Back to the QL

No blogs for awhile

2012-03-03T19:26:00.000Z

Back to the QL will be back after a short stay in hospital recovering from an op.

Y VIVA ESPAÑA

2012-02-25T10:09:00.000Z

There is a Spanish QL game which can be downloaded from:
http://programandala.net/es.programa.as ... castigo.ql it is in Spanish obviously and I thought I would try converting it without having any knowledge of the Spanish language and using the web to do the job for me. I tried a sample of the programme and run it through a variety of websites Babel Fish, Yahoo etc. before settling on Google translate, the result is shown below. Unfortunately some Spanish words are used as English words and won't convert and will need a search and replace method such as Narrate and Print. Some REM statements get reversed and some meanings get lost in translation, see below and you will understand. Other than that it looks a doable project, I may do this in time for the AGM.

sample original

490 rem --------------------------------------------
500 rem Argumento
510 rem Plot
520 defproc plot
530 rem Comprueba las condiciones de la trama.
540 rem Check the plot conditions.
550 if current_location=8 and location_exit(8,north)
560 let location_exit(8,north)=false
570 let saxons_follow=1
580 narrate "Una partida sajona aparece por el este. Para cuando te vuelves al norte, ya no te queda ninguna duda: era una trampa."
590 short_pause
600 narrate "En el estrecho paso es posible resistir, aunque por desgracia sus efectivos son muy superiores a los tuyos."
610 end_of_scene:clear_screen
620 narrate "Tus oficiales te conminan a huir."
630 speak "Capturando a un general britano, ganan doblemente."
640 narrate "Sabes que es cierto, y te duele."
650 ret
660 endif
670 if saxons_follow and current_location<12
680 let saxons_follow=saxons_follow+1
690 narrate "No sabes cu·nto tiempo te queda..."
700 if saxons_follow>10
710 narrate "Los sajones te capturan. Su general, sonriendo ampliamente, dice:"
720 speak "Bien, bien... Del gran Ulfius podremos sacar una buena ventaja."
730 end_of_scene:clear_screen
740 action_end
750 endif
760 if current_location<10
770 narrate "Tus hombres luchan con denuedo contra los sajones."
780 endif
790 ret
800 endif

conversion

-------------------------------------------- 490 rem
500 rem Argument
Plot 510 rem
520 defproc plot
530 rem Check the condition of the weft.
540 rem Check the plot conditions.
550 if current_location = 8 and location_exit (8, north)
Let location_exit 560 (8, north) = false
570 saxons_follow let = 1
580 narrate "A game Saxon appears in the east. By the time you turn north, you no longer can be no doubt: it was a trap."
590 short_pause
600 narrate "In the narrow passage is possible to resist, but unfortunately their numbers are much higher than yours."
610 end_of_scene: clear_screen
620 narrate "Your official enjoin you to flee."
630 speak "Capturing a general Briton, winning twice."
640 narrate "You know it's true, and it hurts."
650 ret
660 endif
670 if saxons_follow and current_location <12
Let saxons_follow 680 +1 = saxons_follow
690 narrate "Do you know · cu much time you have left ..."
If saxons_follow 700> 10
710 narrate "The Saxons captured you. His general, smiling widely, said:"
720 speak "Well, well ... From the great Ulfius we can get a good lead."
730 end_of_scene: clear_screen
740 action_end
750 endif
760 if current_location <10
770 narrate "Your men fight bravely against the Saxons."
780 endif
790 ret
800 endif

Facebook

2012-02-07T18:43:00.000Z

QUANTA now has a Facebook page, you can view it here :-

http://www.facebook.com/pages/QUANTA/210849812344984#!/pages/QUANTA/210849812344984?sk=wall

Somethings are just meant to be

2012-02-07T18:29:00.000Z

A possible glimpse into the future is this environmentally friendly black box (only because it doesn't need manufacturing again) but getting something a little more from it by extending it's life. The keyboard patched in is from Amazon £8, the blue LED is from Maplins £2.50 replacing the red one normally indicating access to the Microdrive, for one accessing data from an SD card. Under the hood is subject to conjecture but one possibility is the Raspberry Pi £25 (or thereabouts once it is available at the end of February we are now told) running Linux, running one of a small handful of QL emulators (you know the rest).

Once I can get my hands on all the bits to do it , I might just have a go at this. :)

Copy that

2012-01-30T19:31:00.004Z

I see a new version of QemuLator is out for Windows with hopefully a similar update to the MAC following shortly behind.

There is also a blog now to follow (see to the right of the top of my screen) for QemuLator fans, hopefully more QL stuff to look at, read and digest for all us diehards.

Here's hoping to another year of QL stuff to enjoy

Update

Version for the MAC OS X (spelling error on the blog) is now available at 1.1, going to download this as soon as possible to see what gives :) or as Cartman says with lip hanging out one side of the mouth "smiley face"

-------- see my links to the side for Qemulator blog

There's a lot of it about

2012-01-30T16:16:00.001Z

The forums are taking to task the possiblities of a SuperQL (like the name) using existing boards like the FPGA or Natami (nope havent a clue either) to stick a new QDOS on, sounds great but I suspect will take awhile to get there. In the meantime I thought, what a SuperQL would have as a set of specifications?

1600 x 1200 resolution screen
16M colours with transparency options

maybe more to follow after some thought?

It's been so long

2012-01-29T20:02:00.001Z

Yep, been a bit busy, however if you looking for some smart new front covers for your e-book, if you have been following the DJ exploits on the subject, then feel free to grab these front covers from here-

http://www.theql.co.uk/Files

enjoy :)

Something Old, Something New III

2012-01-18T21:29:00.000Z

Something Old, Something New II

2012-01-05T00:35:00.001Z

Oh! Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T13:54:00.000Z

If you don't find this funny, well....

