[myself248]

And imagine if telecom had topped out around ISDN somewhere, with perhaps OC-3 (155Mbps) for the bleeding-fastest network core links.

We'd probably get MP3 but not video to any great or compelling degree. Mostly-text web, perhaps more gopher-like. Client-side stuff would have to be very compact, I wonder if NAPLPS would've taken off.

Screen reader software would probably love that timeline.

[iberator]

you are wrong. Windows 3.11 era used CPUs with like 33mhz cpu, and yet we had TONS of graphical applications. Including web browsers, Photoshop, CAD, Excel and instant messangers

Only thing that killed web for old computers is JAVASCRIPT.

[vidarh]

I don't see how this contradicts any of what they said, unless they've edited their comment.

You're right we had graphical apps, but we did also have very little video. CuSeeMe existed - video conferencing would've still been a thing, but with limited resolution due to bandwidth constraints. Video in general was an awful low res mess and would have remained so if most people were limited to ISDN speeds.

While there were still images on the web, the amount of graphical flourishes were still heavily bandwidth limited.

The bandwidth limit they proposed would be a big deal even if CPU speeds continued to increase (it could only mitigate so much with better compression).

[rbanffy]

> Only thing that killed web for old computers is JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript is innocent. The people writing humongous apps with it are the ones to blame. And memory footprint. A 16 MB machine wouldn’t be able to hold the icons an average web app uses today.

[cluckindan]

Not JavaScript. Facebook.

[phwbikm]

I have a Hayes 9600kbps modem for web surfing.

[rbanffy]

“Web surfing” sounds so much healthier than “doom scrolling”…

[rm30]

I remember when I went from 286 to 486dx2, the difference was impressive, able to run a lot of graphical applications smoothly.

Ironically, now I'm using an ESP32-S3, 10x more powerful, just to run Iot devices.

[petra]

It's probably possible to develop analog adsl chips in 1990 semi tech. But pretty difficult.

[drob518]

Depends how pervasive OC3 would have gotten. A 1080p video stream is only about 7 Mbps today.

[fhars]

You only have to bundle about 110 ISDN channels to transfer that (four E1 or five T1 trunk lines).