The latest version is about 500k, of which only 20k are the actual executables, the rest for some sample .jpgs and the text itself. What it does, at the text mode dos prompt is: -changes to 50 line mode. cant do that with linux unless you are root. -runs ANSI.COM which only installs if needed.
- displays a text in two columns, so it looks like the facing pages of a book; no more turning your head from side to side like watching a tennis match which html makes you do. It also uses ANSI color; in dialogue, male voices are blue, female voices red. No more filling up a page with 'he said: something here' she said: this here. He said : a bit here. Her last word: here. and so on with lotsa white space on the right. by changing the font color (not shape) the changes are obvious. and by changing the background of the font, you get italics or whatever. Do that in html, and you change the background color of the whole page. And since it is 50x80 vga text mode, you know that there are 50, well actually I use 49, with one statline, lines on screen, so you can then format in two columns like newspapers and magazines. Narrow columns are faster and easier to read. With a gui, you dont know how many lines will be shown to the user, so this formatting is a coding nightmare. and need I point out to text mode users how fast it is? even on a 486? And since it is all ASCII with ANSI color codes, you can port it to any text mode editor to do string searches, extractions, whatever. then too, the 125 pg text novella is only about 300k zipped; several times faster to download than a .pdf or .html copy would be. I also have a copy of PLOTINUS, which I downloaded from http://www.ipl.org unzipped it's 1.7 meg. The FREEWARE includes the batch code to keep track of what page you were on, and provides a list of previous 'bookmarks'. If printed, it'd be a 750 page book. In this case, I used a different font color for the translator's notes, so it was a lot easier to see just who said what. The win 98 dos prompt flashes some 'syntax error' but runs anyway. On a DRDOS, they might still be there, but it runs so much faster the user dont see any junk. As for the other dos or dosemu, that's what I am asking you all for. Batch programming is not real consistent.
