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Dell has been selling systems through the business end with FreeDos for a while now. Purchase one of those and install Ubuntu yourself. It really isn't that hard and you can actually customize the install to what components you actually need. Or you could purchase one and install any free distro you want.

Or keep FreeDos on it. It's had zero remote code execution exploits in its entire life. Plus it will run on low end hardware. And most Unix stuff is easy to port to it except for pointless eyecandy bloatware like KDE and Gnome. I took Ubuntu off my grandmother's machine and installed FreeDos and she's actually much happier. She finds arachne much faster and more stable than Firefox. She also likes the way that FreeDos software authors get straight to the point with concise lynx compatible websites too. No political badgering or Web 2.0 annoyances there.

You might have been interested in arachne, even though it would have been incredibly slow at 16Mhz. (Still, perhaps better than running on top of Windows?)

You insensitive clod, I have to use Arachne with FreeDOS.

So who has the cahones to develop a standards-compliant web browser for this gui? Already done: And it's GPLed. Get it here: http://home.arachne.cz/ Also, Caldera's old DR-DOS 7.03 came with a DR-Webspy, a browser that ran, together with the OS, off a floppy. Some years ago IBM marketed a browser based on an early Arachne with a more normal GUI.

What about DOS + Arachne?

Try Arachne
  I personally installed it on a 12Mhz 286 with 2Mb of ram, ISA2000 clone lan card with 10Base2 and Monochome VGA monitor. And with NCACHE (Norton equiv of SmartDrive) configured to use 96kb of XMS was usable (without it - it would take a lot to save all the files of a webpage to the disk cache).
On a IBM PC110 (486SX 33mhz, 8Mb RAM) it really flies.

I love me some arachne
on a good connection, arachne on a 386 is actually not bad

Arachne!?!?! You mean that dead browser for DOS and SVGAlib? Looks like they finally acknowledge that on their webpage, and talk of Arachne II appears to be mostly talk.

Arachne is a DOS browser that seems to handle /. OK.

Arachne is a DOS browser that seems to handle /. OK.

No - the best browser for the MS platform is Arachne... oh, you meant Windows.

Any discussion of making the console a user friendly environment for the mouse wielding masses must take a look at the Arachne Web Browser and Internet Suite. Originally developed for DOS, and included with the FreeDOS distro, Arachne's creator has been working on a Linux port (based on SVGAlib & GGI lib) for a while now - but it is still a beta release. You can also of course run the DOS version in an emulator from the Linux console.

In addition to Web browsing and email, it can also be used as a front end for a media player capable of handling MP3's and some video. And ist can be used as a handy directory tool for browsing your own local files.

One criticism of it is the licensing it is released under - though this is partly due to tools created by others that were incorporated into it. But the author is a SlashDot fan so is aware of the concerns. The standard download is cripple-ware and free for personal use.

Any discussion of making the console a user friendly environment for the mouse wielding masses must take a look at the Arachne Web Browser and Internet Suite. Originally developed for DOS, and included with the FreeDOS distro, Arachne's creator has been working on a Linux port (based on SVGAlib & GGI lib) for a while now - but it is still a beta release. You can also of course run the DOS version in an emulator from the Linux console.

In addition to Web browsing and email, it can also be used as a front end for a media player capable of handling MP3's and some video. And ist can be used as a handy directory tool for browsing your own local files.

One criticism of it is the licensing it is released under - though this is partly due to tools created by others that were incorporated into it. But the author is a SlashDot fan so is aware of the concerns. The standard download is cripple-ware and free for personal use.

Consider FreeDOS.

Then consider loading this on it (it can also be configured as menuing system). An earlier version was included in the FreeDOS distro, but I don't think that version played MP3's

If you can then link him into the house network (The Arachne browser comes with a freeware TCPIP stack for DOS), he can surf the web, and check email with it.

