KuroAno I'm just nitpicking here but JavaScript was actually invented for Netscape by a guy working there at the time, so it actually does support it. Though to be honest, I don't think it might be able to load LGR's website, as its code surely uses JavaScript features not available then.
Why not make a site that supports early netscape(ie 3.02) or IE 5.0 - yes in 5.5 the bugs were fixed - this is what prevents me to use windows 95 .How fast every site abandoned ie5.0-5.5 pages.
nah, they are not. A few years ago (after 2010 afaik) I read statistics of one of the major German news sites, which had around 3% of its (unique user) traffic with text browsers (mostly w3m and lynx). This was explained that when researching, it is easier to focus on the text only if the graphic and formatting part is not displayed, and thus it is (or was) used by journalists and other researchers. So Google Analytics probably knows what that is and it happens more often than one would think... And at least for w3m you can set up the user agent which will be transmitted to the host of the site, so some of the text browser traffic might be invisible for them anyways...
If you want a good search engine to use in DOS, try out duck duck go. It recognizes clients that can't handle the full version, and parses things in a VERY nice and easy to recognize interface.
Yep, that's right. DDG is my current favourite search engine and when I was using Firefox 1.5 on an old PC with Windows ME, it loaded a very simple page that just has the name, search box, and submit button.
RE:Joel: He's saying "just use it in general" as in "you should use it, even with modern computers with modern browsers". And I agree. It loads faster than Google and doesn't have all the extra junk on its pages that Google has, and it doesn't cache information about your search history like Google does.
There actually is a point to text based browsers, namely so blind people can use them with screen readers. It worries me that so many websites barf and can't fail gracefully if one or two precious scripts can't load. One should make it a goal as a web design er to make a website that makes displaying the information it holds available. If you design websites, you should give your work a spin in lynx and see just how badly it barfs, and maybe consider figuring out a way for it to fall into an accessible mode.
Sometime around '98 maybe, when I was still very much disappointed by the dead BBS scene, I started calling an "educational" Lynx-based BBS and poking around on the internet. But it was really annoying to have to download and view pictures from a web page individually. So I eventually wrote a combination of Commo script, batch files, and Turbo Pascal software to bridge the connection between my terminal program and Arachne. It had to download the html and all the images before it could be displayed, so it was far from optimal, but it worked and it saved a poor teenager from having to pay for internet.
I actually just had a Windows browser that basically did the same thing. It just used the Unix commands to start lynx and download everything. It even would go ahead and display the page before it had downloaded the images, and fill them in later. It also was why I lost my ISP. Because I used it to view some risque sites, and my ISP was through my school. Though I still think it was actually someone else using my account that did the actual worst of it. There was a sub in the computer lab, and I set up one of the computers in the lab to allow me to dialup into my account.
It also took me while to 'accept' the internet (and Windows) and the boring FTP after spending many years on boards ...gone were the colorful ANSI animations, realtime multiplayer games and chats, news and messaging system and remote control etc. all in one place... and yes, Internet was expensive too! Well, I closed my BBS in 2000, but I still got my USR COURIER-I's :)
My little wife and soulmate of 31 years who just passed a couple weeks back got me my first PC in 1994. I used it for BBS and games until 1995 then got on the net. I used Netscape Navigator for the browser but to connect I had to use something else I cant recall. I think I dialed my ISP with my modem then ran a program called tcp/ip or something..then opened Netscape. BLESS YOU BABY I MISS YOU.!
My grandfather created a website in the late 1980's and is still running today, although to be honest it still looks like an early 1990's website. It even has shareware and DOS supported programs...the website: www.interpex.com
I've actually managed to get my 486 on UA-cam before using some heavily modified lua scripts and wget to get the video then quickview pro to actually play the video. Worked pretty decent until YT decided to change the layout and how video player worked. All on hardware too, just a 3com card with the packet driver.
Very cool. I recall being online through both Win 3.X and Win 95. Never did utilize a DOS browser though. I remember preferring Netscape Navigator over IE.
Half the people from my company left for Netscape back then. I kinda wished I had too. Instead I went to company that flopped in the dot-com bubble. Netscape eventually succumbed to the might of Microsoft as well, but it hung on a bit longer.
You utter bastard. I trusted you, and now I have MS-DOS installed on my bathroom mirror _and I can't uninstall it._ More seriously though, I love Elinks! It's been extremely handy any time I've needed to browse the web from a *nix command line 😊
I remember DOS from the early 90's whilst I was training, and I had already used BASIC on many computers during the 80's, but I had never used DOS for the internet but if I opted to used TOR I'd have to get back into it.
