Baslinux mailing list

["Anthony Albert" <albert AT umpi.maine.edu>]

On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:52, Lee Forrest wrote:
>I've come to the conclusion that the only way to make the tiny
>linux concept work (10 floppies or less) is to create a new
>internet. M$ and the merchants rule the one that exists now.
>
>We need one that is designed for tiny OSes and slow connections.

gopher was one of the earliest protocols that served this purpose.  It 
still functions, actually, though many sites have dropped their 
support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29

lynx, links, and their kin are browsers that still support text-only 
browsing, and in many cases, they do a good job... if the JavaScript 
support was just a bit better, they'd be perfect, IMO.

>It would be easy to write simple servers and clients using bash
>and netcat if you limited the files they sent/received to plain
>language text, binary, or basic HTML.

HTML is text, it just gets interpreted by your web browser before you 
see it.

>By basic HTML, I mean that what you see on the page is exactly
>what you get when you print it, although it may take several
>paper pages to do so. 
>
>In The Beginning :-), back when scientists and academics ran
>the internet; before the merchants took over, it provided the
>virtual equivalents of these basic services, using nothing but
>basic HTML and plain language text and binary files, on very slow
>connections:

I believe that the "slow connection" was more of a limiting factor than 
anything "the merchants" have done since.  By supplying faster and 
faster connections, the amount of use by the same number of people 
increases to fill the availble pipe - I've seen this again and again in 
my workplace.  Order more bandwidth, and usage again goes up to about 
the 80% usage level within a few months.

[SNIP]
>Throw in a DNS server and an LDAP server (web directory: search
>engines suck) and you're there. A new-old internet. Make each box
>a router (simple enough to restrict it's use to members) and the
>new internet is complete.
>
>That LDAP server would also have links to external web sites and
>ftp sites and mail servers, etc, that were accessible with tiny
>linux. People would add any such sites they found.

I'm not sure that LDAP can do the sorts of things you want here; it 
tends to be focused on hierarchical structures.  I think, rather, 
you're looking for something more along the lines of a wiki...

Anthony Albert
===========================================================
Anthony J. Albert                     albert AT umpi.maine.edu
Systems and Software Support Specialist          Postmaster
Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle
 "For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened
 lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
 things indeed were really impossible."-Alice in Wonderland