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Since Lighter is making attempts to claim regularity, then
why not open such a section, with articles on the topic of the day and
just on current topics? Fortunately, now there is just one topic,
which will not yet cause a total sensation... For now.
Meet...
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:░░▒▒▓▓██ Our window into an alien world ██▓▓▒▒░░:
:░░▒▒▓▓██ or ██▓▓▒▒░░:
:░░▒▒▓▓██ Someone else's window into our world? ██▓▓▒▒░░:
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■.▄.■ by moroz1999 featuring nix./site ■.▄.■
Well, today we have one working client under Spectranet
Twitter, one working IRC client and one working multiplayer
game. But what can you call a card for accessing the Internet?
which does not make it possible to climb its expanses with
almost the same simplicity that is found in modern
web browsers?
But it's time! It's high time to make one for our beloved Specky
a certain web page standard with which ourspektrumists can download software in almost the same way as in
BBS times are ok, and foreigners are discussing this very software,
typing messages on forums with your native rubber
keyboards. Of course, after the death of the BBS phenomenon on the Spectrum,
articles appeared in newspapers and magazines every now and then about whether
now the Internet is for a more than once cloned computer or
no, but a few years later after the controversy ended, he became
reality. And thanks to those who are not even involved in these disputes
participated.
So, the purpose of this article is to try to raise discussion on the topic
the best implementation of web surfing based on the ZX Spectrum. Subject
quite relevant, since literally the other day in free
Spectranet, which independently implements TCP/IP, went on sale
stack for transmitting information.
What can be considered the best implementation in the current situation?
1. The solution must be technically simple - otherwise there will be no one
implement it.
2. The solution should rely as much as possible on existing ones
standards, for the same reason.
I suggest skipping the discussion on the topic “Why is it at all?”
someone needs" (which we will cover a little later), and move closer to
business.
██████████████████████ █████████████▓▓▓▒▒▒░░░: Background problems
moroz1999:
Since Spectranet will most likely soon
most widespread in the west, includingnumber and among
owners of branded machines with 48K memory, for technical
implementation of the web on the Spectrum imposes serious
restrictions:
1. The standard screen does not allow you to display huge and
complex structures.
2. A small amount of memory does not provide special opportunities for work
with "adult" HTML.
3. Color restrictions and slow conversion speed make
viewing png/jpg graphics is almost unreal.
These three points make viewing HTML pages completely
impossible: for example, the main page of Speccy Live weighs 92
kilobytes, and this is still a lightweight example.
Oblomych:
And about sites made in Flash, you can’t say no at all.
Of course, you can try to write a client that will
load programs as websites. Can. But that's just who they are
will the websites be prepared? Moreover, browse like discmags
articles and Internet pages are much more convenient and aesthetically pleasing in
some ZX Format or even Enigm, than in the shell,
weak in BASIC. :)
█████████████████████ ████████████▓▓▓▒▒▒░░░: Suggested Solution
moroz1999:
Obviously, for normal and convenient operation of the browser on the ZX
you will have to give up a bunch of things for which the “big” is known
Internet, and develop a simplified technological model,
taking into account the features of the ZX.
What could it be?
Astransport it is necessary to use the existing one
in Spectranet implementation of TCP/IP. This will allow you to
break away from Spectranet and use any other piece of hardware,
if one appears at all.
As the primary operating file transfer protocol
It would be wise not to reinvent the wheel and stick to the old one -
good HTTP 1.0 because:
1. This will allow you to take advantage of a huge amount of stuff
PC software such as Apache or nginx.
2. You can use a bunch of ready-made and well-thought-out features of the standard.
For example, send your User-Agent with a request to
the server could automatically recognize the ZX browser and give it
some of your own content. For long texts you can
enable Content-Range so that the browser can
moment to read the next portion of content and not run into
memory limitations.
Instead of full-blown HTML/5 you need to use something
much more lightweight and familiar to the ZX format - for example,
some of the text formats of a magazine or newspaper.
Requirements that immediately come to mind:
1. Hyperlinks
2. Extensibility and human readability
3. Support for music downloaded from the site
4. Illustration support
5. Text colorability
The closest option to this option, imho, is Quick HyperText. If
If someone is not familiar with its capabilities, then you can downloadQuick
HyperText System v0.65 by Coders' Academy'2004 with Virtual TR-DOS.
Summarizing the primary vision, for strict hardware requirements
A combination of HTTP + simplified HTML like Quick would be perfect
HyperText. The Spectrum website in the ZX browser would look like this:
classic magazine or newspaper - with illustrations in ZX format -
graphics and AY music downloaded from the site. Pieces of text
could be read on the go while scrolling text, files can be
download separately to local disk, if necessary.
Lack of backward compatibility of QHT with HTML and desktop
browsers is a completely insignificant thing, since the content
can be generated on the server in the required format depending on
platforms. Or you can completely close access from the PC by making it
exclusive to the "right" platforms.
Oblomych:
Another clear example of the use of hypertext from
Vitamin`a - TaganNews newspaper, although the most obvious one is
consider it the last, eighth, issue. This is true, for your information.
