* DOS is Microsoft Disk Operating System.
* Unix is the OS (operating system) that my ISP (dialup Internet Service provider) uses on its server.
* lynx is a text-based web-browser. I use lynx to surf the web, to chat, and to access web services like hotmail or free web-page servers.
What are the advantages using DOS/Unix/lynx for browsing?
My computer has been up and running continuously since 12/15/97. Since I'm often home and I often use the computer without regard for time of day, it's more convenient for me to leave it on. Power glitches cause it to reboot. Occasionally I do something stupid and I've frozen it. In normal use when I'm not testing things or pushing the limits of programs, things work as they're supposed to. There are times when my computer has been operating continuously for more than 60 days. (I never used Windows95 GUI (Graphical User Interface) during those long periods!)On my computer I have mail and text archives of information that I've found interesting or have scanned for later perusal, as well as many freeware and shareware programs for DOS and Windows that can be downloaded from sites on the Net. The disadvantage of running DOS on my home computer is that it does not multi-task programs. I have to exit or 'shell' from one program if I want to "maintain my place" in an ongoing activity. I normally 'shell' from Telemate communications program to view or to process files after downloading. (I compress most textfiles after scanning them.) However, Telemate communications program lets me have a terminal window, an "edit window", a "view window" and a "DOS" window open at one time (although only one will be "active". I use Telemate features to copy/append text from the terminal window and/or "backscroll buffer" to savefiles for later reference. It is so easy to keep adding to my store of URLs pointing to resources on the Net.
Because I have a shell account with my ISP, I have access to quite a variety of Unix programs. The ones that I use every day are pine (mail program for writing/viewing emails) 'mail' (same idea, but *much more streamlined so it's quicker for scanning emails), editors for creating and changing files (I use vim and sed), and 'screen', a Unix program that keeps my place if I get "NO CARRIER". It saves a *lot of frustration to know that I can login again and run "screen -r" and recover my place in the process that I was running. I also use file compression/archiving programs--gzip and zip.
I like Unix because I can run processes in the background easily and using 'screen', I can create 2 "virtual terminals" and have 2 or more "windows" going at the same time. The weakness with this way of working is that when there is a lot of heavy-duty processing happening at my ISP, things can slow to a crawl. Over time I'm getting to enjoy more of the capabilities of the Unix approach of using powerful tools with little interface.
My goal during 1998 is to install and start running linux, a freeware Unix clone, on my home computer. An alternative would be Free-BSD, another flavor of Unix. It's time that I got back into programming again.
Since lynx is a text-based browser, it shows the information on the screen really quickly. It loads quickly, so I can easily check out information online; it takes about a second to fire up lynx showing my bookmark file. I can load the webpages I create into it and 'call' vim to edit them from lynx, and when I finish the edits, I am viewing the edited page in lynx. It gives quick feedback on changes that I've made. However I don't have colors. Or pictures. I have speedy access to text information instead.
When I use the library computer which runs Netscape to access the web, I get *really annoyed at the clutter of ads at the various services that I use. My plain vanilla interface lets me retrieve and use information quickly and easily.
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© 1998 Deimos