Emissary (Internet Software)

Emissary was a popular early commercial internet suite from Attachmate for Windows. It featured a web browser, FTP support, e-mail program, a newsreader program, and an HTML editor.[3]

Emissary
Developer(s)Attachmate/Wollongong
Initial release1995
Final release
2.0 / August 28, 1996 (1996-08-28)
Operating systemWindows 3.x, 95, 98, NT 3.5/NT 3.51[1][2]
Available inEnglish
TypeInternet Suite
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteHomepage at the Wayback Machine (archived October 29, 1996)

Though once considered a popular internet suite, but it fell out of favor after Internet Explorer 3 was released. Development was abandoned following the Microsoft antitrust case.[4][5][6]

Releases

The following are releases of Emissary 1.x:[7]

  • Emissary 1.0
  • Emissary 1.1[8]

Emissary 2.0

Emissary 2.0 was a collection of six applications:[6]

  • File Management - An FTP client
  • Host Access - Remote access via TELNET
  • Mail - An email client with POP3 and SMTP support as well as an address book
  • News - A newsgroup reader
  • Web Surfing - An HTML 3 web browser
  • Hypertext editor - A WYSIWYG HTML editor

Each of these applications ran within Emissary and had its own helpfile.[9]

Features

Emissary 2.0 had the following features:[10][11]

  • the ability to e-mail web pages or hot links[12]
  • HTML3 support
  • HTML forms support
  • URIs supported: FTP/Anonymous FTP, Telnet, Mailto, News groups, HTTP, Gopher, Finger protocol
  • Netscape/Internet Explorer extension/plugin support[13]
  • WYSIWYG HTML Editor
  • View/edit source of a web page
  • vCalanader/vCard support
  • A favorites toolbar via "Custom Agent"
  • View header response in "Document Info"
  • History via "Places Visited"
  • Document history
  • Page text search/replace
  • Page magnification
  • HTTPS/site certificates
  • Ability to save/load history via "History Lists" (.whl)
  • Ability to ROT13 a webpage
  • Proxy support (http & https)
  • SOCKS support
  • DNS Query
  • Help file with tips
  • Network drives support
  • Drag-and-drop support
  • Navigation: Back, Forward, Refresh
  • Ability to print webpages (no print preview)
  • Page auto-refresh via "Auto-play" in "Places Visited"
  • Plugins: Shockwave (Director 4.0.4), INSO Word Viewer
  • Themes: business, entertainment, kids, default
  • 200+ page printed Emissary User Guide
  • Spell checking support via the Sentry-Spell Checking Engine[6]
  • Encode/decode Base64, quotable-printable, uuencode of text, binary, and clipboard files
  • The following file types were supported: address book (.adr), MCI video (.avi, .mov), vCard (.vdf), mail/news (.wod), Macromedia Director (.dir, .dcr, .dxr), word documents (.doc), hypertext (.htm, .html, .shtml), gopher directory (.gom), text (.txt,. text, .htm), images (.gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, .xbm, .ico), sound (.wav, .au, .snd, .voc, .aif)

Technical

Web pages created with Emissary had the following meta tag: 

<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Emissary 2.0">

Emails sent with Emissary had the following X-Mailer Header: X-Mailer: Emissary V2.00, by Attachmate Corp.[14]

Releases
  • Emissary 2.0 Public Beta [15]
  • Emissary 2.0 Public BETA 1[16]
  • Emissary 2.0 beta 1 [17]
  • Emissary 2.0 beta 2 [17]
  • Emissary 2.0 beta 3 [17]
  • Emissary 2.0 beta 4 [18]
  • Emissary 2.0 International Evaluation
  • Emissary 2.0 Desktop Edition
  • Emissary Version 2.0 Official Release [90-day evaluation]

System Requirements

Emissary 2.0 has the following system requirements:[2][19][20][21]

  • Processor: An IBM PC 80486 or higher
  • Ram: 8MB of RAM
  • Hard drive space: 15MB to 25MB free hard drive space
  • Driver: WinSock v1.1-compliant TCP/IP stack.
  • Network: an ODI or NDIS-compatible network card (for intranet use)
  • Modem: 28.8kbit/s or faster modem (for internet use)

