You're welcome to not read, but as someone who grew up in a certain era, it's pretty cool to see the old things. The webpage he's serving reminds me of all sorts of early internet things, where the knowledge was real and we were just pushing it onto this new thing. The actual site: https://sparc.rup12.net/ has a vibe similar to https://johnlind.tripod.com/, which is incredible. The knowledge is timeless.

> Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or higher

I feel young again...

Why would anyone not think a Sparc server could host a web site?

An old IBM PC or even a Commodore 64 can host a web site. I think there’s a few online. I’ve seen them before.

I’ve seen a lot of younger “cloud native” age developers who have these insane distorted ideas about how much power is needed to do simple things. You’d be shocked at how much traffic a modern mid range laptop can handle with efficient software. The Ethernet card you can plug into it would probably be the bottleneck, since I’m not sure if they make USB-C cards faster than 5gbps.

A mid range laptop will also handle hundreds of gigs in a SQL database just fine.

It’s more subtle to me: I’ll never say no to retrocomputing (especially what you need to open yourself to the public internet without getting pwned), but “use a low end VPN and save $$$$!” is a bit old now.

I do not mind retro computing stuff. The most interesting part was installing up-to-date OpenBSD. But of course it can serve a static website.

The question as posed in the title is novel because it violates Betteridge's law of headlines:

> "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

I'd rather see stuff like this than an LLM spicy take on the front page. JMO, YMMV.

At least it's not some, "AI makes me feel like a kid again" jagoff.