LunarG wrote:"Real World" in terms of browsing. "Oh yeah... I need to check when that documentary on particle physics was on..." *opens browser... enters url for tv-guide into address field*.
TVguide isn't a good choice. It doesn't load the listing on Opera 9.6
That said, I don't think I have ever been to that site before you mentioned it.
Or "Oh damn, I need a different driver build for my SCSI adapter!" *opens browser... enters url for adaptec website into address field*.
The adaptec website is actually really responsive and usable.
When you need to browse only carefully selected websites, then it isn't viable as a "real world" browser alternative.
I have gotten so used to working around system quirks that for me, it is.
I have a laptop that at one time was my main system would overheat if you stress the processor too much
so I had to watch the temps all the time and if it started getting hot, I would do what I could to minimize the load.
I have a rooted nook simple touch with 256 MB of RAM. It's browser will crash if I visit certain sites
and the who things will lock up if I accidentially try to play a video on a website.
Another main system used to lock up when I went to youtube or google imagres
so I used to carefully avoid those.
I am pretty used to being careful to avoid what won't work.
I've done Vogons on my 486 as well, and found that I could read the forum, but as soon as I wanted to post, I ran into problems.
What is that about problems posting?
http://postimg.org/image/up6l51c65/
Also, the wait for loading pages was quite substantial. This was on the 486 in my sig. Also, it's worth noting that is does appear like most retro-computer related websites and forums are designed to be light-workload, to allow for them to run on old systems.
Yeah the loading times are a bit much. Especially if it isn't in the browser cache already.
These sites are not as retro friendly as one would hope (mouse over effects on vogons and generally high ram usage on VCF)
I am personally impressed with how many things a 486 can still do to an acceptable degree, even ignoring games. Things like spreadsheets, word processing, midi music production in things like Cakewalk are perfectly fine if you're happy for things to move along a a leisurely pace. Web browsing and video playback... and to some extent even something as simple as mp3 playback... are things that "can be done" from a "I dare you" point of view, but not as an actual slow alternative to your day-to-day system.
Spreadsheets and word processing generally don't need much. I have no idea what "cake walk" is.
My main system was down and I used the 486 as a main machine all day a few months back.
Annoyingly slow at times but mostly workable