L
Story
Ascending Mount FujiNet
The TNFS protocol used by FujiNet has also been used in other network cards for old 8-bit computers. My own ZX Spectrum is fitted with a Spectranet card which enables the same kind of connectivity and creativity. I wrote about it in my "DevOps For The Sinclair Spectrum" article[1] which featured here, and my TNFS site is now available through a JS emulator on a web page[2] if you want to see the kind of thing you can create. It's sort of like an old-school BBS, except the code is downloaded and run directly on your computer, which opens up a world of possibilities like multi-player games and even bridges to protocols like Gopher, Gemini and IRC which make communicating with the "modern" Internet possible even on an ancient tape-loading 8-bit micro from the 80s. Really fun stuff!

[1]=https://www.markround.com/blog/2021/12/21/devops-for-the-sin...

[2]=https://jsspeccy.markround.com

Your writeup was awesome, and couple probably be resubmitted since it has been a few years.

I'm surprised to learn there was a Starstrike 2, I just remember the original "3D Starstrike", but looking at the videos online there's definite family resemblance! My history started with the spectrum too, like so many others:

https://blog.steve.fi/how_i_started_programming

Thanks! It was a lot of fun to put together, and the site has expanded in scope considerably since I wrote those articles. Whenever I get a few moments, it's one of my favourite projects to work on, there's just something very "zen" about going back to Sinclair BASIC and all the limitations which enforce some creative hacks. I was particularly pleased with the user preferences system[1] and articles code which mimics some of the early disk/tape magazines I remember from my early teens.

So many of us of a certain age started with those early 8-bit computers, I guess "booting" straight into a BASIC prompt encouraged that exploration and experimenting which is a little harder to get at these days.

I never played the original Starstrike, but Starstrike II is still one of my favourites - impressive to see a 3D engine running on an 8-bit micro with 48Kb of memory and makes you wonder what we're spending all those cycles on now!

[1]=https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=11776...

I wrote a simple BASIC interpreter based on happy memories of the speccy, but to be honest I have more fun these days writing toy projects in z80 assembly.

I guess it's all about nostalgia either way though. The early experience in hacking games for infinite lives lead me to assembly, and z80 became x86. There was a lot in common removing anti-copying protection to getting infinite lives! Though modern games don't really appeal to me as much as Dizzy did, or the old-school fighting games.

https://github.com/skx/gobasic

https://github.com/skx/lighthouse-of-doom/

  • xattt
  • ·
  • 18 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
I’m still not quite sure what FujiNet is and how it is the last peripheral for your vintage devices. Gives me Zombo.com vibes.

(1) https://zombo.com/

FujiNet is a multi-function network adapter. It was initially developed for the Atari 8-bit systems, but we started adapting its firmware, and building other hardware versions for other platforms.

To date, we have implementations for Atari 8-bit, Coleco Adam, Apple // and ///, TRS-80 Color Computer, Atari Lynx, Atari 2600, Commodore (64/128/Plus4/VIC20). There are also system bring-ups happening for many other computers, such as ZX Spectrum, IBM PC (ISA and RS232 versions), RC-2014, BBC Micro, and more.

It provides virtual disk, for loading software from the Internet, a virtual printer which rasterizes to PDF, a network adapter with tons of protocol offloading, and a whole host of other subdevices (e.g. CP/M emulation, speech synthesizer, and more)

It is a public project, that anyone can jump in and hack on, and we want people to come in and help hack on versions for their favorite systems.

The site is here: https://fujinet.online/

What a fun project! I think if I ever get around to opening my own makerspace/cafe, I'd like to have something like this running in the lobby for people to see how early computers looked and worked while still being somewhat useful with fujinet.
So this FujiNet we are ascending is unrelated to Mount Fuji? Wasted a click.
  • ·
  • 17 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]