Tra LaLaLa La LaLa La La

2011-12-22T00:33:00.000Z

Merry Xmas to all my 'followers' and a Happy New Year

Deny the passenger who wants to get on

2011-12-14T17:10:00.001Z

Peter Graf emailed the QL User group about his prototype developments in using an SD card in the Microdrive slot.

Really nice to see that moving along and ever so ever so cool :)

Go here for a couple more

SD Card Microdrive Prototype

The first time, second time

2011-12-03T19:37:00.000Z

I more or less fell over the coding for what I was trying to achieve from my original entry 'The First Time', the all singing all dancing boot program. With respect to the original author, these are the remark statements reproduced here from Dilwyn's site. I don't intend to show the whole program here, but as I add to it I then may.

10000 REMark *****************************
10010 REMark Version: V1.0
10020 REMark Date: 20/Sep/1997
10030 REMark Author: J.D.Mitchell
10040 REMark EMAIL: Jack@home9999.demon.co.uk
10050 REMark Change: 1) Default system vars base is at 160K not 128K
10060 REMark 2) Add change control header
10070 REMark *****************************
10080 REMark Version: 1.1
10090 REMark Date: 20/Sep/1997
10100 REMark Author: J.D.Mitchell
10110 REMark EMAIL: Jack@home9999.demon.co.uk
10120 REMark Change: 1) Use peek(!!addr) etc. when possible
10130 REMark *****************************
10140 REMark Version: 1.2
10150 REMark Date: 28/Nov/1997
10160 REMark Author: J.D.Mitchell
10170 REMark EMAIL: Jack@home9999.demon.co.uk
10180 REMark Change: 1) Corect error in change history
10190 REMark Change: 2) Report QDOS versions as ROM names not versions
10200 REMark *****************************

I can't get no satisfaction

2011-12-03T17:28:00.001Z

It is frustrating how one methodology takes you to another, then another, then another. What started as one project now is building up to two more.

Has anyone connected up microdrives QL/Spectrum to another computer/electronic interface other than the QL or Spectrum and got them to work? Is there any documentation for them that would assist such a project.

In the process of a project weening off the QL hardware, such things to go are microdrives in place of 5.25 and 3.5 inch disc drives. However there is still a lot of stuff in lofts/garages that occasionally turn up micro drive tapes and eventually the hardware to put them in will no longer exist.

So one project that I have been thinking about starting is replacing the microdrives with SD card slots, fortunately MemoryLane computing has done that bit for me. But what to do with the micro drive hardware? throw away? well with a bit of ingenuity maybe put them in their own case. But how to connect them up to the QL? I need some circuit diagrams.

Having lurked on eBay I have recently obtained Spectrum microdrives for a bit of inspiration, and suitable cables to inspect and copy and adapt for the project.

But this got me thinking even more, yes I can connect them up to a Spectrum, yes I can connect them up to a QL but what about connecting them up to a PC or other computer device with say a USB port that is running emulation software. With Qemulator on the PC or the MAC saving via a USB connection to an actual micro drive, how cool would that be? but has it been done, can it be done?

I presume some form of electronic interface converting signals from the micro drive connector to a USB or some other port would be needed plus some form of driver. The first part would be knowing the connections to the micro drive and what controls it plus the signals, where can I obtain that?

Dilwyn's site? Well there is the Technical Manual but that is not relevant enough, the service manual looks a possibility but has PIC file files which I now have to convert. So now I am looking for a PC based PIC to other graphic file converter...

I got the key, I got the secret

2011-11-21T23:11:00.000Z

In a recent spate of QL'ing an interesting thing has turned up when using Qemulator on the MAC OSX

I recently purchased a MACBook PRO and running Qemulator I find that the keyrow function does not work at all but the inkey$ does :(

I use this simple program to test, but to no avail, the key character and code number crop up but no key row numbers.

10130 CLS

10140 REPeat loop

10150 CURSOR 0,100

10160 FOR f=0 TO 7

10170 PRINT "Keyrow ";f,KEYROW(f);" "

10180 NEXT f

10190 A$=INKEY$

10200 IF A$=CHR$(27) THEN EXIT loop

10210 PRINT " Key - ";A$;" ";CODE(A$);" "

10220 END REPeat loop

The next thing I tried was on my iMAC which is about three years old and hey presto the same program works perfectly, and it registers the keys, function ones (F1 etc.) as well as reporting appropriate numbers.

Both systems are running OSX Lion

So what is happening, why should the Laptop erghhmmn, 'the Macbook' keyboard be any different to the iMAC. Very very strange indeed.

The first time

2011-11-20T19:50:00.001Z

Well no surprises here, these are the first few lines of the boot program, for me I like to have the full screen regardless of size, 512x256 being the minimum, but what of the maximum hmmnn.

QPC2 provides a couple of extensions scr_xlim and scr_ylim(without looking it up the exact syntax), however the basic QL emulated or not doesn't. So what assumptions can I make? well the best I can hope for is TK2.

Therefore the first few lines will be:

100 REMark ASAD Boot program by L. Privett
110 REM Should run on all systems
120 :
130 SetAddin
140 SetDisplay
150 SetDrives
160 :
170 Main
180 :
.
.
.
.
9000 DEFine PROCedure SetAddin
9010 TK2_EXT
9020 END DEFine
9030 :
9100 DEFine PROCedure SetDisplay

9110 REMark Assume nothing

9120 W=512 :changing this later

9130 H0=26 :H1=230 :changing this later

9140 REMark I0 etc to go here

9150 REMark P0 etc. to here

9160 WINDOW #0,0,0,W,H0 :INK#0,I0 :PAPER#0,P0

9160 WINDOW #1,0,0,W,H1 :INK#1,I1 :PAPER#1,P1

9160 WINDOW #2,0,H0,W,H1 :INK#2,I2 :PAPER#2,P2

9170 CLS#2 :CLS#1 :CLS#0

9190 END DEFine

9200 :

more next time

Simple Minds

2011-11-05T15:28:00.002Z

In trying to start a QL project, especially being out of the QL loop (so to speak), it is easy to get distracted by all the developments past and present relating to the QL. It is new information after all.

