arachne web browser dos download Arachne web browser. Installing and setting up for internet connection via Ethernet. Installing Arachne web browser on a disk created in RAM - Arachne runs the fastest this way. RAM size should allow for a RAM disk of 6 MB or more . In order to install and set up Arachne web browser for internet connection via Ethernet, there have to be several programs at hand: Arachne web browser [ Download ] If Arachne web browser is to be used for surfing web pages with character encoding other than Latin for West European languages, visit www.glennmcc.org/apm/ to find available character set packages and download the necessary one. Mouse driver, mouse.com for instance [ Download ] Packet driver for Ethernet network card: Microsoft Network Client 3.0 [ Download ] NDIS 2.0 driver for Ethernet network card. For example: Realtek RTL8029AS [ Download ]. Drivers for other network cards may be found, for instance, on web sites of Ethernet cards manufacturers. Archivers. For example, PKZIP [ Download ] and PKUNZIP [ Download ] If it is not MS-DOS 6.0+ to be used, QEMM97 [ Download ] If it is not MS-DOS 6.0+ to be used, TDSK [ Download ] Setup and installation. 1 . Create a RAM disk. Which drive letter will be assigned to it comes from the assumption that A: and B: go to floppy drives (even if there is only one, both letters will be reserved anyway), C: goes to the first active primary MS-DOS partition on the first physical hard disk. If there are more disks, then there will be as many letters used consecutively as to name them all. Unless there are no devices installed using DRIVER.SYS or similar drivers, the next drive letter will be assigned to the RAM disk. In order to be sure, after having the relevant string for making RAM disk added to CONFIG.SYS (See below), computer could be restarted and what letter is assigned to the RAM disk is checked by experiment. In this case, it is E: Depending on RAM size it needs to be decided how many megabytes can be reserved for RAM disk. Basically, the more the better. Since, for instance, web browser cache is going to swell during prolonged and intensive use within a session. In this example the RAM disk is 12 000 KB. The maximum size for RAMDRIVE.SYS MS-DOS driver is 32 767 KB, the one of TDSK - 64 MB. In order to create such a disk, the string has to be added somewhere in the middle of CONFIG.SYS as follows: 2 . Create a folder, for example C:\DRIVERS\. Put there: a mouse driver, for instance mouse.com, a packet driver for Ethernet network card and a NDIS 2.0 driver for Ethernet network card. 3 . Add a string starting mouse driver to AUTOEXEC.BAT. Specify there the full path to the driver, may be any: 4 . Prepare installation floppies of Microsoft Network Client 3.0: 5 . Start setup.exe from the first floppy and begin Microsoft Network Client 3.0 installation: Installation is starting. Press Enter to continue. Select folder for Microsoft Network Client 3.0 to be installed to. It may be any or the suggestion of the installer may be left as it is - in the case discussed it is left as it is. Enter. Microsoft Network Client 3.0 installer examining the system files. Select driver for Ethernet network card. If there is no right driver on the list, choose "*Network adapter not shown on list below . " Enter. This dialogue appears if there was no right driver on the proposed list of Ethernet network card drivers and "*Network adapter not shown on list below . " has been selected. Specify the path to the folder containing the appropriate driver for the Ethernet network card. In the case discussed it is C:\DRIVERS\, typing it in. Enter. Select driver from C:\DRIVERS\ folder specified in the previous step. In the case discussed it is RTL8029AS PCI Ethernet Adapter. Enter. Choose to let or not to let Microsoft Network Client 3.0 use more RAM in its work to get the best performance. Any of the two choices is acceptable. For example - let it to. Enter. Enter user name of up to 20 characters. It can contain Latin letters, numbers and characters listed. In the case discussed it is "arachne". Enter. Confirm the selected settings are correct to start copying the files to the folder Microsoft Network Client 3.0 is be installed in. It may be chosen here to change some or all settings and repeat some steps described above or to confirm the selected settings are correct. In the case discussed the selected settings are confirmed, so no changes made and just - Enter. Microsoft Network Client 3.0 files are being copied to the folder Microsoft Network Client 3.0 is to be installed in. Microsoft Network Client 3.0 is installed in C:\NET\ folder. In order to begin to use Microsoft Network Client 3.0, press Enter and computer will restart. 