[Qgis-developer] ZX

[Radim Blazek]

Hi all,

after successful PDA port:
http://mpa.itc.it/radim/qgis/qgis-0.0.9-grass/ipaq1.png
http://mpa.itc.it/radim/qgis/qgis-0.0.9-grass/ipaq2.png

I am working to port QGIS to ZX Spectrum:
http://mpa.itc.it/radim/qgis/zx/img_0775.jpg
http://mpa.itc.it/radim/qgis/zx/img_0776.jpg
http://mpa.itc.it/radim/qgis/zx/img_0773.jpg

I don't foresee many problems  especially because ZX Spectrum
is about 4 times bigger (without display) than a PDA. As you can see
on pictures I started with ZX Basic which I found too slow
for our purpose so I switched back to C++. It should also take less
time to use C++ than to port everything to Basic

The work goes well but there are some issues  we have to sort out:

1. Small memory. ZX Spectrum comes only with 48 kB of memory
    and my current SVN trunk installation takes about 250 MB on Linux.
    I think that we can resolve a lot if we strip binary and libraries.
    Also, just one (default) icon theme and limited set of SVG symbols
    sould be sufficient. The rest can be possibly resolved with some
    kind of compressed file system?

2. C++.  So far I have not found a good C++ compiler fo ZX Spectrum.
    It is not problem to get C compiler however. I suggest to use
    C++ preprocessor on some different machine and then compile
    pure C on ZX Spectrum. I have no idea however how exceptions
    can be supported in that case. I know  that it would be possible
    to use cross-compiler and produce binaries for ZX Spectrum on Linux
    but it does not seem to be fair enough to use such a practice known
    from proprietary software development.

3 Qt. It seems that at moment Qt is not available for ZX Spectrum.
   I hope that Trolls are going to release Qt for ZX Spectrum with 4.3,
   at least I have heard such rumors.  In case it does not happen
   I will start petition for ZX port of Qt which will be sent to Trolls.
   I don't think we have enough resources to port Qt ourselves.

If you are interested to support ZX Spectrum port, we are currently
looking for a sponsor to buy a new _green_ display as it is
realy tiring to watch black and white screen all the day and night .
If you want
to donate a green display, please contact directly Jan.Nonner at mt.com,
director of ZXLabs in Roudnice. I cannot assure you however that you
can reduce taxes in that case.

Radim

PS: If you are interested I have also movie from the last coding session
where are discussed especialy network (RS232) related problems.