From: jason@slimes.ca   
      
   The best alternative operating systems are old ones that no one uses   
   anymore.   
      
   SunOS   
   Solaris   
   Win 311   
   BeOS / Haiku   
   AmigaOS   
   Mac OS (Classic)   
   DOS   
   IRIX   
   VMS   
   ...are but a few examples. Many 8 bit computers can access the internet   
   now too using clever hardware devices.   
      
   All of these systems have NNTP, Gopher, mail, browsers, SSH, telnet,   
   ftp, finger, uucp, etc.   
      
   They do everything one would need without all the chaff that comes with   
   new operating systems.   
      
   You have to be somewhat clever to make these systems work now, and   
   potentially repair them as well. There are many devices now available to   
   bridge the old hardware no new inexpensive hardware like IDE->SATA,   
   IDE/SATA->SD, CF, BlueSCSI, vga to HDMI adapters, and so on.   
      
   The old protocols are insanely fast. So little overhead.   
      
   There are still a lot of old-protocol servers out there free from the   
   nonsense of the modern web.   
      
   Get an account on one of the many tilde unix shell servers for access to   
     all of this stuff. sdf.org has been up since 1987 and has many   
   services. A lifetime account is very inexpensive.   
      
   Some links of interest:   
   http://sdf.org   
   http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw   
   http://aminet.net   
   http://wiby.org   
   http://portal.mozz.us   
   http://system7today.com/weather   
   http://frogfind.com   
   http://macintoshgarden.org   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)