6 . After computer restart, Microsoft Network Client 3.0 will prompt for a name or to press Enter to proceed with the name selected during the installation process. In the case discussed it is "arachne", no new names are entered - Enter. Next, password prompt; since there is no password created, just press Enter. After that a password may be created or not. If not - just Enter. 7 . Run MemMaker or OPTIMIZE from QEMM97 to optimize base memory management. If it is MemMaker then press Enter at any suggestion - MemMaker will handle it itself. Computer is going to restart several times, each time MemMaker will be re-running - again nothing, just Enter, is a safe choice. If it is QEMM97 (specifically OPTIMIZE), then there is going to be several restarts too and each time just pressing Enter is OK. 8 . Start packet driver (in the case discussed it is Realtek RTL8029AS - PCIPKT.COM): 9 . Start installation of Arachne web browser on RAM disk. In the case discussed it is E: Press Y to continue. Press N to specify the path to the folder Arachne web browser is to be installed in. Specify the path to the folder Arachne web browser is to be installed in. In the case discussed it is E:\ARACHNE\. Enter. Copying files to the folder. The beginning of Arachne web browser setting up. Select settings corresponding to the characteristics of the computer Arachne web browser in being installed on. Arachne setup wizard usually adequately determines video adapter type, so, at least during the first installation experience the selection may be confined to choosing desirable screen resolution and color depth. In the case discussed the maximum "1024x768 2 MB HiColor" is selected. Then click "Try selected graphics mode". If something is wrong, Arachne setup wizard will either have the process returned back to video settings selection or at worst the installation will be cancelled and can be run again. If video adapter can work with the settings selected, then the next dialogue will follow. Select category corresponding to the type of computer used. Arachne setup wizard ordinarily adequately determines this category with respect to the web browser requirements, so the setup wizard's choice may be left as it is. Even if it is not obligatory. Arachne setup wizard selects the maximum level corresponding to the computer, therefore any other, corresponding to a simpler type of computer, category may be chosen. Click Next. Choose to create or not to create a quick start batch file for Arachne web browser and under what name. In the case discussed the setup wizard's suggestion is accepted: create quick start file for Arachne web browser under the name of A.BAT. Click Next. Summary of changes made and confirmation. Click Next. Select the maximum screen resolution Arachne web browser is going to run at. In the case discussed 1024x768 is selected. Click Next. Starting to set up Arachne web browser for internet connection via Ethernet. Select "Packet Wizard", click the icon over the caption. In order to make Arachne setup wizard detect running packet driver, click "Detect packer driver. " If everything done in the previous steps is correct, Arachne setup wizard will detect running packet driver. Then click "Continue". If not, the errors have to be identified and fixed - Arachne web browser will not work without detected running packet driver. Configuring TCP/IP. Click "BOOTP or DHCP . " Setting up Arachne web browser for internet connection via Ethernet is done. Configuring of Arachne built-in e-mail client begins. Click "eMail setup Wizard" Enter e-mail address, name and SMTP server name. Click "Configure incoming mail" Enter POP3 server name, username, password. And select "Keep your incoming mail on POP3 server after downloading it". Due to Arachne requiring password to be typed in during setup process and kept unencrypted in configuration file, perhaps Arachne e-mail client should not be used for accessing user's main e-mail box. After filling up all the dialogue boxes click "Local settings, etc. " Time zone, character encoding, etc. Just time zone settings and nothing else may be changed here this time. Then click "Ok, save" The main part of Arachne web browser settings is done. Now some other characteristics of the browser can be tuned. For that, click "Preferences & performance" Settings affecting the performance and appearance of Arachne web browser. For maximum speed while maintaining an acceptable quality, choose "Display HTML background images", "no virtual screens (fastest)" and deselect "Realtime smooth scrolling ("Netscape")". Then click "Ok, save" In order to have the settings selected during the previous steps become effective, click "Use new settings !" The primary phase of installing and setting up Arachne web browser will be finished after that. 10 . If Arachne web browser is to be used for surfing web pages with character encoding other than Latin for West European languages, put a character set package downloaded from www.glennmcc.org/apm/ into C:\ARACHNE\DOWNLOAD. 