DR-WebSpyder is a
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
,
mail client
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...
and operating system
runtime environment
In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists both in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile t ...
that was developed by
Caldera UK
DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...
in 1997. It was based on the
DR-DOS operating system and networking components from
Novell
Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
Under the lead ...
as well as the
Arachne
Arachne (; from , cognate with Latin ) is the protagonist of a tale in Greek mythology known primarily from the version told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), which is the earliest extant source for the story. In Book Six of his ...
web browser by
Michal Polák of
xChaos software
Arachne is a stable Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. Originally, Arachne was developed by Michal Polák under his xChaos label, a name he later changed into Arachne Labs. It was written in C and compi ...
. The system was designed to run on low-end
desktop system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also inc ...
s, but being able to boot and execute from disk as well as from
ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* ...
or
network
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics ...
, it was also tailored for x86-based
thin client
In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...
s and
embedded systems
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...
with or without disk drives. Using the web browser as its principal user interface,
it could be also used for
kiosk systems and
set-top box
A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...
es. Named Embrowser, it has been ported to
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
in 1999 and was called Embedix Browser since 2000.
NIOS and IOS
DR-WebSpyder was originally conceived as project NIOS (Novell Internet Operating System) at Novell's European Development Centre (EDC), UK in 1994 by then
DR-DOS engineer Roger Alan Gross, who was working on
Novell's Embedded Systems Technology (NEST) initiative to create embedded system applications that connect intelligent devices to
NetWare networks. NIOS was conceived as a thin client operating system that provided Novell with a graphical client operating system to run web applications hosted on NetWare, creating a Novell-centric platform for
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
(SaaS) that did not require
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
operating system. NIOS comprised 32-bit versions of Novell's existing 16-bit DOS technologies including the DR-DOS operating system, Novell's
modem dialer
A dialer (American English) or dialler (British English) is an electronic device that is connected to a telephone line to monitor the dialed numbers and alter them to seamlessly provide services that otherwise require lengthy National or Internati ...
and
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
stack from
LAN Workplace for DOS
NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued peer-to-peer local area networks developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s.
NetWare Lite
In 1991, N ...
/
NetWare Mobile
NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued peer-to-peer local area networks developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s.
NetWare Lite
In 1991, N ...
plus licensed third-party components such as the
Kaffe
Kaffe is a discontinued "clean room design" ( reverse engineering) version of a Java Virtual Machine. It comes with a subset of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), Java API, and tools needed to provide a Java runtime environment. Like ...
Java virtual machine (JVM),
Allegro
Allegro may refer to:
Common meanings
* Allegro (music), a tempo marking indicate to play fast, quickly and bright
* Allegro (ballet), brisk and lively movement
Artistic works
* L'Allegro (1645), a poem by John Milton
* ''Allegro'' (Satie), an ...
for graphics, and
Mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
for the web browser.
WebSpyder, WebSpyder 32 and DR-WebSpyder
Gross's plans were interrupted when
Caldera, Inc.
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.
Caldera
Caldera, Inc. was a Canopy-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 January 1995 by f ...
acquired the remaining
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and Gr ...
assets including DR-DOS from Novell on 23 July 1996, but without the personnel.
Gross telephoned Caldera's
Ransom H. Love the same day offering to set up a new DR-DOS team outside of Novell. Gross subsequently joined Caldera as general manager of the
Digital Research Systems Group (DSG) in December that year and set about rehiring the DRDOS/NIOS team in the UK
to develop the new operating system and web browser. Under Caldera, NIOS was renamed IOS (Internet Operating System). The plan to use Mosaic was also dropped and instead Caldera licensed the source code of the 16-bit DOS web browser
Arachne
Arachne (; from , cognate with Latin ) is the protagonist of a tale in Greek mythology known primarily from the version told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), which is the earliest extant source for the story. In Book Six of his ...
.
The team replaced Arachne's dialer and
packet drivers with Novell's dialer,
ODI driver suite (from
Personal NetWare
NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued peer-to-peer local area networks developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s.
NetWare Lite
In 1991, ...
etc.) and
TCP/IP stack
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
,
added support for
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...
and
scaled GIFs,
an optional
on-screen keyboard
A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form ...
for mouse and touch panel usage (SoftKeyboards) for possible keyboardless operation,
and an install program.
Also, they completely changed the design of the browser (customizable
chrome), implemented support for
NetScape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...
-compatible
frames, and used Allegro for graphics. The browser also supported "execute links" to run and interact with DOS programs and batchjobs run on the
web client
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
,
a feature originally introduced as
DOS Gateway Interface
Arachne is a stable Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. Originally, Arachne was developed by Michal Polák under his xChaos label, a name he later changed into Arachne Labs. It was written in C and compi ...
