Vintage Computers and Current Internet?

Node Man

Hi Everyone,
Strictly entertainment question. Does anyone know what the oldest home computer is that can work on todays internet?

Thanks!

techfiend

By work do you mean playing videos without dropping frames or simply opening a web page?

A 386 on windows 95 could open web pages that work in IE4 about a year ago but it's much slower than dialup was on a contemporary computer. 500mhz amd thunderbird on windows xp/firefox 20 something could play youtube 240p without dropping many, if any, frames.

MTciscoguy

It all depends on what you want to do, I can still get on the net with an old 8088 that has an old legacy ISA networking card in it and can display some of the old user groups and a few other types of old text pages. To actually see anything in the modern internet, you will need at least a 386 and probably a 486, the speed of the processor, is not always the most important thing, the memory, network and graphics is the important things to display graphical elements. Then throw in Java, Flash .php, you will really be taxing and most likely shutting down because the system just can't process all of that with the older memory and cpu's. When I first started on the internet, the graphics were pretty rare and not seen often at all, most everything was text, either green, amber or white.

What are you trying to do?

Node Man

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the answers. I was asking because I was just wondering how much use someone could get out of an old computer now. For example I was wondering if a Commodore 64 could save files on a remote hard drive, or wondering how much networking it can do at all. No need for real web browsing. More interesting in recreating the networking of that age.

Other examples i was curious about was adding a token ring section to my home cisco lab. And I wonder if a classic mainframe <> dumb terminal model can be recreated at home now.

I guess i have a few spare brain cells and was nostalgic for vintage computers and vintage networking. Think mid 1980's.

Thanks!

techfiend

I have a working C64 and VIC20 but no modem. I'm guessing it still works with the rare BBS and gopher still is a thing.

alan2308

There's full TCP/IP stacks for Apple ][s and C64s with text based browsers, ftp, rtools, etc.