One such project is the re-coding of a past programme I no longer have the original code for. Although the programme does exist, it does not work on modern hardware or emulation very well. This is mainly due to speed and the associated issues involved around the QL speed.

The decision then is to start from scratch, however with multiple QL systems, screen sizes, colour ranges etc. the first is to design for either one system only or all systems (if it is feasible possible).

Practically very difficult, you have to start somewhere so the first 'pre-project' is to see if it is possible to create an all encompassing 'boot' program that will run on 'all' systems.

What does it need to have to take into account in order for the one BOOT file to run on the original QL, Qemulator, QPC2, uQLx, Aurora, Gold Card, SuperGold Card?

(this is first attempt)

Does the Boot need to know its ROM?
Will Boot need a minimum in excess of 128K Memory?
Will Boot need to know the screen size
The drive it is loaded from?
The mode it is in, hence the colours available for use

Once these questions are answered then the next stage would be to cover specific needs for display. This would include things such as text size and style, house style for any windowing, logo maybe.

More next time...

Now that I've found you

2011-11-01T23:02:00.001Z

How I missed this one I do not know but another Blogger http://qlheaven.blogspot.com/ publishes slightly different information about the QL to this one.

If your a QL fan (and this person obviously is), then give this blog a look and follow as well, as I do now, however I found it by accident this very day while checking my own blogs stats :)

I now have some more reading to do to catch up on what has been written there.

Quantum Leap?

2011-11-01T22:36:00.001Z

This is very very cool (sic)

you must watch it all

What I really like is one of the comments

This is amazing!! Anything with the word 'Quantum' in it is guaranteed to be cool :P
mastergeodude 1 hour ago

Quantum Leap anyone

Celebrate good times come on

2011-11-01T21:52:00.000Z

My 65th post here I thought this would be partly relevant (64). While waiting for developments in hardware to come along (re: RasPi), I notice this on the web. Now it is more expensive but it is also ever so ever so tempting, as most of it is already done for you.

In two flavours, the first is a 8 bit replica from the early eighties the Commodore 64, this available running Linux, so possibly running the QL emulator software such as uQLx which would be cool in its own right (a bit pricy at $349 [£219] for the base machine)

http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/ypD0/commodore-64-beefed-up-pc-3.jpg?20110712-094949

but the website http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_VicSlim.aspx also sports another keyboard called the Commodore VIC Slim, sorry did I say keyboard, I meant computer, recognise the design style? It's black, it's a computer, it's an all in one keyboard sized box that can run QDOS and SuperBASIC (emulated of course) hmmmnn a QL?.

http://www.commodoreusa.net/j/VIC-SlimAngles.jpg

A little dearer at $399 [£250] but cheaper than the original QL at £399 :)

Scalextric Anyone

2011-10-21T17:07:00.001+01:00

Getting a racing set built by myself with my Dad's help resulted in a small but satisfying mini Scalextric, however because of the size of the track, the car couldn't go very fast without spinning off, the car was just too fast and also there are only so many laps you can complete on your own without any other competition to maintain the interest :( (I think it was more about building it than playing it which is why I think I went it to engineering when I left school). Eventually I moved on to other engineering things like the cellar in my parents home with all the electrics for the house coming together on one board and some paint. But that's another story. :)

Recounting this past exploit on the forum, I came up with an idea, so....

I just did a quick look around to see if I could find the orange racing car I bought, and here it is worth £45 now apparently.

http://www.scalextric-car.co.uk/Cars/C4_Electra/C4_Electra_LHS.jpg

I go on thinking that this might be an interesting project, a Scalextric circuit where one car was controlled by the QL, to which you race against. Some A/D needed I suppose, or has this already been done I wonder, anyone?

Computer Science

2011-10-11T08:05:00.002+01:00

Slightly off topic, tonight on Newsnight is a piece about the ‘Raspberry Pi Organisation’ and it’s imminent first release of a tiny computer system, amongst others there will be David Braben (of elite fame) talking to camera not just about the small computer but also about getting kids into the excitement of computer 'science' that existed around Cambridge in the early 80’s. A taster can be found here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9612063.stm

From an academic perspective, the item tantalisingly gives a brief insight in teaching 'computers' and the short video includes some of the frustrating aspects of ICT, listen to what students say about it. You may find the piece interestingly and relates to how students feel. Awarding bodies please wake up to what should be happening.

IMHO, this is what QUANTA should be steering towards.

Update - got the day wrong, however you can watch it on iplayer and it is 30 minutes in.

Sad Day - The Loss of Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T12:40:00.001+01:00

This really says it all for today, nothing for me to add

http://www.macrumors.com/

Right back to where you started from

2011-09-30T22:51:00.004+01:00

When programming stuff early on the QL, sometimes it is useful to display the character set. Here is another straight forward procedure to display the QL character set, I have deliberately made it simplistic, so newbies or re-newbies will have to adjust 10070 to suit other character sets.

