• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Alternative to the Web

Thanks, NathanAllen. You might try 9600 bps, I think some XT-class serial ports have that as a maximum speed, but ISPs still support it. Yes, it would be great to get more of the older computers back into regular use.
 
So I get how this works, it uses some protocol over your existing Internet connection to connect to their servers that have specific type of information (sounds like news boards to me). And all of this uses a lightweight software so it can run on older machines without a problem.

But what I am struggling to get is why I would need to do this. What information is there that is not otherwise available on the regular internet? Are we talking a BBS type service? I just can't seem to find information on it that could help me justify the money.

What am I missing here?
 
It is not just a specific type of information, or only message boards. Here are some examples of the types of content available on the AEIN:

- Statistics on various countries (like population)
- Weather conditions (worldwide), forecasts (U.S. only)
- Natural disaster and severe weather safety information
- Many tips on using DOS, DeskMate, Windows 95, GEM
- New software to download, especially for DeskMate
- Exclusive technical information on certain computer models
- Information on prescription drugs, various health conditions
- Recipes for preparing many types of foods
- Glossaries of words on various subjects
- Reviews of radios, other electronics
- Many e-books, in TXT format and zipped

Some of this material is available on the Web, some isn't. More content will be added regularly.

Another advantage of using the AEIN is that you don't risk getting a virus from every page you visit, as do Web users with Windows. There are no "cookies" placed on your computer either. If many people use the AEIN and reduce their Web use, it will decrease pollution and energy consumption, which benefits everyone. Just the reduction in wear on your hard disk drive might be worth the cost of membership.
 
A lot of people around my area cannot afford an internet ready computer as we know them, or even know what to look for in a machine when they go to buy them. I sell older machines out of my shop and this would be a great thing to be able to have a network available for these older machines, turning them from useless gray-area computers into working machines as internet appliances, if nothing else.

Thiknking of ways to utilize this service to the fullest and to the most convenient way.

Zachary, is email available? This would be a must, as everyone needs it. Well, practically everyone.

Also, I am thinking of the people who cannot afford even dial up and DSL/Cable is out of the question.

I really can see this doing well! No, it is not internet as is known by peple with DSL/Cable, but it's also not as expensive or cumbersome (viruses, spyware, all that good stuff). The machines runnign it also are going to be more useful for a vey long time as long as the service does not need a ton of resources required of the host machine (AOL, a bunch of others that upgrade themselves past the machine's capability, windows).

Nathan
 
Most of this data/software is community contributed and verified?

So basically what it boils down to is that it is essentially an enormous wiki with specialized access software and no ads?

I am intrigued, and may consider paying the $20 for the lifetime membership just to see what this is all about.

Their website needs to be a little more clear, and it would be great if there was a free trial of the software so one can get a true feel for what it really is.


Zachary said:
It is not just a specific type of information, or only message boards. Here are some examples of the types of content available on the AEIN:

- Statistics on various countries (like population)
- Weather conditions (worldwide), forecasts (U.S. only)
- Natural disaster and severe weather safety information
- Many tips on using DOS, DeskMate, Windows 95, GEM
- New software to download, especially for DeskMate
- Exclusive technical information on certain computer models
- Information on prescription drugs, various health conditions
- Recipes for preparing many types of foods
- Glossaries of words on various subjects
- Reviews of radios, other electronics
- Many e-books, in TXT format and zipped

Some of this material is available on the Web, some isn't. More content will be added regularly.

Another advantage of using the AEIN is that you don't risk getting a virus from every page you visit, as do Web users with Windows. There are no "cookies" placed on your computer either. If many people use the AEIN and reduce their Web use, it will decrease pollution and energy consumption, which benefits everyone. Just the reduction in wear on your hard disk drive might be worth the cost of membership.
Click to expand...
 
Yes, very true. The $30/month for cable is a lot to spend on Internet access (not to mention the cost of associated hardware), especially if you're someone who doesn't derive any income from it or only uses it a few times per week. Some people in rural areas can only get high-speed Internet via satellite, which is VERY expensive.

