Text-based Internet

[Earl Young]

     One way to deal with this issue is to use tools like NetObjects Fusion 
     (which is not the same product as ColdFusion) to build sites.  Fusion 
     literally lets you build both a graphics site and a text-only site 
     with just a click or two (sorta) worth of effort.  A couple of the 
     other tools at which we are looking - such as Backstage Designer by 
     Macromedia and HIP by the SoftQuad folks - appear to offer similar 
     capability.  Tools that can handle multiple versions of a site will 
     allow you to customize for bandiwdth - and that is growing more 
     important than customizing for browsers.  We are largely ignoring the 
     limits of people using lower than Netscape 3 or IE 3 - but people can 
     have those browsers and still have slow lines, so we accomodate their 
     speed.  The toolsets make the process way easier.
     
     Earl Young


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Text-based Internet
Author:  crosbie at AESOP.RUTGERS.EDU at INTERNET
Date:    1/22/97 10:36 AM


At 04:57 PM 1/21/97 -0800, Robert Sullivan wrote: 
>
>This arrived in my mailbox right after I had posted a related question to a 
>list for NY libraries.  I'm trying to help a friend at a large library whose 
>computer staff thinks that Lynx is dying off and libraries should take money 
>from their acquisitions budgets to fund a Netscape or IE connection.
>
><that bubbling sound was my mouth foaming> 
>
>Certainly, many new users coming online are doing so with a PPP connection 
>through a commercial provider, and some libraries are heading that way, either 
>because they are starting fresh or just migrating (as we will this year).
>
>However, I would argue that much of the Lynx user base does so either out of 
>necessity (can't see the screen, can only afford a text connection) or because 
>they don't care to wait for graphics to download.  I'm lucky enough to be 
>within a local phone call of numerous ISPs, but much of the population in the 
>eight counties served by our two-system consortium is not.
>
>Bob Sullivan                               scp_sulli at sals.edu 
>Schenectady County Public Library (NY)     http://www.scpl.org
     
     
If I may just add on to what Bob has said.  Not only do we need to consider 
rural America.  We need to consider the rest of the world for some of the 
resources we create.  
     
The truth of the matter is that (in my limited experience) the 
telecommunications infrastructure of growing areas of the world is ill 
equipped to handle the sorts of connections that we assume.  When I worked 
for Brookdale Community College, which has an extension site in Quito, 
Ecuador, for example, we learned that our site was thrilled to get a 2400 
baud connection.
     
Food for thought.
     
Bill Crosbie
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