10010 DEFine PROCedure char

10020 OPEN#5, scr_

10030 WINDOW#5, 512,256,0,0

10040 PAPER#5, 7:INK#5, 0

10050 CLS#5: CSIZE#5, 3,0

10060 PRINT#5, VER$

10070 FOR f=32 TO 287

10080 PRINT#5, " ";CHR$(f);

10090 NEXT f

10100 CLOSE#5

10110 END DEFine

A screen shot from Qemulator on the MAC on which it was run is available here vvvvvvvvvv

The only way is up

2011-09-26T22:41:00.001+01:00

Well I am up to reading QL TODAY, Volume 3, Issue 3 from the excellent DVD that came with the current issue. I am about to read about yet another QL hardware attempt at revitalising the QL. Haven't read it yet though but just about to when I saw the cartoon showing the following.

http://www.qltoday.com/

It was the prices that got me especially for the time, so I thought an update was needed, here is my attempt using the cheapest computers I could find and added approximately £50 for the cost of the pay-for emulators.

PC + QXL No longer available
PC + QPC2 £240
Laptop + Qemulator £340
Netbook + QLAY £170

More More More, how do you like it

2011-09-22T21:58:00.000+01:00

The drive to encourage and attract younger people to QUANTA and the QL programming experience frustratingly gathering the pace of treacle.

Raspberry Pi being a hardware device that could work with the QL emulation software is starting to have a presence, again with the same intent to attract the next generation in to programming.

Another area with the same goal makes an impact, although it has been around awhile, it is the first time I have come across it via the RP website.

http://kidsruby.com/

KidsRuby is software available for the three main OS's, there is a video on the site somewhere that is worth a look.

The editor is fairly straight forward and the commands look strikingly similar to SuperBASIC including turtle graphics, with a few odd box commands from Visual Basic thrown in (such as Alert). Check it out.

I Don't Mind

2011-09-19T18:03:00.002+01:00

I am not sure if I have raised this before but a post on the forum has cropped up, in that someone asked a question as to whether the originator were going to reply to a post.

It was months ago, much earlier in the year and it got me thinking about responses in general. This situation has occurred on my return to the 'QL's communication method of info exchange' on more than one occasion, and as I have already replied on the forum, I think most people would like to have a final response, positive or negative.

Regular readers of this blog will have noticed I have taken an interest in hardware alternatives as a way to continuing the QL in other forms, and with the advent of Raspberry Pi there is a distinct possibility of running an emulated QL quite cheaply.

Even if it is inside a QL BB case of other such container, there still seems to be a target audience for such exploration. I suppose it's just a case (npi) of how many, which then makes it viable or not for someone to put the time and effort in.

Either way if you are one of those people who do not follow-up on questions that you pose on forums, or do not respond to emails on user lists or otherwise, keeping people hanging is frustrating. A simple, "I am really busy at the moment and do not have enough time to give this further thought" would be helpful.

Again again again again, deeper and down

2011-09-15T23:42:00.000+01:00

I note with interest that a recent number of old QUANTA magazines have made their appearence on eBay.

Here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-SINCLAIR-QL-MAGAZINE-QUANTA-VOL-12-ISSUE-6-JULY-1995-/160651588770?pt=UK_VintageComputing_RL&hash=item256794b4a2#ht_5038wt_916

Just goes to show that a price increase in the subscription has the effect of older magazines are now a sellable commodity :)

These are just the yellow ones

Yesterday is gone

2011-09-13T22:20:00.000+01:00

Well, pleasingly I have achieved what I didn't think I could and that is to have both Qemulator and QPC2 both running side by side on a MAC system with LION OS.

Qemulator is the MAC version, whereas QPC2 was running on my PC laptop and gave me a problem with key mapping (see older posts) that I couldn't resolve. QPC2 has been installed and running under PlayOnMac.

PlayOnMac can be found here http://www.playonmac.com/en/ and is a WINE based package so no second emulation stage.

Finally goodbye to PC based on Windows for most things now, yippee.

In the year, twenty eleven

2011-09-11T09:39:00.002+01:00

Originally published in 1985 and reprinted by QUANTA in 1989, the book "QL SuperBASIC, The Definitive Handbook" has had much mention in the QL-User list in the past 6 months. As it was referred to with reverence by more than a couple of people I thought if a copy surfaces, then I would get try to obtain it.

Well one did, and I did purchase it and for the first time (with regards to technical books) I actually read this from cover to cover over the space of about 5 hours (on a plane) and there were a few things that struck me about it.

Chapter 1, "SuperBASIC is a language designed by programmers for programmers", what fantastic statement, it should be the signature or tagline for everyone promoting the QL.

The writing style of the whole book to me is personal with every now and then a comment from Jan talking directly at you, great! (e.g. Introduction - or why we did it)

The order in which it is written is also for programmers , totally different to the QL User guide, starting with 'Procedures', starting as you should go on in your own programs.

Its a really nice book to get to grips with the QL and should be first on everyones shopping list coming back to the QL.

I could go on but suffice to say it is that attention to detail in the book that gives it its edge over most others (and this is despite the fact it was written by the the designer of SuperBASIC). If you get the chance of a copy or if Malcolm Lears scanned version sees the light of day, grab it. If you already have a copy then you should already know what I am talking about.

Jan makes reference to another Machine Code book about the QL by Colin Opie as being the one to buy, so if anyone knows a copy please let me know.

Holiday

2011-09-10T18:18:00.002+01:00

Holiday season over and the QL and QL Users get a mention right near the end of this video

http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=112

Just goes to show if you don't do anything nothing will happen, if you do something then something may happen.

This time it did :)

Atomic (sounds like off topic :) )

2011-08-09T16:05:00.001+01:00

In documentation, websites and even emails (and this isn't just QL related), what is it with acronyms?

e.g. IMPS can be displayed as I.M.P.S. but I have seen acronyms displayed as I.M.P.S without the last dot. Now if this is grammatically correct to do so then used at the end of a sentence the full stop is added and thus I.M.P.S. But if not grammatically correct then using I.M.P.S. at the end of a sentence do you then add another I.M.P.S..?

