Arachne...

Post by **wardrich** » Fri May 09, 2003 7:31 am

Ok, i AM using pure dos, and i CAN get it to run, but it is EXTREMELY slow, and it times out on all the sites i try to go to, even though it claims that i am online. I need help BADLY! I believe Proc was using this program for quite some time. Could you help me please?

thanks
Richard

procerus · Post by **procerus** » Sat May 10, 2003 3:30 pm

Hi wardrich,

good to hear you're trying Arachne out. It needs a bit of tweaking but, when properly set up, should be little slower than Internet Explorer or any other browser.

Load Arachne and hit F1. Then click on "How to set up, optimize and use Arachne". Next click on "How to speed up Arachne". All is explained there.

I use a ramdisk myself. Do a search for XMSDSK.EXE.

Make sure Arachne's directory is in your autoexec.bat's path statement. Use a couple of lines at the end of the autoexec.bat to set up a temp folder for Arachne on the ramdisk like so (assuming your ramdisk is the d drive)-
D:
MD TEMP
C:

My ramdisk line from my config.sys is-
C:\DRIVERS\XMSDSK.EXE 32767
This gives a 32MB ramdisk which is way over the top. But, hey, on a modern system we can spare it, eh?

Also make sure you have plenty of free conventional memory. Type "mem" at the DOS prompt. You need at least 610K for "Largest executable program size". Ideally, when you're running Arachne, the free memory figure that by default is in green at the lower right, should read at least 70K and shouldn't go much below about 50K. If your figure's too low then you'll need to tweak your autoexec.bat and config.sys and make sure you load all drivers high.

Arachne's worth a bit of effort. It's amazing what DOS can do and you get a great deal of satisfaction once it all works smoothly. Let me know how you get on.

Good luck, young grasshopper.

Post by **wardrich** » Mon May 12, 2003 7:34 am

thanks. I shall try this tonite. When it tells you to pick your modem speed, there isnt anything near a 56K that i could see.... am i to pick the last one on the list?

Post by **wardrich** » Tue May 13, 2003 8:48 am

lol... i was reading over what you put there proc...

I don't have windows on there at all, so i dont have a config.sys file. Also, what is this Mdisk you speak of?

thanks
-Richard-

procerus · Post by **procerus** » Fri May 16, 2003 2:14 pm

If you don't have Windows you have DOS right? MS-DOS requires a config.sys file to load memory managers, drivers and TSRs. Just boot and type "edit c:\config.sys" (without the quotes) and hit return. That's your config.sys. If you really don't have one you'd better create one since the memory management components (himem.sys and emm386.exe) will be vital to Arachne and for running games!

The file I referred to is XMSDSK.EXE. You can get it here-
http://members.cox.net/dos/disk2.htm

What it does is create a "disk" in your computer's memory. Normal disk access is slow (microseconds instead of milliseconds) compared to memory. Many programs access and store data on the hard disk (Arachne stores web files there by default). XMSDSK.EXE allows these programs to use a virtual disk in your computer's memory instead. It's much faster. This is the best way to speed up Arachne.

Like I said above what you want to do is load Arachne and press F1. Just use the help system. It's one of the best I've ever seen in a DOS program.

Post by **wardrich** » Sat May 17, 2003 12:19 pm

i got my other computer back, and i also finally got windows on the other one. Thanks for the help anyway Proc.

-Richard-