I am seeking a simple map viewer like gmapcatcher (no coding or programming) which will run off a pre downloaded map database of an entire continent or the entire planet.
then you might find some information at http://help.openstreetmap.org with a search for “offline”
or directly in the OSM wiki about http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Offline_Openstreetmap … perhabs a bit outdated there.
But if you intend to pre-download really much tile graphics from the main OSM tile server, pay attention to http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy