ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

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yerzmyey
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ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by yerzmyey »

OK, I know there was a thread about something similar but this forum doesn't want to search words with 3 letters only - which is a big mistake btw.

Hence I establish a new thread, however more related with FAT itself.

As we can use FAT now, several utils would be more than welcomed.

Some TXT reader would be good. Sometimes people release their programs in a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery raw state and they just add some TX instructions to them. It requires to go to the PC and check everything out and it makes us dependent on PC.
As we have FAT and can put any TXT into the SD card, would be nice to be able to read the TXT.
The only thing - it would have to wrap text when ZX81's screen ends.
I dunno if it's difficult to do but there are plenty of TXT raders (end editors!) on Spectrum - not for FAT 'though but for FDD. Still - they exist.

Yes, TXT editor is another thing. ;) Would be splendid. Hahahahahahahaha. :)

Another idea. Since we have FAT access now, it would be interesting to have some GFX viewers.
We know that 256x192 hi-res pictures are possible to display. I would propose - if it's easy enough of course - to make a FAT-based viewer for monochrome 256x192 BMP/GIF files. Plus possibility of reading/displayin' Spectrum's *.SCR gfx format. Of course the monochrome ones. Or all - but in 1-bit only.
I realize it would actually have to do conversion in real-time, before displaying, but Bbock actually has made the display-routine, so large part has been done in fact.
Btw, there are GIF/BMP/PCX and even JPG viewers on Spectrum but they use colours and converting last. And lasts indeed.
However on Speccy those progs accept any resolution which we could skip, I suspect. And they usually have to convert colour pictures into three screens: R, G and B. Which we skip for sure. ;)

Well, just some ideas. While having FAT, would be cool to use it in a larger scale, not only for music-players (which itself rulez anyway - to copy PC's files and listen on ZX81 from FAT). :)
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
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PokeMon
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by PokeMon »

So why don't you write some tools you think of ?
Just start on ... ;)
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yerzmyey
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by yerzmyey »

Dude, thx for Your confidence but I can only write programs like:

10 PRINT "hello world!"
20 GOTO 10

:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Believe me. ;)
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
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siggi
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by siggi »

yerzmyey wrote:OK, I know there was a thread about something similar but this forum doesn't want to search words with 3 letters only - which is a big mistake btw.

Hence I establish a new thread, however more related with FAT itself.

As we can use FAT now, several utils would be more than welcomed.

Some TXT reader would be good. Sometimes people release their programs in a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery raw state and they just add some TX instructions to them. It requires to go to the PC and check everything out and it makes us dependent on PC.
As we have FAT and can put any TXT into the SD card, would be nice to be able to read the TXT.
The only thing - it would have to wrap text when ZX81's screen ends.
I dunno if it's difficult to do but there are plenty of TXT raders (end editors!) on Spectrum - not for FAT 'though but for FDD. Still - they exist.
Currently there are 2 tools I wrote, which can display text files (the "network file manager" NFM) or HTML files (the web-browser ZeddyFox), which are read via network by the Zeddy.
That is quite easy to do, because ZeddyNet has the functions to open a file (on a server) and to read it byte by byte and process the bytes in real-time (display it on screen).

Other mass storage systems (MEFISDOS, USB driver, afaik also ZXPAND) currently do not offer those functions. They offer only the possibility to read a complete file into memory (*), where the bytes then can be processed (displayed). So this works only with small files, which fit into the free memory of the ZX81. And that is not a feature of FAT, only of the "driver", which reads the device (FAT, network, floppy, ...).
Another idea. Since we have FAT access now, it would be interesting to have some GFX viewers.
As written above, that would not be limited to FAT devices..
We know that 256x192 hi-res pictures are possible to display. I would propose - if it's easy enough of course - to make a FAT-based viewer for monochrome 256x192 BMP/GIF files. Plus possibility of reading/displayin' Spectrum's *.SCR gfx format. Of course the monochrome ones. Or all - but in 1-bit only.
I realize it would actually have to do conversion in real-time, before displaying, but Bbock actually has made the display-routine, so large part has been done in fact.
Btw, there are GIF/BMP/PCX and even JPG viewers on Spectrum but they use colours and converting last. And lasts indeed.
However on Speccy those progs accept any resolution which we could skip, I suspect. And they usually have to convert colour pictures into three screens: R, G and B. Which we skip for sure. ;)

