Ask HN: Oldest piece of hardware a user could access the internet with? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Oldest piece of hardware a user could access the internet with?

#51

Post by richajak » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

mhd wrote: post #36

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #6

I just realized the semi-stupidity of my question. I should have said "modern web", considering the ARPANET could be considered a type of "internet" (?) that ran using hardware from 1969? Thank you for the replies though, something to read up on.

Even that leaves a lot of room. If you can fix certificate problems, any simple browser (even text mode lynx) can still do a lot these days. But let's go really "modern", i.e. being able to access web applications without missing features, timeouts etc. Slower, maybe just one at a time, but what you do works. That's surprisingly hard. I sometimes use TenFourFox, a browser for Power Macs, which is a bit of a mashup be…

I agree on that. If the definition is on modern web with ES2020, TLS 1.2, etc, it limits the choice to Firefox and Chrome. This will exclude any computer that does not have at least:

a. 2gb of ram as my raspberry pi with 1gb ram cannot handle more than 4 tabs in chromium responsively.

b. ssd, connecting to SATA, it makes my 10-year-old thinkpad feels new.

c. enough cpu power to handle 2mb of js

d. hdmi connector

That limits the choices to computers not older than 15 years old, plus minus several years.

Re: Ask HN: Oldest piece of hardware a user could access the internet with?

#52

Post by jbjbjbjb » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

_b8r0 wrote: post #27

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #6

I just realized the semi-stupidity of my question. I should have said "modern web", considering the ARPANET could be considered a type of "internet" (?) that ran using hardware from 1969? Thank you for the replies though, something to read up on.

I regularly use the Web most days on an Amiga 4000, built in 1992. It's not perfect for everything, but I can use things like search engines, visit web sites over HTTPS etc. I mostly visit Amiga-specific sites that tend to have lower overheads. I've also visited sites like like Twitter, Facebook, CNN etc. in the past. It should be possible to use older machines to browse the web but it stops being about the machine a…

How come you use your Amiga regularly? Is there something specific you use it for?

Re: Ask HN: Oldest piece of hardware a user could access the internet with?

#53

Post by _b8r0 » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #52

_b8r0 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly use the Web most days on an Amiga 4000, built in 1992. It's not perfect for everything, but I can use things like search engines, visit web sites over HTTPS etc. I mostly visit Amiga-specific sites that tend to have lower overheads. I've also visited sites like like Twitter, Facebook, CNN etc. in the past. It should be possible to use older machines to browse the web but it stops being about the machine a…

How come you use your Amiga regularly? Is there something specific you use it for?

I use it because I used them throughout the 90s and just find them really nice machines to use for a lot of things. Almost everything's offline first, but it's functional enough to get things done. Some things are more fiddly, but that's to be expected.

Most of what I do is creative, a mix of Art, music, programming, writing. I've done things like covid data analysis, I've written the odd letter on there, some of my newsletter gets written on there. I also use it for things like Usenet, IRC, Telegram etc. There's also a lot of really good games for it. I've heard classic 68k Mac owners have similar experiences. Of course, some say the Amiga is also the fastest classic Mac[1].

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jph0gxzL3UI

Re: Ask HN: Oldest piece of hardware a user could access the internet with?

#54

Post by benibela » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

Yetanfou wrote: post #17

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to see if I can make a Facebook account using a Difference Engine over the weekend. Report back shortly.

I think you should upgrade to an analytical engine to have any chance of success...

With the right skills, you can do it with an abacus