How difficult is it to use the Internet with an actual Atari

[AtariDude]

Has anyone had any experience with trying to use an actual Atari ST series computer to connect onto the Internet?

 

By this I mean, when you established an account with an ISP, did they know how to help you set up your Atari ST to work with the Internet or did they tell you something like they only support PC compatiables or Mac Computers and you were basically on your own since the Atari ST line is no longer supported?

 

I have seen browsers listed for the Atari ST and I am sure that there are programs but just how difficult is it to customize software for the Internet? Which programs would you recommend if someone wanted to use the Internet with their Atari ST?

 

Thanks for your help.

[Mindfield]

It's not all THAT different. However, you do need to collect the relevant software, which starts with the STiK2/STiNG TCP/IP stacks. With STiK2/STiNG and a SLIP or PPP dialup connection, you can then use some of the various web browsers (CAB), FTP clients, E-Mail (AntMail), IRC clients (AtarIRC), news clients, and even basic ICQ (AtarICQ or mICQ) clients to surf the net any way you like. Of course, surfing the web looks a lot nicer on a TT030 or Falcon030, but you can get by with medium res on an ST/e. Don't expect support for Java/script, DHTML or any other such modern web development platforms. You'll get basic HTML 1.1 spec, pretty well. Still, it's enough for most ST users. It's been a long time since I've surfed on the ST; most of my surfing was done through Lynx on a Unix shell account. :-) I only started using STiK/CAB near to the end of my ST days.

 

So, it's possible if you don't want/can live without all the bells and whistles of a Netscape/Explorer experience.

 

Your best source of information on this sort of thing:

 

Usenet: comp.sys.atari.st

IRC: #atari (EFNet, mostly)

 

Web links:

 

STiK2, CAB, : http://www.netset.com/~baldrick/stik2.html

STiNG: http://www.ettnet.se/~dlanor/

GlueSTiK and AtarIRC: http://www.bright.net/~atari/html/software.htm

General Atari site with loads of links and news on current developments: http://www.atari.org

 

Hope that helps.

 

[ 10-12-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

[AtariDude]

Thank you.

 

I appreciate the completeness of your response

[RucasRiot]

Now my STiK2 is being a bitch. It sits waiting for the Login prompt and still acts like it's waiting after the login prompt has been sent. In my dial script it waits for "login:" and my isp sends "login:"

 

Any ideas?

[LinkoVitch]

try getting it to wait for ogin: instead.. just incase it doesn't quite catch the first character, or the case of the first char is different. I used to work on frontline support for the ISP I work for, and we always set the expect scripts to wait for the chars after the first one.

 

like

 

ogin:

 

ass:

 

ervice:

 

etc.

 

hope thats of some help

[Walter_J-64]

Ive never used the st for the internet how much memory you need for the st to get on the net? Im sure that a hard drive is needed how big of hard drive do you need?

If I ever get my st working this some thing i like to do!