(DGI) in Arachne. IOS became formally known as WebSpyder in May 1997.
Some months later, it was ported to compile as a 32-bit
protected mode extended DOS application (utilizing
DPMI using
DJGPP
DJ's GNU Programming Platform (DJGPP) is a software development suite for Intel 80386-level and above, IBM PC compatibles which supports DOS operating systems. It is guided by DJ Delorie, who began the project in 1989. It is a port of the GNU Co ...
, a GNU compiler for DOS), then referred to as WebSpyder 32,
but renamed DR-WebSpyder in early 1998.
On 11 May 1998, Caldera started shipping DR-WebSpyder 2.0
as both a
HTML 3.2
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript ...
web browser application and
browser OS.
On 1 June 1998, the company opened a sales and support office in Taiwan
to be close to potential
OEM
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
customers.
A maintenance release DR-WebSpyder 2.0a was issued on 19 August 1998.
Caldera distributed a free demo version of DR-WebSpyder 2.0a on a bootable
fully self-contained 3.5-inch
floppy
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined wi ...
.
This was in fact the DR-WebSpyder OS configured as loosely coupled components in which a special version of the DR-DOS
ANSI.SYS
ANSI.SYS is a device driver in the DOS family of operating systems that provides extra console functions through ANSI escape sequences. It is partially based upon a subset of the text terminal control standard proposed by the ANSI X3L2 Technical C ...
driver would mute the stream of text messages at startup of the DOS system
while a graphical company logo was displayed until the web browser was launched as a
shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
via
CONFIG.SYS SHELL replacing the default
COMMAND.COM
COMMAND.COM is the default command-line interpreter for MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me. In the case of DOS, it is the default user interface as well. It has an additional role as the usual first program run after boot (init proc ...
command line interpreter.
On
386 PCs with a minimum of 4 MB of RAM,
the floppy would boot the
DR-DOS 7.02
DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...
based browser operating system complete with memory manager,
RAM disk
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
, dial-up modem, LAN, mouse and display drivers and automatically launch into the graphical browser, without ever touching the machine's
hard disk in order not to interfere with other systems installed on the machine and to demonstrate its potential usage in
diskless workstations.
Users could start browsing the web or accessing mails immediately after entering their access credentials. A further refined international revision of the demo by Matthias R. Paul utilized more sophisticated multi-level compression to free enough space on the floppy image to also include menu options and additional drivers to choose between several languages and keyboard layouts and give room for further expansion or customization of the operation system and browser through OEMs or users.
On 2 September 1998, it was announced that the Digital Research Systems Group and consequently also Caldera UK was spun out as a separate company
Caldera Thin Clients (CTC),
incorporated earlier in August 1998.
In September 1998, DR-WebSpyder 2.0 achieved commercial success when it was selected for use in an internet
set-top box
A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...
as part of a
satellite internet access solution.
On 3 November 1998, the company announced DR-WebSpyder 2.1.
With DR-WebSpyder 2.1 Beta 2 being available since 7 November 1998,
the browser was released on 30 November 1998.
It added support for
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...
, the
Secure Sockets Layer
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in securi ...
(SSL) protocol,
cookie
A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, n ...
s, sound files, printing on a multitude of printers as well as user profiles and support for multiple mail accounts.
It also added scrollable
quarter-screen VGA support for low-resolution
LCD displays as well as
anti-alias
In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is a technique for minimizing the distortion artifacts (aliasing) when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution. Anti-aliasing is used in digital photography, computer graphic ...
ed
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
s for display on
TVs in an optional TV interface mode.
Caldera UK also investigated possibilities to add
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
and
JVM
A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
support to the browser, but this component never left prototype status.
Two desired prerequisites for Java integration were to add support for
long filenames (LFNs)
and
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
to DOS.
Caldera's
DPMS-enabled dynamically loadable
LONGNAME
Long filename (LFN) support is Microsoft's backward-compatible extension of the 8.3 filename (short filename) naming scheme used in DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg, .tiff, .html, a ...
driver provided
VFAT
File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by ...
-compatible LFNs in the
FAT file system
File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on Hard disk drive, hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibi ...
utilizing
UCS-2
The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS, Unicode) is a standard set of characters defined by the international standard ISO/IEC 10646, ''Information technology — Universal Coded Character Set (UCS)'' (plus amendments to that standard), w ...
internally. Matthias R. Paul conducted research how to achieve this with minimal changes to the existing system and to not cause bloat to an operating system also tailored for thin clients and embedded systems. Expanded DRFONT-style .CPI files could have been provided to retrieve bitmaps for the required larger character repertoire (
Basic Multilingual Plane
In the Unicode standard, a plane is a continuous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecima ...