Ahh the days of Novell Netware 3.0 ODI network card installs - nightmare back then but a secret pleasure when you got it working! Prestel and BBS my those were the days!
i actually still use elinks (and lynx) a lot in the linux console because i love seeing how far i can push vintage hardware! nothing like getting on (mobile basic) facebook on a computer that can't even run anything past windows 3.1
I love using Lynx when I feel nostalgic or have to stick with lowend hardware and poor connections for one reason or another. Reading news sites is still perfectly fine with it too, so I'm fine for the most part. Same goes for message boards.
yeah and they honestly work fine for the mbasic version of facebook too so you can even do real basic social media stuff with them which is really cool!
I like playing around with w3m. It's also saved my bacon a couple of times when I ran into problems with proprietary graphics drivers, and had to search for info from the virtual console.
Also great because no ads! Forget using an ad-blocker, just block everything except the text! Especially helpful if you need to browse Reddit but your internet connection is way too slow to use otherwise.
I used to use Arachne. The only computer I had for myself was a 486, so I'd download things at school and put them on floppy disk to read on Arachne. I probably could have hooked up a modem, the family computer was on the internet and we had an ISP account, but I just never did. That very slow sneakernet method worked well enough for me at the time.
Informative. I didn't know Freedos comes with a package manager! Thanks for that nugget of info! I also didn't know about the Dillo browser. Thanks mate.
0:03 - 0:13 and 0:40- 0:44 are the reasons why I smashed the like button. Although I also like the rest of the video but not enough to smash the button.
Seems my subscribed list of people all watch Steve1989. It is rather weird to see his name pop up either on screen or his name dropped in multiple peoples vids.
I've been using Arachne in dos to get on the internet for awhile. I have DOS 6.22 & WFW 3.11 running on a K6-2 300mhz with 256mb ram, voodoo 3 video & SB AWE32 audio, and of course an ethernet adapter. yeah... way overpowered. I haven't tried Dillo, but now I'm going to. Paul Rickard has created a little device, the WiFi232, that lets you connect your computer to wireless internet via the serial port. I've tested it so far on my TRS-80 Model 100 and my little Psion 3A. Next weekend I hope to try it out on my Compaq Aero. My personal goal is to eventually do as much of my computing as possible under DOS/WFW, and what I can't do in that environment I hope to be able to do in Linux.
Who remembers GOPHER? That new World Wide Web craze was never going to take off, or last. No one would ever need images, or active content, or anything other than those hierarchical directories within the GOPHER servers. Part of myself wishes it could go back to the days when human eyes were not automatically glued to their nearest active display.
Lovely, I like that retro stuff so much, you can also emulate that kind of thing with a random Linux Distribution running Window Maker as a window manager and a web browser like Links in command line or something else with a retro look, the only thing a wonder is that if links is actually secured.
Ok, I've been using DOS (and it's earlier alternate versions) since my dad got a TRS-80 in 1980, and I can blur pretty quickly around on my own PC or a simple network using DOS.... but I could not imagine trying to surf the web using DOS only in 2017. That's definitely giving yourself quite the handicap.. but I can kind of understand the challenge. wow, seeing some of these DOS prompt screens sure brings back old memories :)
I remember that some years ago I was able to setup the real FreeDOS (no VM) to surf the web with Arachne using a network card. It was awesome! I don't remember the steps but wasn't complicated.
I had wifi in DOS in 2001, and successfully used Arachne that way. My 802.11b PCMCIA card had DOS drivers which I used on my 486 laptop. Of course my "server" was Linux on another 486 with a 56k modem because my parents' phone line at the time couldn't handle ADSL.
Great video, but the title says "DOS Web Browsing in 2017 ", and there is a much more modern web browser for DOS, crated in 2016: Links 2.14 (not Lynx!). That's what I use normally. Doesn't support javascript, but it's fast enough and most of the things work pretty well. Supports Unicode, so it can display modern multi-language sites, Facebook works and even UA-cam, if you download the videos to play them offline. Mobile-friendly sites mostly work with it, and if you use it together with QuickView and MPXPlay (livestream music) and optionally mplayer (livestream videos) you can access most of the World Wide Web from DOS. Unfortunately I cannot find SWF-player for DOS and GNASH for Windows doesn't run properly with HX, so Flash content doesn't work properly, but Links is still the best DOS web browser for the modern internet I know.
