On Saturday, September 23rd, 1995 - Evan Langlois wrote:
 
 RR> ability  to do different fonts of different sizes and styles (again, 
 RR> should be 
EL> The 16 color thing looks awful, and you simply don't have the 
 
It looks fine for 16-color ANSI.  In fact it looks damn fine compared to 
the Herc mono monitor on my PeeCee.  My only point in brining it up is
that one can have at least 16-colors on the oldest ST in an acceptable
80 column mode.
 
EL> resolution to do fonts, or good graphics.  It won't look good at all. 
 
My ST has been able to do fonts of all sizes and shapes for a long time, 
so I don't know what you're talking about there.  As far as good
graphics goes, that would have to be on a another screen (where you
would flip between the text/font mode and a the graphics display by say, 
pressing F1 or something.)
 
EL>  Netscape on Ethernet must be ALOT better than a connection to a 
EL> 14.4Kbps modem!! Those pretty graphics become a real pain very fast.
EL>  Or actually .. not very fast at all :-)
 
I have no idea - never tried web browsing via modem (wouldn't want to).
 
EL>  I haven't found too much of a problem.  Don't download the graphics.
 
Uhhhhh... the graphics come to you automatically as part of the WWW
browsing process - it's not like you can shut them off.  Call up Toad's
web pages, for example.  All sorts of graphics all over the place.
 
EL> And if your internet service provider is using a T1 line (56Kbps), 
EL> then switch to one that has a 10Mbps connection like the provider I 
 
If have no web service provider - I did web browsing at the University
of Washington in my friend's office there...
 
EL> go through. The T1 is fine for one or 2 users, but when you get 20 
EL> people feeding off the system, you get about 2Kbps bandwidth - so 
 
Try 20,000 people.
 
EL> 28.8Kbps modems won't even run full tilt.  Its barely enough for 
EL> 14.4Kbps modems.  As the users increase it gets worse.
 
I have no idea what "modems" are involved in their Ethernet connections, 
to know that I'd have to know more about ARPAnet or something...???
 
EL> frequently over-loaded and badly tuned networks with tons of packet 
EL> collisions taking the network down to unbearable speeds.  Add to that 
 
Web browsing used to be pretty quick and speedy through the ethernet.
Now, it has become so popular that it is sllloooooooowww....
 
EL> the fact that the Internet connection you have is likely just a 
EL> single T1 line being shared by possibly hundreds of users who might 
 
Try thousands.
 
EL> all be using the internet ... well, performace will slow considerably.
 
And supposedly they have the fastest internet connection available in
the state... go figure.
 
EL> 8Mhz isn't make a Web Browser.  8Mhz and ST Med. are just way too 
EL> outdated. We have to shoot for something a bit better.  That can't 
EL> stay as the minimal system forever.
 
Of course.  I wouldn't suggest it be limited to 1985 technology. 
Obviously the Falcon will eventually have a full color WWW browser.  I
was discussing the possibility of doing it on the old ST.  Are we going
to fold up in the face of a challenge?  I remember when someone at the
computer club told me that the Atari 800 could not display 256 colors
simultaneously.  Then I wrote the assembly code that made it happen.
Wasn't impossible after all.  :)
 
It is interesting to imagine what technical feats might be possible.
Personally, I don't care if color web browsing becomes available to ST
or Falcon.  I'm expecting WWW collapse by the year 2000 (darn that pesky 
bandwidth!)  :-)  Downloading is so slow it's almost worthless already.
 
--- RiBBS v2.10        

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