Spectrum Computing

Some years ago I purchased a Spectranet from [mention]beanz[/mention] who kindly posted it all the way from the USA.

Anyway, its been sitting in my box of random Spectrum since since I got it, but today I finally gave it a go, and its wonderful!

I thought I would post a few photos. Does anyone else have one? I note ByteDelight are remaking them.

I got one back in 2012ish. Awesome bit of kit, always wished more folk adopted it and hosted servers. There has just been new batch re-designed and made, so hopefully it will get a new lease of life

p13z wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 11:31 pm Awesome bit of kit, always wished more folk adopted it and hosted servers.

Well if people would get around to plugging their raspberry pi back in...

I've got a public tnfs server online at tnfs://zxnet.co.uk but there's not much on there right now. The main thing is a silly music streaming thing I cobbled together.

Is there a guide on setting up a TNFS server? Those Pis in the photo are currently used as an openVPN server, and a PiHole, but I have a spare Pi3 I could use.

depends, do you want a private one, or a public one?
A pi would easily run a tnfs server in addition to those other things.

Thanks for the reply. A private one initially for testing, then thinking maybe we could set one up on our SC server.

I've got the sever working in the past, but I don't know what to do next (as in how do you get from installing the server, to having the Spectrum pages display).

http://spectrum.alioth.net/doc/index.php/TNFS_server

Out of interest, was SpectraNet available in the 80's?

It would have been great to essentially load a game on the speccy and then save a snapshot into the cloud. Mind you, does this use TCP/IP and if so then as TCP/IP was in its infancy in the mid 80's then I doubt there would actually have actually been anything to connect to.

Released in 2009

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... id=1000944

There were Micronet adaptors in the 80s

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronet_800

PeterJ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 11:43 amhow do you get from installing the server, to having the Spectrum pages display.

They’re not pages, they’re spectrum files - BASIC programs, CODE files, etc, just the same as you would save to tape.

If you make a BASIC menu program %SAVE “BOOT.ZX” LINE 0 then this one should load with %LOAD “” or autorun when you connect (if you have configured auto boot), and act as your “homepage”.

A private server is as simple as copying the tnfsd source to your pi, compiling it, and pointing at a directory of files.

A public server is a bit more work to set up file permissions appropriately, and ideally run the server from its own limited user account.
Then if you want a setup like mine where you have read/write access internally, but connections from outside get a read only server, you're into fiddly firewall rules and so on.

Seven.FFF wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:42 pm

PeterJ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 11:43 amhow do you get from installing the server, to having the Spectrum pages display.

They’re not pages, they’re spectrum files - BASIC programs, CODE files, etc, just the same as you would save to tape.

If you make a BASIC menu program %SAVE “BOOT.ZX” LINE 0 then this one should load with %LOAD “” or autorun when you connect (if you have configured auto boot), and act as your “homepage”.

Thank you. Now I understand. Much appreciated.

The SC site is on digital ocean droplet running Ubuntu, so shouldn't be a problem. When I have time I will have a play. Thank you. Do you know what port it runs on?

I must talk to you at some time about your Mediawiki site [mention]Guesser[/mention]

PeterJ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:22 pm Do you know what port it runs on?

UDP 16384

PeterJ wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:10 pm Some years ago I purchased a Spectranet from @beanz who kindly posted it all the way from the USA.

Anyway, its been sitting in my box of random Spectrum since since I got it, but today I finally gave it a go, and its wonderful!

I thought I would post a few photos. Does anyone else have one? I note ByteDelight are remaking them.

Again sorry about the horrible solder job I did on those LEDs...I'm much better at soldering now without destroying traces.

There was a 2 player game apparently written for the spectranet by Winston as I recall but wasn't "released", I think @guesser played it didn't you?

beanz wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:29 pm There was a 2 player game apparently written for the spectranet by Winston as I recall but wasn't "released", I think @guesser played it didn't you?

Do you mean Spectank? That's up to four players and was "released" as it's all in the examples section of the spectranet source. I have a copy of the game client on my tnfs server. The game server is here: http://spectrum.alioth.net/svn/listing. ... me_server_

Guesser wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:47 pm

beanz wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:29 pm There was a 2 player game apparently written for the spectranet by Winston as I recall but wasn't "released", I think @guesser played it didn't you?

Do you mean Spectank? That's up to four players and was "released" as it's all in the examples section of the spectranet source. I have a copy of the game client on my tnfs server. The game server is here: http://spectrum.alioth.net/svn/listing. ... me_server_

Yes that's the one, any chance of a screenshot? I never got to play it and never saw it.

No worries [mention]beanz[/mention]

You were very upfront about it before the transaction and I'm very happy. It's on my list to get the soldering iron out of the loft!

Any chance of someone coming up with a wireless version? I know you can get adaptors, but would it be too power-hungry for the Speccy to do it on its own?

Joefish wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 2:03 pm Any chance of someone coming up with a wireless version? I know you can get adaptors, but would it be too power-hungry for the Speccy to do it on its own?

I think a wireless version would mean either building an ethernet<->wireless bridge into it, or completely redesigning the interface and firmware but just keeping the high level APIs the same. A 5V aux power port to power a compact wifi bridge adaptor would be the simplest concession to wifi if the speccy PSU is up to it.

Ben has expressed interest in making a wireless version, but for now a wireless bridge like this one is a cheap, easy and proven solution:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123910528089

Seven.FFF wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:10 pm Ben has expressed interest in making a wireless version, but for now a wireless bridge like this one is a cheap, easy and proven solution:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123910528089

Yes, the website says 'We will test a affordable Wifi dongle very soon, that connects to the ethernet-socket of Spectranet.'

Hope you don’t mind me bringing this thread back. I just got one of these cards, it’s from Aleksey, he is selling clones on eBay from Russia.

I’d been communicating with him for around 2 months now, Aleksey has been fixing an issue with compatibility across different Z80 chips. Anyway back to the questions.

Is the Spectranet supposed to work with an Interface One?

Hedge1970 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:59 pm I just got one of these cards, it’s from Aleksey

Mine is in the mail... do they work identically to the normal ones? like can I use the English instructions on the web?
I'm planning to cad up a 4d poopable case for it, I'm not aware of any in existence, but I can't do that till I know the dimensionses.
So excited, but shipping is slow and Russia is farrrr

[mention]cat[/mention] It works exactly like the original, so all original documentation is the same for Alexsey's card.

The documentation for the card itself (the switch functions etc.) is sent by Aleksey and is the only card specific documentation.

'Tis a fine card. I play around with assembly and the card has always behaved as expected, I use the spectranet GitHub for all my reference.