There are a few more beefy featured browsers to add to the list, still under active development too! I use them while I work on the Linux terminal, but they have (or had in the past) a DOS port too. Lynx: CSS support, only text. Allows you to block cookies. colourized for easy reading. Links: if you pass the "-g" argument it starts in graphics mode, allowing you to see images. CSS compatible, partial Java support.
Back when I was using a Tandy 1000SX and 2400 baud modem, I remember trying lots of browsers, but the one that snagged me was called Boyan. It was the best of the lot and I used it the most.
I think by the time most early (if not earliest) adopters learned about the WWW, Mosaic was already available for Windows and Mac. I know I used it on my Mac in 1994. I recall at the time reading about Lynx, but I went with Mosaic instead.
There is the WiFi232 that you can connect to a 482 dos machine via the serial port. Basically allowing your dos machine to get wifi internet. Making it think it's a modem instead. Did cost $50, but not sure if he makes it anymore. I mean there are still BBS/telnet boards active on the web via dos even today.
I accessed the net through a terminal emulator in DOS connected to a VAX via dialup until 1998. When I made my first website I never even saw it what it looked like in anything except Lynx.
For Linux, a good text based terminal browser that I've been using allot is W3M but I still haven't sorted out all the shortcut keys for it yet. However I would really like to see updated browsers for these DOS browsers. Just would be fun to play around with.
Just to put this out there, properly configured elinks supports SSL, that's why it can even detect an "SSL Error" most common mistake is not setting the right time.
Elinks is not specifically dos , it a recompiled c+ version of the linux terminal browser compiled using cygwin environment , you could do the same with lynx
I still remember using the first Juno email client. It was free email that was advertisement based. That email address I got in 1996. I still have the same email address in Juno in 2017. Now I use it basically as a Spam account. Gmail is my primary email client. Has been since 2000.
Hi, Nostalgia Nerd. Love your videos! However, I was kind of surprised you didn't mention the Gopher protocol. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) ] Perhaps because it wasn't technically a web browser? There were a few dialup bbs's that had this back in the late 80's - early 90's.
You know, not that long ago, that's how Let's Plays worked. Sometimes with some screenshots thrown in too (the infamous Dwarf Fortress succession game Boatmurdered is a good example.)
A handful nodes and even less BBSes survive in The Netherlands. I have once succesfully connected to a node, but not to a BBS. There was noone to talk to... These days APRS (Automated Packet Reporting System) is all the rage on 144MHz Amateur Radio. It is pretty much only used for signal propagation reports.
Well, that's because BBSes where for trading, not for chatting. But once there where bidirectional protocols with integrated chat, like Hydracom, the chat with the sysop came along with the 3 hours of waiting :)
My first hotmail account was actually created at my local library via Elinks on their then new card catalog computer, but I just now found out the browser name.
I didn't know that there were browsers for dos, but I think that the thing with them is that you cannot even use your graphic card and that makes them way to slow.
I havne't listened yet. But I remember using Arachne back when Javascript wasn't a big deal. I used it on a computer that had trouble running Windows 3.1. I also used lynx and links on Unix.
namelsse Ah yes! Netscape Navigator 1.01b with Trumpet Winsock and dialer on Windows 3.1 on MS DOS 6.22 ... Nice times! Was also experimenting with Slackware Linux 3.0 at the time.. Minicom and pppd to dailup, and then launch Netscape Navigator for Linux. .(this was before nice integrated dialers like kppp )
Browsing the internet via ms dos feels more like browsing trough the bbs system, but it's a nice gimmick to go on the net that way, too bad many sites are pages of it will crash, it's more like a trial on error and hope for the best.
Yeah, I don't think DOS browsing was that common. I know I was already using the internet in 1994, but aside from the odd BBS service, I accessed everything from windows. 3.11 in that case. You actually had to use a telnet program in windows to dial the ISP and connect back then. It got a little smoother with windows 95, but still... Telnet was nessesary more than you might expect. By 1997 though.... Yeah, it was pretty trivial to get online. About as trivial as dial-up ever got anyway. The only thing that's changed since then in a broad sense is that broadband tends to be a an always on connection, and typically connected through a LAN port. I remember those days... Playing 128 player games of subspace... XD You wouldn't have thought so, but one of the first MMO's on the internet wasn't an RPG - it was a top down team co-op 2d space shooter. Created by Virgin Interactive Entertainment of all things. It's technically still around, more or less. Not in it's original form mind you. It's just that someone created a clone of the client, and there are lots of private servers around. Probably helps that it consisted mostly of private servers even when it was officially running, and you could download and run a server just as easily as using a client version. (bandwidth issues aside, obviously.)