11 . Start Arachne: 12 . If Arachne web browser is to be used for surfing web pages with character encoding other than Latin for West European languages, press U on keyboard, then click "Install Arachne Package" icon in the main area of the browser, then click the icon of the "download" directory, then click the icon of the package with the character set downloaded from www.glennmcc.org/apm/ 13 . Create ARACHNE folder with DOWNLOAD folder inside on disk C: Since Arachne web browser will be installed on RAM disk, which will be deleted and re-created after each computer restart, all the files of Arachne web browser on RAM disk are going to be disappearing. And that is not convenient in regard to some of them. These files can be transferred to disk C: They may be any files and folders of Arachne web browser or may be none. Here the DOWNLOAD is chosen. It is the folder Arachne web browser places downloaded files in. 14 . Edit arachne.cfg, specify the path to the DOWNLOAD folder: DownloadPath C:\ARACHNE\DOWNLOAD\ and the path to cookies.lst: C:\ARACHNE\COOKIES.LST. 15 . Edit A.BAT to have it as follows: 16 . Make an archive of all the E:\ARACHNE folder contents. For example, A.ZIP archive on disk C: 17 . Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT system file. Somewhere in the middle of it, add: 18 . Restart computer. Arachne web browser is installed and configured for internet connection via Ethernet. The network is handled by Microsoft Network Client 3.0, so each time after computer restart Arachne web browser is connected to internet right away and ready for work. Every time system restarting, the configured web browser is placed on E: RAM disk and runs from it. Only cookies are put on hard disk and downloaded files are offered to. If Arachne web browser settings have been changed, check if there has been something saved to E:\ARACHNE\DOWNLOAD\ folder or any other folder inside E:\ARACHNE\ folder. If there has been any - delete everything. Next, having Arachne web browser running, press F8 (clear cache), then close Arachne and repeat actions of item number 16. Option 2 - Installing on hard disk. Installing and setting up Arachne web browser on hard disk - if RAM size is not sufficient for creating RAM disk of 6 MB and more. In order to do that, the same list of programs as in case of installing Arachne web browser on RAM disk is required. Setup and installation. 1 . Create a RAM disk. Which drive letter will be assigned to it comes from the assumption that A: and B: go to floppy drives (even if there is only one, both letters will be reserved anyway), C: goes to the first active primary MS-DOS partition on the first physical hard disk. If there are more disks, then there will be as many letters used consecutively as to name them all. Unless there are no devices installed using DRIVER.SYS or similar drivers, the next drive letter will be assigned to the RAM disk. In order to be sure, after having the relevant string for making RAM disk added to CONFIG.SYS (See below), computer could be restarted and what letter is assigned to the RAM disk checked by experiment. In this case, it is E: Reserve 384 KB or more for RAM disk. In the case discussed it is 512 KB. Unlike when the whole Arachne web browser is installed on RAM disk, here only a folder for temporary files and COMMAND.COM will be placed on it. In order to create such a disk, the string has to be added somewhere in the middle of CONFIG.SYS as follows: Items 2 - 8 here are identical to items 2 - 8 of the case when the whole Arachne web browser is installed on RAM disk. 9 . Start installation of Arachne web browser on RAM disk. In the case discussed it is C: Further on the installation process is the same as in case when the whole Arachne web browser is installed on RAM disk. Only in the very beginning specify the path to the folder located on hard disk (in the case discussed it is C:). Or just accept the suggestion by the Arachne web browser installation program - c:\arachne. 10 . If Arachne web browser is to be used for surfing web pages with character encoding other than Latin for West European languages, put a character set package downloaded from www.glennmcc.org/apm/ into C:\ARACHNE\DOWNLOAD. 