I.M.P.S. btw way is fan based Star Wars film in progress (a few years so far) and can be found here.http://www.impstherelentless.com

Social Comment
The final off topic point I wish to make, is about my disgust at these morons, the actions of the so called youth, jumping on the current bandwagon against the police and government does not justify this.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150333636850851&comments

Bye Bye its the RaspberryPi

2011-07-25T00:26:00.005+01:00

Just a short notification for those interested, the website for RaspberryPi has been updated here http://www.raspberrypi.org/ and looks pretty, no further information yet though.

Update:

Well just had an email from Bryan H who had a reply from somebody at the company called Eben Upton. and he stated

"Hi there, thanks for your mail, and apologies for the delay in replying; as you can imagine, we're swamped. The devices should be available to the general public later in the year; I'll add you to our mailing list, and will keep you posted as we get closer to launch."

Well you heard it here first folks

Update No2
Recent post (today)states amongst other things

"The ICs used in the design are a Broadcom BCM2835 application processor (center) and an SMSC LAN9512 USB 2.0 hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller (right and down from center). The SDRAM is mounted on top of the BCM2835 in a PoP configuration."

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

2011-07-22T16:19:00.001+01:00

With the arrival of OS X LION from Apple it had many new features (250 in all), the one that made a difference to my QL computing was full screen mode, when running QemuLator it was always in a window, now it can occupy the whole screen in blindingly high quality vibrant colours. Pictures to follow...

Just in Time

2011-07-17T19:39:00.002+01:00

Memory Lane Computing recently announced two new projects in the pipeline that may or may not see the eventual light of day.

The code-named Q-BUS and Ser-USB++

below is a picture of the prototype Q-Bus

More info to be provided in an article in the next issue of Quanta :)

It's just the way it is

2011-07-17T12:24:00.000+01:00

I was reminded yesterday when writing on the QL forum of the inadequacies of Windows operating system and it's incessant behaviour over updates, do you want to? No! Delay for an hour, do you want to? No! delay for ten minutes. This goes on and on repeatedly, until you forget or give up asking it to delay, as it did yesterday when just at the end of finishing off the forum text and up loading the graphic the page disappears, the application shuts down and one by one all my open documents close.

Panic, I have lost all my text, flash back to 1985, I internally upgraded my QL memory to 640K from a magazine article, piggy backing the memory chips with DIL sockets to add the additional memory and addressing etc. Switching it on for the first time and waiting for what seemed forever for the memory check to finish I was presented with my expanded memory QL. It wasn't until later when writing a Quill document for QL User or QL World (I cannot remember now) over a weekend because they needed it to meet their publishing deadline that I realised it had a fault.

It locked up after about 25 minutes of use and after resetting it locked up again after twenty minutes of use, now I lost all the work I had typed in, forgetting the golden rule of save your work regularly. I had a deadline however, that I had to meet, this was annoying and concerning although not a major serious problem I thought, I had 20 minutes to write at a time and save as I go along, so this I did resetting each time.

After what seemed hours I had nearly completed the article saving as I went, secure in the knowledge that is was on micro-drive if the worst happened. I didn't anticipate what the worst happening would be however, as I said close to finishing and only a sentence or two to complete, I was thinking I better save or I will lose it, so I saved and that's when it locked up.

The micro-drive whirring aware constantly while nothing else was happening, I had no option but to press reset. The result was that no files existed on the micro-drive that I could use, so I had to start yet again and utilised the 'save file under a different name each time' ploy, with the result of a disheartened author not writing an article of a suitable standard he could be pleased with.

I never wrote for a magazine QL or otherwise again until recently.

Back to the present (or yesterday to be precise), the laptop running Windows 7 was doing all its installs and updates and I waited until it rebooted and so I could see what I had to redo (thinking all the time back to that fateful weekend). I loaded up the internet browser and hey presto its all there, such is today's technology it saves as it goes along, at-least in Google Chrome it does. When writing blogs after a few seconds (around 30) a tiny message at the bottom of the screen says "saving" then "saved". Forums do something similar I suspect so I am thankful for those small features now.

That's not the way it is

2011-07-12T17:08:00.003+01:00

Scrolling through the timeline depicted by SinclairZX website from the late 60s to the 80s I finally get to the picture of the QL. Hmm I thought nice picture but something not quite correct, the cheeky people.

What's that sticking out of the port, is it a monster, is it a monster?

It's a heartache

2011-07-12T08:16:00.001+01:00

But in a nice way, scanning that I do of the Macrumor website for impending changes, and the fact that my current PC based laptop is giving me nothing but grief in trying to run two out of the three emulators, I wait patiently for anything new on the horizon, such as operating system (Lion), upgrades to Macbook (Laptop) and the iPad (issue three out soon apparently).

The point of this post however was an item late last night which gave me a double take and then a chuckle as I though for a split second QUANTA had got into bed with Apple (so to speak). However is was just for a second :)

You can read it yourself here:

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/11/apple-adding-second-manufacturer-for-forthcoming-ipad-update/

Come on let's crawl, gotta crawl, gotta crawl, to the ugly bug ball

2011-07-08T22:00:00.001+01:00

Well it's starting to peeve me off a bit now, for a first, second or multiple time user to the QL scene, what will their experience be on the web? Lots of dead links, I have to say that all the websites I have visited, all (YES ALL) the so called QL sites are incomplete, out of date, refer to things that no longer exist, no longer happen or link to moved websites. All of them have, they contain incomplete sections or have issues to some extent, even QUANTA is down for repairs!.

Now some sites you can forgive, the're either so big you forgive the upkeep, especially if free, some sites tell you they are no longer supported so the expectations of dead links are realised, also acceptable. Sites that sell you stuff however I expect to be current, anything else is unacceptable in my book, so get your act together (my opinion).