I used Arachne a few times never got on with it. Most my early DOS internet browsing was done in custom web browsers from the provider. Compuserve had a nice one we used to use it to view gifs and jpgs in DOS.
Surely someone has made a mashup where the Candyman song is used to summon the Candyman, just because the word Candyman is repeated. (You know, the song from Willy Wonka, if you're stumped.)
Why you haven't used DOSbox for emulation? It provides also powerful native video devices, such as S3 or a more powerful ET4000, so the graphics look damn good, even on modern screens!
I just grabbed Lynx on my Linux box and found that about half of the webpages I check on a daily basis are usable, albeit with some annoying formatting, but they're at least usable.
Apologies for my site killing EVERYTHING
Nah, it was only the Internet Exploder, if he had tried it with Netscape i bet it would have worked. ;)
Does Netscape support javascript ? I don't think so.
KuroAno I'm just nitpicking here but JavaScript was actually invented for Netscape by a guy working there at the time, so it actually does support it.
Though to be honest, I don't think it might be able to load LGR's website, as its code surely uses JavaScript features not available then.
Oscarito Allegro Lynx says _no_ to LGR's page. i.imgur.com/KlpL8Jh.png
Why not make a site that supports early netscape(ie 3.02) or IE 5.0 - yes in 5.5 the bugs were fixed - this is what prevents me to use windows 95 .How fast every site abandoned ie5.0-5.5 pages.
I got lynx webbrowser working on my 80286 machine. I can imagine googleanalytics scratching their head on the user agent info😁
Synthusiast DOS, OS/2, CCP/M or UNIX ?
MS-DOS 6.22
*Synthusiast* How old is that??
I'm a noob when it comes to old stuff, I wasn't around to experience it all lol
My particular machine was from 1990/1991. I just used an ISA 3com ethernet card to connect to wired lan.
nah, they are not. A few years ago (after 2010 afaik) I read statistics of one of the major German news sites, which had around 3% of its (unique user) traffic with text browsers (mostly w3m and lynx). This was explained that when researching, it is easier to focus on the text only if the graphic and formatting part is not displayed, and thus it is (or was) used by journalists and other researchers. So Google Analytics probably knows what that is and it happens more often than one would think...
And at least for w3m you can set up the user agent which will be transmitted to the host of the site, so some of the text browser traffic might be invisible for them anyways...
If you want a good search engine to use in DOS, try out duck duck go. It recognizes clients that can't handle the full version, and parses things in a VERY nice and easy to recognize interface.
Well, I'm not the same person as the above, but what was hard to understand about my post? Browsers are clients.
Joel But It's Also A Bell the second guy is saying that duckduckgo is good for more than just browsing with less capable browsers
that is fun when you know most web pages nowdays are bigger than full dos games like doom...
Yep, that's right. DDG is my current favourite search engine and when I was using Firefox 1.5 on an old PC with Windows ME, it loaded a very simple page that just has the name, search box, and submit button.
RE:Joel: He's saying "just use it in general" as in "you should use it, even with modern computers with modern browsers". And I agree. It loads faster than Google and doesn't have all the extra junk on its pages that Google has, and it doesn't cache information about your search history like Google does.
This is the first time I've heard "for DOS" and "first released in 2001" when describing the same program.
The latest news on the original NES version of SimCity - in an MS-DOS web browser! (The space-time continuum catches fire or something.)
There actually is a point to text based browsers, namely so blind people can use them with screen readers. It worries me that so many websites barf and can't fail gracefully if one or two precious scripts can't load. One should make it a goal as a web design er to make a website that makes displaying the information it holds available.
If you design websites, you should give your work a spin in lynx and see just how badly it barfs, and maybe consider figuring out a way for it to fall into an accessible mode.
01:22 "Let's put this icon into a tray, nice"
Nice!
Let's check the capacitors ... Mmmm. No hiss.
YES, someone else noticed!
Sometime around '98 maybe, when I was still very much disappointed by the dead BBS scene, I started calling an "educational" Lynx-based BBS and poking around on the internet. But it was really annoying to have to download and view pictures from a web page individually. So I eventually wrote a combination of Commo script, batch files, and Turbo Pascal software to bridge the connection between my terminal program and Arachne. It had to download the html and all the images before it could be displayed, so it was far from optimal, but it worked and it saved a poor teenager from having to pay for internet.