11 . Start Arachne: 12 . If Arachne web browser is to be used for surfing web pages with character encoding other than Latin for West European languages, press U on keyboard, then click "Install Arachne Package" icon in the main area of the browser, then click the icon of the "download" directory, then click the icon of the package with the character set downloaded from www.glennmcc.org/apm/ 13 . Edit A.BAT to have it as follows: 14 . Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT system file. Somewhere in the middle of it, add: 15 . Restart computer. Arachne web browser is installed and configured for internet connection via Ethernet. The network is handled by Microsoft Network Client 3.0, so each time after computer restart Arachne web browser is connected to internet right away and ready for work. Arachne. Graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne is a full-screen graphical web browser for DOS on PC computers. Originally developed by Michael Polák. First release - 22th December 1996. The last Arachne version by Arachne Labs was released on 22th January 2001. Arachne source code was opened in November of 2003 and the subsequent versions are released under GNU GPL license. Arachne is distributed as a software suite containing, besides web browser, built-in e-mail client, FTP, internet connection wizard, WAV files player. More add-ons are available: image viewer, PDF, file managers, mplayer, Telnet client, IRC and more. Arachne supports Windows-1251 and KOI8-R Cyrillic after additional packages are installed. Internet connection is via serial ports (COM) and Ethernet. There are also Arachne for Linux / SVGAlib. Versions. GPL versions of Arachne. The main line of Arachne development. Major changes and updates take place within its framework. Maintained by a group of enthusiasts who also develop GPL version for Linux / SVGAlib. Arachne Labs versions. Arachne Labs, xChaos software initially, were the main structure engaged in development of Arachne until 2003, when Arachne source code was opened and the GPL versions of the browser became the main line. The last Arachne Labs version was released on 22th January 2001: Arachne 1.70 Release 3. Ray Andrews version. A GPL Arachne variation. PTS-DOS version. Similar to the corresponding versions of Arachne, but to some extent integrated with the PTS-DOS distribution. DR-WebSpyder. Based on Arachne. Basically - different web browser, for which Arachne is just an ancestor. Later the browser was renamed as Lineo EmBrowser. Configuration and use. Arachne web browser was created in DOS and for DOS (the Linux version stands somewhat apart). Therefore, even though Arachne will run under many versions of Windows, Windows XP for instance, it is working under DOS when Arachne qualities are revealed best. Arachne web browser works in all major DOS variants, for example MS-DOS, FreeDOS or PTS-DOS. System requirements are low. The minimum: 80x86 CPU, 500 KB DOS base memory, 1 MB XMS/EMS memory, 512 KB SVGA video, 5 MB HDD space. Although requirements for using maximum screen resolution, maximum color depth are higher. But in this case too they are extremely small by today's standards - 486, better Pentium I computer, 640 KB base memory, 8+ MB XMS/EMS memory, 2+ MB SVGA video. Yet it depends - using 640x480 screen resolution, installing Arachne on RAM disk let to have Arachne running quite well on 386 CPU computer; if only there are enough of RAM and video adapter capabilities. Besides traditional hard disk installation, DOS LIVE CD by Roman Karpach may be used (www.fdd5-25.net/doslivecd), where Arachne web browser is among the software present. The characteristics of Arachne web browser installation process make the main settings be set right from the beginning. These settings for the most part are the responsibility of operating system on computers running Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, but in DOS Arachne browser takes care of everything itself. So at the end of installation Arachne web browser is ready for use right away - in a specific, selected during installation process mode: for internet connection via COM port, for internet connection via network adapter, for browsing local files only. Later, after installation is complete and settings are set, Arachne web browser can be reconfigured into any possible mode. But at first, Arachne is configured for either internet connection via COM port or internet connection via network adapter or the function of connecting to internet is turned off. Therefore further discussed: The case when Arachne web browser is configured for browsing local files only is not discussed, since it is a simplified form of the first two. When a widescreen LCD computer display (a LCD with aspect ratio more than 4:3, like 