It is really no good bleating on about attracting new people to support the QL and it's later derivatives if their first bit of experience sends them down a route to nowhere. Young people today have a very short attention span, but don't take my word for it. You only have to look at the way adverts on TV and how current films are shot to experience the fast paced editing never lingering on anything long enough and all targeting young people.

So how do you expect to engage these youngsters in the excitement of the retro computer, in particular the QL? How do you get them to part with their hard given cash to an organisation that can't even keep their website in reasonable order and up to date? Why would you expect to buy quite expensive products online from a website (especially non-uk) that has dead links?

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com does not suffer from this particular issue to quote one example, and is doing quite well thank you. Its all based on a number of 680?? processor based systems that have been defunct for slightly less years than the QL. So it can be done and yes maybe not the best example to prove an argument but hey I am not trying to prove anything, I'm just airing my views.

Slow

2011-07-06T11:23:00.002+01:00

I had a doh! moment, I don't know why, it never struck me at the time back in the 80's, and it never struck me when revisiting the QL scene, but hey hindsite is everything, perhaps TT really knows the answer to this one.

QJump, the software/hardware company known famously for the Toolkit II plugin-ROM/EPROM that no reputable QL owner should ever be without, even today using the QL without it for the most simplest tasks is fraught with frustration.

Thinking then and now (until recently) about the name was just a passing thought, as with all other QL related stuff, the title had a Q in it, this is to catch the marketing, nod or some other similar aspect of QL related link. Quantum Leap = QL, therefore QJump = Quantum Jump, hey funny, respectful and not as far as a leap but maybe faster as a jump is normally shorter and so gets to the point quicker.

And that would be it, no further thought to QJump save the annoying wavy line extending the Q squiggle a little further. Until recently when watching a video on Youtube it suddenly struck me, a little strike to say the least but a strike none the less. Q can be pronounced and spelt another way, putting a different meaning on the name.

Q = queue, therefore Queue Jump, get in front of the competition, jump past all of those others waiting for something to happen. Now that is far more interesting a concept and also clever, but wait I hear you cry, we all knew that in the first instance, yes well hence my doh! moment, embarrassingly.

The Q wavy line in the logo also makes more sense now :)

Time

2011-06-24T18:52:00.002+01:00

Having recently purchased some QL related stuff and having just uploaded pictures to the QL repository (Cased Medic Interface), I pondered two things. One is that the Medic Case is really well designed to match the QL, and is probably the best I've seen thus far, however they really missed a trick by putting on the big white lettering making it look like a child's toy. Copying the style of raised wording as is SINCLAIR would have been much better, however we all know how Medic faired. I am still waiting for my four free games (if any one has them...).

The second ponder is that I have seemed to have run out of spare time recently, I have three brand new QL purchases and have yet to still try them out. Today I realised why, this end of the academic year is when students suddenly realise they should have done the work we have been trying to get them to do all year. The marking of the work goes from steady to maximum and it will remain so for another week, such is life :(

Living in a Box

2011-06-05T21:29:00.001+01:00

Well, initially brought up recently on the QL Users list was a reference to a new bit of hardware kit, a small computer a little bigger than a 20p piece.

From the website http://www.raspberrypi.org/ this little thing has a lot of feature for the mordern day but with only 250 meg of memory. Ideal for the basis of a new QL was my first thought, in fact you could quiet easily fit a few of these inside the QL case, replace the QL keyboard with a proper one add a decent size battery and you have a portable computer.

Seriously this device is designed to inspire young people back to the fun of programming, and I say hurrah!, what an achievement and something QL Users should look seriously at, for re-configuring for SuperBasic, or even supporting directly. A caveat of course as the device isn't out yet (later this year apparently), but it it does and at the price stated, it would be so cool. It will come configured and runs UBUNTU so to me it will run a QL system. WTS

Thunderbolt and Lightning - very very frightening me

2011-06-05T21:01:00.001+01:00

I thought I would just chance my arm following a quick read of "An introduction to the QL" Babini books by the Penfold crew. No point in doing a review now as a. it's a bit late, b. the book is out of print, anyway what was interesting is that when I looked up, or tried to look up this book on their website http://www.babanibooks.com/ although I couldn't find it, well it was a long shot anyway. I used to buy quite a few Babani books in my electronics days and looked at the time to getting some of my own electronic ideas published.

Then, I very soon caught on to the methodologies used by some electronic authors at the time and so I tried that very same process myself, I ended up publishing a few projects in Everyday Electronics Magazine and it's sister publication Practical Electronics, all pre-QL I might add.

Suffice to say manufacturers technical data sheets for ICs seem to do all the work for you.

Anyhoo back to the QL book and Babini, so I emailed them enquiring about purchasing the said book as the one I have is a bit moth-eaten. The response I have to say was a bit short, pointing to their website saying I should look there.

Well knowing that they no longer sold said book I emailed again about copyright as it was not possible to purchase a new one and again the short reply was that they maintain the copyright. Well I also knew that one anyway, the point being is that if moth-eaten paperbacks is all that you have, then all that you have is moth-eaten paperbacks.

So new books on the QL are not going to make a sudden comeback, yet I feel there are plenty of individual documented work on the web that could be presented in a much better format.

The QL Users list has raised a few points in the past about QL being able to display e-pub format. With the advance of technology in tablets such as the cheaper end Kindle, the dearer end iPad and more recently the PadPhone!, e-pub, PDF and other mainstream electronic formatted documentation will become the norm, perhaps replacing the printed book once and for all?

I may be rambling a bit here but the point I suppose I am trying to make is that documentation in electronic form is now becoming the norm, long gone are the thick books that accompany the software for your computer, no a CD with PDfs for you to printout, which three years ago I did, and there they sat on the shelf, unread.

