and satisfactorily surf the net, Linux will work better with lower spec than Windows.
Heck, if I was willing to be very selective about where I went (and assuming I could get a browser or something to work), I bet I could get online with my old 286 with (what used to be blazing fast) 2400 modem.
Basically, you don’t need much. I agree that about anything from a 486 on up will work. However, you might hit a browser compatibility problem if the system won’t support your browser, as a lot of sites have problems with relatively old copies of IE and Netscape.
As noted, you can manage to surf on 56K dialup with practically anything, provided you can run recent enough browser software on it to cope with the features taken for granted by sites you visit. I would be most careful about choosing the monitor, though, and perhaps be willing to budget a little more for it, for a couple of reasons:
1 - You don’t want to go blind staring a crappy jiggling monitor. This is probably the one component where you are actually going to notice the difference between good and just adequate components while surfing the net on a dialup.
2 - More than a lot of other parts of your system, monitors DO wear out, as opposed to becoming so obsolete as to be worthless. You’re taking a risk buying an old used monitor - one day, the flyback will go out, most likely, which would cost far more than the old monitor is worth to replace.
My first Internet connection was through my old 386sx laptop with a 2400bps modem, output on a 14in color monitor, with Win 3.1, but it always froze.
The minimums, I feel, should be a Win95 computer, 16 megs of RAM, 1.0 GB hard drive, with 14.4 modem, at least 1 meg video card. No sound card is necessary.
I have, among my several computers, a Pentium 100, 133, and 166, and they all do alright, although mostly I use internet sharing over a network thru my real computer (P4).
What is your budget and/or what components do you have? There are some extremly good bargains on computer parts now, especially if you have the ability to put it all together yourself.
I will get these replies printed and bring them to the neighborhood second-hand computer shop to see what the guy there can come up with for 50 dollars, or maybe at most 75.
Susma Rio Sep
p.s.
At present I use a Pentium mmx 166 and paid quite some money way back in '96 for all the assembly, brand new.
That was before I found out about choice second-hand components which second-hand people can put together according to your budget and specs, and still obtain some much newer systems.
What is the minimum modem I need to surf the net as fast as my telephone line can feed into the computer?
A 33.6 modem. In a lot of places you won’t get a faster connection speed than that, even with a faster modem. 56k modems are cheap though, so just go with that.
What is the minimum processor?
About a pentium 90. You can probably get by on a 486 but you might find its slowness a little frustrating, especially on anything with a lot of graphics. Anything much faster than a pentium 90 is just going to be wasting CPU cycles waiting for data to come in from the phone line.
What is the minimum video card?
Any el-cheapo will do fine. Needs to be able to do super VGA resolutions, 800 x 600 at a minimum. Anything less and you might have problems with some web pages.
What is the minimum sound card?
You don’t need one. If you really want sound any el-cheapo sound card will do the trick.
What is the minimum monitor?
Something that can do 800 x 600 resolution (same as video card)
What is the minimum speaker?
I can’t think of much cheaper than a pair of headphones from the dollar store. The more you pay the better sound you will get. If you are going for the bare minimum on everything else then anything over 10 bucks would be a waste of money.
What are the minimum drives?
You could probably get by with a 500 meg hard drive, depending on what OS you choose.
What are the other minimums I need?
You need a keyboard and a mouse.
Basically, you can probably find a computer that meets the above specs (except for the monitor) in someone’s trash can. Second hand shops tend to be horribly overpriced. You might want to have a peek on ebay.
For 50 to 75 bucks you might be restricted to VGA resolution (640 x 480) which will make the viewing of some web pages difficult, but not impossible.
I surfed the web with lynx (text based web browser) with a 386/25 and a 2400 baud modem. (I think… I might’ve only discovered lynx after I had a 9600 modem, or even, wow, a 14400. I definitely was on the net with a 2400 and a 386, just maybe not ‘surfing’. IIRC. my friend had an IBM-XT and got on the internet to some degree through the Cleveland Freenet.
I’ve used a Mac IIsi (circa 1991), 19 mHz, 9 megs RAM, 40 meg HD. 680x480, I beleive. 9600 bps external modem. System (Mac OS) 7.5, and I think I also used 7.1 for a while.
I would agree with the above point: if you’re doing this, get yourself an ancient 56K or 33K hardware modem. 56K PCI’s are tough to find, but the others are easy and cheap in my area ($5-$7).
Get a 586 processor minimum. No 386’s or 486’s.
Get a soundcard, the whole computer runs considerably faster if you do. A SB16 costs about $6 online now.
I dunno anywhere that sells new 500-meg hard drives anymore, and I think paying anything for a used 10+ year-old hard drive is silly. As far as I know you have to get the smallest drive you can find and partition it into smaller parts.
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