16:9) is used, one needs to know if the display supports aspect scaling / pillarboxing. If yes - how. The maximum screen resolution normally supported by Arachne web browser is 1024x768. So, to prevent image to be distorted in LCD, aspect scaling / pillarboxing has to be employed. Arachne web browser dos download. Since 1998, each program included in the FreeDOS distribution is made available as a Package. The distribution divides these FreeDOS packages into Groups, sometimes called Sets. The Base group contains only those programs that reproduce the functionality of classic DOS. The other groups contain software that you may find useful, such as games and editors. Software List FreeDOS Base Programs that reproduce the functionality of classic DOS Archivers Tools to compress files and create archives. Boot Tools Utilities to help you boot your computer Development Development tools such as compilers and assemblers Editors Editors and simple word processors that let you edit text files Emulators Programs that emulate other systems Games Fun games that you can play Graphical Desktop Graphical desktop environments for FreeDOS. Networking Utilities that support networks and connectivity Sound Tools Programs that play music and sound files Unix-like Utilities similar to Unix and Linux. Utilities Tools and other useful programs that you might like to use. You can also download these and other programs from the FreeDOS files archive at Ibiblio. FreeDOS Project at SourceForge | Thanks to SourceForge for hosting our source code, email lists, bug tracker, and wiki. Trademark info | All other marks are property of their respective owners. The FreeDOS Project or any of its sponsors make no guarantees, explicit or implicit, about the contents of this site. Use at your own risk. Arachne web browser dos download. Email: michael.polak @ arachne.cz | Twitter: @ArachneLabs. Pokud využíváte webhosting, internetové připojení nebo jiné služby původně objednané přes Arachne Labs, obraťte se prosím na nástupnický subjekt SPOJE.NET spol. s r.o. (přihlášení do webmailu, technická podpora, ceník, apod.). Pokud jste používali e-mail přímo na doméně @arachne.cz, zkuste IMAP server testmail.arachne.cz (podporuje SSL, login je vaše e-mailová adresa), případně přihlášení přes webmail.arachne.cz. For thew news about participation of Lenochod 1 solar recharged lowrider in the The Sun Trip 2018 solar bicycle rallye from Lyon (France) to Canton (China), please subscribe to our Twitter feed. You can also profile page of participant Michael Polák. Supplier and sponsor of bicycle components for Lenochod 1. Cargo bicycle manufacturer and bicycle activist in Hradec Králové and Prague. Sponsor of battery development for Lenochod 1. Microelectronics development in Řevnice. Sponsor of telecommunication and mobile services for Arachne Aerospace. Internet service provider in Prague (fiber and wireless network, housing, webhosting) Sponsor of recumbent seat cover for Lenochod 1. Recumbent bike manufacturer in Uherský Brod. 1. Arachne (Browser/E-Mail/Newsgroups/IRC) Arachne is an open source graphical web browser originally developed exclusively for DOS. Most of it was written by Michael Polák , but it also includes 3rd party code, most notably the WATTCP library. It used to be a semi-commercial product in the past, and author even was able to sell several “special” licenses (see below), since 2002 (?) the license is GNU GPL. The installer file is very small - cca 1.3 MiB, it fits on a floppy. 1.2 Project history. Cca 1990 Zdenek Harovnik started development of the LOPIF graphics library later used in Arachne, since 1992 it supported GIF file format using the problematic LZW84 algorithm (no problem since 2004, nobody cared before), after 1996 it “got part of” Arachne 1995 idea to develop a DOS browser coming up, author’s experiments with TCP/IP programming 1996-Apr development of Arachne started by Michael Polák, xChaos software , some alpha versions released 1996-Dec-22 released 1.0beta2 1997-Apr-30 released 1.02 (version 1.0 was never released) 1997 to 2001 making business with Arachne was possible, it was valuable (or even unique), author sold many standard user licenses as well as some “special” licenses for versions adapted to customer’s needs as well as a source code license to CALDERA used for the DR WebSpyder browser (see Browsers) 1999 xChaos software company renamed to Arachne Labs , author developing sympathy for Linux and GPL, open sourced LOPIF and parts of Arachne package, not yet full source of CORE.EXE (?) 