What you need in order do school work, send and receive email and access the internet is:

• Pentium 233
• 64 MB of RAM
• 5 GB Hard Drive
• Windows 98 operating system
  

These are minimum requirements. Many of the inexpensive computers on the market today are more than adequate to do what is necessary for schoolwork and to connect to the Internet.
All of the computers at CBC run Microsoft Office software for word processing, spread sheets, databases, and presentation programs. Many home computers have Microsoft Works installed. Microsoft Works programs will not read Microsoft Office programs. It is recommended that you have Microsoft Office on your home computer.

If you are going to connect to the CBC web page, you will need to get an Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are several ISP’s in the Tri Cities area that have varying types of service. The cheapest is a 56 KB dial up modem connection. This is a fairly slow connection so things will not download rapidly, but they will download. Several of the ISP’s have broad band internet connections that are much faster than the 56 KB dial up modem, but that service costs more. If you are thinking of a broadband connection, than you want to get a computer with an Ethernet, network connection in it. That is what the broadband ISP providers require.

The web browser that you will need in order to see the CBC homepage is at least Netscape 4.6 or higher, or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5 or higher. If you purchase a new computer on the market today, it will probably come with Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher. If you have an older version of either Netscape or Internet explorer, you can update either of them by going to the Netscape or Microsoft web sites and downloading updated versions.