On Saturday, 29 January 2022, at 2:24 PM, hiro wrote:
> i don't buy the argument that source code would be too big. for just
one subject in school i had to download many gigabytes of quartus,
over a decade ago. our source is nowhere near that big.

A kiosk application for educational purposes in subjects not involving 
programming consists of tools for viewing texts, animations,  images, a 
calculator a plotter and an interface do upload pictures taken from your 
handwritten assignments. There is also a chat platform for group chats and 
individual talking. The whole plattform uses TCP/IP as its only communication 
protocol avoiding existing RFC standards. The GUI is similar to a web site but 
looks more like a desktop with windows where all tools like calculator, chat 
clients, upload tools are represented by floating windows. Nothing more and 
nothing less. The purpose of this application is not teaching the students how 
to realize such a platform but the subjects they need to pass their exams at 
university. There is no benefit for the students to learn how to realize such a 
platform and thats also not the goal of this project.

My Freebsd version has now 800 MB. A great amount of this size is caused by 
hand written sample solution scans for past exams provided as 300dpi images 
(png or ppm). Most of my notes are handwritten cause this way to provide 
solutions for exam questions is faster and simpler. Some of the teachings are 
provided as ogg vorbis files.

The system part regarding Freebsd and X11 can be reduced by using plan9 
dramatically. My own software has a few MB. In the plan9 distribution I will 
use a new image format based on horizontal scanlines using 256 colors. This has 
an acceptable quality is faster to render and the size of the image files will 
shrink to about 25%. 

800 MB aren't only the sources they include the base course material. The 
application has to make this material visible, usable and allow students to 
connect to deliver their assignments ask questions get back hand written notes 
and to exchange information with others using this closed network. 

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