By the way, remembering our correspondence with Moroz, it’s worth
also mention that there was an idea to make the pages standard in
in the spirit of Insanity or beccul`a of the Future/Psychoz`a, in which
pages will be in solid text with 48 characters per line
(ascii pictures, salt and pepper to taste), and to the right of it -
service characters (49th - designation of a line withlink/
picture, 50th and 51st - line/paragraph color, using
gigascreen). At the very beginning of the text you can write
the actual addresses of the pages that will be linked to
links.
However, if there is a second standard, a reasonable solution
will be writing a script that will be no problem
Convert pages from magazine format to newspaper format. B
as a result - two parallel existing web pages, which, however,
however, they will not take up much space.
████████████████████████▓▓▓▒▒▒░░░: Browsing the rest of the internet
moroz1999:
100-200 kilobytes of markup with errors, inaccuracies and simply
differences in standards leave absolutely no room for
ZX can parse all this at a reasonable speed on its own.
That is why the most reasonable way would be to use
example of Opera Mini, where the mobile phone receives a simplified
content, and the simplification is done by an intermediate proxy server.
So, for example, you can write in PHP/Python/whatever
a small piece of software that would merge HTML and wildly simplify
it to QHT, caching it for some time on the server. That is, ZX-
the browser from such a server would receive excellent text in the same
form, as specially prepared in advance. You can even
recognize the presence of CSS for printing to a printer and apply
it in advance,throwing out all sorts of columns and menus.
Oblomych:
In general, if the method becomes widespread enough,
conversion can be organized directly on the website, which will
quite practical for such resources (de facto databases),
like WoS Infoseek Database, Speccy Live, ZXPress, ZX-Art and so on
further, since they have updates almost every
a week, and hand-to-hand making Spectrum versions of pages -
hemorrhoidal.
███████████████████▓▓▓▒▒▒░░░: What to do first
moroz1999:
First of all, you need to make a simple HTTP client that
would be able to send requests through the same Spectranet and parse
answers, dumping the contents into the specified memory area. After
this could be tried purely as a proof of concept
attach the QHT viewer to it, and then decide where
move on - add new tags, change
infrastructure or develop packages for working with content.
What cool applications could this technology have?
1. Burn the TRD image to a floppy disk directly from Virtual TR-DOS
2. View works from ZX-Art directly in real life
3. Listening to music from ZX-Tunes directly from live AY
4. Maintaining an underground news feed, accessible only to ZX-
browsers
5. A new impetus for the ZX press, which can be collected
right on the site - isn’t this what was once intended inScenergy?
6. Run code from online like flash movies? At the same time we will get
first Trojans on ZX? :)
Oblomych:
Regarding the penultimate point: there was a time when BBS stations
accepted letters for now inactive newspapers like Oberon,
Nicron, Maximum, Lime Tree... There are suspicions that now
Feedback on the press, games and demos will be collected in a similar way.
;) Therefore, it would not hurt to implement such a feature of any
modern browser like text input! It is still unknown
Will it be possible to transfer a couple of forums to the Spectrum,
dedicated to him, but it’s worth striving for. In the meantime I have to
be content with comments on Speccy Live and online versions
Krik'a.
Speaking of software, it is worth mentioning the incessant cold
war between TR-DOS and DivIDE. No, of course it is possible
make a browser for both of these formats, but it’s also worth thinking about
download of software that will be supplied to domestic
spektrumistov, and for foreign! The most reliable option:
distribute new programs in the form of a BASIC file, followed by
transferring them to a floppy disk or processing them and transferring them to .tap or
floppy disk +2/+3.
Well, as for the last point... Well, the pipes! We have Spectrum
will be as clean as Linux. Although the Trojan horse should be planted
You can use it, yes... But not coded in assembler, but,
at leastdrawn. >:)
█████████████████████ ████████████▓▓▓▒▒▒░░░: Final word
Oblomych:
Of course, in order to implement this idea, it is worth
put in a lot of effort. And not about what is worth doing
competent page presentation format is only half of it
affairs. The question is: how *will* you support this idea? If you want
write the Spectrum version on the same Vitamin hypertext
your web page? Easily! There will be a desire to adapt
foreign hardware for Pentevy or make your own, domestic
option? Yes, as you wish. There was a desire to organize
a small service for temporary storage of ZX files? This is the deal!
It will be a little difficult to implement, but still.
Now, of course, Spectranet is not so widespread. Moreover
not only among the ex-USSR, but also among the rest of Europe!
Although the show is just beginning, in my opinion, it's up to the prospects to judge
It’s still too early for such an idea as the Internet on the Spectrum. :) Here you go
when will the dominance of sites begin and their no less dominance
visitors who are at least in the emulator... But I
I feel like I don’t have long to wait until this moment, fortunately
Moroz1999 is probably already writing a hypertext format for
pairing with Spectranet, coupled with a test shell! So
Stay tuned for more posts on this topic and, as they say,
waitthe arrival of hour X!
moroz1999:
In fact, I’m not writing anything yet, but opensource HTTP-
the client is a topic interesting enough to bother with.
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P.S. While this text was being typed, on the Internet there were already
the first steps towards this idea were advertised, and the name
im - WoSBridge. However, now this service is in the stage
well, a very early preview and intended for use only
Sinclair Infoseek archives, although I doubt many will
convenient just by climbing through folders remote from the user via
command line... :)
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