Spectranet - the TNFS directory thread

[p13z]

With a new batch of Spectranets having been produced, and a bit of revival of interest, I thought it could be time to resurrect the TNFS directory.
The original thread dates back a decade, to the first batch of Spectranets, when WoS was Is, not Was.
Sites come, and sites go. Hopefully this thread will help keep track. So:

irata.online -
nihirash.net - Gopher client
retrojen.org -
szeliga.zapto.org - Includes IRC client, and a nice up-to-date list of modern games / new releases
tnfs.bytedelight,com - A new home for new Spectranets
tnfs.markround.com - Good things, and the easiest big database search since WoS Bridge
tnfs.millhill.org -
vexed4.alioth.net - The original and spiritual home of the Spectranet
zx.cm7.ch -
zxnet.co.uk - Some nice online Speccy programs / clients
zx.zapto.org - A strange celebration of crap BASIC

I also thought it could be time to revive my own TNFS, which was zxnet.zapto.org - and now zx.zapto.org
The original TNFS was a bit of a collection of oddities, the only USP being that it hosted a friendly front end for the old "WoS Bridge" (sadly not available for a number of years now). So I thought I'd find something else, err, "unique".
100% pure uncompiled BASIC, written, stolen or hacked and tied together seamlessly* with spaghetti. Creating, in effect, one multi-megabyte BASIC thing / game / atrocity - just for nostalgia and giggles. I intend to keep adding to and updating it, ad hoc. There is currently enough online to get the impression of what is going on. So far, the vibe is something like a terrible early Sierra adventure game, distributed as a type-in - or Cascade compilation tape:
[media]https://youtu.be/ki6_HjiuCjE[/media]

Be nice to see some replies with additions / updates / corrections / more descriptions / better descriptions for the list etc.
And from anyone wishing to pimp out their TNFS.

[Guesser]

Not much to say about mine. I mostly set it up to host copies of snapCterm and the installer for the Spectranet module version of Brendan's diagnostics ROM. The irc example program is on there too.
There's also the unfinished IDE filesystem modules but and hard disk formatter, but they're not much use to anyone since still I never implemented reading/writing files

It also has that other thing that we don't speak about.

[mdr]

Hi!

I've added szeliga.zapto.org and zx.zapto.org to my list of links on tnfs.markround.com. Your site is hilarious - I love the "doggers" that turn up in the secluded carpark and flash their headlights I keep getting stuck there though, should I be able to read the local information board ?

Anyway, a couple of updates for my site - I've added an over-the-top website for it at https://tnfs.markround.com which amongst other things has a downloadable SZX archive and instructions so you can get going quickly with the FUSE emulator. I've also added a bunch more recent games and a curated list of modern titles:



I'm updating it as often as work, family life and other projects permit - and I also keep getting sidetracked by Yazzie, that game is such a timesink it's ridiculous.

Cheers for making this list, I'll post any more big updates (or any new sites I discover) here as well.

[p13z]

I keep getting stuck there though, should I be able to read the local information board ?

Just me updating / adding things. There are a lot of loose ends - as long as it doesn't crash I tend to upload half-finished stuff to the public TNFS.
The information board now "works", and I'm working on some new bits.
Cheers for your TNFS, just what we needed - having lost some of the original big TNFS services. Helped motivate me to get a TNFS up and running again, too. It's great to see the Spectranet getting more love and a new lease of life.
And I have a minor bug report:
On your TNFS, on the "disc and tape magazines" menu - if you press an invalid key it freezes, and won't let you select an option.
( it gets stuck in a loop from line 107 to 111. Looking at the listing, I think line 111 should be "GOTO 100" - not "GOTO 107" ).

[mdr]

Thanks for the bug report. You're right; it was the GOTO - it was off by one! It's an artifact of the way I'm currently building the site through a collection of shell scripts on Linux that concatenate various files together (I'm writing a blog post on how it all works, will update here I've finished it). Anyway, it's fixed now. Cheers!

-Mark

[MonkZy]

I also thought it could be time to revive my own TNFS, which was zxnet.zapto.org - and now zx.zapto.org

This is very good. I will come back, the minigames are not so mini. Thanks for putting it back up.

[Hedge1970]

I’ve been chatting to the guy on eBay selling these cards for the last three weeks. He has identified what the problem is and is nearing a solution. As soon as he has it fixed I’ll be getting one. Always amazed what a dedicated electronics expert can build, internet for a 1980s icon

[mdr]

Quick update from me - I've been uploading a bunch of new content and added a new curated list to my TNFS site: a collection of the most popular scene demos from pouet.net. I'm personally not a big fan of the super-hectic flashy demos like Mescaline Synesthesia, and prefer the more stylish productions like Tiratok or We Are Alive which appear a little further down in the list, but it's a great collection of code that really shows off what can be done with the limitations of the Spectrum.

I'm going to add as many of these productions as I can over the coming weeks, but the most impressive I've seen so far have been the 48k demos - check out New View and Critical Error. Bleeper music and a real-time wolfenstein-style maze ? Awesome stuff. Simply incredible what can be done on such basic hardware.

<columbo> Oh, one more thing </columbo>... There have been a bunch of great modern games released recently, but a lot have been hosted on itch.io where the author has placed a "name your own price" download button. Feels wrong to host them for free on my TNFS if the author hopes to make a bit of spare cash for their efforts, so I've avoided uploading anything like that. But if you have written a game and would like me to add it so that it can be played from the site, let me know by email or PM.

Cheers,

-Mark

[szeliga]

There's a guy on facebook's "Sinclair Society" who said he has a server running at sickbay.ddns.net

[p13z]

There's a guy on facebook's "Sinclair Society" who said he has a server running at sickbay.ddns.net

Don't know if it is just me, or a temporary problem -
I can mount that URL - but I'm not getting any response from it at the moment.

edit to say:
Got it now, was just me being special.
Will update list.