Currently there is no email account available or included with the service. I was thinking that people could use the POP3 e-mail provided by their ISPs, with a client program like Outlook Express or POPmail. The AEIN does require an e-mail account, and POP3 e-mail is certainly a lot more efficient and fast than web-based e-mail.
 
Some of the information comes from users, some I have written or programmed, other material is from the government (such as National Weather Service forecasts). There is copyrighted member-only software from the AEIN, as well as freeware and shareware. As for a free trial, that was considered, but there are a lot of potential problems associated with it, such as people signing up repeatedly under different names. Yes, perhaps some more work will have to be done on the promotional website to provide greater clarification.
 
So how does this service differ from the old text-mode Compuserve, other than requiring an internet connection?

I recall CIS from the old dumb-terminal days. When they made CIM mandatory I lost interest.

I don't get the "no html" thing. HTML can be very efficient if you're displaying text. It's when you lard it up that things bog down.

Someone on a tight budget likely also has no broadband access. A service like NetZero gives them a number to call wtih their modem for under $10 a month. How are you going to compete with that?

Pardon the questions, but I'm having trouble following the logic here.
 
Chuck(G) said:
So how does this service differ from the old text-mode Compuserve, other than requiring an internet connection?
<snip>
Someone on a tight budget likely also has no broadband access. A service like NetZero gives them a number to call wtih their modem for under $10 a month. How are you going to compete with that?

Pardon the questions, but I'm having trouble following the logic here.
Click to expand...
So am I.

I think NetZero still (again) has a free account option, and there are also still many Free-Nets out there; as a matter of fact I use one, as well as a local ISP that charges $2.95/mo for unlimited dial-up.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Shades of French Minitel!

Minitel was a very good idea. Too bad the Web made it obsolete.
Click to expand...

THAT'S what I was trying to remember!! Just like Minitel, and that rocks. I can't say it has come full circle, but having older computers readily available has really made something like this easily workable.

@Chuck(G) and MikeS, I can understand the logic. Dial up is definitely out there (and will never go away) but it's a thing to be suffered when you're talking about the modern internet.

From a security standpoint: viruses can be small, and can creep in on the smallest/slowest connections. They can get past firewalls sometimes and the fixes for these things are a lot of times larger than the viruses themselves. Same goes for spyware and all the bad stuff floating around. A real pain to get rid of if it happens. Plus being on a slow connection makes a person less of a target.

Using IE-anything makes you a target. Just being online with a modern browser paints a big red crosshairs on your machine as a hack possibility. There is no browser, not as the net knows one, so much less of a target.

If all a person can get is an older 486 to use on today's internet, it takes a long time, half of it won't work anyway and it ticks the person off. I can definitely see the advantages of having a system like this (like Minitel or MailStation or heck even WebTV) when a person needs to communicate but just can't get the hardware to back it.

Something like this would ease a lot of frustration and still provide communication with the net however limited, they can download the pics they want even if in .zip format and look at them later after they are downloaded.

I am personally working on a deal to get these machines that I have (none are really classic, just old plain-vanilla boxes or not great condition clones, nothing collectible) to people and have them usable. They'll have what's available from the service but NOT the net. The service will come with the machines and available should they use it or not. I have a feeling that they will try both dial-up internet and the other, see how the net CRAWLS on their older machine, then try AEIN and see that it does indeed work pretty well, and keep using it.

A lot of the people I work with are lower income people that get to have any kind of service one month out of the year and then the bills don't get paid so they get cut off. They don't know how to set up a dial up connection properly, get frustrated and then don't do anything.

Sorry for the rant-like post, but I really like it and am going to promote this hard. Also hope I explained my POV okay. :)
 
Last edited:
This kind of service doesn't make sense, for lots of reasons:

  • Hand-me down computers like Pentium IIIs are free and more then enough to surf the real web
  • The number of people who want to access an 'information service' using a 16 bit or very low-end 32 processor is slightly above 0.
  • The number of people who can use a service with such restricted information is less that the number above.
  • There are so many free sources of current and up-to-date information.

