Arachne Frequently Asked Questions

In 1996, the Internet was not well integrated with everyday computing at all, and I had many ideas which I considered original; at the same time, it looked like Microsoft wanted and wants to have a total monopoly in all categories of software - especially the general purpose software for end users. Major web sites suddenly started to attract millions of visitors, while web pages of normal internet users had little chance to become popular without advertising - it seemed like the Internet wouldn't be this wonderful free place where people could share ideas and emotions (and it isn't, BTW ;-) I was simply a student with insufficient funds to upgrade my PC - if someone had given me something more powerful than a 386 with 5 MB of RAM, I would probably have installed Linux and spent the rest of my life trying to compile the Enlightenment windows manager ;-)

Yes. xChaos software licensed the full source code of Arachne to Caldera UK. People from Caldera added their own animated GIFs and a Novell dialer, completely changed the design of the browser, implemented their own support for frames, and succeeded in compiling all this stuff as a 32 bit application. DOS Arachne is a 16 bit application.

Caldera doesn't have exclusive access to Arachne in any way, so you can choose from two DOS browsers.

The DOS version of Arachne will probably never support binary Java applets (<APPLET> tag), but it will support JavaScript (<SCRIPT> tag) - we are working on it.

We are planning to add Hercules and full CGA support later, because it is essential for compatibility with hand-held devices and Personal Digital Assistants, which usually use monochrome graphics.

Arachne partly works on HP-LX series palmtops and further optimization of Arachne for these palmtops is planned.

However, our ability to support nonstandard hardware is limited. We suggest you buy (or rather find in a trashcan ;-) some secondhand ISA SVGA card with 512 or more KB of memory - Arachne would look just terrible on a monochromatic screen anyway. You can check experimental CGA support if you don't believe me.

There's a long list of methods to speed up the DOS version of Arachne - that list is part of the documentation distributed together with Arachne. Because the list is quite long and confusing, let's summarize it: You need at least a 33 Mhz processor to do anything useful with Arachne. This usually means a 386- or 486-compatible CPU. You have to use some kind of disk cache (SMARTDRV, NWCACHE) or run Arachne from some kind of virtual disk - "RAM disk". This totally disqualifies PCs with less than 2 MB of memory - on such hardware, you can use Arachne to occasionally view short HTML pages with few images, but don't expect anything more. If you have only 2 MB, dedicate 512 KB for EMS or XMS, 512 KB for disk cache, and pray. If you would rather read mail than view web pages, you should perhaps allocate as big a RAM disk as you can, point your %TEMP% enviroment variable to it and let Arachne "swap to disk" and cache local objects to the %TEMP% directory. Of course, it is optimal to have all three accelerators: lots of free XMS, enabled disk cache, and the TEMP enviroment variable pointing to the RAMdisk.

The Arachne eMail reader is not really usable without at least 4 MB of memory used for heavy disk caching (1 MB DOS/1 MB XMS/1 MB disk cache/1 MB for %TEMP% on RAMdisk). If you don't have 4 MB, you can try to use text mode Pegasus mail for DOS to read and compress messages downloaded by Arachne.

Our dialer setup screen is not able to deal with some extreme, non-standard modem configurations. (for example, with the modem on COM4 and no COM3 device, you may have to pretend it is on COM2 and manually select the correct base address and irq for COM4; you can also try to enter your parameters to ARACHNE.CFG manually)

Arachne Labs is not responsible for any included or recommended PPP dialer: we only wrote user friendly HTML setup screens for DOSPPPD. This DOS port of Linux pppd seems to work on many typical DOS based PCs. Plug your external modem into COM2 (mouse on COM1) or internal modem to COM3, irq 4 (mouse on COM2), and everything will be all right.

Problems arise with Windows-specific internal devices - Winmodems. They require specific drivers to be used, and if such driver is not available for DOS, you are lost. When buying an internal modem, always make sure that it will be visible to your BIOS/DOS as a third serial port - otherwise you won't be able to use it with operating systems like Linux or DOS.

Some PPP implementations are more standard, some less standard. The DOSPPPD dialer included in the Arachne package should be able to manage both PAP and CHAP password authentication. But there can be other problems, e.g., dynamic assignment by the DNS server. Arachne needs to know the IP of at least one fixed DNS server to run.

Another problem is that although MINITERM managed to tell your modem to connect with your provider's modem, this doesn't automaticaly mean that the DOSPPPD will accept the same port settings as the MINITERM dialer. They are two different programs...

