Web browsers were not "a thing" during the heydey of 8088/8086/80286 IBM Compatible MS-DOS computers, which were generally made in the 1980s. The first web browser, called WorldWideWeb, was written in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist, on a NeXT computer, with the software going into the public domain in 1993. (CERN) Browsers were ported to PCs and similar computers like Amiga around 1993. Netscape Navigator came out in 1994, taking off in 1995. Microsoft Internet Explorer was released in 1995. (Wikipedia: History of the web browser)
The IBM PC came out in 1981, the PC/XT in 1983, the PC/AT in 1984. PS/2 computers arrived in 1988.
These computers predate the heyday introduction of web browsing software by approximately 5 to 10 years. But that does not mean folks have not been porting or backporting web browsers to older hardware.
Modern browsers have so much that Tim Berners-Lee's browser didn't. Advanced graphics, style sheets, JavaScript and much more. How does all that translate to using a browser on vintage equipment? Not well.
Specifically for the 8088, 8086, and 80286, the chips do not have enough processing power to provide anything near a modern web browsing experience (Berner-Lee's NeXT Cube was 25MHz Motorola 68030-based) (Wikipedia).
So browsers that work with older equipment forgo some or many of the features of modern browsers. Some have graphics mode, some are text based. Most workable MS-DOS browsers do not have HTTPS security. And graphics like JPG, PNG, and GIF are rudimentary if not missing.
This Note will discuss some of the browsers available for vintage IBM PCs and compatibles.
What Makes a Web Browser 8088/8086/80286 IBM Compatible?
This Note is only confining itself to the processors mentioned and only MS-DOS, the predominant operating system. By the time the first Windows web browser came to market (Internet Explorer in 1995), 80386 and 80486 computers were common. Any browsers for Windows 3.1 and earlier would have been backported.
Here is a list of common hardware that software had to use in the time period:
- Processors: 8088, 8086, 80286
- Clock Speeds: 4.77 MHz to 8 MHz
- Displays: CGA, MGA / Hercules, EGA, VGA (640x480 max, no hardware acceleration to speak of)
- Memory Sizes: 512K to 4000K RAM or so
- Hard Disk: 10MB to 40MB
- Network Interfaces: 10MB Ethernet TCP/IP (8-bit for 8088/6, 16-bit for 80286), Serial SLIP, PPP
To summarize: slow processors, slow and small displays, limited memory and slow communications.
Web browsers calaining compatibility with this set of hardware must work with these hardware restraints. Any software requiring Windows 3.11 (80386) or higher or MS-DOS > 6.22 (like Windows 95) are not in this class.
Sites Claiming to List Compatible Browsers
Let's face it: finding software for a specific purpose on specific hardware can be rather hard unless you know exactly what you're looking for. And hunting for browsers, I knew very little. Here are some sites claiming to list MS-DOS compatible web browsers:
- Wikipedia - Category:Web browsers for DOS
- KOMPX.COM - Web browsers for DOS
- BROWSERS.EVOLT.ORG - evolt.org Browser Archive
The thing to look out for: Many browsers claiming MS-DOS compatibility are for 80386 and above machines common in the 1990s with DOS Extender technology or Windows DOS boxes with the same. These will not work with 8088/86/286 machines.
Review of Workable Web Browsers for MS-DOS
Below are reviews of those web browsers that seem to work and have enough features to be of note.
MicroWeb
MicroWeb is billed as a DOS web browser and has been bundled with FreeDOS. It consists of a single 91K EXE file.
MicroWeb uses Michael Brutman's mTCP networking library for the network stack. You will need a DOS packet driver relevant to your network interface 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
- 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
The interface is spartan. The last version seen: Version 0.53 dated July 8, 2023.
More information is on GitHub.
Arachne
Arachne is an Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer.[Originally, Arachne was developed by Michal Polák under his xChaos label, a name he later changed into Arachne Labs. It was written in C and compiled using Borland C++ 3.1. Arachne has since been released under the GPL as Arachne GPL.
Arachne primarily runs on DOS-based operating systems, but there are also builds available for Linux.
It has a TCP/IP connection suite (unspecified, likely Watt32).
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
- Graphical (it has its own interface, fonts, etc.)
- HTTP only (no HTTPS support)
- Limited CSS support, no Javascript
The interface is unique with a chipped stone look. Arachne supports multiple image formats including JPEG, PNG, BMP and animated GIF. It supports a subset of the HTML 4.0 and CSS 1.0 standards, including full support for tables and frames.
The last version seen: Version 1.99 dated December 23, 2021.
This may only work on a 80286. It was slow, hard to set up and prone to fall back to the command line for obscure reasons.
Dillo
Requires an 80386, even Dillo for DOS 3.02b.
Links
Links Lite apparently also requires an 80386.
Alternatives to Using HTTPS
Unfortunately older machines just don't have the processing power to handle HTTPS but there are a few options available:
- Try to use HTTP instead of HTTPS.
- Use a proxy server such as retro-proxy which converts HTTPS to HTTP. For example, 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. For example, if MicroWeb is redirected to an HTTPS site then it will generate a FrogFind link for your convenience.
Known HTTP Websites
Here is a non-exhaustive list of HTTP capable websites to use with vintage browsers:
- FrogFind! An HTTP search engine - http://frogfind.com/
- 68k.news - http://68k.news
- The first CERN website - https://info.cern.ch/
- Internet Archive Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/