A Czech programmer has developed a graphical Web browser called Arachne, the technology of which is being sold to PC makers who plan to use it as part of a cheap, ubiquitous Network Computer.
Arachne is no ordinary graphical browser. Although it surfs the Web like the bigger players do, Arachne is a little unusual in that it chooses to cruise on top of DOS, the king OS of the 1980s personal computer.
In the heady, info-age '90s, a DOS browser might seem out of place. But surfing the Web with DOS is not unheard of; a number of text-based DOS browsers are already available, including Bobcat, a variant of the still-popular text-only Lynx browser that was de rigueur in the days before Netscape's predecessor, Mosaic.
That such a beast was developed by a lone Prague hacker to run on an OS as laughable in today's world as DOS, should send a message to the development teams of today's obese browsers: Shed a few bytes. Arachne requires only 640 KB of RAM and 2 MB of hard-disk space. With this, users have a sound-supporting, HTML 3.2-compliant browser with direct support for common videocards, including VGA.
By contrast, Internet Explorer and Navigator might run with 4 MB of RAM, but the newer versions of these browsers need more - at least 12 MB - to be useful. And they take up more room on the hard disk; both need roughly 20 MB of space.
DOS advocate Christian dela Cruz sees Arachne as only the beginning for graphical DOS browsers. Dela Cruz, an HTML programmer who works in DOS, is the creator of a Web site dedicated to DOS browsers. Of the six browsers he lists, five are new for 1997.
He believes that DOS technology offers numerous benefits that are not found in Windows-type environments. For example, Arachne lets users change resolution modes and colors with a single keystroke. "[That] simply doesn't exist on GUI environments without adversely affecting all other applications on the system," says dela Cruz.
Perhaps the greatest benefit is the bottom line - cost savings, which has a double meaning to dela Cruz who values the fact that Arachne runs on both 286- and 386-based systems. "The hardware requirements for DOS browsers are minimal, while the time-savings are substantial."
Still, users do give up some things with Arachne. Frames are displayed one screen at a time, and currently there is no Java or ActiveX support, though a movement to run the former is in the works.
As shareware, Arachne is cheap. Martin Soucek at Prague's Network and Fiction, the worldwide distributor of Arachne, says that many schools and nonprofit organizations are taking advantage of the free registration offered to them. And in the past five months, Soucek says his shipments have increased to reflect a growing number of users.
But not everyone can become an Arachne user. Developer Michael Polak, who is against war and monopolies, forbids the use of his product by military units and by Czech telecom.
This little twist of subversion is perhaps part of the reason Arachne was written in the first place. Polak has called his browser the "ultimate point of resistance" against the bloat of Microsoft Windows.
"I don't believe in personal computers; I believe in 'personal servers' for everyone who may need them, and in Network terminals as widespread, as today phone and TV," Polak rants on his Web site. "I am dreaming to replace mass media with not-so-commercial 'people-to-people' media."
Despite this anti-corporate message, commercial entities are taking a strong interest in Arachne - open-software advocates Caldera are finalizing the release of WebSpyder, a low-cost NC software product based on a customized version of Arachne.
"[Caldera's] participation and their plans to extend this DOS-based browser into embedded systems further extends the impact DOS systems will have on the NC market," says dela Cruz.