Re: WEB machine

[sheldon@netcom.com (Sheldon Simms)]

In article <slrn4lrgqe.ecb.scraft@bigpapa.nothinbut.net> scraft@bigpapa.nothinbut.net () writes:
>
>I posted a message like yours over a year ago, and directed it
>towards Jawaid and the other IIGS lords who could make it 
>happen.  Could it be done?  Yep.  Would it be done?  Nope.
>Take a IIGS, a SecondSight card, a 28.8k modem, and a custom
>ProDOS-8 based (to boot fast and get on the metal of the GS)
>system, and you have a damn decent web browser, at a cost
>around $500.
>
>Feeling full of myself with this wonderful idea, I also
>sent it to the editors as PC-Week when they originally
>first covered the "Web Computer" hysteria.  They had the
>same response as Jawaid, et al:  silence.

There would be significant problems with turning an Apple IIgs into
a "$500 web computer" whatever you might think. Decompressing JPEG
graphics, which are quite common on WWW pages would be (*is*) quite
slow without including some kind of coprocessor more capable than the
65816, which leads one to ask, why not just use the coprocessor as the
main CPU in the first place?

-Sheldon