URL: http://dunkels.com/adam/contiki/links.html

System information and emulators

Commodore 64/128

The Commodore 64 is based on the 6510 CPU, which is a 6502-derived 8-bit CPU. It has 64k of RAM and 16k ROM which includes a BASIC interpreter and some basic I/O services. Graphics is provided by the VIC chip which has 16 colors and a maximum resolution of 320x200 in hi-res mode. It provides a 40x25 raster of characters in character mode. The three voices of digital sound is produced by the SID chip.

The Commodore 128 is an extended version of the Commodore 64 that contains a 8510 CPU which is capable of 2 MHz operation and can address 128k RAM (hence the name Commodore 128). It also has a Commodore 64 compatibility mode which is extremely similar to a regular C64 but with a few minor differences.

The SuperCPU is a 20 MHz 16-bit 65816-based computer that is plugged into the back of the Commodore 64 or 128. It uses the C64 keyboard and joysticks for input and the VIC and SID chips for audiovisual output. The SuperCPU is capable of addressing several megabytes of memory and is usually used together with a 16 megabytes RAM expansion board.

There are no SuperCPU emulators avaliable.

• The VICE emulator is capable of emulating a large number of Commodore machines. It emulates the C64, the C128, the VIC20, most of the PET models, and the CBM-II. VICE runs under Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and a number of other host systems.
  
• Joakim Eriksson's Web C64 emulator, written in Java, runs as an applet within a web browser.
  
• Per Håkan Sundell's CCS64 emulator works under Windows and DOS.
  
• The ec64 emulator is developed for Linux and was originally written entirely in x86 assembler.
  
• An article by Simon N Goodwin about C64 emulators.
  
• The Commodore emulators category in the Dmoz has more links.
  

Commodore 64/128

There are plenty of alternative operating systems for the C64, mostly written in 6502 assembler. Some of them are far from complete, however, and only appear as dark shadows on a few web pages - MagerValp's SMOS and my own osT are among those.

• GEOS from 1986 probably is the most well-known graphical operating system for the C64. It is still sold commercially by CMDKEY.com.
  
• LUnix NG is an open-source multi-tasking operating system with TCP/IP/PPP-support, a *nix-like command shell, and a number of *nix-like utilities such as ls and cp.
• Craig Bruce's ACE is a text-based single-tasking operating system for the 64 and the 128. It provides a *nix-like command shell, a text-editor, a terminal program for the SwiftLink RS232 interface, as well as device drivers for a lot of devices
  
• GeckOS/A65 is a multi-tasking operating system with TCP/IP support and a *nix-like command shell.
  
• Wheels is a version of GEOS that requires RAM expansion to run.

With its 20 MHz and megabytes of memory, the SuperCPU is powerful enough to run fully-fledged graphical operating systems that rival early Machintosh or Microsoft Windows systems.

• Wings is a TCP/IP-enabled graphical operating system for the SuperCPU. It includes a MOD music player, JPEG viewer, web page download utility, etc.
• JOS is an older version of Wings.
  

TCP/IP and PPP connectivity

To surf the web, send or read email, etc., the first step is to actually get in touch with the Internet. This requires both physical access to an ISP, either via a modem and a phone-line or an Ethernet broadband connection, and the TCP/IP software running on the C64.

There are a number of programs that make it possible to reach the Internet with a C64/C128.

• LUnix NG contains a TCP/IP stack and a PPP implementation which makes it possible to reach the Internet using a modem and a dial-up ISP.
  
• GeckOS/A65 also contains a TCP/IP stack, but no PPP dialer.
  
• My own uIP TCP/IP stack has been used for some time to run a web server on a Commodore 64. uIP currently does not include a PPP dialer.
  
• Novaterm 10 contains a PPP dialer and enough TCP/IP code to be able to run telnet over the Internet.
  

SuperCPU

All of the above mentioned SuperCPU operating systems have TCP/IP support.

• The Wave is a web browser for the SuperCPU (and not for the Commodore 64/128 as the web page claims) that runs under the Wheels operating systems. Here is another page with information about The Wave (that also falsely claims that The Wave is for the Commodore 64/128). The latter page also includes screenshots of The Wave in action.
  

