#Internet
29 messages in this thread
I tried to “surf'' the internet today. To be honest, I am not impressed at
all. Instead of the “Information Super Highway'' I got an impression of a
“Information Super Snailway''…
Is that a true impression or am I just doing something really wrong???
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart,
I'm lucky enough to be able to try it at work on a Sun with ethernet and a nice
connection to the outside world. It's quite nice at the higher speed, but it's
*still* slow sometimes. Turning off in-line images is supposed to speed it up,
but I haven't been at it long enough to try it.
By the way, I've heard PC users complain of the lack of speed with a 14.4 Kbaud
modem also. Gotta save our pennies for a 28.8.
Clay
>>Turning off in-line images is supposed to speed it up, but I haven't been at
it long enough to try it.<<
Until now, I only got *one* ugly image: the one of a heart done by GraphiCraft.
>>Gotta save our pennies for a 28.8.<<
The only trouble is that CIS doesn't do 28.8K at my node!
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart,
At the office, I have access to a 2 MEGAbit connection to Internet, and even
that seems slow at times. I haven't bothered with the CIS gateway, since 9600
is just not practical, as far as I am concerned. If and when they upgrade the
Brussels node to 28Kbit, then I might take a look.
Groetjes,
Pete
Peter,
>>At the office, I have access to a 2 MEGAbit connection to Internet, and even
that seems slow at times.<<
PHEW!
Can it be that all those fancy demonstrations we see on television all day are
just off-line demo's or could it be that the demo is always short enough in
order not to have to access the internet but only to show what's already in the
computer?
In that case I have a word for it: willfully misleading. Usually this is the
terrain of crooks…and/or Microsoft and friends…
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart-
No, not offline, but I'm sure they're all running on connections FAR faster
than most of us mortals can hope to obtain. I've got a 14.4k connection, and
that's pretty awful, but it's not just the transfer speed–that at least I can
understand, although I wish people had more sense about the images they put in
their pages; some are essential to understanding the page, some are useless,
and some are small enough that if there was a way of automatically downloading
inline images below a certain size I would, and there should be an indication
of how big they are!–it's the long, random pauses! I assume those pauses come
from too much traffic and/or too little capacity.
I saw Gore demoing the White House home page, and from that I'm sure that he
had AT LEAST a 2 megabit connection.
Mr. Zombie
Paul,
I guess you're right. BTW are you able to download and view these images? Until
now I only saw one: the ugly image of two hearts made with GraphiCraft 10 years
ago. The images seem to be downloaded but then just don't show up. Do you have
any idea's?
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart-
No, the one time I visited the White House site I wasn't able to see the
graphics. Too big maybe, I'll have to check, but when I get Cybergraphics I'll
have more chip mem available.
Mr. Zombie
Paul,
Were you able to see other graphics, to hear sounds, to see animations, to
..????
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart-
I've seen plenty of graphics–mostly total wasts of time–but for some reason
my setup doesn't seem to handle sounds right. I don't know why, since the
mailcap file has multiview called for sounds. Haven't tried animations at all,
since the only ones I've seen have been HUGE Quicktime movies, like 5.5MB and
up, too much to download.
Mr. Zombie
Paul,
Is it possible I need a datatype of some kind I don't have?
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart-
Do you have the ZGIF datatype installed? It's on Aminet if you don't have it.
Apparently that one is required by AMosaic–not any old GIF datatype.
Mr. Zombie
Paul,
Thanks for the info. I'll try it.
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
I'm pretty sure some of the slowness has to do with all of the people trying to
access the internet through compuserve, and their servers are bogged down.
Could be worng <g>, though.
Clay
>>I'm pretty sure some of the slowness has to do with all of the people trying
to access the internet through compuserve, and their servers are bogged down.
Could be worng <g>, though.<<
I guess you're quite right about this, Clay.
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Hi Bart,
Remember that the CIS-node in Brussels is still 9600. I surf the net at 14400
and wouldn't even think about accessing at 9600.
Oh well, we'll have 14k4 in a few days (weeks?).
Did you read the CompuServe-announcement that says that ALL nodes will be
upgraded to 28k8 by May 96? Makes us dream, doens't it.
Regards,
Karl Van Hoyweghen on AP 1.80 from Belgium
email: kvh@pophost.eunet.be
>>Oh well, we'll have 14k4 in a few days (weeks?).<<
In fact, when I read this message it was on 14400 it was *tremendously* slower
than on 9k6. Apparently the modem makes errors or the phone line just doesn't
permit it.
