It looks like he used MyPal, a Gecko-based browser. I usually use Supermium, which is chromium based and updated more frequently.

I'm currently browsing on a Windows 7 Ultimate computer. It was built in 2006 and has 12GB of DDR3 RAM, a 2TB mechanical and a 256 GB solid state drive, a blu-ray drive (which I added), an Nvidia Quadro K4200 GPU (a fairly powerful unit), and a 64-bit 4-core 8-thread Intel Xeon CPU. Yeah, quite the beast back in the day. And I bought it for $20 last year.

As for security risks, most antivirus programs still run on Windows 7, and there are even some that will still run on XP.

One potential reason is that if you own the telegraph line, you likely own the right to put other cables on it too. So this means that you can buy a dilapidated telegraph line for cheap in the late 90s, do just some cosmetic work to keep it in non-deserted state, and whenever your telecom company decides it's time, use that right of way to put fibre on those poles (which is of course much cheaper than digging, and you already have the permission to have those cables on that area of land).

Which browser and what version did you used?

I decided to load up my old Compaq nx9010 with it's single core Celeron CPU and DDR ram. It immediately connected to the internet on it's own. I must've been doing something on it a few years ago lol. I wont make a habit of this due to the obvious security risks. But it is a nice blast from the past. What OS do you currently use?

A neighborhood near me has old creosote utility poles. Among the standard primary and secondary power, cable, fiber, and phone, there was a crossarm mounted near comms height carrying a telegraph conductor. Bare copper wire on glass insulators. Every few spans the wire was broken, with the wire just hanging loose.

This is nothing new, I have seen this before around here. But what I found interesting is what they did with the telegraph line when replacing a pole. On of the poles along the length of the telegraph wire was brand new, a car probably hit it or something, idk. But they kept the telegraph line. They mounted a crossarm at comms level (just like before), and used a new polymer primary insulator to hole the telegraph wire.

Why would they do this? They could have just cut the wire (it was already broken in several places). But they went through the effort of mounting a crossarm and using a new insulator to mount it. Has anyone seen this before? Why would they do this?

@NeXe Lights — from what I recall, and from what James said above, GE attempted to suffocate Sylvania in every way possible. GE was content with a duopoly (them and Westinghouse at that time) but certainly NOT okay with a small company developing a better version of the fluorescent lamp they invented!

If you notice, the practice of sticking fingers into other people's pies stuck around until the very end of GE's tenure. Notably: GE-Thorn, GE-Tungsram. And when the empire collapsed, all of the houses in it collapsed.

@James, thank you for that info! It's nice to see why Sylvania decided to go with so many factories. I would have never thought GE and Sylvania were direct competitors with each other.

@James - Another incredible piece of information! And it's funny how all in all, the mega-conglomerate failed before the "scrappy upstart". And even though GTE owned Sylvania from ~1949 to 1993, I feel they maintained a better quality standard until the very end, contrary to GE who had varying production runs / focused on other aspects of their company. And it's funny to me that both of the "suffocators" suffocated in an environment of their own creation, albeit 40 years apart.

In fairness GE also made some excellent lamps in their big plants.  No one manufacturer could claim to make the best lamps of every type, but each had their own specialities.

Manchester was indeed rather good, a fact which was reminded to every employee and visitor when entering the manufacturing area.  In huge letters was printed for years “Through these doors walk the best lampmakers in the world”

Most components for Sylvania lamps were made internally, including the bases.  But they were quite late, in the earlier years those were sourced from the competitors, basically any supplier except GE.  There was never a good relationship between Sylvania and GE because the latter never forgave them for copying its fluorescent lamps, and doing a better job which ultimately gave Sylvania a far greater market share.  GE retaliated by blocking all supplies of raw materials and even insisted the return of lampmaking machinery it had earlier built for Sylvania.  Normally that should have killed Sylvania outright, but the US Government stepped in because it was WW2 at the time.  Fluorescent lamps were an essential war product, and GE + Westinghouse had far too little capacity.  So GE was ordered that it had to continue supplying its raw materials to Sylvania.  Of course when the war ended that stopped immediately - but it gave Sylvania enough time to build its own tungsten, wire and phosphor plants so as to survive independently.  Also its own plants to build lampmaking machines, whose fundamental concept was quite different than GE and turned out to be faster and cheaper to run.  This all created an even stronger competitor against GE, and cause it to change strategy again - better to sell its machines and components to as many competitors as possible, to stop them looking elsewhere and potentially coming up with something better than GE had.  Of course Sylvania also then did the same, and built or licensed its own machine designs to countless other competitors around the world - many of which were then taken over later.

These might be made by Holophane. I believe they produced a lot of the glass for early fluorescent fixtures.