Revenge of the Eight-Track Tape

Revenge of the Eight-Track Tape — Several readers commented about the FAQtoid in NetBITS-013 regarding the lifetime of WebTV. In the FAQtoid, we said that WebTV used standard protocols and could, in fact, be configured to access any ISP using PPP. That’s true, but once dialed in, WebTV must be able to contact the WebTV servers for its Web proxy servers, email, and so forth.

<http://db.netbits.net/getbits.acgi?nbart=04620>

<http://www.webtv.net/openisp/cust/customer.html>

So unfortunately, Beatrice Real (our original questioner), a WebTV would become the eight-track tape of the 90s if Microsoft discontinues support for it without offering alternatives. But remember that they paid nearly $500 million in stock for the company just months ago; that’s not pocket change, even for Microsoft. [GF]