Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2001 18:55:26 -800
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Nettamer Vs. Bobcat
On 2001-01-03 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>This digest contains the following messages:
>1. On Reconsideration Of Bobcat Vs. Net-Tamer
>by: Walter Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>-------------------- 1 --------------------
>Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2001 23:29:44 +0800
>Previously, I wrote of "disappointment" regarding lack of sufficient
>memory to conveniently use Bobcat as an alternate web browser in
>place of Net-Tamer where Net-Tamer can't cut it on some websites.
>Nothing has changed as to my understanding of the "exhausted"
>memory issue between then and now. However, to be fair, I should
>indicate there are workarounds in Bobcat that allow it to do what
>it otherwise would not do.
>While it's still true that Bobcat easily runs out of memory if you
>try to select and display a webpage from a link on the current page
>you're viewing -- that's to say you run out of memory when you view
>a webpage and then attempt to choose a link on that page to yet
>another page -- Bobcat's "external" program execution options allow
>a number of scenarios limited only by imagination. The author of
>Bobcat envisions and describes how to implement, for example, a
>means to view a webpage that Bobcat would not previously load due
>to exhausted memory by spawning a second or child session of Bobcat
>where the URL from the last attempt to load a webpage is extracted
>and called by the child session of Bobcat with recycled memory.
>It's a kind of Rube Goldberg process. But, it DOES work. In
>addition, Bobcat has a [D]ownload option that allows you to simply
>download the HTML content of a webpage to a file on disk without
>displaying that content. This has almost no impact memory usage.
>You can then look at those files later in Bobcat without the
>memory-sucking packet driver and terminal program running, or you
>can use a separate HTML viewer/converter outside of Bobcat. You
>could also call such viewer/converter software as an automatic
>external program. Implementation is not easy, though. It will
>require reading several documentation files and then writing plus
>debugging batch files which will ultimately do the job of executing
>an external task. So, I want it to be clear that, in my last
>posting, the disappointment is not in the author of Bobcat and his
>efforts. It seems he has made it a priority to solve the memory
>issue I've addressed here. My disappointment is over the difficulty
>for writing a *GOOD* **DOS** web browser for minimalist/legacy
>hardware. There's too much code and too much functionality to cram
>into conventional memory. Thus, I understand even better David
>Colston's problems in supporting a web browser than I once did.
>Perhaps there's no way to have a reasonably decent text-based DOS
>web browser for minimalist/legacy hardware crammed into two
>executable modules that principally or only uses conventional
>memory. That's the point to consider here. Bobcat is a good web
>browser. But look at its size and how much memory it consumes to do
>all that it does. Look at how large Arachne is and its present
>requirement for both conventional and EMS/XMS memory in order to do
>all that it can do at a reasonable pace. Microsoft and IBM did us
>all some disservice over the many years they knew about "virtual
>memory" in other operating systems but refused to implement an
>equivalent for DOS. They came to the party, if you will, all too
>late. When you think about it, there's possibly a single competitor
>to the functionality of Net-Tamer with service to those running
>legacy hardware. But that's not the primary goal of its creators --
>E. G. the software is made to run on an 80186 CPU in handheld
>computers which means it can also run on 8086s 8088s and 80286s.
>That software -- a purely commercial package -- is split across
>several executable modules to achieve what Net-Tamer does in only
>TWO modules. Perhaps this is the route David Colston should have
>taken years ago. Ah, but hindsight is 20:20 and it may be too late
>to take advantage of it.
>Walter Scott
><><><> News & Views, 24 Hours A Day, 7 Days A Week, Are The Net
><><><>
>NTReader v0.31(P)/Beta (Registered) in conjunction with Net-Tamer.
Excellent and informative post! I too have begun to experience the
"exhausted memory" messages from Bobcat. And it is such a pity because the
program works so flawlessly in most other respects. What I can't understand
is why memory should be "eaten up" over a period of several minutes, hopping
from link to link. One would think that pages could be cached to disk, or
simply not cached at all. Then, the only limitation would be the size of
the current web page, and few of them exceed 50-60K. Even assuming
bobcat's 2 1/2 X memory need for page loading, this would require 125-150K
free ram, not a lot to ask.
Arachne, which employs the same epppd driver, and a similar dialer utility
displays much nicer memory behavior. And just look at all the overhead of
Arachne compared with Bobcat! Every day I become more appreciative of all
the work that went into Arachne to make it do so much with so little.
That said, I don't understand why the maker of Bobcat could not make use of
EMS/XMS memory as Arachne does, at least employing such in an alternate
release version.
BTW, when you said,
>When you think about it, there's possibly a single competitor
>to the functionality of Net-Tamer with service to those running
>legacy hardware. But that's not the primary goal of its creators --
>E. G. the software is made to run on an 80186 CPU in handheld
>computers which means it can also run on 8086s 8088s and 80286s.
>That software -- a purely commercial package -- is split across
>several executable modules to achieve what Net-Tamer does in only
>TWO modules.
what software are you talking about?
So now, I guess I have no choice but to wait until bobcat gets the memory
bugs worked out, and use the unix shell when I have some serious browsing to
do.
Regards, Lee Kokot
[EMAIL PROTECTED] www.primenet.com/~lkokot
"C'mon you sons of bitches, what do you want -- to live forever?"
Major Daley
Net-Tamer V 1.12.0 - Registered
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