Spectranet - the TNFS directory thread

[desertkun]

I published a web page for decentralised index of TNFS resources here: https://speccytools.org/index/

The code is client side only, as the data is hosted on DNS (in form of TXT records) by multiple indexes.
To add a resource to the catalog, just ask the maintainer(s) to add DNS record to one of the indexes, or become a maintainer!

Do you know a resource that's not there?
Also people report irata.online is down, who owns that?

To kick the project going, the project needs several index maintainers.
If you want to help maintaining such a list, see the bottom link of the link above for a tg group I created just for the case.

[flatduckrecords]

Hi @desertkun,

I added a couple of TXT records to tnfs.robertmorrison.me — there's not much on the actual TNFS at the moment, but I've preordered a Spectranet from Ben @bytedelight next batch so I'm looking forward to making stuff again soon! Thanks for creating this resource, it's a great idea.

I believe the owner/maintainer of Irata.online is Thomas Cherryhomes [Twitter | Facebook]

[oO cozy Oo]

I remember going on bbs sites to get all my Amiga (Pirate) games, Is there such a thing now for the Spectrum

[p13z]

I remember going on bbs sites to get all my Amiga (Pirate) games, Is there such a thing now for the Spectrum

There are TNFS sites that host the tosec library of games and such - and there is a Speccy terminal program for browsing BBS, so yes - plenty

[mdr]

Hi everyone!

It's been a while, but I now have some time over the holidays to update my TNFS site again. I've done a big chunk of backend work on my Ruby-based API which has been greatly improved. I've also written an unholy mass of tangled Speccy BASIC - but I now have the basics of a proper BBS-style forum system. Multi-page posts are now possible, along with other nice features like post creation timestamps, unlimited posts, subject headers and so on.

I've re-written the Message Wall to use the new code while I test it out, and have also re-done the navigation shortcuts. Feels a little more straightforward now to navigate through posts using QAOPM etc. Here's a screenshot:



Assuming this all works out OK (I still have a few more tweaks and bug-fixes to make) I will finish off the "Reply to post" code and then there should be a fully-fledged message board system. Hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think

[shiver]

Hi All,

My name is Tim, you will all remember my brother Adam Colley (Hideki) of zx.kupo.be. I have noticed a lot of chatter in the last couple of years with regards to the disapearence of the host, and some heroic efforts to maintain a mirror.

Unfortunately it took me around six months to crack all of adams passwords and accounts, get to the bottom of what he was running and then another year to learn enough speccy stuff to have a clue. I'm pleased to announce that not only have I now ressurected a 48k from the trash pile, but I have built one from scratch too. with that in mind, and with requests from third parties, I have aquired a new vps for the archive.

zx.kupo.be will be back online shortly. The web page for this is now live at the address but the tnfs server is not currently running, this will be up shortly and all being well will work as it originally did. keep checking back to the web page for the service status, I will post an update to the page as soon as the tnfs is up.

I hope you are all happy with this, i know Adam would have been. I will be maintaining the archie for as long as is possible (or as long as the wife lets me get away with it).

As a side note, although I have 2x 48k units now, I don't have anything above this, or indeed a spectranet adaptor, so i'm currently configuring fuse to emulate this. as soon as I have this up and some debugging done on my systems everything should be fine. should take be around a week or so...I'm a full time dad too

Many thanks,

Tim Colley (Shiver)

[p13z]

Hi and thanks Tim. That is quite a task to take on, it's appreciated.
I never met Adam for real - but spoke to him a fair bit on IRC etc.
He is missed.

[shiver]

Further to my previous post, and some fantastic help from JeDa, an old friend of Adam's, the system is now live and functional. If someone would be kind enough to test it for me and let me know, i'd be eternally grateful. also if the url could be added to the OP again, that'd be great.

it is back on it's original address, zx.kupo.be, although i only updated the dns for the new server today, so if it doesn't work, wait 24hrs and try again.

i will also be adding several pages of Adam related stuff, Speccy stuff that I'M working on and links to related resorurces and pages to the kupo.be root.

there is nothing there art the moment but i'll get this done in the coming weeks.

many thanks,

Tim

[p13z]

Further to my previous post, and some fantastic help from JeDa, an old friend of Adam's, the system is now live and functional. If someone would be kind enough to test it for me and let me know, i'd be eternally grateful. also if the url could be added to the OP again, that'd be great.

Indeed, all working. It is a beautiful thing.
Will sort a new directory list out. Gained a couple and lost a couple since the last check.
Thanks again.

[shiver]

zx.Kupo.be Permissions apear to have been sorted now but it'd be good if someone would be willing to test this again.

Should be read only now. I have tested this wit phptnfs and it seems to be ok, but a real-world test is needed before i can be sure.

many thanks in advance.

Tim.

[Guesser]

Should be read only now. I have tested this wit phptnfs and it seems to be ok, but a real-world test is needed before i can be sure.

Seems good

[mdr]

Looking good on emulators and on my +3!

Great to see this site back in action. I'll update my TNFS site and also update my blog post series with links to it now it's back and running.

[flatduckrecords]

I seem to have a working prototype: https://github.com/speccytools/spectranet-index-module

Code: Select all

%mount 0,"boot.speccytools.org"
%load""
(reboot)
! <hit enter>

I installed this on my Spectranet today, it’s very good!

Such module could be shipped with new spectranets, new users = zero hassle

I think this is a great suggestion. Maybe something @bytedelight can consider.

I also finally booted up @p13z’s site (zx.zapto.org) it’s really cool. Nice work

[mdr]

Hi Gang!

Good to see a lot of TNFS activity recently, looks like a bunch of new users have received the latest batch of Spectranet cards! It's been a while but I've been doing a lot of back-end work on my TNFS site. I've still got a stack of new uploads to process and lots of general housekeeping to do, but the big news is that I've done a load of work on the backend code. Firstly, I've updated the main menu and re-organised things so it's hopefully easier to find what you're looking for:



The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice a new menu option, and a rather interesting thing on the bottom right of the screen: I now have a login system implemented! This was the result of several days concerted hacking and given the limitations of the tech I'm working with, I'm amazed it seems to work

I've been wanting to implement a site-wide user authentication system for a long time and I finally have the bulk of the backend code working. I've extended my server-side API to handle a sort of site-wide session token auth system that can be used from BASIC[1], which means there's all sorts of cool things I can now implement. Here's what the user login menu looks like:



Now, when create an account and login, it doesn't actually do a whole bunch. You can see your last login/activity time, and the bottom bar in a few places gets updated to show your username:



And... err, that's about it at the moment. But! Now this is in place, there's a LOAD of new features I have planned, like the ability to save your favourite games & demos to personal "bookmarks" lists and of course the Message Wall can be updated to make use of this. Later on, I'll also see if I can add private messaging and other things - maybe even a forum system of sorts.

I've also done lots of general UI fixes and changes making use of UDGs a-plenty and liberal use of the 64-column stream driver which will start rolling out to the rest of the site soon. Things like this rather spiffy "System Information" box for example, which I think looks pretty decent for a BASIC system:



Oh, and in case you missed it, I'm also hosting my own JSSpeccy instance with the Spectranet support patched in by the awesome Speccytools.org. So you can try it out in a browser if you don't have a Spectranet card or have one emulated. Link in my signature has all the details.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers,

-Mark

[1]=Pretty gnarly hack, but I realised by POKEing a "session token" into the last few bytes of available memory, it persists when %load-ing different BASIC files. Which means it can be used as the equivalent of a web session cookie, and my Ruby-based server API can handle all the auth and user stuff in a SQLite database. Of course, this is a Speccy we're dealing with so any kind of modern crypto is right out of the question. I've plastered warnings all over the site but just to re-iterate: If you do sign up for an account to help test (and use the new features when I finish them), do NOT use any credentials you use anywhere else. It's all sent in clear-text and should in no way be considered secure.

[mdr]

Boom! User favourites is now live I've updated most of the "file" sections on the site - basically, anywhere you see the new blue user status bar, you should be able to add Favourites as well as comment using your username:



If you add a file as a favourite, you'll notice the little counter on the bottom left increment, and when you go to your user home you'll see a list of your 5 most-recently added favourites!



With all of my horrible un-optimised BASIC code, my debug info shows I have around 6Kb left to play with in this section, so I'm going to leave a full Favourites Browser for later. Anyway, it's been a lot of fun adding this to the site and a welcome distraction from Real Life

Cheers,

-Mark

[flatduckrecords]

Astonishing work Mark, well done!

[mdr]

Astonishing work Mark, well done!

It's certainly come a long way in the last two and a bit years since we first hacked on zmakebas together! Remember how it all started?

[flatduckrecords]

Ah, those were the days!

I’m blown away with what you’ve achieved in BASIC. We’ve been implementing a web-based “favourites” feature at my day job (with cookies and JavaScript etc) but this is far more impressive!

[mdr]

Just enabled the new favourites manager - this will let you manage your bookmarks of favourite games, demos and other files. Really pleased with this code especially the ability to sort by different fields, all thanks to the server API running SQLite. I'm doing some big backend cleanup work too which has made some sections load faster, and there's lots more cool stuff in the works too.



It's a big undertaking, but I'm going through my tangled mess of spaghetti-code BASIC, turning it into modules and implementing a pre-processor so I can include common library routines etc. When that's done, I should be able to roll out updates to the site and implement all the features like messaging I've got planned a lot faster. But all that's a little way off as Real Life once again beckons

Enjoy

[mdr]

Been busy again in the evenings I have now added the start of a user-preferences module to customize the behaviour of the site. I've added two "toggles" to start with: You can now automatically add any loaded file to your favourites list, and share your list with other users on the site. Here's what the UI looks like:


And here's the new "Users Lists" section from the main menu:


More to come, and I have a big backlog of new files to sort, categorize and upload. Enjoy!

