Oh wow, good luck with that. We used the C64 mainly for games, which we booted from tape. I wish I could help you but I have no clue how I would even go about getting one online but I’d think that the Contiki OS would be a good place to start.

@Luke Maciak: Commodore systems… awesome. I have been given 2 64s and a 128 over the past few months. I want to get one online…. my ideal way to do this would be build/buy a network adapter and run a simple text browser on Lunix for the machine. Realistically, I need to use a Commodore web browser like Contiki and use the modem I already have somehow…

Well, I started with Comodore 64 and Amiga 600. I didn’t really start using Windows and internets till I was in HS. By the time I got onto the platform the browser wars were long over and IE was ubiquitous. So I chalk up my IE usage due to lack of experience in the windows world.

Then thanks to my AOL connection I discovered open source and linux and I got better. :) I used Netscape for a little while between IE and FF but I was never a big fan because of the bloat. This is also why I never really used the Mozilla suite that much. I just didn’t need an email client, HTML editor and god knows what else in my browser. :)

Right now I use Firefox on all the platforms since I’m just used to the environment but I like to try all the different browsers and compare them. :)

@Luke Maciak: I tried using the AOL dialer with WMConnect (it used the same numbers even) but somehow access was blocked unless you used the official client. No idea why.

I have proudly never used IE as a main browser. :) Here’s my main browser upgrade path (though I have changed around quite a bit in the past year or so, but I’lll still consider myself Firefox now. Well, this is for my whole family. I’m not sure quite when I was born in and began using the Internet.

Mosaic -> Netscape 2 -> Netscape 4 => Netscape 6 -> Netscape 7 (briefly) -> Mozilla Suite -> Firebird -> Firefox

Right now I use Konqueror for my default browser so I can quickly open things in case I don’t have a browser open. I also use Konqueror on my Debian GNU/kFreeBSD system mainly, but I also may use Iceweasel. I use MicroB on my Nokia N800 mostly, but use Links when I am on a slow wifi connection. I use Seamonkey 2.x (trunk right now) mainly on my desktop (Firefox 3 is a bit slow on it unfortuanetly). I use rebranded Firefox 3 mostly on my laptop, but also have Dillo available for slow wifi connections. Yesterday I installed Opera 9.6 beta on my computers to test the sync feature, which I find better than Google Browser Sync so far. I use Opera Portable at school because the AV software is set to delete firefox.com, presumably to avoid people circumventing the firewall with a SOCKS proxy.

Sometimes I use elinks in a terminal.

So yeah, now I’m all over.

@Jake: Heh, I didn’t know that. I remember that AOL forced you to run the whole full screen suite to access the internet. I remember minimizing it and using exploder instead (and later Firebird/Firefox) but it kept taking up more and more memory with each release and patching/upgrading was mandatory (kinda like WoW – oh, you want to connect? Too bad, we are going to patch for and hour now – go do something else).

Much later they added a small dialer that would just sit in your task bar and would only use 1/3 of the resources that the full suite did which was a slight improvement but around that time I went and switched to cable.

@Luke Maciak: It was better speeds than our previous ISP (PeoplePC) during the trial period, but it turned out much worse once we started using it. It’s what brought us to DSL.

I used Nestcape 6 for web and email at the time, but I still had to have the RAM thirsty Walmart Connect open while I did this.

And Walmart Connect was a rebranded AOL if I didn’t mention.

@Jake: Wallmart Connect? Wow! I mean, I used AOL back in the dark days of dialup but Wallmart Connect sounds crappier. And I don’t even want to know what can be crappier than AOL!

Also, why did all the big commercial dialup ISP’s use some funky proprietary windows only dialers that would completely bypass the regular windows dialup software? I’m so fucking glad that era is over and no major ISP actually requires you to run their shitty software to connect.

I just came across this in my bookmarks. I was reminded of when I tried to run XP on my HP Pavillion 6535 with 64MB of RAM and a 466MHz Celeron, before I got into Linux. The poor thing couldn’t even run Walmart Connect, my ISP software.

Little OT but this is a very good example why using proprietary OS sucks. Once a company End of Lifes a certain version, you are stuck. :)

I find XP runs fine at 384MB but starts to have trouble at 256 – you don’t quite need the actual half gig point, but do need a little more than a quarter gig. That being said, I find the performance of XP on 128 superior to the performance of 2000 on 128, as long as you’re running XP in Classic mode.

Latest problem we had with Vista here: it won’t connect to an NT4 domain server. Acknowledged by MS, they don’t care. So here we are with a domain server that’s been performing to our needs for years and Vista comes along and says ‘nup, not good enough’. Given that Vista on this particular laptop also did other unwanted funky things (like change resolution from 1400×1050 to 800×600 when you undock it), it was summarily replaced with XP and everyone including the user is much happier.