On Wed, 07 Mar 2001 11:30:52 +0000, Ron Clarke wrote: > Hi Folks, > Speaking of DOS browsers, I asked for, and got, a trial version of > Alice - claimed to be a small, graphical browser for the embedded and > low resource market. > They sent me two versions in the 740 kb ZIP, one for DOS and one for > 32 bit Windows. I could only attempt to trial the DOS version. I also got two versions, but I tried only the DOS version. > It sort of works, after a fashion, but it is either very, very > under-developed or very, very crippled. It could not read any HTM file > other than the ones it came with (which makes me very suspicious) and > when exiting from Alice, one is not returned to DOS. Just a black screen > with a blinking cursor which neither keyboard or mouse can change. The > three finger salute had absolutely no effect and it took a cold boot to > get my system back. I found that Alice could fetch and display any remote or local URL and do a fine job of dispaying all the graphical text and inline images provided the pages were written to the standards of the "any_browser_org". To fetch any URL you just press CTRL + G and this will bring up an address bar where you type in the name of the URL, whether it be a local file or a website somewhere. When Alice locks up on me I can always exit the program by pressing the Esc key. Then I just simply restart Alice without even having to redial. Here are some observations I made about Alice that I think worthy of passing on to you guys: I could not get Alice to work with either EPPPD or LSPPP. The only way I could get her to fetch remote URLs was by first establishing an internet connection with the included DIAL.EXE program. Even by using the DIAL.EXE program, and even after seeing the message come up saying "installed packet driver at vector 0x60", I still could not get Alice to fetch remote URLs until I had properly written a PPPD.CFG file. See my posting of my PPPD.CFG and my comments about it in a very recent message I sent to the list. (BTW, the documentation for Alice says that if your modem comport is com 1, and your modem's irq is 4, and if your modem speed is 57600, then in that case you don't need to write a PPPD.CFG. In my case I had to write a PPPD.CFG anyway, even though my modem characteristics meet the specifications for the described defaults!) > I have told the developers that it is unusable, which for me is true. Alice is perfectly useable for me and she will run just fine in systems that are far too antiquated for Arachne. To the deveIopers I sung praises to Alice, but I was highly critical of their documentation. > Arachne is still the one for me. :) Alice is for me to get on with an XT :) All the best, Sam Heywood -- See our Big Gizmotimetemp at -- http://banners.wunderground.com/banner/gizmotimetempbig/US/VA/Mt_Jackson.gif