I actually just had a Windows browser that basically did the same thing. It just used the Unix commands to start lynx and download everything.
It even would go ahead and display the page before it had downloaded the images, and fill them in later.
It also was why I lost my ISP. Because I used it to view some risque sites, and my ISP was through my school.
Though I still think it was actually someone else using my account that did the actual worst of it. There was a sub in the computer lab, and I set up one of the computers in the lab to allow me to dialup into my account.
It also took me while to 'accept' the internet (and Windows) and the boring FTP after spending many years on boards ...gone were the colorful ANSI animations, realtime multiplayer games and chats, news and messaging system and remote control etc. all in one place... and yes, Internet was expensive too! Well, I closed my BBS in 2000, but I still got my USR COURIER-I's :)
My little wife and soulmate of 31 years who just passed a couple weeks back got me my first PC in 1994. I used it for BBS and games until 1995 then got on the net. I used Netscape Navigator for the browser but to connect I had to use something else I cant recall. I think I dialed my ISP with my modem then ran a program called tcp/ip or something..then opened Netscape. BLESS YOU BABY I MISS YOU.!
Nostalgia Nerd is LGR but with a British accent. Not complaining at all. Glad to be here!
Let's put this browser on the tray. NICE!
My grandfather created a website in the late 1980's and is still running today, although to be honest it still looks like an early 1990's website. It even has shareware and DOS supported programs...the website: www.interpex.com
Holy crap, these are scientific data collection utilities! Very cool stuff! too bad I don't have any seismometers to use lol.
*Lars Kuck* Holy shit that's a simple site
whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=interpex.com
WHOIS says the website has been arouns since 1992.
Sorry, that page is definitely NOT from 1990 with tags (try html4).
@@lloydnevins8530 "Not" isn't an acronym
I've actually managed to get my 486 on UA-cam before using some heavily modified lua scripts and wget to get the video then quickview pro to actually play the video. Worked pretty decent until YT decided to change the layout and how video player worked. All on hardware too, just a 3com card with the packet driver.
I can finally read forbes without getting cancer.
We need to let the scientific community know, this could save thousands of lives
I love DOS :)
That MS-Dos Icon is so beautifull :)
You have delighted me, I'm now subscribed.
I didn't know LGR had a website... And it's AMAZING xD
hahaaha omg the impression of Clint from LGR!! Hilarious! I bet he'll be laughing his ass off too when he sees it!
Very cool. I recall being online through both Win 3.X and Win 95. Never did utilize a DOS browser though. I remember preferring Netscape Navigator over IE.
Ken Wheeler I'm a child of the Netscape navigator on Windows 3.1. I long for those days of 14.4k on my dads business line.
Half the people from my company left for Netscape back then. I kinda wished I had too. Instead I went to company that flopped in the dot-com bubble. Netscape eventually succumbed to the might of Microsoft as well, but it hung on a bit longer.
I did not expect, that DOS can show even one single jpg. Very interesting!
You utter bastard. I trusted you, and now I have MS-DOS installed on my bathroom mirror _and I can't uninstall it._ More seriously though, I love Elinks! It's been extremely handy any time I've needed to browse the web from a *nix command line 😊
I remember DOS from the early 90's whilst I was training, and I had already used BASIC on many computers during the 80's, but I had never used DOS for the internet but if I opted to used TOR I'd have to get back into it.
Steve1989!
Seeing his name in one of your videos is pretty - Nice!
Ahh the days of Novell Netware 3.0 ODI network card installs - nightmare back then but a secret pleasure when you got it working!
Prestel and BBS my those were the days!
i actually still use elinks (and lynx) a lot in the linux console because i love seeing how far i can push vintage hardware! nothing like getting on (mobile basic) facebook on a computer that can't even run anything past windows 3.1
I love using Lynx when I feel nostalgic or have to stick with lowend hardware and poor connections for one reason or another.
Reading news sites is still perfectly fine with it too, so I'm fine for the most part.
Same goes for message boards.
yeah and they honestly work fine for the mbasic version of facebook too so you can even do real basic social media stuff with them which is really cool!
I like playing around with w3m. It's also saved my bacon a couple of times when I ran into problems with proprietary graphics drivers, and had to search for info from the virtual console.
Also great because no ads! Forget using an ad-blocker, just block everything except the text! Especially helpful if you need to browse Reddit but your internet connection is way too slow to use otherwise.