I am asserting that anybody using a machine that old today is doing it because they want to, not because they need to. It's fun to tinker with something like this as a hobby, but it is not realistic.

There was a similar project in the last year or two - StarTTY. They used telnet on the clients to get to a custom application running on a Unix machine of some sort. Instead of giving you shell access, they gave you a custom app that you plugged 'applets' into .. news, weather, etc. No graphics though. Even with a lot of that content automated that would still be feasible for a long term paid business.

Now if you want to go retro and setup a network of text BBSes (similar to FidoNet, or maybe even Fido) then let's talk. But reinventing Compuserve from 1978 or Minitel and trying to keep the content up to date just does not make sense.
 
I agree with Mike on that front. It reminds me of a BBS a little bit which is cool but in that case why not just recreate one of the bbsnets and revive fidonet.

A text only front to the web is fine but not new (although yes I see some simple graphic pictures) but this still sounds like a compuserve/prodigy/aol attempt where the knowledge and sites are internal. That's the limitation it faces now.

Otherwise it's similar to setting up your own squidproxy and filtering out content yourself. Little freesco and squid and links and you'd be set to get around the real world.
 
There are a still a lot of misunderstandings about this service. The AEIN is not text-only; pages can have line graphics (circles, triangles, lines, rectangles) integrated in them, and even simple animations. There are also two-color bitmap images which can be loaded optionally. The AEIN is not going to "compete" with NetZero or other dial-up providers, it requires an Internet connection and works under dial-up, DSL, or cable.

Even with a Pentium IV computer on dial-up, many websites are quite slow and some do not work. It is also very difficult to keep up with all the massive web browser and plugin updates (FlashPlayer, etc), especially if your dial-up provider has a monthly hour limit as some still do. Additionally, processing HTML code takes a substantial amount of time on anything less than a Pentium II.

Perhaps there are not a large number of people using 486s and early Pentiums, but there are certainly a great number of these computers that still work and should be put to good use. Furthermore, people in less wealthy countries like Uganda are more likely to have such computers and/or pay for their Internet access by the megabyte downloaded.
 
I don't think there is a misunderstanding at all. It's a service that provides a minimal level of content for machines that most people don't have or use anymore. It reminds me of AOL from 20 years ago, without the benefit of providing dialup service.

It's not a viable commercial venture. Good luck, both to you and those who sign up ..
 
It will be up to the people to decide if it is "commercially viable" or not. I wouldn't have worked on it for over a year without researching public interest in such a service. For example, a survey found that eight percent would pay for an ad-free version of the websites they regularly use. Eight percent is a lot of people, and the AEIN does not need millions or even thousands of members to be a success. People pay over $8/month for subscriptions to the Financial Times website, I highly doubt it has as much content to offer as the AEIN, which will cost $2.50-3.50/month, depending upon the membership level.
 
Let me see if I've got this right:

You're going to get people to sign up with BS like "you're going to save electricity because our pages use dark background colours," "if you use our service your computer will only need $15.00 in repairs etc. instead of $75.00" and similar hogwash, and then if it doesn't work (as the consensus here seems to assume) you'll shut it down and keep the monthly subscription amounts and 10% of the yearlies?

Sounds like a winner to me; wish I'd thought of it...
 
I don't recall making any personal accusations or slanderous claims directed at you, nor do I intend to begin. The page actually reads "computer upgrades, repairs, and replacements"; to keep up with the latest browsers and so on, as well as the regular "thrashing" of your hard drive by web browsing, it is not unreasonable to suggest that it will cost the user an extra $60 per year. Some people buy new computers about every three years, not to mention paying $100 or more to have someone "repair" a single virus most likely originated by the web. It is well-known that CRTs consume a substantial amount of electricity and darker colors use less of it.

As for shutting it down, naturally any business will shut down if too few people use it. At least I have been clear about this. I'm not sure what would be wrong about keeping the monthly fees paid up until this occurs, considering that members would have used the service during the months paid for. It has not been stated anywhere that I would keep "10% of the yearlies"; the 10% (less than $2) only applied to lifetime memberships to compensate for the time period membership would have lasted. So no, you haven't "got this right".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top