Back to the QL meant a lot of reading, all in mainly web-pages, Word documents, QUANTA magazines in PDF format, and I was lucky(?) as having an iPAD to read this documentation was a breeze and now my preferred method, not the laptop, not the PC, and until you have a screen with a higher resolution than the standard 72dpi (sorry metric-ologists), you probably wont be swayed by my arguments and stick to the paper format.

The iPad 3 supposedly next year (or even later this year) is reputedly to have a 'retina' display, if true this would be of significant impact to e-reading in my opinion. But what of the QL? well read my next post.

Why the title then?, well recently I smiled at the lyric popping into my head as current met past. Lightning (Simon Goodwin's) go faster stripes for the QL made an appearance recently in my struggle with constructing a (what I perceived to be a quick simple) game as I needed some graphic routines to overcome QL's slow limitations. Thunderbolt is the name given to a new faster transfer port adopted by Apple and trademarked by Intel, nuff said.

I remember you ooohhhh

2011-06-02T19:26:00.001+01:00

Something I forgot to mention from the Quanta workshop/AGM is that it allowed me for the first time in many years to sit down and actually spend sometime tinkering without any pressure.

Pressure from my other half or mainly myself (I better say that in case she ever reads this, although I use the "voice" which puts her off reading any of this anyway) from DIY, cleaning, car repair, washing etc. I think you get the picture.

So for all you people who do not go to workshops, sub group meetings and the like, it is the one time you can do nothing else but QL related things, it took me awhile to realise this, so I will make a concerted effort to get to the London one this month, and cannot wait until the next AGM/Workshop.

Finally for those interested in the 'voice' then see my past post on 'Hello', any further explanation will require a comment here :)

I remember when rock was young

2011-05-31T22:54:00.001+01:00

Well here is a turn-up, nearly got my real QL system back to up and running (alongside my iMac no less) however my laptop with Windows 7 op system, my previously one was XP, I decided to get Q-emulator full version.

So installing Q-Emulator on it I had great fun playing around with its particular set of features, its top one being the ability to latch in a drive directly to a zip file, this is a really good feature. However when re-installing QPCII under Win 7 I then came across this anomaly when trying to type in FLP1_, no underscore!

Pressing all the top keys my keyboard now displays this under QPCII only

1234567890-q
1234567890-q with the right shift key
!"£$%^&*()_Q with the left shift key

instead of

1234567890-=
!"£$%^&*()_+ with the right shift key
!"£$%^&*()_+ with the left shift key

similar things happen with other lines and I am unable to get the # @
at all (no pun intended) so what gives?

If a picture paints a thousand words

2011-05-24T22:20:00.001+01:00

Well if you have never been, a visit to Bletchley Park, home of the code breakers also houses the National Computer Museum and when you walk around you will eventually through up one or two interesting artefacts.

Obviously Sinclair products

and yes those massive boxes either side of the BBC Model A/B are 2nd 6505 processors ha ha

below is me by a CRAY

but by far is this little interesting thing, after Sinclair and Acorn passed their prime in the eighties, Sinclair being sold to Amstrad, Acorn eventually getting in to RISC/ARM chips, this yellow beauty was the last only one of two ARM machines produced but never left the Acorn factory, apparently.

Instead of badging everything on the outside like Apple, Microsoft even Sinclair, Acorn put theirs in on the inside on the case??

I did have a chat with one of the guys at the National Computer Museum about a possible future QUANTA project, so something to think about.

A little bit me, a little bit you....too

2011-05-24T20:18:00.000+01:00

Further to my plot/draw quandary DJ came to the rescue pointing out that LRESPR the draw code includes the PLOT code, the second thing I learn't from that is, using the command in lower-case before you LRESPR the code, always displays the code in how it is first invoked (i.e. in this case lower-case [no pun intended])

Now I knew when in SuperBasic the first instance you define a variable name, function or procedure then that's the form it takes regardless of subsequent entries (until you switch the QL off), but for some reason I thought machine code versions would force their own format, not so it seems, hmmm interesting

And that brings us to

"Pointless none QL observation of the week!" (sung as in TV burp style)

Seeing every PC in the College having a long black keyboard not unlike the QL in front of every monitor just for a split second....

picture to follow

Footnote==========================================
Now speaking of TV Burp
There is Australian example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zucQyIdqT68
and good old Harry Hill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdrfd81PeeM&feature=related
now I like Harry Hill, but I also like the Australian version, but which is better? there's only...

A little bit of this a little bit of that

2011-05-23T23:04:00.001+01:00

I have made some minor changes to the Blog, reduced the number of posts shown on the page, added ADs to make it look a bit more busy and there is a 'Follow by email' option at the bottom of the posts as well as a 'Google search the Blog' option as well.

Please post if you find this useful or any other comments.

Wow - things are a moving for a change

2011-05-23T21:59:00.002+01:00

Just a quick point about the number of hardware things that seem to be in development, in particular stuff from Adrian Ives, Memory Lane Computing. Developments to a Serial ROM driver now in Alpha, really cool.

Well done Adrian!

Getting there, so many hurdles, so much to do

2011-05-23T21:54:00.001+01:00

Trying to get a graphical game off the blocks and I keep stumbling over inadequacies of the QL system or old QL software of which there is very little address.

Starting with a stab at DP's Super Hyped Sprite Generator, you would have seen my frustration with the x movement in a previous blog, not resolving that issue yet (not promising) and as of yet not found any other sprite software, I returned to the graphics control on the original QL, Point and Line, I was reminded of my first offering in Quanta - CAD in which the (for me) useless SCALE command would not allow control over the x-axis assuming fixed display ratio, how things change. Anyhoo, I got things working of sorts moving a drawn shape around the screen, a shape that changes shape depending where it is on the screen.