-Mark

[mdr]

Another new feature added to my TNFS site codebase - I can now do slideshows of Speccy SCREEN$ and include graphics in my articles/text display routines. For example, in the General Articles section of the site, I've added a slideshow which shows off some of my favourite Speccy loading screens & demo art:



And here's the next page with screenshot loaded!



This was a lot of fun to put together, and a great distraction from the stresses of moving home and renovations! I hope this will mean lots more interesting content can be added to the site in future. It was an absolute mission to do all this in Speccy basic, and my code base (even though I've split it up and modularised it, handling includes with a pre-processor etc.) is now such a tangled mass of global state, guards against off-by-one errors and general cludges I'm amazed it all still seems to work.

Ah, just like the old days indeed!

PS: Many thanks again to the SpeccyTools.org team for their amazing work on JSSpeccy, being able to access my emulated site through a web-browser has made my development so much easier while I'm on the move!

[mdr]

Hi all, it's been a while!

I've had various Real Life challenges and job changes to contend with, but I'm now getting a little time back to work on my projects including my TNFS site. And it also helped me land a new job after my old company collapsed and went into administration at the end of last year - I had one of those "technical demonstration" type interviews and I decided I'd show off my TNFS site and the various DevOps automation that provisioned it, certainly made an impression and stood out! Never thought Sinclair BASIC would help me with my career, maybe I need to update my LinkedIn skills section

Anyway, I've given my site a long-overdue makeover and new logo, added some more user preferences (like the ability to change your password!), tidied up the code, and moved the old "Hall Of Fame" to now show a top list of "top favourites" - the games/demos etc. most often added to user's personal favourites:



As part of this refresh, I also revisited the other TNFS sites in my bookmarks and wrote a short article using my new article code, reviewing the various TNFS sites I can find online in 2024, complete with screenshots:





This got me thinking - it's been a while since I saw an update in this thread. What's everyone up to ? Any new developments in the world of TNFS/Spectranet ? I saw a bunch of activity towards the end of last year where it looked like the new batch of Spectranet cards were delivered. Does anyone have anything they'd like to share with their sites ? Anyone working on anything cool ?

Cheers,

-Mark

[p13z]

Nice one. Thanks for keeping going with this.
I do have many half-finished bits to add to my TNFS. The idea was always to keep tacking stuff on, to grow it into a sizable "thing" that you could get lost in. But as often happens, real life priorities shift around. I'm a bit consumed with running a business, another young kid (yes at my age), and working on a couple of garage/vehicle projects over the last couple of years.
Pretty sure I'll have a burst of motivation before this year is out. There are a lot of nearly-finished CGC standard games and pages for my TNFS sat on my hard drive.

[flatduckrecords]

Nice one. Thanks for keeping going with this.

Agreed! The new look is great. Glad to see some new articles as well.

Never thought Sinclair BASIC would help me with my career, maybe I need to update my LinkedIn skills section

Congratulations! Uncle Clive’s dream is alive and well!

Does anyone have anything they'd like to share with their sites ? Anyone working on anything cool ?

I was kicking around a half-baked idea at the start of the year, but I think I got distracted by something else and haven’t got back to it yet!

Inspired by your work I made my first dynamic TNFS page. (It communicates with a PHP script to determine the current date and time). Not thrilling in itself but it opens the door to huge possibility. (At which point I got the old blank-canvas syndrome and got a bit overwhelmed with the limitless possibility of it all and got stuck getting started with anything!) I should take @p13z’s advice to iterate and grow it over time.

[mdr]

I do have many half-finished bits to add to my TNFS. The idea was always to keep tacking stuff on, to grow it into a sizable "thing" that you could get lost in. But as often happens, real life priorities shift around.

Sounds familiar! It's a challenge balancing home and work life at the best of times, and the last year has thrown a number of difficult curve-balls at me. Still, it makes me appreciate the (limited) time I do get with my hobbies all the more. Both music and retro-computing[1] are things I can dip into and pick right back up whenever I do have the time, and I love that they are things I do just for the sheer hell of it. So much of modern life seems to revolve around "the hustle" and I kinda like deliberately and very pointedly working on things with no practical application whatsoever

Plus, despite having made a succesful career for myself in modern IT, I find the direction it's moving in to be more than a little horrifying and I miss the naive optimism of the Speccy and Amiga days...

Anyway, I'll stop ranting at clouds - please do update the thread whenever you add new stuff to your site. I still really like the open-ended "crap BASIC game[2]" feel and enjoy discovering all the in-jokes and obscure references And the parallax scrolling is still a work of genius.

[1]=side note - I took my daughter to a local museum recently, and I can't express how weird it is to see artefacts of my youth like a ZX Spectrum and cassette tapes in a display case surrounded by kids pointing in bewilderment. I guess that means I'm officially old, but to me it still rankles having to describe my hobby as "retro" or "vintage"!

[2]=intended as a sincere compliment