In the Internet from under DosBox. Text and graphic browsers for Dos
Want to see how the modern Internet looks from under the black windows of DOS? Do not want to collect for this machine on the old iron? DosBox will help you to plunge into the abyss of the classics.
Under the cut, instructions on how to configure DosBox for access to a clean Internet, examples of launching 3 different dos browsers (including graphics!), Really LOTS of screenshots, as well as, for the impatient, an archive with DosBox already configured (windows- version) and older browsers.
Cross-platform browser, came to us from Linux, ported to many OS. Under Dos there are several ports created by different people. Uses text mode, so it will start and will work quickly even on the 386, or even the 286 processor, which is very good for us!
Before launching, you need to edit the WATTCP.CFG file - set the ip of your computer (better - not the same as the physical machine), the address of the DNS server, the gateway.
Run the lynx.bat file, correcting inside the path. This is important, because it defines several browser-critical environment variables.
To go to the url, you need to press the g key (because Go ) and enter the address. We open, well, let's say, habr.
However, transliteration! Long time no see, my friend, but I would not give up the normal Russian language. Press the O ( options , as prompted by the cap) - we find ourselves in the settings menu of the browser, where we reconfigure the encoding:
... disable cookies questions,
In the end - do not forget to tick and save! True, some of the options (marked with an exclamation mark (!) Will not be saved anyway - maybe they can still be written in the configuration file?).
Doom, now is another matter:
Log in, however, did not work - the captcha is very graphic. Habr's authors do not care about DOS users (and who cares?). And through social. Networks do not enter - the feature also works through pictures and JS. Well, okay, we can read.
Google is also quite usable:
Here it was not possible to defeat the google post - at the last stage, an incorrect looped redirect begins. But github and mail.ru quite earned themselves:
In general, lynx is quite suitable for use, it can also download files, although our native Internet looks like it is, to put it mildly, unusual.
This browser is mentioned in runet very often, as the only graphic under DOS. Well, let's try.
Download, run - went installation and configuration. There is no need to delve into the config files - everything is visually.
Installed. Fine. Now we put the plugin to support cp1251 (downloaded separately).
We open Habr - and we understand that the whole Runet has been transferred to UTF-8 quite a while ago.
There is no plugin to support utf-8. It's a shame. It's a shame. But some sites still work with win-1251 (and even then not everywhere and not always):
It's cool, of course, but alas, alas, with this browser a considerable part of the runet will not be accessible to us. It's a pity. However, the English part of the Internet is quite accessible. But in terms of universality, this browser is inferior to lynx .
Further searches led me to this browser, and they paid off in full.
First, we traditionally configure IPs in the etc / wattcp.cfg file (as in lynx). And now let's open something interesting, for example - Habr ...
Hurrra! Earned! Yes, the layout breaks, PNG is not displayed, the title bar is in the wrong encoding, but it works! Dear utf8, I missed you ...
However, it will not be possible to log in anyway. Pancake. Well, for complete happiness, https is also not supported (or I didn’t understand something), so, oddly enough, in some respects this browser loses to lynx . However, the benefit is still greater than from arachne .
Here they are, the good old DOS-browsers. Of course, the support for new JS, CSS3 and HTML5 can even not stutter, besides, PNG is also not shown, but the network can still be used minimally - and this is definitely a victory.
Do you know other DOS browsers? Found a bug? Waiting for your comments!
Further, as promised - a link to download an already configured DosBox with all the specified browsers (only the IP and the name of the network card will have to be corrected). Weight - 15.2 mb.
Under the cut, instructions on how to configure DosBox for access to a clean Internet, examples of launching 3 different dos browsers (including graphics!), Really LOTS of screenshots, as well as, for the impatient, an archive with DosBox already configured (windows- version) and older browsers.
What we need
- A computer that goes online via cable , for example, through a router. I’ve got problems with setting up for Wi-Fi, although maybe it’s all my hands and you’ll have better luck.
- Special
streetversion of DosBox . On the official website, the version was last updated in mid-2010, so we’ll download some build, for example, this home.arcor.de/hal-9000 - as a matter of fact, only the network patch is included, but the version is generally based on 2009 Or this one - there are much more extensions there, for example, there is support for Glide (yeah, Voodoo 1-2 emulation - but that's another story). - Library Pcap Library - used by DosBox to access the real Internet.
- Packet driver - DOS network card driver for TCP / IP support. DosBox emulates the ne2000 card. I do not remember where I downloaded the driver; you will immediately find it in the archive.
