DOStodon

This is the source of DOStodon, a Mastodon client for MS-DOS.

DOStodon is implemented in Javascript and relies on a yet unreleased version of DOjS to run.

Quick start

You need a VM, real HW or DOSBox-X with a network card an a matching packet driver to use it.
A Pentium 133 or faster with at least 32MiB of RAM is recommended.
Packet drivers can e.g. be found on packetdriversdos.net (make sure to download the driver from the "PC/TCP PACKET DRIVERS" section) or on crynwr.com or www.georgpotthast.de
Make sure you read the section about the limitations!
see "DOSBox-X config" for an example config that works (for me) with DOSBox-X

Just download the whole repository.

Help on this project is very much appreciated, contact me on Twitter, Mastodon or in the DOjS Discord if you want to help...

Usage

First start

Please run DOStodon <server> <username> <password>

Example: DOStodon mastodon.social jon@somwhere.sw 1234567890

The access tokens are stored in CREDS.JSN if the login is successful.

subsequent starts

Just run DOStodon.

Keys

ESC: Quit DOStodon
F1: Switch to home timeline
F2: Switch to notifications
F3: Switch to Toot composer
F4: Info screen
F5: Poll/Refresh home/notifications
UP/DOWN: scroll entries in home/notifications
p: Show profile of currently selected entry (for boost the boosters profile)
P: Show profile of currently selected entry (for boost the original profile)
B: Boost/reblog currently selected toot in home screen
F: Favorite/like currently selected toot in home screen
R: reply to selected toot in home screen
D: Print JSON of selected toot in home screen to logfile
C: Toggle toots with content warning
DEL: delete toot composer text and reply-to toot
CTRL-ENTER: Send toot in Toot editor
1..4: show media attachment 1 to 4. Any key to close.

General

DOStodon is busy while the Mastodon logo is displayed in middle of the screen. Don't hit keys like crazy, every keypress will be queued :)
DOStodon poll home/notifications every 5 minutes for new entries.

Limitations

Can only display the home timeline and notifications. No support for hashtags, local or global timelines.
2FA is not supported right now!
logging in with passwords that contain characters outside 7bit ASCII might not be possible
HTTPS requests can take quite a lot of time, be patient!
Can't play videos/audio
Image attachements are just drawn at the upper left corner
No support for HTML tags, they are (badly) filtered out
No support for emojis (replaced by spaces)
No support for characters like umlauts, etc.
Hashtags or usernames are not highlighted.
The toot editor only supports BACKSPACE, it is not a real text editor.
No fetching of older entries when you scroll down (yet)
The image cache is never cleared during runtime, DOStodon will eventually run out of memory
NO REAL TESTING/QUALITY ASSURANCE! Folks, this is a fun project, if you need a production ready client contribute or use something real! If it works for you, it works, but don't blame me for broken commits or missing features...

Hacking/contributions

The source is split into several files right now:

dstdn.js the "application"
home.js the home timeline
imgcache.js image fetching/caching
info.js info screen display
login.js server login
mstdn.js contains the Mastodon REST API
notific.js the notification timeline
profile.js profile viewer
toot.js toot creation
util.js support code

DOStodon is implemented using DOjS native API (no p5js emulation). Network operations block the input processing/rendering.

DOSBox-X config

I used "dosbox-x-mingw-win64-20220901233004.zip" of DOSBox-X to test this version of DOStodon. My dosbox.conf looks like this:

[sdl]
windowresolution = 1024x768
output = opengl

[dosbox]
machine  = svga_s3
captures = capture
memsize  = 64

[cpu]
cycles = max

[ne2000]
ne2000=true
nicirq=10
backend=slirp


[autoexec]
mount c C:\Users\ilu\Documents\_DEVEL\DOStodon
c:
ne2000 0x60 10 0x300

Changelog

11. Dec 2022

Fixed a memory corruption in DOjS
Images are no longer saved into TMP files
Images are now scaled to fit the screen when displayed

4. Dec 2022

implemented LRU cache for images
fixed some quirks with key handlings
DOjS now uses cURL 7.86.0

2. Dec 2022

Blurhash is now implemented in C

1. Dec 2022

added <CW> for content warnings, you can toggle the toot with C
added media indicator for non-images (e.g. <video>)

30. Nov 2022

added JS based blurhash

27. Nov 2022

implemented connection reuse
you can now reply to toots by pressing R
you can now clear the toot-composer by pressing DEL
improved display of boosted toots
added sounds

26. Nov 2022

DOjS now uses mbedTLS instead of OpenSSL
changed display of user handles
added info screen
reworked Mastodon-API, prepared it to re-use cURL objects (doesn't work yet)
now shows a busy indicator when fetchingt iages during scrolling
disabled alpha channel to speed up rendering

18. Nov 2022

code cleanup
several fixes all over the place
added splash screen
added entry scrolling
added manual reload with F5
changed polling time from 1min to 5min
added profile viewer
added media preview
added media showing
added liking
added boosting
added "busy" indicator

16. Nov 2022

added some help in README.md
first working version

14. Nov 2022

first public release
didn't work

lpsantil / DOStodon