2001-Jan-20 released 1.70 2002-Oct-30 released 1.71, after additional developers obtained access to source code and made contributions, open sourced it at this occasion (?), Michael Polák left the browser development, but continuing with “Arachne Labs” as a “banal internet company” http://arachne.cz 2003-Nov-08 released 1.73 GPL 2003 to 2008 development of the GPL version by glennmcc and other contributors, also some alternative builds/versions released by other people during this time, meanwhile the usefulness of Arachne unfortunately degraded due to increasing usage of Javascipt, Flash, and other unreasonably complicated and messy things on the internet, despite much work of the contributors, the Arachne development could follow only partially in some areas (UTF-8) 2008-Nov to 2008-Dec glennmcc released 1.95 GPL and declared Arachne development for “dead”, other developers were gone before 2009 to 2010 glennmcc released some super-secret very minor updates to 1.95 2011-Feb RayeR enhanced screen resolution and released an Arachne package with this single update 2012 super-secret CORE.EXE updates (URL length limit) 2013-Mar-06 despite the death announce repeated many times, glennmcc released version 1.97 , including RayeR ’s patch as well as many minor updates implemented by himself all the time from 2009 to 2013 it’s unclear whether glennmcc or anyone else is going to continue the development. 1.3 Contributors. origins: Michael Polák , Zdenek Harovnik , Ivan Polak , Jan Vlaciha , Erick Engelke (WATTCP) GPL development: Joe da Silva , Ray Andrews , Christof Lange , Andrej Cuckov , Michal Tyc , Vladimir B. Merlichenko , Laaca , Glenn McCorkle , Udo , RayeR. 1.4 Functionality. Graphical web browser with support of tables & images, lick clicking Support of various VGA and VESA modes (up to 1024×768×16bpp, or even 1600×1200×16bpp since RayeR ’s version and 1.97), built-in screenshot feature (see below) Mouse wheel support (needs appropriate driver) HTML 3.2 with a subset of HTML 4.0 FTP download and upload Interactive pages: Queries / Login / Post (not perfect) Copy and Paste from web pages to disk and web forms (not perfect) Save HTML page text into a plain-text file (formatting partially preserved) BMP, GIF (static and animated), JPG and PNG (slightly buggy) images POP3/SMTP IRC Newsgroups Support of various languages. German and French built-in and very good now, for some other there are APM’s . Also UTF-8 encoded pages are supported (not perfect, but progressing) … Not yet supported: HTTPS/SSL/TLS (encrypted connections) HTTP uploads (file hosting, forum attachments) Javascript Java Applets APNG (animated PNG) HTML 5 audio and video (minimally “recognized” in 1.97, but see below) HTML 5 other features “Flash” (but see below about “Accessing video” ;-) ) Most XML-related technologies (AJAX, MathML, SVG, …) DBCS characters Frames and “tabbed browsing” / multiple screens / “windows” Downloading in the background (can download only 1 file at same time, and fully “busy” with this task then) … Partial support / known problems / bugs: Page layout not always correct (too “big”) CSS - incomplete handling: Arachne can use only one CSS style sheet If a page has several CSS files linked … Arachne will only see the last one in the list Only supports this format for linked CSS style sheets: Can deadloop on buggy CSS in rare cases (Acid2 test, see below) Font switching not supported, there is only one font Bold and Italic supported Changing text size and colours supported (yeah . ), however, there are many ways to do this, and Arachne supports only the old “deprecated” HTML 3.xx methods, thus nowadays, with most pages using HTML 4.xx / CSS or HTML 5, including this Wiki, it won’t work and all the text will be standard size and black, see below for info and tests Refresh issues (see above) Page truncation (now fixed ?) Sometimes breaks formatting Can damage some “unusual” characters MediaWiki: can login, but not register (“critical server error, we’ll fix it ASAP” :-D ), editing possible Can edit pages up to 32 KiB source text size only, larger ones are not saved. An old version was included into PTS-DOS, also some FreeDOS distros do include a version. 