[MUD-Dev] Re: PC 99 standard Re: In game bulletin boards vs. Web based.

[Jo Dillon]

Mike Sellers (mike at bignetwork.com) spake thusly:

> FWIW, Microsoft recently released its "PC 99" spec -- what developers
> should consider as the minimum market-viable PC by about July of 1999:
> 300MHz MMX, 64Mb of ram, DVD, probably no CD-ROM, no floppy drive except as
> an external option.  No ISA slots -- all PCI and AGP.  

  Well, this is /new/ computers, of course..even home users will lag behind
this.
 
> I know, the university "market" tends to lag behind in some areas.  Still,
> if you're wondering "what do people have on their desktops?" -- for the
> vast majority of people it isn't a dumb terminal, and it probably isn't
> even a 486 anymore.  

  Well, I've got a 486, and I'm a student programmer - admittedly I'm
upgrading soon. But I suspect that a lot of students - particularly
in places outside of the US (please remember that not all of us live
in the most technically-advanced country on earth!) - will still be
on dumb terminals or 486s and suchlike which they won't be able to install
serious software on. Any hobbyist mud that requires a local client
is going to lose lots of people; any mud that requires a java applet
is still going to lose a fair number of people. My own view is that there
should still be a telnet interface on any hobbyist mud. It's not so
bad for commercial muds, because they rely less on the hardcore student
mudding audience and because they have prettier, commercial game
interfaces which make it easier to justify spending money on phone charges
(for that majority of us outside the US who have to pay by the minute
for our local phone calls).

	Jo