SARAH- FTP server with ZX Spectrum stuff


SARAH was born around 20.6.2023. It is run free without a profit.

It's the first FTP server specially created and designed for usage directly on ZX Spectrum. Here you will find TAP, TZX, Z80, TXT, POK, AY, SNA, TRD, SCL, D40, D80, MGT etc. formats. These can be handled by ZX Spectrum directly.

The server is tailormade for ZX gamers. Every title (game) has its own directory where you find (if available) pokes, instructions, music files, snaps and file in various formats itself. Additionally I managed to add (where available) versions of the game: games supporting Kmouse, with General Sound support, ULA+ versions, multiple player games, etc. All the true ZX gamer needs, isn't it?

By 20.6.2023 sorting of all games and related stuff into directories started. It was finished on 20.10.2023.

Root directory contains alphabetical directories, every directory name will tell you how many titles (dirs) it contains. Root directory contains games+ educational programs, and only several utilities. Current title count in root directory is around 8.700, 1.739 MB, almost every directory has a runable or playable title. Every single one of them came through my hands and was sorted to my best knowledge.

With game naming I stuck to equal naming with ZXDB, in order to make looking for games in ZXDB and SARAH easy.



ACESS TO SARAH SERVER
Like most of FTP regular servers, you need to login to SARAH with user and password. Simply download SARAH client and access info has been pre-installed in it. So if you run SARAH client, it should login and connect you with SARAH server automatically. USER and PASSWORD are then visible on SARAH client screen. If you do not plan to make use of SARAH server with SARAH client, drop me an email, I will gladly send you access information to SARAH server.



GAME ATTRIBUTES
In order for a gamer to get much info from the least, each game (where available) can have its attribute, which goes in directory name right after the game name itself. The attributes (KM,GS,+2A,ULA+,2P) go after title name:
Eg. "Chronos (GS,KM)" means in the directory "Chronos" you find also versions of Chronos for General Sound and KMouse.

General Sound (GS) = 139 titles
(ULA+) = 441 titles
KMouse (KM) = 158 titles
+2A fixed games (+2A) = 62 titles
multiplayer games (2P) = 980 titles
Games for HGFX (HGFX) = 1 title
Games with SID support = 2 titles



MULTIPLAYER GAMES
If you look for a multiplayer game, search for string "2P" and all multiplayer games will be selected. If a game is multiplayer, it will always have "2P" in its attribute. The attribute is widened as follows:
A game can be even a combination, eg. "2Pts4" means a game for 4 players, who can play either in turn or in a cooperative mode.



OTHER ZX STUFF
Other ZX stuff is placed in directory "~Others", 1.474 MB. Unlike root directory, this one has not been paid a rigorous attention but many useful stuff can be found here, including demos, utilities, pokes, screens, etc.

True, that if you look for (GS), (KM), (ULA+), (+2A) or a multiplayer game in the root dirctory, they are scattered all over it. If you feel like you want to play some games supporting (GS), (KM), (ULA+), (+2A) or a multiplayer game, go to "~Others" instead- here (GS), (KM), (ULA+), (+2A) or a multiplayer game have their special directory where you can directly choose from.



HOW TO BROWSE AND LOAD GAMES FROM SARAH SERVER- ON ZX SPECTRUM
There is SARAH 1.0 FTP client running on ZX Spectrum and it is an ideal tool to browse and download from SARAH FTP server. Although minimalistic, it serves the purpose of browsing and downloading from SARAH server quite bravely. More on: hood.speccy.cz

Since SARAH is a standart FTP server, you can browse it from any device just like any other FTP server.



DRAWBACK
At the moment I see two drawbacks in SARAH server. 1) It is not specialised on TRD or SCL files. True, there are several hundreds in the root directory, but TRD and SCL world is much bigger than that and contains outstanding titles. 2) The database comes back to 2012. I would like to find a way how to keep it updated with ZXDB.



TIMELINE
- basic games sorting ... started 20.6.2023, finished on 26.9.2023
- adding adult titles ... finished on 21.9.2023
- merging "Games" dir ... finished (26.9.2023-14.10.2023)
- merging "Download" dir ... finished (26.9.2023- 13.10.2023)
- adding KMOUSE games ... finished on 30.9.2023
- adding +2A adapted games ... finished on 28.9.2023
- adding General Sound games ... finished on 28.9.2023
- ULA+ games ... finished on 03.10.2023
- adding 2 player mode info ... finished on 18.10.2023
- remove duplicates from server ... finished on 20.10.2023 (some 600 duplicities in root dir still exist, but most of them are screens or pokes, or same games with different name
- museum.speccy.cz-games+AYs ... finished 9.11.2023 (around 380 new TAPs to main archive+ 121 AY files added to "~Others")
- TRD+SCL archives ... far future
- merging with ZXDB ... far future
- demos ... probably not (some demos are in a dir "~Others", however)




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Wixet for keeping SARAH server on speccy.cz
- Velesoft database I used as a main source
- Christian Ghisler for good advice for work in Total Commander, and thus saving me hours of my life:)