JPEGs images are very slow to decompress - well, there are some ultrafast JPEG viewers, but usually viewing BMP is much faster than viewing JPEG. Imagine if, on PCs that are not able to handle virtual screens, Arachne had to decompress all JPEGs each time you scrolled the page! And even on PCs with virtual screens enabled, Arachne would have to decompress JPEGs each time you returned to a previous or cached page.

If you prefer images in CACHE to be stored as GIFs rather than BMPs, you can make some changes to your MIME.CFG (you will find some tips on how to do it in that file). It will occupy less disk space but it will be also much slower. The image quality of GIFs may be better for 16 color mode - but you will loose quality if you are using HiColor mode.

With the PNG format, the situation is more complicated. PNG format should replace GIF in the future. But currently there are only a few PNG images online, and adding PNG support directly to CORE.EXE would be inefficient.

Maybe in future Arachne will convert JPEGs "on the fly" while downloading them - but they will always be converted to some faster image format.

It is part of the Hotlist ! You add any mailto: type URLs to the hotlist, either when writing e-mail, or manually, or you can right-click the mailto: type links before actually clicking the "Add to hotlist" icon.

Merging of "bookmarks" and "addressbook" into one simple HTML file is my invention; I believe that it may be useful to be able to easily transfer your "Personalized Internet" onto a floppy or by e-mail in a single file.

Of course - if you don't want your Hotlist to look too messy, you have to use the Hotlist manager regularly...

In Czech, I prounounce Arachne as "ur-uch-nae", where "ch" sounds the same ways as in the German word "Ich" ("me") and "u" sounds the same way as in "under". xChaos sounds like "iks-chu-os", with the same "ch" and "u".

But in English, most people usually pronounce Arachne as "A-rak-ne", where "a" sounds the same way as in "about" and "e" sounds the same way as in "eat". xChaos is usually pronounced like "iks-keios".

Cache vs Ramdisk: Frequently Asked Questions             Revised  01/01/10

Q:  What's better, a big HD cache or a Ramdisk ?
A:  That depends on how much memory you have, how much free HD space,
    what applications you run, your flexibility requirements, whom you ask.

Q:  I need to run many disk intensive applications throughout the day.
    Arachne is just one of them. What's best for me - cache or ramdisk ?
A:  A big HD cache would be useable by all programs - not just one.
    A ramdisk is the fastest way to go if you swap programs.

Q:  I have more than 16Megs of memory but my HD is full. What's best for
    me - cache or ramdisk ?
A:  An 8Mb ramdisk will let you run almost anything fast, and if you load
    it from zipped sources your HD space requirements will be minimized.

Q:  I only have 8 megs of memory, but all I want to run is Arachne.
    What's best for me - cache or ramdisk ?
A:  A 4 to 5 Mb ramdisk would give you instant access to even infrequently
    used functions if you put all of Arachne on it.  The same size disk
    cache won't function nearly as well for much Arachne use, but it will
    give you more available XMS memory.

Q:  I only have 2 megs of ram in my '286, but I want to run Arachne.
    What's best for me - cache, ramdisk or XMS ?
A:  With a '286 you can't have XMS. Make a 384k ramdisk. Put command
    on it. Put \TEMP on it. Use all the rest for HD cache.

Q:  I only have 4 megs of ram in my '386, but I only want to run Arachne.
    What's best for me - cache, ramdisk or XMS ?
A:  This is the most difficult one to answer.
    *   Revised:
    The simple answer is: Make a 512k ramdisk. Put command.com on it.
    Put \TEMP on it. Allocate .5 to 1.5meg to an optimized HD cache -
    (512k-1536k). This will leave 2048k to 1024k for XMS respectively.
    *   Revised:
    The complicated answer is: Make a 2.1Mb ramdisk.(2152k) Compress it
    with Stacker or Doublespace.  Put command.com on it.  Put \TEMP on it.
    Set COMSPEC=RAMDISK:\COMMAND.COM and Set ARACHNETEMP=RAMDISK:\TEMP.
    Unzip a trimmed ARACHNE install onto it. No background *.gifs and no
    WIZ*.* in system\gui or system\dgi, no system\pktdrvrs, system\apm.db.
    Leave Arachne cache and cacheindex on the HD and set Cache2temp Yes.
    Also leave the HOTLIST plus Mail and Download directories on the HD.
    Allocate 340k to the HD cache.  This leaves 576k for XMS.
    Disable virtual screens. Try it. It seems faster this way.

Q:  Where do I find out how to set up a Ramdisk ?
A:  See the HOWto: ARAMDISK.txt

Q:  Where do I find out how to set up a Hard Disk Cache ?
A:  See the HOWto: ARACACHE.txt

Q:  Where do I find out how to optimize my Cache or Ramdisk for speed ?
A:  Find the utility Speedchk.zip.