MicroWeb DOS web browser
MicroWeb is a web browser for DOS! It is a 16-bit real mode application, designed to run on minimal hardware.
Minimum requirements
To run you will need:
- Intel 8088 or compatible CPU
- CGA, EGA, VGA or Hercules compatible graphics card
- A network interface (it is possible to use your machine's serial port with the EtherSLIP driver)
- A mouse is desirable but not 100% required
- 640k RAM is desirable. EMS/XMS are not required
Limitations
- Text only (this may change in a later release)
- HTTP only (no HTTPS support)
- No CSS or Javascript
- Very long pages may be truncated if there is not enough RAM available
- Mouse cursor is currently not visible in Hercules mode
Keyboard shortcuts
- Escape : Exit
- F2 : Invert screen (useful for LCD displays)
- F6 / Ctrl+L : Select address bar
- Tab / Shift+Tab : Cycle through selectable page elements
- Enter : Follow link / press button
- Backspace : Back in history
The page position can be scrolled with cursor keys, Page up, Page down, Home and End
Command line options
You can use a URL as an argument to load a specific page on startup. This can also be a path to a local html file.
MicroWeb will try to automatically choose the most appropriate display mode on startup, but it is possible to manually select a video mode by using a command line switch
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| -c | Force to run in 640x200 CGA mode |
| -h | Force to run in 720x348 Hercules mode |
| -e | Force to run in 640x350 EGA mode |
| -v | Force to run in 640x480 VGA mode |
| -i | Start with inverted screen colours (useful for some LCD monitors) |
For example MICROWEB -c http://68k.news will start in CGA 640x200 mode and load the 68k.news website
HTTPS limitations
Unfortunately older machines just don't have the processing power to handle HTTPS but there are a few options available:
- Browse sites that still allow HTTP
- Use a proxy server such as retro-proxy which converts HTTPS to HTTP. You can configure a proxy server by setting the HTTP_PROXY environment variable before running MicroWeb. e.g.
SET HTTP_PROXY=192.168.0.50:8000 - Use the FrogFind! web service to view a stripped down version of a site. If MicroWeb is redirected to an HTTPS site then it will generate a FrogFind link for your convenience.
Getting started
Check out the releases page which will include a pre-built binary. Also available are FreeDOS boot disk images for 360K and 720K floppies, which are configured to work with a NE2000 network adapter. These boot images can be used in an emulator such as PCem.
Network setup
MicroWeb uses Michael Brutman's mTCP networking library for the network stack. You will need a DOS packet driver relevant to your network interface. You can read more about configuring DOS networking here
Build instructions
To build you will need the OpenWatcom 1.9 C++ compiler. Use OpenWatcom's wmake to build the makefile in the project/DOS folder