I have finally forked out for a working 56k modem and have got on the internet. It is very slow, though - what will improve it in any way (i have already turned pictures off)? What is a good text browser? Is it better to use a text browser than IE4 (which i am using at the moment)? Also, the modem cable only fits in my com 1 (I have an adapter for a 9 pin to 25 pin but it is the wrong way round) so i have no mouse. do i just need a male/female adapter or do i need a modem cable for a 25 pin port? can anyone in the uk recommend a totally free ISP? thanks, Dave

The adapter will work to hook up your modem to the 25 pin port. The com ports on the 486 that I am using at the moment, are the older 8250 type. That could be your bottleneck with your computer. If your com ports are 16550 UART instead of the slower 8250 Then you just need to configure them. Unfortunately in Win 3.1 you can only set the port speed setting up to 19200, unless somebody else on this site knows a way around that. In Win 3.1 go to Main Group->Control Panel->Ports->set the speed to 19200. If you have DOS 6.22 or so you can see if you have the 8250 or 16550 UART com ports by typing MSD from the DOS prompt. The Opera 16 bit browser seems to be faster than IE4 or IE5 in Win 3.1 but it only works for 30 days, then you have to pay for it. http://www.opera.com/download/ Hit the CHANGE button if only the download for Win 95/98/NT is showing. choose Windows 3.1 or NT 3.5 download and install Opera and also leave IE4 on your computer. You can try both If your com ports are the older 8250 type you could look for a new I/O card. Personally I would look on EBAY or a local computer shop with used parts and find a serial card with 16550 UART com ports. If you have a 486 that has PCI slots, (there are a few), then look for a PCI serial port card, otherwise look for an ISA. Then DISABLE COM 2 on your computer and use the COM 2 from the faster serial card. If this doesn't confuse you enough then I haven't been trying hard enough. A 486DX266 that has at least 16 Meg of RAM should do pretty well on the Internet with a 56K modem, so just keep tweaking til you get it right!

As DR suggested, look in MSD to see if you have a 16550 UART chip. If you do, download this file. It's the 16550 UART driver that was distributed with Winfax 3/4. It is very robust. Put it in your windows\system directory. Edit the [boot] section of your system.ini file to read: comm.drv=wfxcomm.drv Reboot your machine. 16550 UART driver: ftp.bu.edu/pub/mirrors/simtelnet/win3/telecomm/wfxcomm.zip Post back and let us know how you make out.

For speed, i like to use IE3 with my old 486 dx2 66, but i keep Netscape 4.08 handy to access some sites that cannot be accessed or won't display correctly in IE3. But IE3 SP1 will give you much better speed and access most (about 80%) of the sites without problems. I do not like IE4 and find IE5 to be too slow on a 16 bits system, but this is only my opinion. There are also many other options opened to you, like text browsers and such. Take a look at my Browsers section and take your pick! Click on my banner to get to my page.

I have to agree with LightSpeed here that IE 3.03 is a lot faster with a 486.

Thanks for your help guys. The ports are the slower 8250 uart, so i am going to see if i get the faster card. is there anyway of recognising the card by sight alone (i might look in some dead machines)? I think ie3 is faster but i can't navigate because i don't have a mouse at the moment = tab just switches between the address bar and the toolbar. And how do I maximise the window without a mouse in ie4 (i don't seem to be able to get at the top left hand box to select alt-x)? No-one would happen to have a spare serial port card or a 9 pin to 25 pin male/female adapter, would they? and also, can i get a telnet program to work with the iexplorer stack and dialer? and is there a freephone free ISP in the UK? dave

this internet is the city librarys, I will ask you can you internet to my 486, if so would you do so, and what ever details to do, so, as it help me, tho I have already contacted you, for the windows 3.1, and will need windows 95, to I quess, for it but if it can be interneted, as is it already connected, to a and C:214, it says, and on com 2--1-918-623-2370, call by 9 a.m. if can thank you, or if you have a address, and a 800 number can contact, where can call your business