History of Arachne WWW browser ------------------------------ 1.0 beta 7 ---------- Release date: 13th March 1997 Bug fixes: Stack overflow. Image loading and JPEG conversin bugs. Horizontal keyboard scroll bug (Shift+End). Change: Arachne now requires 460 kB of DOS memory (580 with PPP). Improvements: New ARACHNE.CFG variables: F3key (you can replace 'file:*.*' default string), AutoF3key Yes/No ('file:*.*' when offline, 'http://' when online), SearchPage (will appear after pressing F7). AltNameServer and AltGateway variables now allow to add add second nameserver and gateway directly to ARACHNE.CFG 1.0 beta 6 ---------- Release date: 5th March 1997 Bug fixes: Proxy support was finally implemented ! PPP.LOG file is now being opened by C sopen(), not open() function, so file sharing errors in Windows DOS box should disappear (but it was tested only with SHARE.EXE). Improvements: 4 "Memory modes" implemented: "CRISIS","LOW","NORMAL","COOL". Arachne now requires only 450 kB offline and 570 kB with PPP, but users of QEMM, MEMMAKER or DR-DOS who have more than 600 kB available will see no difference ("COOL" mode). Palette mixing is now several times faster (better algorithm). Free utility PKTSTAT can be called from utilities page. Someone sent me newer version of EtherPPP (PPP.EXE); seems to work at least not worse than the old one. And the graphical PPP setup was changed to behave more functional. Bug reports: JPEGs do not always behave as they should. The bug is not yet fixed, because the other bug fixes had higher priority. Message: New Scientist called Arachne "browser for poor". But I don't think I am poor just because I don't want to buy new computer ever year! Good news: Arachne will be incorporated as native browser in Caldera OpenDOS operating system. 1.0 beta 5 ---------- Release date: 16th February 1997 Bug fixes: some of image redraw bugs fixed Improvements: images in 16 color VGA and EGA modes, activates "Lynx mode" - surfing with cursor keys. = history, + , + = horizontal scroll. Some HTML/2.0 entities. ... "Kill hotlist" icon in Utilities page - example of DGI Message: Number of visitors of Arachne homepage was increased hundered times after publishing of short article in PointCast. Many new mirror sites will be announced soon. Microsoft offered me to move to Redmond and work for them - really, I am not joking ;) Possible use of Arachne in a single-chip Net Computer. Arachne will be used in WebTyme - internet slot machine. In future, Arachne may be integrated into GEOS and OpenDos operating systems as native browser, if everything goes well. To Jan Patera: sorry, to vraceni grafickeho modu jsem zase nechal ve skole ;-))) Note: You would expect teen hackers to perfectly manage low level graphics or so, and senior programmers to be rather system administrators, etc. Reality: I am 23, my father is 50. If you like image viewing in 16 color VGA and EGA mode (as well as very good palette otimization), send credits to my father ;-) 1.0 beta 4 ---------- Release date: 27th January 1997 Bug fixes: tables ("Netscape homepage bug" and others), hotkeys bugs, "yahoo search bug" (error in form submitting), ">" entity, Linux POP3 download bug, conversion bugs, many other bugs. Cache size restricted to 256 files to reduce problems. Improvements: 16 color VGA and EGA modes, registration key support, links to sources (!), query strings passed to DGIs, returns to previous document, +,, Message: There are signals, that in future Arachne may be used in some slot-machines for public Internet access. This can mean that more people taking care about optimizing pages for Arachne and other "Other" browsers, like Lynx, Mosaic, etc. It can be important step forcing webmasters to keep high informational value of WWW and stop the latest "putting TV-shit online" trends. REGISTER NOW to keep Arachne project alive! Final release of 1.0 will appear until end of February. Warning: No more changing homepage with in Volkov commander! I take no responsibility for possible side effects of cracking CORE.EXE, remember, I am not so bad programer... 1.0 beta 3 ---------- Release date: 6th January 1997 Bug fixes: tables, documentation, miscalaneous bugs Improvements: background download of HTML documents, slight speed improvement, 1024x768 graphics mode, keyboard select . Message: Author have new e-mail address - xchaos@main.naf.cz 1.0 beta 2 ---------- Release date: 22th December 1996 Bug fixes: gopher, finger, jpeg conversion, DGI calls, some HTML entities Improvements: EscExits and LoadImages variable in ARACHNE.CFG, Load images icon, Arachne now calls external telnet and ftp, public domain Clarkson Univesity telnet and ftp binaries added to package The way to 1.0 beta ------------------- I first attempted to compile some DOS TCP/IP application at university in 1995. It was based on NCSA Telnet sources, and for some strange reasons, the attempt was complete failure. I didn't know much about TCP/IP at that time. Then I started working as a webmaster for Video On Line, where I had enought spare time to learn about TCP/IP protocols, to search WWW for important software.... I started to hate Windows 95 as I was forced to work with them. I started also with C programming for Unix, etc. One day I tried to search Altavista for "WWW browser for DOS" - and I was very surprised, that it found nothing! Well, there were about three or four pseudo-browsers (Doslynx, Knots, Minuet and Open World Navigator), which were so useless compared to Netscape, that I decided to try it on my own. In fact, another DOS browser, SPIN, would probably discourage me from writing Arachne, because the version I had oportunity to see last month was almost usable. But it was also extremely unstable, and generaly, it could be compared to Arachne somewhere in versions 0.91-0.92. And it was also much slower, at least on my computer. The reason why Arachne is so good is, that software included in Arachne package is result of years of work of many good programers. Only few of them are people I know... that's the cyberspace! My work can be best described as "source code archeology" :-). I only came, and linked it all together. Well, I also wrote HTML rendering engine but compared to TCP/IP kernel, my HTML engine is children's toy. Arachne is in fact based on "Popdump" aplication distributed as example for using WatTcp TCP/IP library. I started work in April 1996 and I released several alfaversions (0.7, 0.8, etc...) for testing. Then, when I made version about 0.9?? and started testing online homepage, one of testers added my URL to Altavista, and it is the reason why alfaversions 0.9?? ... 0.99 spreaded among people. When Arachne was once "released", I simply had to fix the major bugs and publish at least the most important updates. In fact, my first official release was version 1.0 beta, and it is also where the history list will start. I will not mention any bug fixes form alfaversion, except of one: I succesfuly fixed the packet driver interrupt crash (it was occuring in the moment when Arachne was accessing XMS, which happens very often). It was most important event in the alfaversion history. This bug is fixed cca since version 0.93 or so. So - please DELETE ANY ARACHNE OLDER THAN VERSION 1.0 beta and upgrade !!! Michal Polak, xChaos software