Small graphical user-interfaces (GUIs)

User interfaces for embedded systems range from the simple buttons on the front of a washing machine to those of fully fledged web browser type interfaces on information stations. The underlying technology varies from simple electronic circuits to full-scale PC compatibles.

• PicoGUI is a GUI architecture designed for embedded systems to desktop machines. It does not require any supporting GUI system and can be used on anything from graphical screens to text based systems. Their smallest target system are handheld terminals and the compiled object code size is on the order of hundreds of kilobytes.
  
• Microwindows/NanoGUI is a graphical user interface system designed to run without support from an underlying system. On 16-bit systems Microwindows is about 64k large.
  

The smallest web browsers are usually specially designed for the limitations of embedded systems and other specialized computers such as car navigation systems, set-top boxes and medical equipment. There are also a few small web browsers for old DOS PCs available.

• Interniche's NicheView Portable Embedded Web Browser is probably the smallest full-featured web browser around with its 35 kilobytes code footprint. There is also an additional JavaScript module available.
  
• AU-systems' AU Mobile Internet Browser supports both HTML/TCP/IP and WML/WAP as well as SSL. It occupies 340 kilobytes of code (plus an additional 190 kilobytes for the protocol stacks) and uses 5 kilobytes of RAM when idle (plus 8 kilobytes used by the protocol stacks). Extra RAM is used when downloading web pages.
  
• The Fusion WebPilot Embedded Micro-Browser supports much of the features found in modern web browsers including frames, authentication, and JavaScript. The web page does not specify memory footprint.
  
• MicroDigial's Graphical MicroBrowser supports tables, frames, images as well as FTP as uses 260 kilobytes of code memory and requires a minimum of 210 kilobytes of RAM apart from that. A demo version is available.
  
• The 2net Alice Web Browser is intended for handheld computers and PC based architectures and requires 400 kilobyte of free RAM and 200 kilobytes of code memory. It includes a TCP/IP stack.
  
• WebBoy is a fully-fledged browser with SSL support intended for 386 DOS boxes with more than 4 megabytes of memory. Includes a TCP/IP stack.
  
• The Arachne web browser runs under MS-DOS or Linux and requires at least 1 megabyte of memory. Does not include a TCP/IP/PPP stack.
  
• Lynx is probably the most well-known text-based web browser around. It is ported to many different operating systems and architectures including MS-DOS.
  
• The Off by One Web Browser has been labeled as the smallest web browser ever, but is quite large in comparison with other small web browsers. It is 1.1 megabytes large and requires support from an underlying Windows operating system.
  
• Mirko Sobe's BOSS-X HTML browser for 8-bit Ataris is not a full web browser, but an off-line HTML viewer with hyperlinking abilities written in three days.
  
• The pre-alpha v0.3 GEMWeb browser supports 640x480x16 VGA.
  
• The Atari Phoenix Web Browser is a non-existant vapor-ware web browser project intended for the 8-bit Ataris.
  

>Curl is a plug in for a browser, and doesn't require a "best viewed with" label.

You mean that doesn't imply "best viewed with Curl"?

How am I going to get my Arachne Curl powered?

Thought so. :)

FreeDOS gives the user just enough power to connect to a site where they can download the most recent ISO of their choice.

If that is your plan, you might want to download The Arachne Web Browser for DOS while your at it.

It's a full Internet Suite with PPP dialer, graphical Browser, email, MP3 player, etc. You may find you'll want to keep FreeDOS on a small partition after all.

My favorite alternative is Arachne. It's a fullscreen graphical browser available for DOS and for Linux using SVGAlib/GGI. It supports tables like nothing I've ever seen, is extremely fast, very reliable, and supports ftp/smtp/pop3/etc. I used to even run the DOS version on a 386SX/20 with 4MB ram - a little bit slow, but it ran fine! It does not yet support Java(Script) yet, but JavaScript is in the works. It is among my favorites for Linux, and is the BEST for DOS.

AFAIK, Arachne will work with SVGALib. It is a full graphical browser but doesn't do secure sites or JavaScript. at last check. It is quite fast, and it even works on an EGA screen on a 286 in DOS reasonably well.

