the-channels/channels

ZX Spectrum browser for forums and imageboards.

into.mov

Download

You can do that from the Releases page or simply tune in TNFS to zx.desertkun.in as described Here

Emulation

Emulator	How To Enable
Es.pectrum (Windows)	Select, Options->Hardware, check "Spectranet", do steps described above
Fuse Emulator	Peripherials->Spectranet, open snapshot (see Releases), NMI->Configure network->Change IP & Gateway, do steps described above

Required hardware

Because speccy does not support any internet connectivity by default, with physical device you'll need Spectranet Cartridge. It may be pricey and hard to get, but please support the manufacturer as it's a very Niche product.

To Do List

~~Refactor img2spec tool and split display and processing logic in separate static library with no executable~~
~~Ability to save settings~~
~~Tracking and showing replies to particular post~~
~~Posting~~
~~Optimize font rendering speed~~
Cleanup cache after certain timeout
Cache the transcoded images and not only originals

Channels Hub

Because speccy is nowhere near as powerful for SSL, you need an intermediate proxy to preprocess the data. A special proxy called Hub (hub/ folder) is supposed to be run somewhere on your local network, e.g. a PC, a router, a raspberry PI etc.

This proxy does all the heavy lifting, like image spectrumisation (with help of img2spec tool)
The proxy implements a set of Channels (like a channel for 4chan) and facilitates external calls to provide a standartized API for each channel
The client doesn't even care what channels are, as long as they use the same API, so potential of having the client to browse pretty much anything is limitless, as long as you have boards (or categories, you can just have one) and a set of conversations (threads) with each thread having posts.

How channels work?

Want to see your favorite website with this browser? Refer to Creating A New Channel.

The Hub uses Python to convert channel specifics into a standardized form.

Logic blocks marked here in green are Python packages. The hub simply scans installed packages that match and loads them up.

Some packaged are distributed with the hub, but other could be insalled into the sytem, and the Hub would detect it.

Channels Proto

A client and the hub communicate via a special protocol, as described in this document.

Architecture support

Channels client can be build for zx spectrum (make), but also it can be compiled for desktop (make ARCH=desktop) as a terminal. There is not much point in having such a limited browser for PC, but it showcases the project could be build for implemented platforms.

The platform-specific files are located in arch/<platform>, files in that location need to satisfy various symbols that system needs, like get_device_unique_key.

The include/system.h has various platform-specific defines (like STACKLESS_PROCESS) that shared code could use for #ifdef statements.

For network capabilities, the system expects POSIX-like sockets to be implemented.

How to build from source

The Hub is simply compiled using CMake.
Take care to fetch all submodules.
The python CMake finds could be different from the python in your PATH, in that case you'd need to address that
The Client uses Makefiles and can only be compiled using z88dk
You'd need UNIX to compile the client, so for Windows, you would need to use WSL
Having all that done, then simply shoot make
While it's included in this repository, you may refer to spectranet dev library and headers

Linux

Install these:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    gcc \
    git \
    g++ \
    gcc-multilib \
    g++-multilib \
    build-essential \
    xutils-dev \
    libssl-dev \
    cmake

Proceed with cmake as usual.

Docker

It is also available as a docker image:

docker run -d --tmpfs /channels/hub/bin/cache -p 9493:9493 -p 16384:16384/udp -it desertkun/channels-hub:latest

You can build a local image if you want:

# build
docker build -t channel_hub .
# run
docker run -d --tmpfs /channels/hub/bin/cache -p 9493:9493 -p 16384:16384/udp -it channel_hub

Debugging

Debugging python packages (channels) with PyCharm Professional

Build cmake in Debug mode. This way, python library would be installed in "develop" mode (setup.py develop), and you won't have to reinstall updated packages every time.
Open PyCharm and open up hub/channels folder in it. Run a Python Debug Server configuration on port 5678.
Specify the -d option to the Hub when running. When run, the hub will attempt to join to the pycharm with pydevd to port 5678. Note that with -d option, the hub is running in a single threaded mode, so it only can serve one client connection.
PyCharm breakpoints should work. After any modification, all you need is to restart the hub (assuming you did the first step).

Debugging python packages (channels) with Eclipse

Alternatively, install Eclipse
Build cmake in Debug mode. This way, python library would be installed in "develop" mode (setup.py develop), and you won't have to reinstall updated packages every time.
Install python3 pip install pydevd
Select Eclipse IDE for Eclipse Committers
Select Help -> Install New Software.., put http://pydev.org/updates into "Work With", search for PyDev and install it. Restart IDE.
Select Open Perspective and select PyDev.
Select Window -> Preferences -> PyDev -> Inperpreters -> Python interpreter, select New... -> Browse from python/pypy exe, hit Apply -> Apply and Close.
Select File -> New -> PyDev project, select /hub/channels folder of this repository.
Select PyDev -> Start Debug Server (Note: That menu item should be present at the debug perspective and it can be enabled in other perspectives through Window -> Perspective -> Customize perspective -> Tool Bar Visibility -> PyDev debug). If that thing complains, fiddle with Action Set Availability.
Specify the -d option to the Hub when running. When run, the hub will attempt to join to the pycharm with pydevd to port 5678. Note that with -d option, the hub is running in a single threaded mode, so it only can serve one client connection.

First time thing could be slow, so have some patience.

Debugging the client

To build with debugging symbols, use make DEBUG=1
The only way to debug the client is to use netlog, a printf-alike function that sends printed text to UDP port 9468 on the same host as proxy.
To see these logs on Linux/Mac, simply do make listen-for-logs while on Windows, you'd need to install netcat and do nc -lLu -w 1 -p 9468.

the-channels / channels