Mail Archives: djgpp/1997/09/28/22:25:28
Hello!
I finally got my hands on a UniVBE driver (well, it was the stripped-down
UniVBE which came with Warcraft II) and got to run Arachne in 1024x768
256-color. Also, with the appropriate packet driver and version 1.20b3 (I
was using 1.20b2 previously) it actually works. The 486 with 4MB that I
was using as a test box performs very well, and is acceptably fast (about
as fast as my 16MB 486 running Communicator 4.03).
From what I've seen of Arachne, it's not really worth it to write another
DOS-based web browser, unless it's for the educational/hack value (e.g.
XEmacs GNUscape consumes 50% more resources than Navigator Gold 3.01, but
it's fun for pure hack value). Arachne is really quite polished.
I've determined the following about Arachne (as against what a previous
poster claimed about WebSpyder): it supports HTML 3.x tables. It supports
the <COLSPAN> tags. It supports <IMG ALIGN>. It supports colored table
backgrounds (which came out in Navigator 3.0). Anyone who's thinking about
a DOS-based browser should really look at Arachne. It has more features
than Mosaic 2.5, Chimera, Arena, and even Amaya.
Anyway, I hope that wasn't too much of a blurb :)
Actually, I'm wishing that the author of Arachne ports it to Linux. It's
VERY good, quite small, and can only benefit from a UNIX port (it actually
spawn()'s DJPEG to do JPEG conversions, so is kind of slow when the page
being downloaded has lots of JPEG's. And it isn't as interactive as
Netscape due to the obvious limitations of single-tasking DOS).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Orlando Alcantara Andico
WWW: http://www2.mozcom.com/~orly/ Email: orly AT mozcom DOT com
ICBM: 14 30 00 N 120 59 00 E POTS: (+632) 932-2385
- Raw text -