text browser availability for "primitive" PCs?

[Miriam Bobkoff]

On Mon, 7 Oct 1996 sshone at dewey.pub-lib.ci.arlington.tx.us wrote:

>    Do you know of a place on the Internet where we might be able to 
> download Lynx or another text based browser for my patron.  He has 
> been calling all week and I haven't been able to give him an intelligent
> answer.  Everything I read about Lynx says that it was written to use 
> on a Vax system.  Does that mean that it won't work on a home PC?  Or 
> is there another text based browser??  The patron has a 286 with a 
> 14.4 modem and windows 3.1.  He has a black and white monitor.

How is this patron connecting to the Net? It sounds like he must have a
SLIP or PPP account, which--IMHO--is overkill for text needs. If he has a
shell account with an ISP, odds are the provider is running lynx, and all
he'd need to do is dial in and call it up. (Lynx is presumably not
VAX-specific, because my ISP is running it on some sort of UNIX system.) 

I'll spare you my Song of Praise for Lynx, but I use my shell account
most of the time, only bother with Netscape if I want more than verbal
content: a satellite image, or momentarily to see what it is the rest of
the world is seeing. Lynx is fast, flexible, does everything except the
razzle-dazzle. And you never see the banner ads :-) .

Miriam Bobkoff                         mbobkoff at rt66.com
Santa Fe Public Library         
    Miriam's Home Page  http://www.rt66.com/~mbobkoff/
    The Library's  http://www.rt66.com/~mbobkoff/sfpl/






On Mon, 7 Oct 1996 sshone at dewey.pub-lib.ci.arlington.tx.us wrote:

>    Do you know of a place on the Internet where we might be able to 
> download Lynx or another text based browser for my patron.  He has 
> been calling all week and I haven't been able to give him an intelligent
> answer.  Everything I read about Lynx says that it was written to use 
> on a Vax system.  Does that mean that it won't work on a home PC?  Or 
> is there another text based browser??  The patron has a 286 with a 
> 14.4 modem and windows 3.1.  He has a black and white monitor.
> 
> He is really not interested in graphics.  What would you suggest?  
> He really doesn't want to spend a lot of money on the old machine.  
> He is mainly interested in genealogy sites and most of these I have 
> noticed are gophers.  He has not found the computer stores to be very 
> helpful.   Any suggestion you could offer would be greatly appreciated.