Mail Archives: opendos/2001/01/28/00:28:51
On 2001-01-26, Bernie wrote:
> >Later versions (eg. 2.1b2) were a bit faster, but still they were *not*
> >any faster than their 16 bit cousin (Arachne ;-) ... ?
>
> Hmmm... "cousin" - parent would be a better word. I didn't use
> WebSpyder much so I can't say.
FWIW, for sure Arachne is the mother, but the relation between
DR-WebSpyder 2.x and Arachne 1.xx is more complex than just
a question of customizing and "pretty-coating".
While I was in the UK, the DR-WebSpyder team not only ported
it to 32-bit DPMI (DJGPP), they also rewrote large parts of the
framing and rendering engine, incorporated Allegro 2 & 3 as graphics
and sound library, put in Javascript and printer drivers (Slate), and
added their own networking stuff and dialer. So the result is far
more than just a port... (Mind, even NetScape/Mozilla and Internet
Explorer are both loose derivative works of Mosaic.)
Ironically, 32-bit DPMI DR-WebSpyder 2.1 was not able to display
.HTML pages larger than ca. 250 Kb, while 16-bit Real-Mode
Arachne took a long time to process, but after having a coffee,
it would display such pages more or less correctly... ;-)
Matthias
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Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany
<Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de> <mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html
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