Also, w3m on Linux works over SSL properly
I used to use Arachne. The only computer I had for myself was a 486, so I'd download things at school and put them on floppy disk to read on Arachne. I probably could have hooked up a modem, the family computer was on the internet and we had an ISP account, but I just never did. That very slow sneakernet method worked well enough for me at the time.
Informative. I didn't know Freedos comes with a package manager! Thanks for that nugget of info! I also didn't know about the Dillo browser. Thanks mate.
There's something magical about that era
0:03 - 0:13 and 0:40- 0:44 are the reasons why I smashed the like button.
Although I also like the rest of the video but not enough to smash the button.
I still use this method as of today (Links2 and Lynx) on Debian with my Pentium 3 (maxed out)
Really useful, no BS, no ads, no java - just text
Thanks, you have a great evening too
Pretty Interesting Stuff, Thanks For Posting.
Makes me wan´t to start my Pentium II Dos PC for some Webbrowsing ;-))))))))))))) Great Video as usual !!!
This guy from MS-DOS 5 upgrade advert looks just like Nostalgia Nerd!!!
This is pretty much what early mobile WAP sites were like until the mid 2000s.
Or maybe until emo era.
Seems my subscribed list of people all watch Steve1989. It is rather weird to see his name pop up either on screen or his name dropped in multiple peoples vids.
I've been using Arachne in dos to get on the internet for awhile.
I have DOS 6.22 & WFW 3.11 running on a K6-2 300mhz with 256mb ram, voodoo 3 video & SB AWE32 audio, and of course an ethernet adapter. yeah... way overpowered.
I haven't tried Dillo, but now I'm going to.
Paul Rickard has created a little device, the WiFi232, that lets you connect your computer to wireless internet via the serial port. I've tested it so far on my TRS-80 Model 100 and my little Psion 3A. Next weekend I hope to try it out on my Compaq Aero.
My personal goal is to eventually do as much of my computing as possible under DOS/WFW, and what I can't do in that environment I hope to be able to do in Linux.
are kids going to reminiscence about how awesome LGR, the 8 bit guy, Nostalgia nerd channels were 25 years from now?
Just by seeing this I wish I could try it myself in the actual era of DOS and Win95.
I know, I would have used the web like this.
Who remembers GOPHER? That new World Wide Web craze was never going to take off, or last. No one would ever need images, or active content, or anything other than those hierarchical directories within the GOPHER servers. Part of myself wishes it could go back to the days when human eyes were not automatically glued to their nearest active display.
Lovely, I like that retro stuff so much, you can also emulate that kind of thing with a random Linux Distribution running Window Maker as a window manager and a web browser like Links in command line or something else with a retro look, the only thing a wonder is that if links is actually secured.
Ok, I've been using DOS (and it's earlier alternate versions) since my dad got a TRS-80 in 1980, and I can blur pretty quickly around on my own PC or a simple network using DOS.... but I could not imagine trying to surf the web using DOS only in 2017. That's definitely giving yourself quite the handicap.. but I can kind of understand the challenge.
wow, seeing some of these DOS prompt screens sure brings back old memories :)
I remember that some years ago I was able to setup the real FreeDOS (no VM) to surf the web with Arachne using a network card. It was awesome! I don't remember the steps but wasn't complicated.
1:07 *gets goosebumps from the startup sound*
Love the LGR Easter Eggs :)
Glad that the AMD PCNet works in VirtualBox with DOS programs. I admit that I never tested that.
I had wifi in DOS in 2001, and successfully used Arachne that way. My 802.11b PCMCIA card had DOS drivers which I used on my 486 laptop. Of course my "server" was Linux on another 486 with a 56k modem because my parents' phone line at the time couldn't handle ADSL.
Love the theme of the videos
i love how u put steve1989 is the browser :)
Having Steve1989mre as part of the search history in the video. Nice!
Great video, but the title says "DOS Web Browsing in 2017 ", and there is a much more modern web browser for DOS, crated in 2016: Links 2.14 (not Lynx!). That's what I use normally. Doesn't support javascript, but it's fast enough and most of the things work pretty well. Supports Unicode, so it can display modern multi-language sites, Facebook works and even UA-cam, if you download the videos to play them offline. Mobile-friendly sites mostly work with it, and if you use it together with QuickView and MPXPlay (livestream music) and optionally mplayer (livestream videos) you can access most of the World Wide Web from DOS. Unfortunately I cannot find SWF-player for DOS and GNASH for Windows doesn't run properly with HX, so Flash content doesn't work properly, but Links is still the best DOS web browser for the modern internet I know.