) not only to support a lot more
code pages in general,
but also wider
character set
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values tha ...
s similar to what was used in
DOS/V
DOS/V is a Japanese computing initiative starting in 1990 to allow DOS on IBM PC compatibles with VGA cards to handle double-byte (DBCS) Japanese text via software alone. It was initially developed from PC DOS by IBM for its PS/55 machines (a ...
-compatible systems.
In conjunction with a new COUNTRY.SYS file,
Paul's enhanced
NLSFUNC 4.xx driver,
which was introduced with DR-DOS 7.02,
could have provided the framework to integrate optional
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit''.
UTF-8 is capable of ...
support into the system in a way similar to
DBCS
A double-byte character set (DBCS) is a character encoding in which either all characters (including control characters) are encoded in two bytes, or merely every graphic character not representable by an accompanying single-byte character set ...
support.
When Gross resigned in January 1999, Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. closed the Caldera UK Ltd. development office in February 1999 soon after the release of
DR-DOS 7.03.
Embrowser and Embedix Browser
On 20 July 1999, Caldera Thin Clients renamed itself into
Lineo
Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999.
History
Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' origina ...
under the new lead of
Bryan Wayne Sparks
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.
Caldera
Caldera, Inc. was a Canopy-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 January 1995 by f ...
.
DR-WebSpyder was renamed Embrowser and the browser was said to be ported to
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
.
A version of DR-WebSpyder for
IMS REAL/32
Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.
An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS 386 operating systems, it was originally developed by ...
, a successor to Digital Research's and Novell's
Multiuser DOS
Multiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers.
An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS 386 operating systems, it was originally developed by ...
, has been worked on in 1999 as well.
Since October 1999, a DOS version of DR-WebSpyder 2.5 aka Embrowser 2.5 was available on Lineo's site.
Since Lineo's own thin-client Linux distribution was named
Embedix
Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999.
History
Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original ...
, the Linux port of the micro web browser was consequently named Embedix Browser by April 2000.
In April 2002, some Lineo assets were auctioned off and the company reformed as
Embedix, Inc. by July 2002 under the lead of Matthew R. Harris.
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
's
Metrowerks
Metrowerks was a company that developed software development tools for various desktop, handheld, embedded, and gaming platforms. Its flagship product, CodeWarrior, comprised an IDE, compilers, linkers, debuggers, libraries, and related tools. I ...
bought Embedix key assets, possibly including the browser, on 17 December 2002.
Features
See also
*
Arachne (web browser)
Arachne is a stable Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer. Originally, Arachne was developed by Michal Polák under his xChaos label, a name he later changed into Arachne Labs. It was written in C and compi ...
*
Citrix WinFrame
*
ChromeOS
ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfa ...
*
DR-DOS
*
FreeDOS
FreeDOS (formerly Free-DOS and PD-DOS) is a free software operating system for IBM PC compatible computers. It intends to provide a complete MS-DOS-compatible environment for running legacy software and supporting embedded systems.
FreeDOS can ...
*
Comparison of web browsers
*
List of web browsers
The following is a list of web browsers that are notable.
Historical
Layout engines
* Gecko is developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
** Goanna is a fork of Gecko developed by Moonchild Productions.
* Servo is an experimental web brow ...
*
LAN WorkPlace for DOS
NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued peer-to-peer local area networks developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s.
NetWare Lite
In 1991, N ...
*
Caldera View
*
iCentrix MarioNet
*
Novell Corsair
Caldera OpenLinux (COL) is a defunct Linux distribution. Caldera, Inc., Caldera originally introduced it in 1997 based on the German LST Power Linux distribution, and then taken over and further developed by Caldera Systems, Inc., Caldera Syst ...
*
WebTV
MSN TV (formerly WebTV) was a web access product consisting of a thin client device that used a television for display (instead of using a computer monitor), and the online service that supported it. The device design and service was developed ...
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
Caldera, Inc.
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.
Caldera
Caldera, Inc. was a Canopy-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 January 1995 by f ...
(archived web site
caldera.com
fro
1996-10-18t
1999-04-30
*
Caldera UK Ltd. (archived web site
caldera.co.uk
fro
1997-12-21t
1999-10-12
*
Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. (archived web site
calderathin.com
fro
1999-01-17t
and
Lineo, Inc. (archived web site
calderathin.com
fro
1999-10-12t
lineo.com
fro
2000-05-10t
2003-03-20and
embedix.com
fro
2002-06-03t
2003-02-20
{{Email clients
Web browsers for DOS
DOS software
1997 software
Discontinued internet suites
Discontinued web browsers
Caldera DR-WebSpyder
DR-WebSpyder is a DOS web browser, mail client and operating system runtime environment that was developed by Caldera UK in 1997. It was based on the DR-DOS operating system and networking components from Novell as well as the Arachne web brow ...