Reception

The internet suite was well received.[22]

Editions

The following are the editions that were sold:[19][23][24][25][26]

Edition Release Date Price Medium Developers
Emissary 1.1 1996 ? ? The Wollongong Group Inc., Attachmate Internet Products Group
Emissary 2.0 Desktop Edition 1996 US$149 Diskettes Attachmate
Emissary 2.0 Office Edition 1996 about US$400 Diskettes Attachmate

References
  1. "Emissary". Software Index. Internet.com. November 1, 1996. Retrieved 14 March 2010.
  2. "INSTALLING EMISSARY 2.0". Readme. The Winsock-L FTP Area. 1999. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  3. "Visual Merchandising Dictionary - E". FashionWindows.com,Inc. February 28, 2000. Archived from the original on 29 February 2000. Retrieved 14 March 2010.
  4. LIVINGSTON, BRIAN (1999-03-29). "Will freeware and personalization bring new life to browsers?". InfoWorld. Vol. 21 no. 13. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost. pp. 42, 1/3p. ISSN 0199-6649.
  5. Livingston, Brian (05/08/2000). "Brave new Windows: How the Baby Bills will make your life easier and less expensive". InfoWorld. Vol. 22 no. 19. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost. pp. 75, 1/2p. ISSN 0199-6649. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. Stroud, Forrest. "Emissary 2.0". Software Reviews. Internet.com. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  7. "Main page". Attachmate Corporation. 1996. Archived from the original on 22 December 1996. Retrieved 14 March 2010.
  8. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-17462922.html
  9. Take from installation directory
  10. "Features of Emissary 2.0". Emissary Central. Attachmate. 1996. Archived from the original on 29 October 1996. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  11. "Emissary 2.0's New Features". Emissary Central. Attachmate. 1996. Archived from the original on 29 October 1996. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  12. Stewart, Stewart (1995-11-30). "Frequently asked questions about the World Wide Web". The Rolling Stone computer issue. No. 722. Rolling Stone. pp. 24, 5p. ISSN 0035-791X.
  13. "BrowserWatch - Browser Blvd". Internet.com. 1996-09-13. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  14. http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/gnu/ftp/pub/gnu/windows/emacs/docs/ntemacs/todo/gdb%5B%5D
  15. K. Joseph, Dr. Mark (3 May 1996). "Multipart/related in Emissary 2.0 Public Beta". MHTML Archives. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  16. "SOFT> Emissary 2.0 Public BETA 1 Released". 2 May 1996. Retrieved 14 March 2010.
  17. "What's New Archives". Stroud's CWSA Apps. Mecklermedia Corporation. May 1996. Archived from the original on 10 November 1999. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  18. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2010-03-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  19. "Emissary 2.0 Desktop Edition". 5 (6). Smart Computing in Plain English. June 1997. ISSN 1093-4170. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  20. "Emissary 2.0 Desktop Edition". Smart Computing in Plain English. 4 (5). May 1996. ISSN 1093-4170.
  21. "Emissary Download". Emissary Central. Attachmate. Archived from the original on 29 October 1996. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  22. Stroud, Forrest (1 November 1996). "Software Reviews: Emissary Introduction". WinPlanet. Internet.com. Archived from the original on 1 December 2006. Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  23. Gustavson, Ron (August 1996). "Browsing at large". CD-ROM Professional. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost. 9 (8): 38, 3p.
  24. "Emissary 2.0 / Host Publ". Archive: 1997 to 1999. Codehigh Ltd. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  25. "16-bit Internet Suites". Strouds CWS 16-bit Apps. Mecklermedia Corporation. September 22, 1997. Retrieved 15 March 2010.
  26. L. Lee, Yvonne (Feb 26, 1996). "AttachMate Revamps Browser". InfoWorld. Vol. 18 no. 9. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. p. 52. ISSN 0199-6649.

Further reading
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