Really thin client

[bickiia@earlham.edu]

I was thinking about the really thin clients people wanted to make using
donated hardware.  What about a return to DOS?

Though I haven't used it, Arachne <http://arachne.browser.org/> is a
free browser for DOS, at least for noncommercial use (which I assume is
what we're talking about).  I'm not clear on how networking would work
-the webpage makes reference to a PPP dialer or packet driver, so I
assume Arachne implements its own TCP/IP stack...?

Anyway, being able to surf the web, or even an intranet, is a
comparitively useful thing on otherwise very marginal pieces of
hardware.

I checked with Caldera <http://www.calderathin.com> about WebSpyder
and/or DR-DOS, but they aren't free even for noncommercial use.  DR-DOS
used to be, but WebSpyder never was.  Anyway, they quoted about $10 a
unit in sufficient quantity (?) for nonprofits, I don't know if this
only included DR-DOS, both, or each seperately.  It's another
possibility, but probably not necessary since all of those computers
will include some version of MS-DOS and Arachne seems to be leaner and
cheaper.

So, some thoughts.  It ain't Linux, but it would work well with Linux.