There are a few more beefy featured browsers to add to the list, still under active development too! I use them while I work on the Linux terminal, but they have (or had in the past) a DOS port too.
Lynx: CSS support, only text. Allows you to block cookies. colourized for easy reading.
Links: if you pass the "-g" argument it starts in graphics mode, allowing you to see images. CSS compatible, partial Java support.
Back when I was using a Tandy 1000SX and 2400 baud modem, I remember trying lots of browsers, but the one that snagged me was called Boyan. It was the best of the lot and I used it the most.
I suspect those graphical browsers would scroll smoother and faster running on bare metal.
that is fun when you know most web pages nowdays are bigger than full dos games like doom...
i used lynx back in 94/95. back when gopher was a thing. what the hell was gopher??
Oh, it still exists. Come to SDF sometime.
I think by the time most early (if not earliest) adopters learned about the WWW, Mosaic was already available for Windows and Mac. I know I used it on my Mac in 1994. I recall at the time reading about Lynx, but I went with Mosaic instead.
There is the WiFi232 that you can connect to a 482 dos machine via the serial port. Basically allowing your dos machine to get wifi internet. Making it think it's a modem instead. Did cost $50, but not sure if he makes it anymore. I mean there are still BBS/telnet boards active on the web via dos even today.
I accessed the net through a terminal emulator in DOS connected to a VAX via dialup until 1998. When I made my first website I never even saw it what it looked like in anything except Lynx.
video: MS-DOS
me: *starts smiling*
video: MS-DOS
me: *smiles more*
video: MS-DOS
me: *maximum smile activated*
I still use Elinks on linux, w3m is another neat browser
Same. I still use w3m almost daily on my laptop.
I finally found some Czech DOS browser 😁
For Linux, a good text based terminal browser that I've been using allot is W3M but I still haven't sorted out all the shortcut keys for it yet. However I would really like to see updated browsers for these DOS browsers. Just would be fun to play around with.
I remember using Arachne back then. It was pretty crappy, but it looked cool!
Just to put this out there, properly configured elinks supports SSL, that's why it can even detect an "SSL Error" most common mistake is not setting the right time.
Do any sites actually use SSL anymore? We're all on TLS now.
I miss the old DOS era.
Elinks is not specifically dos , it a recompiled c+ version of the linux terminal browser compiled using cygwin environment , you could do the same with lynx
@nostalgia nerd you should cover the DOS wireplay front end in a future video! I have a copy of it somewhere if you need it.
I still remember using the first Juno email client. It was free email that was advertisement based. That email address I got in 1996. I still have the same email address in Juno in 2017. Now I use it basically as a Spam account. Gmail is my primary email client. Has been since 2000.
Hi, Nostalgia Nerd. Love your videos! However, I was kind of surprised you didn't mention the Gopher protocol. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) ] Perhaps because it wasn't technically a web browser? There were a few dialup bbs's that had this back in the late 80's - early 90's.
Ah! A fellow Steve1989MREinfo subscriber, I see.
the slow loading times reminds me of my dell dimension 8200 on windows xp with 256mb ram
Dang, now that’s cool 🤟🏼
Let's Plays on a DOS Web Browser: "I'll play the game and write some paragraphs describing for you all. Like/Comment/Subscribe!"
You know, not that long ago, that's how Let's Plays worked. Sometimes with some screenshots thrown in too (the infamous Dwarf Fortress succession game Boatmurdered is a good example.)
bigstupidgrin that's actually how they started, in the SomethingAwful forums
Is 27MHz packet radio still a thing btw? I loved it on my C64. Can't get anymore clunky than that 😂
RickyRicardo80 I truely hope it is.
A handful nodes and even less BBSes survive in The Netherlands. I have once succesfully connected to a node, but not to a BBS. There was noone to talk to...
These days APRS (Automated Packet Reporting System) is all the rage on 144MHz Amateur Radio. It is pretty much only used for signal propagation reports.
I don't know, I haven't touch it for years. Fun thing is that I used Arachne as a HTML viewer for TSTHOST,
Well, that's because BBSes where for trading, not for chatting. But once there where bidirectional protocols with integrated chat, like Hydracom, the chat with the sysop came along with the 3 hours of waiting :)
Last year I helped someone with a USB to COM interface and a TNC.. It worked just fine in DOSBOX :)
Arachne's experience can be improved by creating a RAMDisk and installing it to that, gets almost 100% comfortable speed on a 486 DX4-100 that way.
