Re: LYNX-DEV using a dos xt

[David Woolley]

> 
> I would like to be able to access www addresses thru
> Lynx. Wne I try to use go I get the message "cancelled."
> I notice some options are available with newer computers
> than mine. What can I do using my dos xt? I used to be
> able to get http addresses, but no longer. Help!!

That's almost certainly DOS Lynx, which hasn't been supported for a few
years, rather than the mainstream Lynx.  Without knowing the URLs
in question, its not possible to diagnose your problems, although you
could try telnetting to the server and typing:

GET /

GET /index.html


etc., possibly with a blank line, and possibly with explicit LF (control-J)
after the the GET.  (NB DOSLynx is HTTP 0.9, so these GET forms are correct).

Although servers are supposed to be backwards compatible it is possible that
some now no longer support HTTP 0.9.

In any case, backwards compatibility seems to be last thing in the minds of
most site designers these days, and many sites will appear completely blank,
or display and advert for MSIE or Netscape, when viewed with anything more
than about a year old.

There are versions of KA9Q (free for educational use and radio amateurs)
which include a very simple HTTP client, intended for downloading files,
not as an HTML viewer, which will run in 640K.  These should be findable on
the ftp.demon.co.uk site, although I'm not sure exactly where.  They have
some HTTP 1.1 features, specifically HOST headers, but are basically a 
minimal implementation of HTTP 1.0.

However, your most realistic alternative is to upgrade. A 4MHz 386 SX/25
is probably less than US$100 second hand and will run Lynx comfortably,
if slowly (Lynx makes heavy, unnecessary use of floating point).
I'm currently using 2.7 with 6MB, but have used earlier versions in 4.
This is for Linux; the DJGPP port may well run in similar hardware.
For LInux, you need around 40 to 50 MB of disk space, although with
a custom installation done on a different machine, you could probably
create a Lynx system that used about 3MB plus swap space to bring your
virtual memory up to at least 8M and preferably 16.  (If you have about
10M of RAM you could probably create a hard diskless Lynx/Linux system on
one floppy!)

I would guess the Win32 version of Lynx would run in the minimal (8M)
Win 95 system, still less than the realistic minimum for the GUI browsers.
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