- Browser under Dos . I propose to try (and the article will be considered) 3 at once - Lynx, Arachne and DilloDOS - very few people remember about the latter in the runet, and in the meantime ... Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
- The file manager is more convenient with him. The command line is good, but I'm used to navigating directories visually. I took the Volkov Commander because of the size, but if you want to take, for example, Norton - you are welcome
Installation
- Unpacking DosBox in any directory. Inside we do the folder “disk_c” - it will be the root of our virtual system for it, the virtual disk C. Again, you can place it in any other place, but do not forget about editing the paths on your own.
- We unpack drivers, browsers, file manager, toys into it ... All that is useful to us under dos.
- Install Pcap
- We make some adjustments to the dosbox.conf configuration file, in particular, we enable Russian language support.
We slightly increase the available video and conventional memory.
')
switch the network card to “show the list of available adapters”
We are mounting a virtual hard disk, launching the network driver and file manager.
- First start. In the debug console window we can see the list of network cards. Now we return to the configuration file and change the “list” for something more - to the number of the network card from the list OR part of the name.
In addition, you can now disable this debugging console altogether - to do this, use the launch of the program with the key “-noconsole”. If you download the full archive - for you there is already prepared. batch file “run without console.cmd”. - All is ready. Now you can proceed to setting up browsers, they will be told personally.
Lynx.
Cross-platform browser, came to us from Linux, ported to many OS. Under Dos there are several ports created by different people. Uses text mode, so it will start and will work quickly even on the 386, or even the 286 processor, which is very good for us!
Before launching, you need to edit the WATTCP.CFG file - set the ip of your computer (better - not the same as the physical machine), the address of the DNS server, the gateway.
Run the lynx.bat file, correcting inside the path. This is important, because it defines several browser-critical environment variables.
To go to the url, you need to press the g key (because Go ) and enter the address. We open, well, let's say, habr.
However, transliteration! Long time no see, my friend, but I would not give up the normal Russian language. Press the O ( options , as prompted by the cap) - we find ourselves in the settings menu of the browser, where we reconfigure the encoding:
... disable cookies questions,
In the end - do not forget to tick and save! True, some of the options (marked with an exclamation mark (!) Will not be saved anyway - maybe they can still be written in the configuration file?).
Doom, now is another matter:
Log in, however, did not work - the captcha is very graphic. Habr's authors do not care about DOS users (and who cares?). And through social. Networks do not enter - the feature also works through pictures and JS. Well, okay, we can read.
Google is also quite usable:
Here it was not possible to defeat the google post - at the last stage, an incorrect looped redirect begins. But github and mail.ru quite earned themselves:
In general, lynx is quite suitable for use, it can also download files, although our native Internet looks like it is, to put it mildly, unusual.
Arachne
This browser is mentioned in runet very often, as the only graphic under DOS. Well, let's try.
Download, run - went installation and configuration. There is no need to delve into the config files - everything is visually.
A bunch of installation screenshots
Installed. Fine. Now we put the plugin to support cp1251 (downloaded separately).
The second bunch of screenshots - now but setting the encoding
We open Habr - and we understand that the whole Runet has been transferred to UTF-8 quite a while ago.
There is no plugin to support utf-8. It's a shame. It's a shame. But some sites still work with win-1251 (and even then not everywhere and not always):
It's cool, of course, but alas, alas, with this browser a considerable part of the runet will not be accessible to us. It's a pity. However, the English part of the Internet is quite accessible. But in terms of universality, this browser is inferior to lynx .
DilloDOS
Further searches led me to this browser, and they paid off in full.
First, we traditionally configure IPs in the etc / wattcp.cfg file (as in lynx). And now let's open something interesting, for example - Habr ...
Hurrra! Earned! Yes, the layout breaks, PNG is not displayed, the title bar is in the wrong encoding, but it works! Dear utf8, I missed you ...
However, it will not be possible to log in anyway. Pancake. Well, for complete happiness, https is also not supported (or I didn’t understand something), so, oddly enough, in some respects this browser loses to lynx . However, the benefit is still greater than from arachne .
Here they are, the good old DOS-browsers. Of course, the support for new JS, CSS3 and HTML5 can even not stutter, besides, PNG is also not shown, but the network can still be used minimally - and this is definitely a victory.
Do you know other DOS browsers? Found a bug? Waiting for your comments!
Further, as promised - a link to download an already configured DosBox with all the specified browsers (only the IP and the name of the network card will have to be corrected). Weight - 15.2 mb.
References
- Web browsers for DOS
- Arachne - official site
- Russian site about Arachne
- Website author patch for DosBox with network card support
- Site build all the latest patches dosbox'a
- The section on the site old-games.ru, in which I suggested a lot of useful
- Subject on the forum old-games.ru , where I was advised where to dig and what to try
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/170733/
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