On (12 Apr 97) Matthew Johnson wrote to Stephen Haffly...
Hi Matthew,

 MJ> driver supplied and then run arachne. I set it up as if I have an
 MJ> ethernet connection, and each time I go into arachne I have to go the
 MJ> the ethernet setup and enter the IP address. It is a little clumbsy
 MJ> but it works, the the program runs well on NWDos 7. I haven't had a
 MJ> chance
 MJ> to try it on OpenDOS yet, but from what I've seen it is basically the
 MJ> same as NWDos.
Since arriving back in Arizona, I tried Arachne again, and now I can get
it to work.  I got the latest beta (beta9), and aside from a few quirks
on pages with forms (e.g. it doesn't get the reply always when a form is
submitted), it works well for most pages.  My ISP is Primenet, and their
login proceedures work much nicer than what I was trying in Korea.
 MJ> I didn't get that far with DosLynx, and I did not like NetTamer at
 MJ> all.
I haven't tried DosLynx since my ISP also has a shell account with a
menu.  One of the options is to use Lynx from there, and it works well,
but no graphics.  I like the idea of NetTamer, and in some respects it
is more complete than Arachne, but it doesn't have the ease of use that
Arachne does.
 MJ> Now, dragging this back on topic, there are supposedly at least 2
 MJ> projects going on to produce web browsers for NDO. Do we know what the
 MJ> status of them are? I'm trying to work out whether to register arachne
 MJ> or wait.
That is the big question.  I finally found that New Deal's web page is
active, so I looked for information there.  (got the link from Geoworks'
page).  It talked about this spring or this summer for NDO 97 or web
capabilities.  I plan on holding off for now since Arachne works, and
the author's notes indicate it is OK to use it without registering.  You
don't get support, and registration is supposed to unlock some items for
more capability.  Currently, individual registration is $20 US, but when
the non-beta version is released, it probably will be higher.  That in
itself may be incentive to register.
Personally, I really would like to compare a GEOS based one.  Hopefully,
it would have the capability, like OS/2's various utilities to have more
than one active at a time.  The major annoyance of Arachne for me is the
single threaded DOS approach.  I have been spoiled by Geoworks Ensemble
and OS/2.
Anyway, it would be pure speculation on my part to try to guess just
what it will be like until more information is available from New Deal,
Inc.  Hopefully, that will be soon.  I would gladly alpha/beta test it.
TTYL,
Stephen
Team OS/2, Team GEOS
OS/2 & Geoworks Ensemble - What a combo!
... Geoworks - it's everything Windows should have been!
--- PPoint 2.02
---------------