Baslinux mailing list

[Ron Clarke <ariadne AT ausreg.com>]

Hi Lee,

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:10:01 +0000
Lee Forrest <lforrestster AT gmail.com> wrote:


> > > It has some neat apps that should be ported to linux.
> > 
> >    Agreed, and vice versa !
> > 
> >    And there are.  :)
> 
> Like what? I'm not counting utilities that make it possible for linux
> to deal with DOS files/filesystems etc.

   I can't remember which ones off-hand, but I do stumble across them every 
once in a while.

> > And in my view, the best DOS prog that I would like to see ported to
> > Linux is Arachne.
> 
> wikipedia:
> 
> Arachne is a full-screen [24]Internet suite containing a         
> graphical [25]web browser, [26]email client, and dialer. It      
> primarily runs on [27]DOS based operating systems, but includes  
> a few preliminary builds for [28]Linux. Arachne was originally   
> created by Michael Polak (under the label xChaos software, later 
> renamed to [29]Arachne Labs) in the [30]C language and compiled  
> using [31]Borland C++ 3.1 compiler, but since been released      
> under the [32]GPL as Arachne GPL.                                
> 
> Arachne is currently the most advanced graphical web browser     
> available for DOS as it supports many file formats, protocols    
> and standards. It is also capable of displaying between [33]CGA  
> 640x200, two color and [34]VESA 1024x768, high color modes.      
> Arachne is specialized for aged systems which do not have any    
> [35]windowing systems installed.                                 
> 
> /quote
> 
> (The linux link is to the wikipedia linux page, not to a page
> with information about the linux port.)

   That is because the only attempt at a Linux port was a few years ago, and 
was only slightly successful.
I have it in BL2, but it is not fully functional, leaks memory, crashes a 
lot. It was a "proof-of-concept" excercise in trying to port it, by the 
original author Michael Polak.  He has since passed it on as GPL.


> Have to say that doesn't interest me a bit. I don't like monolithic
> apps like that.

    Oh, it is not monolithic.  :)

    Size of the zipped download is just over 1 MB. Unzipped, it can fit on a 
floppy. There is even a boot floppy version - single floppy disk, includes a 
DOS, so it can be booted by any PC to run in RAM.

    It is actually a rather large collection of parts being kept in the game 
by a kernel CORE.EXE.  The very best feature of Arachne, in my opinion, is 
that it is so configurable and customisable. All of the GUI is in html files, 
most of the functionality seems to be in scripts that call the CORE.EXE, and 
there are so many add-ons and "plug-ins" available that it can handle 
anything that DOS can handle. And you can choose your own email clients, 
editors, multi-media applications, diallers, you name it.

   And she can also perform as a graphical desktop for DOS and its 
applications.

> I want my web browser to be a web browser and my email
> client to be an email client and my internet connections to be done by
> a seperate utility. The html-rendering part I'd like to be a seperate
> utility, as well as the image-displaying part.

  That's what you get with Arachne.   :)

> Nor am I interesting in letting myself being dragged around by M$
> web browser and web-page designers.

   Arachne has nothing to do with Micro$oft. She runs happily in freedos, 
drdos, pcdos as well as msdos.

> Arachne is, it says above, very advanced. But it won't be if it isn't 
> constantly
> changing for the above reasons.

   Arachne is under constant development.  Go see for yourself at:  
http://www.cisnet.com/glennmcc/

 
> I am thinking about cutting my work week in half and studying
> C and assembly.

   Good luck !  :)


> But I am not going to help anyone try to keep up with M$. 

    Why should you ?

> >    My first OS was NDOS running a BASIC translater on a Z-80, 3.9 MHz,
> > with 16 kb RAM. I still have the hardware.  :)
> 
> Really? Even the steam engine? :-))

    Not quite.  :)
But I still have the floppy disks - 128 kb, single sided.

 
> > And my very first contact with computers (apart from a Honeywell at
> > my college in the UK which used punched cards) was an HP 3000 mainframe,
> 
> Still around. Still being used. Series is up to 9000. The size
> of a refrigerator. Didn't find any mention of speed or RAM or
> diskspace or processor type or busses... Does it have a bunch of
> parallel processors?

   I have no idea.  All I saw were terminals - some of them without a screen, 
just type-writer type machines that printed its responses ON PAPER.

> Is this the short of machine unix use to run on exclusively, one computer
> and numerous work stations? 

   Don't know.

> > running a shell for BASIC, at a TAFE evening course in Warrnambool, Oz.
> 
> TAFE. Big vocational training outfit. Like a university, with branches all
> over Oz. Looks like a very good organization.

   Part of the nationwide tertiary education system. Technical And Further 
Education.
Set in all the tertiary institutions across Australia, but funded by 
government in a separate way. So the facilities, lecturers and other staff 
were the same as in University and Technical colleges, but they were offered 
as part-time, often evening courses, for which there was also a fee. Many are 
for more mature students, such as me in my late thirties.  This was an 
introduction to computers, at about the time that the Apple IIe was released.

> What courses did you take? 

    A handfull of part-time evening courses, e.g. intro to computers, 
decision making in uncertainty, marketing, that sort of thing.


> You know, I think I am more interested in getting linux to be
> more like dos, than vice-versa: I want to remove all that (to me)
> useless, wasteful functionality that linux now has.

    Make your own distro !   
 
> We should meet in the middle somewhere! :-)
> 
> Don't you think it is rather odd that two people with such diverse computer 
> backgrounds
> would end up at the same place, _here_?

    My background is not actually in computers.  I am an industrial chemist, 
starting in an R & D lab for a company that made heavy industrial chemicals 
and also distilled tar, way back in the '60s - last century.
But I find computers are fun !

Regards,
        Ron

-- 
Ron Clarke 
AUSREG Consultancy      http://www.ausreg.com
Tadpole Tunes           http://www.tadpoletunes.com
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