From projo.com
 |  |
Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila
Lennon May 8, 2002 • Today's weblog Check out "legacy browser" Lynx at the Free-Net: Last week's discussion of browser history began with, "In terms of the use of a web browser by the mass public, the history of web browsers begins with Lynx. Lynx is a simple text-based web browser primarily accessed via UNIX shell accounts that displays formatted HTML text (but not images)... " Lynx is still alive on the Web at the surviving Free-Nets -- you can try it yourself at the Ocean State Free-Net: Your browser will open a telnet client if you click on this link. (But the HyperTerminal that comes with windows is awful at this -- you might try the free PuTTYtel (196k), here, instead. and telnet to osfn.org) Log in as "visitor" (without the quotes) and don't give a password. Hit "enter" till you get to the Main Menu, then type "go lynx" and choose start page 3. In a good telnet client, the background will be black, the text white, the links bold. Use the arrow keys to hop from link to link. Hit enter to go to any of them. Obviously, Lynx works best for text-based pages, as images are rendered with the word [image]. As a visitor, you can't type a url directly, but go to one of the search engine links and search for a favorite site to see what it looks like in Lynx. I had hoped to offer this little tour last week, but the Ocean State Free-Net went down after Conversent Communications (which bought Andy Green's IDS, and continues the tradition of donating OSFN's Internet connection) cut off its service because of delinquent bills. My print colleague Tim Barmann wrote about the outage and OSFN's history ("R.I.'s free Internet service struggles to stay online"), noting that, "It serves primarily low-income elderly and users with disabilities." Blind users especially find its text interface compatible with screen readers, but donations have fallen below the measly $150 a month needed to keep OSFN going. Although OSFN now has only about 1,000 active users, 22,000 users have signed up since it began in 1994. Users are assigned alphanumeric logins, beginning with ab001, and they're now up to ax179. In a state where low-number license plates are coveted, having a low-number OSFN email address is a badge of honor -- mine is ab226@osfn.org. (Disclosure: I served on OSFN's volunteer board in the mid-90s.) Apart from email (including email forwarding), chat rooms, discussion groups and one free text-only web page, OSFN offers unique access to the statewide library system (CLAN) even to visitors. (The original organizer of this Free-Net was Howard Boksenbaum, then of the Rhode Island Dept. of State Library Services).At the main menu, type "go educ" and select Libraries, then Libraries in Rhode island at the resulting menu. You can search for a book, see which branch has a copy on the shelf, and, if you log in to the library module with your library card number, place a hold on it, as well as get a list of books you have checked out, with due dates. (Always useful when you know you took out three books, but can only find two, and can't remember the title of the one that might be under the couch.) If you select "Libraries outside Rhode Island," you'll have access to those at Boston U. and Rutgers, Columbia Law, the New York Botanical Garden and more. If you'd
like to help keep this last bit of universal free public access alive,
you can make a donation through PayPal
(Their PayPal email address is donate@osfn.org.) OSFN's founders reserved
the first 100 email addresses (aa001-aa099) with an eye to auctioning
them as "vanity plate numbers" in the future; now might be the
time for a fundraiser. Back
issues: Week one
|
||||