>>Did you read the CompuServe-announcement that says that ALL nodes will be
upgraded to 28k8 by May 96?<<
There's always hope…
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart,
I have now been able to log on a few times at 14400. Twice I decided to
download a big file to see the download speed. In both cases the throughput was
lower than at 9600. The download kept stopping and starting. I wonder whether
Belgacom lines are capable of the higher speeds?
Pete
>>In both cases the throughput was lower than at 9600.<<
Exactly!
>>The download kept stopping and starting. I wonder whether Belgacom lines are
capable of the higher speeds?<<
They aren't! I have always been laughed at when I told this in public. Even in
the Amiga World I was *always* alone to say it just didn't work. Comments were
that I was just an ignorant fool trying to be interesting. The trouble is that
it was true all along… Belgian phone lines are amongst the worst in the
world. Indeed Belgium is a leader in the telecom world, a leader in bad or
absent qualiy!
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
Bart,
See the comment from Karl. It's true that I do not get any CRC errors, just a
slow down or stoppage of the incoming data, so It doesn't appear to be the line
that is the problem.
Pete
>>so It doesn't appear to be the line that is the problem.<<
Honestly, I am not convinced. When I see the *very* variable speeds at which I
send and receive faxes to the same address I have to conclude that line quality
has a *very* large part in this.
Further, if you don't have a software flow control I don't think you get any
CRC errors (I may be wrong, though)
Bart Van Bockstaele at 100574.2352@compuserve.com
… On AutoPilot and Amiga all the way from Belgium …
>> The download kept stopping and starting. I wonder whether Belgacom lines are
capable of the higher speeds? <<
The problem is not the quality of the phone lines here. Ever since CompuServe
announced the PPP-connection, their network has been *overloaded* in a big way.
Think of all those people who can't wait to check out what all the
Internet-hype is all about. The traffic on the CIS-network has grown enormessly
these last couple of days. I hope they will upgrade their network-capacity
anytime soon now, it's becoming a real problem.
If the line-quality was the problem, you would get constant CRC-errors, or you
would get disconnected.
Just an opinion. 😉
Regards,
Karl Van Hoyweghen on AP 1.80 from Belgium
email: kvh@pophost.eunet.be
>If the line-quality was the problem, you would get constant CRC-errors, or you
would get disconnected.<
Karl,
Good point. It's true that I get no CRC errors, just a slowing down or complete
stoppage of incoming data.
Pete
14.4 is just plain slow, especially with so many sites bloated with monster
graphics. As well, the HTTP protocol leaves somethings to be desired in terms
of efficiency, as does AMosaic, which could do much better with caching, etc.
dale@iam.com http://www.iam.com
Intangible Assets Manufacturing
Are there protocols out there other than HTTP? And will there be any real
improvements in AMosaic? AW mentioned something about a commercial version of
AMosaic, which I'd be willing to buy if it offered real improvements, but I've
seen no other references.
Mr. Zombie
The HTTP protocol is there to get HTML documents. Other application protocols,
like ftp, telnet, gopher, etc. should also be supported by Amosaic.
As for improvements, I believe the original Amosaic was ported from the (I
think) UNIX Mosaic code. Certainly, the Mosaic code will be improved and new
features will be added. I think the Amosaic folks are adding new features
independant of the NCSA Mosaic effort.
One thing that's pretty much true… If you see a good idea in one browser,
you'll eventually see it crop up in all the others. 🙂
Steve
I was using NCSA Mosaic on the Emplant for the Mac emulation, that is until I
found out about NetScape. It's a lot better than Mosaic in speed and
capability. Too bad the NetScape people haven't written an Amiga version, but I
doubt we will see one.
// John (Warp 4040 & Emplant Quadra 840)
\X/ Mercury@ins.infonet.net
Re: Netscape…
I agree 100%. We run it on our PCs. The newest beta-version is wonderful.
They keep improving it all the time. The caching options are great, and
even at 14.4 we get around quite nicely. Of course, it's always best to
surf later in the evenings to avoid traffic.
I only wish my Amigas could run such software.
Steve
Steve Bailey
Image Dynamics – Chicago
I went ahead and ordered the Mac version of NetScape about a week ago or so but
haven't received it yet, but until then the demo version works great. Yep, an
Amiga version would be nice but I guess with the Emplant you could call it an
Amiga version <g>.
// John (Warp 4040 & Emplant Quadra 840)
\X/ Mercury@ins.infonet.net