[ih] Chat room and forum archives

[Haudy Kazemi]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022, 13:11 Michael Kjörling via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 1 Sep 2022 07:35 -0500, from internet-history at elists.isoc.org (Haudy
> Kazemi via Internet-history):
> > If all this is supposed to be set in 1995, there may be a timing issue
> with
> > referencing Visicalc and Apple II. They would be around 10 years old at
> > that time, with both dating to the mid-1980s. All depends on the context.
>
> Wikipedia puts the original Apple II at a 1977 release,


Fair. Personally, when I see Apple II, I immediately think of the Apple IIe
(1983-1993) or the luggable/compact Apple IIc (1984-1988)


and the
> original VisiCalc for Apple II in 1979, which sounds about right; so
> by 1995, the combination would be more like 15 years old, and woefully
> out of date.


Yes, hardware and software capabilities were rapidly evolving. Much like
the rapid changes seen in mobile phones from 2006 to say 2016. Upgrades
every 2-3 years brought massive capability improvements.

Today a 10 year old laptop can run Windows 10 and still be suitable for
casual everyday needs (in my definition, high resolution gaming doesn't
fall under casual everyday needs).



Mid-80s

vintage would be more like the IBM PC/AT (maybe
> PC/XT if you didn't see the need for the AT's computing power with its
> blazing-fast 12 MHz 80286) and Lotus 1-2-3. On the IBM compatible
> side, 386-based systems would perhaps start to be available but not
> commonplace; the Compaq Deskpro 386 hit the market in 1986. The
> Macintosh had just debuted at the time, and was generally short on
> software.
>
>
> > 1995 era spreadsheet software would include Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3,
> > and Quattro Pro. Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and DOS versions were available
> > for at least some of those products.
>
> Seconded. And let's not forget OS/2, which was still a somewhat
> serious contender on the desktop at the time, though I'm pretty sure
> that it wasn't until OS/2 Warp 3 (1994?) that it came with a built-in
> TCP/IP stack.
>
> Mainstream at the time would probably have been Windows 3.1 or Windows
> for Workgroups 3.11 running on MS-DOS, running any of the spreadsheets
> you mention. Excel was nowhere near as dominant then as it is today.
>

True. Lotus 1-2-3 was the main player. Quattro Pro too. They, like
WordPerfect, didn't make the transition to GUI Windows very well.



> Anything before OS/2 Warp 3 or Windows 95 (or maybe before WfW 3.11)
> required third-party software to connect to the Internet. On Windows,
> Trumpet Winsock was a common TCP/IP implementation and, if I recall
> correctly, dialer and PPP client.
>

That sounds about right. I knew a BBS sysop who ran a small Wildcat BBS in
the early 1990s. It was hosted on his home desktop, running OS/2, so he
could use the PC for other purposes than just as a BBS. There were a few
'door' games available, most notably TradeWars 2002 which offered a
multiplayer experience. Available modem speeds were up to 14.4 kbps, then
shortly after jumped to 28.8 kbps. I used a 1200 kbps ISA modem at first,
and later a 2400 kbps modem. That was sufficient for text based interfaces
as text lines would load approximately at reading speed.



Procomm Plus was a commonly used terminal program on DOS and Windows.



>
> > Intel Pentium and 486 CPUs were common in newer PCs of the time,
> generally
> > running at clockrates somewhere in 60 to 133 MHz range.
>
> Slower 486-based systems were also common. I remember around that time
> having a 486/33 with 4 MiB RAM (later upgraded to a whopping 8 MiB)
> and a ~500 MB hard disk, and that was quite decent for the time.
>

Common as used, not sure they were still being sold as new in 1995. Pentium
set a whole new standard. IIRC, a Pentium 66 MHz was similar in performance
to a 486DX4 100 MHz at a variety of tasks.


> Also look up the Multimedia PC (MPC) levels for example contemporary
> PC specs; Level 1 and Level 2 would probably be reasonable starting
> points. While upgrades brought serious improvements at the time (going
> from a 486/33 to a 486/66, or even a Pentium/60, never mind from say a
> 386/25, was a MAJOR upgrade in terms of relative performance), lots of
> people also stayed with older, slower systems because they did the job
> and were far more affordable.
>


Game performance then like now was a major driver for upgrades. Desire to
run Win95 was also a big driver.


> For some inspiration both about early personal computers as well as
> glimpses of what early general public Internet access was like,
> consider watching _Triumph of the Nerds_ and _Nerds 2.0.1_. Both are
> available on the Internet Archive and will take a few hours of your
> time.
>
> --
> Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
>  “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
>
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