Help! Old Mac wants to join the Net

[capt waffoo]

I want to connect an oldish Mac to the Net.

The spec I’ve been given is 36Mb hard drive
1Mb RAM
25 Mhz processor

Can it be done, what software etc?

Can anyone help/advise/refer?

Thanks a lot…

[Swamp]

May I suggest a new computer? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[InFinRetirement]

Fraid so Capn'. Aint no way you'll get that to work well enough - or at all - on the net.
IF........you did your phone bill would astron.....a hell of a lot!

Best you draw some pennies out and get one that will do it.

[Nightrider]

In our High-Tec world a very unusual question. What you need to do is, find a provider where you can still access the net on a text only basis.
Lived in India for quiet some time and there is still a Standard Account available for simple browsing, also PPRuNe is accessible this way.
But under no circumstances is any access to graphical display possible.
The problem is more on the modem side. Your system will not allow for now-a-days transfer speed. 9600 baud is a very realistic one, that is even slower than most telefaxes work on.
With text only display it still will be reasonably fast, it will still beat any 33xxx speed without V90 compression.
A better solution for this machine would be to work as a dedicated print server etc. will still do a nice job....I am running a 386 with win 3.1 doing backups and printjobs with it....also i am told it is not required, well, after 21 years with computers, i know it speeds my process up and I am still happy.....
AND....it still starts faster than my P3-500 with all the phantastic bits and pieces....

[capt waffoo]

Nightrider, thanks for your useful input, Swampy, yes, Id figured that myself, hence this post.

Score is my bro & me want to get our old Mum to have e mail and ideally be on the Net for Xmas and this is the spec of her Mac. We cant MAKE her change it (much as wed like to)

Surely net access was available 5 yrs ago when this machine was new, ergo software, or am I being naiive?

If were really barking up the wrong tree ps say so.

Ta guys.

[MacEng]

Capt Wafoo
What Mac is it???? 25MHz - an LC475??
They are more than capable of running e-mail and internet, although an older browser such as Netscape 2.1 would be best.
Serial modems still available, around £90 ex vat.
Problem is with system software. Ideally upgrade it to 7.6.1 which has all bits necessary. Is possible to run on older systems - ie7.1 or later, but will require bit of shareware like FreePPP, and MacTCP.
regards

[TBone]

The net was indeed around five years ago, and I was using it long before that.

BUT...!!

It was an archaic collection of text-only files using a unix-based architecture that required the mental dexterity of Stephen Hawking to navigate. Archie, Gopher, FTP, JANET, to name but a few (all of which survive incidentally), but all of which should have been put out of their misery a long time ago. The WWW was in its infancy, and graphic intensive sites just didn't exist. The concept of multi-media would have had us laughing in the aisles as we downloaded it at 1k a minute !

If command-line unix browsing in a single-line editor is your idea of the 90s internet (woohoo !) then by all means carry on !

Cheers

[capt waffoo]

Thanks very much guys, youve given me the gen I didnt want to get, Ill have to buy my Mum a new system for xmas, & not just a porgram.

Your input much appreciated. Thank you. :)