Sadly this could be done in 2017 but not in 2021 as you need a modern version of TLS for almost any website
My first web experience was Lynx via telnet dial up service my local library had.
Reminds me of trying to browse the web on a Palm, only 3 or 4 that can do much
(Good ol Blazer tho)
My first hotmail account was actually created at my local library via Elinks on their then new card catalog computer, but I just now found out the browser name.
I met my wife online in 1997 using Arachne. 386, single floppy drive, 16MB of RAM.
I didn't know that there were browsers for dos, but I think that the thing with them is that you cannot even use your graphic card and that makes them way to slow.
I havne't listened yet. But I remember using Arachne back when Javascript wasn't a big deal. I used it on a computer that had trouble running Windows 3.1.
I also used lynx and links on Unix.
(sigh) You know, I never thought I'd miss Windows 95's start-up tune, let alone its maze screensaver & entertainment pack…
I just realized I have PTSD from that sound. I shuddered and started having flashbacks to popups and adware.
Dohmnall MacDonald (shrugs) Different sounds garner different reactions from different people.
Arachne, 486dx33, and a 56K modem... fun times. Stability was better than with Win 3.1 and Winsock. But never again :)
namelsse Ah yes! Netscape Navigator 1.01b with Trumpet Winsock and dialer on Windows 3.1 on MS DOS 6.22 ...
Nice times!
Was also experimenting with Slackware Linux 3.0 at the time..
Minicom and pppd to dailup, and then launch Netscape Navigator for Linux. .(this was before nice integrated dialers like kppp )
Browsing the internet via ms dos feels more like browsing trough the bbs system, but it's a nice gimmick to go on the net that way, too bad many sites are pages of it will crash, it's more like a trial on error and hope for the best.
I would expect Clint would have had at least a real dos version of his site. And you too it seems XD.
Yeah, I don't think DOS browsing was that common.
I know I was already using the internet in 1994, but aside from the odd BBS service, I accessed everything from windows.
3.11 in that case.
You actually had to use a telnet program in windows to dial the ISP and connect back then. It got a little smoother with windows 95, but still... Telnet was nessesary more than you might expect.
By 1997 though.... Yeah, it was pretty trivial to get online. About as trivial as dial-up ever got anyway. The only thing that's changed since then in a broad sense is that broadband tends to be a an always on connection, and typically connected through a LAN port.
I remember those days... Playing 128 player games of subspace... XD
You wouldn't have thought so, but one of the first MMO's on the internet wasn't an RPG - it was a top down team co-op 2d space shooter.
Created by Virgin Interactive Entertainment of all things.
It's technically still around, more or less.
Not in it's original form mind you. It's just that someone created a clone of the client, and there are lots of private servers around.
Probably helps that it consisted mostly of private servers even when it was officially running, and you could download and run a server just as easily as using a client version. (bandwidth issues aside, obviously.)
I actually use Elinks and Lynx sometimes in terminal windows, when all I want to do is read news.
Can these browsers display 4chan?
Terrance Petsas who cares, textfiles.com would display fine. I can get my sex and anarchy how to stuff there
It sure can. tested on lynx. I got 40% less cancer in my eyes as well.
Best sites to use with a dos browser is those old still live interactive text based online games
I died when I saw the Steve1989MREInfo reference
Lol I didn't even know that MS-DOS web browsers existed...
I used Arachne a few times never got on with it. Most my early DOS internet browsing was done in custom web browsers from the provider. Compuserve had a nice one we used to use it to view gifs and jpgs in DOS.
I still occasionally use lynx on Linux servers, which I suspect is a later version of links
Surely someone has made a mashup where the Candyman song is used to summon the Candyman, just because the word Candyman is repeated.
(You know, the song from Willy Wonka, if you're stumped.)
Steve1989 army!
NeverEverGaming Nice!
Next time use a tray for software disks you are using
nice
Nice hiss.
nice!
Why you haven't used DOSbox for emulation? It provides also powerful native video devices, such as S3 or a more powerful ET4000, so the graphics look damn good, even on modern screens!
I just grabbed Lynx on my Linux box and found that about half of the webpages I check on a daily basis are usable, albeit with some annoying formatting, but they're at least usable.
Before WWW we had gopher and I just had a look it is still kicking around. .