[Qgis-developer] ZX

[Radim Blazek]

On 5/3/06, Mateusz Łoskot <mateusz at loskot.net> wrote:
> Radim Blazek wrote:
> > 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
>
> Great!
>
> Radim, is there any HOWTO related to QGIS on iPAQ?
> I'd be interested :-)

No, there is no howto. I just resized that GUI and then we recompiled
on iPaq with debian. It was running with Qt for X because those
time the Qt embeded was only available in version 2.x.
Everything compiled on our iPaq because we had some problems
with the public cluster of iPaqs supported by HP
(http://handhelds.org/cam.html).

> > 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
>
> Heh, amazing!
> Would you know if there could be a chance to use Commodore PLUS/4 for
> such experiments?

I believe that most of the work to be done is identical. I have no idea
however how graphics system differ, but that should only affect Qt
not QGIS code. Basicaly it should be enough to change TARGET
enviroment variable  from z80-zxs to mos7501-cmm in case of crosscompiler.

> > 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?
>
> There may be some problems with compressed FS. I remember I had problems
> with uncompressing Linux kernel on 360KB. Finally, I stripped it from
> unused stuff. It was doable because the kernel is much smaller than QGIS
> binary. Stripping QGIS may be a challange.

You are right, this is probably the most difficult problem. Alternatively
we could use MP3 player/recorder as suggested by Tim.
But that is also some work as we have to modulate/demodulate
all the data to/from audio chanel an I am not aware of any existing
file system like this.

> > 2. C++.  So far I have not found a good C++ compiler fo ZX Spectrum.
>
> Me too. I don't think you will find C++ compiler for ZX.
> May be there is some cross compiler similar to z88
> (http://z88dk.sourceforge.net)

Yes, it seems that we have to use a cross compiler but
I don't like such

> > 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.
>
> Hmm, I'd bet they have something like this but I'd not be surprised if
> only for internal usage/experiments (similarly, to Windows CE support).

Exactly, this is good example why a mixture of proprietary and OS development
model is problematic. In fact they can never get into the market until
they open the development completely and disclose their secret projects.

> Could you share your opinion about possible bussines/targets for QGIS on ZX?

I must confess that we want to build a small bussines around this project.
Yes, their is no philosophy or hobby behind. We started with HomeGIS market
study and results are very clear: no proprietary modern GIS is available
for home computers. If you consider that home users usualy don't
want to compile packages like GRASS, there is obvious space for QGIS package.
There is no exact number of Spectrum units sold but certainly few milions
(including clones). Analysis say that 80% of data has spatial attribute.
If we sell a QGIS package for some reasonable price, say 9.99euro
we have potential market of 2500000*0.8*9.99=19980000euro

> May be it could be used as a mobile platform for navi systems in
> cars or something like this.

There are certainly many applications from car/bicycle navigation to
precise gardening. Rigarding transport navigation however we have
to solve the question of display, because normal TV, often used
with home computers, is too havy.

Radim