1.5 Project pages / Forums / Download / Links. glennmcc.dyndns.org - primary (link may not work, C&P manually then) - sometimes buggy (empty) Original forum (now mostly off-topic) New Arachne forum (but no development anymore, empty, now dead) (dead) (still online but no activity) (dead) Minimal update 2014-Jan-22: bttr-software.de…id=13401 (topic has misleading name, but it’s indeed about Arachne, scroll down) Main distribution : Arachne v1.97;GPL at glennmcc.org/arachne. A new 8086-compatible version is available again The older Arachne v1.90;J1 with support of IRC, NTTP and RSS at home.arcor.de/dosps2/arachne.htm Ray Andrew’s Arachne Distro with Arachne v1.90;R1 at http://glennmcc.org/ (2008–01–23) http://www.glennmcc.org/rayandrews source code is “cleaner” faster needs less memory. APM Arachne plugins can be downloaded from: - primary - won’t auto-install because of bad server settings - many APM’s but very old (dead ?) BTTR forum 2011-Feb: RayeR ’s patch, Ray Andrews ’s development plans (didn’t work) PDF2HTM, a PDF-plugin for Arachne: djvomght.dyndns.org See also (some Arachne and DOS infos): geocities.com/j_ds_au (dead) Some old versions of Arachne are archived and can be downloaded from here: http://home.hetnet.nl/ 1.6 Internal design, hardware compatibility, performance. As of 1.97, Arachne is still a 16-bit real mode application. The core file providing the network access (via dial-up or packer driver, using included WATTCP library), GUI with mouse support (using the LOPIF library), HTML rendering, GIF decoding (also animated, code “moved out” from LOPIF library) and BMP support is named CORE.EXE and is a 16-bit real mode executable, source code is in C language and compiles with the Borland C 3.1 compiler. The main version is “optimized” for “387″, thus at least 80386 CPU + FPU are required, however there is also a (bigger and slower) version for 8086 (no FPU required either). The core can’t decode JPG or PNG, this is done by external “file-to-file” decoders. For JPG both 16-bit and 32-bit versions are supplied, 32-bit is the default, for PNG only a 32-bit version exists. The 32-bit decoders are compiled with DJGPP and don’t include any DPMI host, thus CWSDPMI will be searched if no host is resident yet. It might be a good idea to replace the buggy included CWSDPMI r3 by r5 or r7 or HDPMI32, and make it resident. Obviously decoding with writing to a disk is very slow, so a RAMDISK should be supplied for this purpose. Also since the low memory provided by DOS is obviously insufficient for Arachne’s work, it is necessary to provide XMS (preferred, needs many handles so something like DEVICE=HIMEMX.EXE /NUMHANDLES=72 should be done at DOS startup), EMS, or, as very worst choice, swap space on the disk (you also can swap to a RAMDISK, bypassing Arachne’s limited amount of XMS supported). … VESA hardcoded mode numbers, 1028×768 or 1600×1200 limit, support of ancient cards, removed by Ray (?) … 1.7 Handling of various file types, “MIME.CFG” file. Arachne can receive various file types from the Internet using HTTP or FTP, or from local storage. Handling of them depends from the file type determined following way : Files downloaded using HTTP are classified by the “content type” sent by the server (for example “image/png” for PNG), press “=“ to check, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_media_type for more info and a complete list. No attempt is made to autodetect file type by content. The file “MIME.CFG” defines file types by “content type” and extension, and actions for those files (for example HTM is displayed “directly”, PNG is fed into an external decoder, DOC or PDF kept as downloaded). Unknown types are kept as downloaded. 1.8 Downloading from Rapidshare (obsolete ?) 1.9 Accessing video (partially obsolete) Using MPLAYER. Information about MPlayer and Arachne (support of streaming) is available here: Downloading videos from YouTube using APM’s. YTCRACK by Fred (see Arachne forum and Fred ’s page) Online services (obsolete) “FLVRETRIEVER” service allows (no longer) to download “FLASH” FLV files from online video services like YouTube or GoogleVideo for later viewing with MPLAYER - other browsers display them using JS+FLASH “technology” (without allowing easily to save the complete file), Arachne can’t do anything - you will be asked to install and enable JS+Flash, see GallBrowsers . For FireFox browser there is “MediaPirate” plugin allowing to download the file, thus FLVRETIREVER just replaces this “pirate” :-D. Also there is the new OGG Theora based video hosting service Tinyvid . It allowed you to post a YouTube link and the server will pick the video from there and convert it into Theora. The transfer + conversion will take some time, so you will have to recheck the result page later to get the video. The primary purpose of the thing was testing of the new HTML 5 video support in Firefox (final 3.5, was originally 3.1 beta), however it also allows to download the resulting movie “the straightforward way” , so it is useful to bypass YouTube’s incompatibility with Arachne as well (videos still there but no conversion anymore - needs login and this doesn’t work …). Youtube is apparently (slowly) switching form Flash to HTML5 using WebM/VP8 and MPEG4/X264 codecs. But they still try to prevent people from downloading the movies.