Well, just some ideas. While having FAT, would be cool to use it in a larger scale, not only for music-players (which itself rulez anyway - to copy PC's files and listen on ZX81 from FAT). :)
A graphic viewer plugin for ZeddyFox would also be fine :mrgreen:

Siggi

(*) They have been designed to load a complete BASIC file (not single bytes), like the Sinclair rom does it also ...
My ZX81 web-server: online since 2007, running since dec. 2020 using ZeddyNet hardware
http://zx81.ddns.net/ZxTeaM
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yerzmyey
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by yerzmyey »

Siggi:

> Currently there are 2 tools I wrote, which can display text files (the "network file manager" NFM) or HTML files (the web-browser ZeddyFox), which are read via network by the Zeddy.
That is quite easy to do, because ZeddyNet has the functions to open a file (on a server) and to read it byte by byte and process the bytes in real-time (display it on screen).
------------------------
Do they work also locally? In meaning - not only via Internet?


> Other mass storage systems (MEFISDOS, USB driver, afaik also ZXPAND) currently do not offer those functions. They offer only the possibility to read a complete file into memory (*), where the bytes then can be processed (displayed). So this works only with small files, which fit into the free memory of the ZX81. And that is not a feature of FAT, only of the "driver", which reads the device (FAT, network, floppy, ...).
> As written above, that would not be limited to FAT devices..
--------------------
I emphasized FAT in comparison to ZX Spectrum actually.
Having FAT I don't have to convert any PC files into a ZX-diskette - I can just copy them into SD. :)
That's what I talk about FAT.


> A graphic viewer plugin for ZeddyFox would also be fine :mrgreen:
Siggi
--------------
Hehehehe. :) :)
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
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siggi
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by siggi »

yerzmyey wrote:Siggi:

> Currently there are 2 tools I wrote, which can display text files (the "network file manager" NFM) or HTML files (the web-browser ZeddyFox), which are read via network by the Zeddy.
That is quite easy to do, because ZeddyNet has the functions to open a file (on a server) and to read it byte by byte and process the bytes in real-time (display it on screen).
------------------------
Do they work also locally? In meaning - not only via Internet?
Both are network programs and use the Zeddynet Ethernet card. Using NFM I can access all files stored on any drive of my local PC (I do not copy P files to SD to load it then into the Zeddy, I load the P file directly into the Zeddy via network).
But they need a "real" network: viewing a file on "localhost" (the same machine, where NFM or ZeddyFox is running) is not implemented ...

Siggi
My ZX81 web-server: online since 2007, running since dec. 2020 using ZeddyNet hardware
http://zx81.ddns.net/ZxTeaM
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yerzmyey
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by yerzmyey »

Ah. :) So the hardware I don't have, heh. ;)


Well, I was rather thinking locally.
There is a lot of TXT editors for ZX Spectrum (mostly with two alphabets together - our latin and Cyrillic alphabet.
Image

Of course there is necessity to convert PC TXT into Spectrum format, but it's actually done via pressing F5 key on PC. It adds a ZX header to the text and changes extension.

And even a reader itself could be nice.
(Btw, if anybody can find the previous thread about the reader, I'd be grateful).
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
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yerzmyey
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Re: ZX81 and a TXT viewer (+ other ideas)

Post by yerzmyey »

What I meant before, about this ZXpand extremly small TXT editor (but saving PC's TXT files) was this:
viewtopic.php?t=765
finally I found it by myself somehow.
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
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