History of Arachne WWW browser
------------------------------

1.0 beta 4
----------

Release date: 27th January 1997
   Bug fixes: tables ("Netscape homepage bug" and others), hotkeys bugs,
              "yahoo search bug" (error in form submitting), ">" entity,
              Linux POP3 download bug, conversion bugs, many other bugs.
              Cache size restricted to 256 files to reduce problems.
Improvements: 16 color VGA and EGA modes, registration key support,
              links to <FRAME> sources (!), query strings passed to DGIs,
              <Backspace> returns to previous document, <Shift>+<PgUp>,<PgDn>,
     Message: There are signals, that in future Arachne may be used in
              some slot-machines for public Internet access. This can mean
              that more people taking care about optimizing pages for Arachne
              and other "Other" browsers, like Lynx, Mosaic, etc.
              It can be important step forcing webmasters to keep
              high informational value of WWW and stop the latest "putting
              TV-shit online" trends. REGISTER NOW to keep Arachne project
              alive! Final release of 1.0 will appear until end of February.
     Warning: No more changing homepage with <F4> in Volkov commander!
              I take no responsibility for possible side effects of cracking
              CORE.EXE, remember, I am not so bad programer... <g>

1.0 beta 3
----------

Release date: 6th January 1997
   Bug fixes: tables, documentation, miscalaneous bugs
Improvements: background download of HTML documents, slight speed improvement,
              1024x768 graphics mode, keyboard select <Tab>.
     Message: Author have new e-mail address - xchaos@main.naf.cz

1.0 beta 2
----------

Release date: 22th December 1996
   Bug fixes: gopher, finger, jpeg conversion, DGI calls, some HTML entities
Improvements: EscExits and LoadImages variable in ARACHNE.CFG, Load images
              icon, Arachne now calls external telnet and ftp, public domain
              Clarkson Univesity telnet and ftp binaries added to package

The way to 1.0 beta
-------------------

I first attempted to compile some DOS TCP/IP application at university in 1995.
It was based on NCSA Telnet sources, and for some strange reasons, the
attempt was complete failure. I didn't know much about TCP/IP at that time.

Then, as I started working as a webmaster for Video On Line, where I had
enought spare time to learn about TCP/IP protocols, to search WWW for
important software.... I started to hate Windows 95 as I was forced to
work with them. I started also with C programming for Unix, etc.

One day I tried to search Altavista for "WWW browser for DOS" - and I was
very surprised, that it found nothing! Well, there were about three or four
pseudo-browsers (Doslynx, Knots, Minuet and Open World Navigator), which
were so useless compared to Netscape, that I decided, to try it on my own.
In fact, another DOS browser, SPIN, would probably discourage me from writing
Arachne, because the version I had oportunity to see last month was almost
usable. But it was also extremely unstable, and generaly, it could be compared
to Arachne somewhere in version 0.91-0.92. And it was also much slower, at
least on my computer.

The reason why Arachne is so good is, that software included in Arachne
package is result of years of work of many good programers. Only few of
them are people I know... that's the cyberspace! My work can be best
described as "source code archeology" :-).

I only came, and linked it all together. Well, I also wrote HTML rendering
engine but compared to TCP/IP kernel, my HTML engine is children's toy.

Arachne is in fact based on "Popdump" aplication distributed
as example for using WatTcp TCP/IP library. I started work in April 1996
and I released several alfaversions (0.7, 0.8, etc...) for testing.
Then, when I made version about 0.9?? and started testing online homepage,
one of testers added my URL to Altavista, and it is the reason why
alfaversions 0.9?? ... 0.99 spreaded among people. When Arachne was once
"released", I simply had to fix the major bugs and publish at least
the most important updates.

In fact, my first official release was version 1.0 beta, and it
is also where the history list will start. I will not mention
any bug fixes form alfaversion, except of one: I succesfuly fixed the packet
driver interrupt crash (it was occuring in the moment when Arachne was
accessing XMS, which happens very often). It was most important event in
the alfaversion history. This bug is fixed cca since version 0.93 or so.

So - please DELETE ANY ARACHNE OLDER THAN VERSION 1.0 beta and upgrade !!!