Another alternative to lynx is the ARACHNE Browser for DOS and Linux. It's a fully graphical console based Internet suite (browser, email, multimedia player), and it doesn' rely on the Qt library just svgalib. It will run on a 486 with a mere 8 meg of RAM.

A full list of features and requirements can be found from the Linux Installation page of the Arachne website.

Another alternative to lynx is the ARACHNE Browser for DOS and Linux. It's a fully graphical console based Internet suite (browser, email, multimedia player), and it doesn' rely on the Qt library just svgalib. It will run on a 486 with a mere 8 meg of RAM.

A full list of features and requirements can be found from the Linux Installation page of the Arachne website.

Correct Arachne link

*sigh* too tired too post...

How would you decide how difficult the problem should be? Believe it or not, but there are people using email on XT's. Or take Arache, a graphical browser+email+... that works fine on a 386. Those people would in effect unable to send email.

another browser you might want to try that supports the linux framebuffer is arachne. http://www.arachne.cz. It is made for both dos and linux and supports HTML 3.2 as far as I can tell. (i.e. everything but javascript/shockwave/pop-under x10.com ads. I've used it before and it worked great on a 486 laptop I tossed it on.

Anyway, about those XT-class parts - depending on just how many extra boards you have... [never tried it, but I do believe it's possible] feed that 8086 machine an EMS memory card >= 1mb, an 8-bit network card, at least an EGA monitor, and about 20 megs of HD and you can use it as a (slow? probably) WWW-surfing box with Arachne.

Of course, you're talking to the guy who still plays with the "modulate some frequency in the TRS-80 so it plays tunes in the static of an AM radio" program once in a while... lol =]

BRTB

"I first want to deploy it using a terminal interface instead of a GUI interface for the simple reason that there will be times when it's better to run thin machines without installing X11, and it might be easier to implement rather than jumping right into GTK or some X11 widget toolkit. So does anyone know of any character based UI libraries that are available for C?"

Have you looked at the ARACHNE Web Browser for Linux it requires svgalib on a 486 with 8MB of RAM, but allows you to design your whole interface in standard HTML since its an HTML/4.0 specification compliant webbrowser. The Linux version is still in alpha/beta stage, but the DOS version can run in Linux using dosemu.

I wouldn't call it a Non-GUI platform, but it is a low resource X11-free platform.

Sorry WK, I've not been active on the List for ages...

And sorry for the late reply; I should check /. every hour instead of every day. Since I work from 7pm to 3am most days? (It's ~5:10am ATM ICYWW)
--

Or we could all protest it by not using browsers that support it. (My personal favorite is Arachne.)

ARACHNE - the multimedia internet suite for DOS by dedicated Czech software developer Michael Polak, is now available in alpha for Linux.

Still sounds like a true alpha (he says it is guaranteed to crash, and since you must run the alpha as root, it can cause real problems), so don't try it on a production machine. But once it reaches the functionality of the DOS version you will be very impressed what you can do on a old 386 with 8 Meg of RAM. I expect this could become the OS/Browser combination of choice for a lot of schools and kiosk systems. By the way, the download is only 570k!

Requires SVGAlib, and kernel 2.12 or higher.

Try Arachne. Its minimum requirements are an XT and CGA, though I'm sure it'll run atrociously on that.

I have used Arachne, and I find it to be at least as advanced as NS4, though lacking java/javascript support.

Well, if people want the Internet in DOS over a modem, go get Arachne. It's an excellent graphical web browser for DOS with PPP and most other Internet tools built in, and it doubles as a GUI for basic file manipulation.
A linux console version is in development.... something to watch, as this is an excellent browser for embedded systems...

It's the same as Caldera WebSpyder (Caldera licensed the code from them.)

This, coupled with FreeDos, and perhaps some old Apogee games, makes a 386 with 4MB of ram fun again.
--
Talon Karrde

PS... it's very fast.

http://home.arachne.cz/

I have never been happy with scan converted video, though I may try it with the ARACHNE WebBrowser for DOS as this has settings for lowerRes video cards (Like CGA) that might be more acceptable after conversion to NTSC.