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What you really need to surf Net

The computer business is gearing up for a big holiday season. But there's one sales pitch I've heard that I think is totally misleading: You need a powerful computer to surf the Internet.

It's implied in some ''Intel Pentium processor'' television commercials. Recently, I overheard a similar sales pitch in a computer store.

If you're thinking of buying or upgrading a home computer this Christmas to join the rush to the Internet, here's the straight dope about what you need:

You need a fast modem, not a fast computer. The modem moves information from the Internet to your computer. For standard dial-up connections, 33,600 bits per second is the fastest modem available.

If you want to install an ISDN telephone line, you can move up to 128,000 bits per second. Aside from the ISDN modem (about $300), expect to pay about $100 for installation and about $100 a month for the line, plus extra for your Internet hookup.

But even if you had the fastest Internet connection available (called a T1 or T3 connection, costing thousands of dollars), a computer processes information much, much faster. So trashing an old 486 or pre-PowerMac for a new computer won't speed up anything.

You need memory. I'm talking about computer memory, or RAM, not remembering those wacky Web addresses (URLs). Both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer are memory-hungry browsers. With so many sites using audio and video plug-ins - not to mention Java - I think you should have at least 5 megabytes of RAM available for the browser, with 10 MB or more being best (I run Navigator at 12 MB).

You need hard-drive space. Browsers speed Internet surfing by saving (''caching'') the text and graphics from a Web site you've visited. These cache files can become enormous, but the more stuff your browser can cache, the faster it can load sites from the Internet (especially sites you visit often). You should keep about 20 megabytes available for browser and cache files.

And the most important:

You need a good Internet provider. This is the company that links your computer to the Internet. America Online and CompuServe might be convenient paths to the Internet, but you'll see much faster surfing using a good Internet service provider. (And please don't ask me which I think is the best. I don't know. There are more than 50 ISPs serving the Cincinnati area, including The Enquirer's own GoCinci.Net.)

POLITICS AND THE NET:

Many people think that 1996 was the year politics discovered the Internet, and this past Tuesday was the night that Cincinnati discovered Enquirer.com.

Online director James Jackson estimated that our Web site was being hit 10 times a second Tuesday night, but he really doesn't know because the records of who visited grew too large to be stored. Results were reported on 15 pages, and each was updated almost a dozen times from Tuesday evening until Wednesday afternoon.

If you're still wondering who won, you can view our election results at Enquirer.com (http://Enquirer.com/backissues/).

Published Nov. 10, 1996.