Looking on DJ's site for an alternative I come across plot and draw (well nearly, plot is a bit allusive at the moment - over to you DJ), well this seems more promising, well it may be promising, we'll see. So moving on to the next stumbling block assuming everything previous will get sorted, I now will have a timing problem, i.e. once the program is Turbo'd it will run fast, so how will it stop it from running too fast. With the CAD program I lazily (with hindsight) used for/next loops of incredible magnitude to slow things down on the original QL to a reasonable speed. 25 odd years later when running in an emulator at maximum speed this then becomes an obvious problematic issue. So what method can I use to limit speed on the FTL QL?

The only thing I can think of is to use something similar to TIMER (QuickBasic) which gives you the number of cycles since the machine has switched on. Cycles? what cycles? no idea, fractions of milliseconds or similar, other than you can use this number as a really good randomiser seed, and also for timing regardless of the speed of the host machine. So if I want to move something across the screen at the same speed regardless of host speed how do I do it?

The QL doesn't have anything close so now what? DATE doesn't work, PAUSE is too slow so there must be a peek somewhere. Nope, how silly did I feel when I chance looked at the keyword Pause, realising that it can do milliseconds down to 20 as the smallest. Why didn't I use that before?, why did I think that the Pause command was seconds only?, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows!

Update, hmm forgot that the pause command is affected by key presses so control goes out the window, AH! that's why I didn't use it before, so feeling a little better with myself but still no nearer solving the problem, oh well back to the QL User List to see if someone can help. WTS

Whenever Whatever

2011-05-18T00:17:00.000+01:00

A simple but meaningful point, reading some of the articles in some old QL magazines I came across a reference to OS 9 - a super duper system promised to the masses but did not materialise, so what happened to it?

I was lost in France

2011-05-14T12:07:00.000+01:00

Well I might as well have been, losing a laptop data drive really screws everything you rely on and especially if you don't back up.

Two things I hadn't counted on was favourites in Google Chrome web browser, although that is now sorted, losing all the email messages I had in my in and sent box and all stuff I downloaded off Dilwyn's site which went on the C drive download section...hmm that's three things, OK I can't count.

Anyway replacing the 2.5 drive I was again reminded of something not quite QL but indirectly linked. My first PC had a 20Meg hard drive but it was actually 21.something, the 1024 being the computing equivalent of a 1000 I think, regardless 21.something was a bonus yeh :)

Nowadays you buy 160Gig drives but their not even that, more like 159.something, even before formatting.

Don't the manufacturers of drives realise the psychological importance of us users/buyers thinking where getting something for nothing, well apparently not.

Today's QL user gets loads of stuff for nothing so we should really appreciate it.

Something Old, Something New

2011-05-14T12:04:00.001+01:00

Today I just received my first new bit of hardware for the QL, haven't tested it yet but this is what it looks like.

What is interesting is the colour, clear plastic blue, something borrowed from the original Macs?

like this original iMac, perhaps new hardware products for the QL will all be this colour, blue will be the new black.

There I have said everything now related to this post's title, so with that out the way, more pictures of the SER-USB MK1 can be found here

https://sites.google.com/site/theqlimagerepository/products

HELP

2011-05-04T21:55:00.001+01:00

I wonder if anyone else can help, I have DP's Super Sprite Generator version 3.5 and I am currently running it in Qemulator as the RESPR code will not load in QPC2.

So far so good the main program loads and I can Design sprite sections, I can construct Sprites and run them in the demo Superbasic program and also in the test program. The demonstration program also works seemingly OK as well except for the problem stated below.

The problem I have is the X coordinate move which you can increase 1 value + or -, however the sprite does not move until a value of 4 has occurred and the the sprite moves four pixels on the screen in either direction.

The Y value works fine but not the X value.

The documentation states
[quote]
The sprite position is taken as its bottom leftmost pixel. XD, XY, XP are the displacements of the sprite, each time it is drawn, in the X, Y & plane directions. Sprites are drawn each time the SPRITE Keyword is issued for any sprite or automatically via SSGCON.

The values are fractions of 256, ie; a value of 1024 will move 4 pixels
every call (1024/256 = 4).[/quote]

I tried different values 256, 512,1024 2048 but nothing seems to make any difference

the main code use in the test program is as follows:

1 dev$='flp1_'
100 REMark Demo

120 PAPER 0:INK 7:MODE 8
150 SSGINIT 20000,30,166,12,20,220
160 :
170 SSGFILE dev$&"descent_sprite"
210 SSGCON 3
220 :
240 CLS
300 SSGMODE 1
380 x1=1:y1=68:p1=1:flag=1:xd=1
390 REPeat loop
400 d=CODE(INKEY$(0))
410 SELect ON d
420   =49 TO 57:d=d-48:flag=2^d
430   =192:x1=x1-1
440   =200:x1=x1+1
450   =208:y1=y1+1
460   =216:y1=y1-1
470 END SELect
480 IF SSGEDGE(1)=8 THEN xd=-1:flag=5
490 IF SSGEDGE(1)=4 THEN xd=1:flag=69
500 SPRITE 1,flag,p1,x1,y1,256,256,256
520 END REPeat loop

the last three options on SPRITE are the XD, XY and XP as above, these are the ones I have messed around with to no avail

I have not yet tried this on a QL proper as all my setups are in temp storage at the moment.

the documentation also states

Its main features are:

                   * Sprites can be drawn & changed easily.
                   * Sprite drawing is multitasked.
                   * Each sprite can have up to 16 different shapes.
                   * Up to 16 different sprites on the screen at a time.
                   * Up to 256 sprites can be available at any one time.
                   * Up to 256 different planes - collisions occur in one plane.
                   * Smooth, flicker-free movement in 3 dimensions.
                   * Full choice of graphic modes & screens.
                   * Easy control through keywords.

Jumping on the X axis by 4 pixels is hardly what I call smooth

Any ideas anyone?

Read it and weep

2011-04-25T11:56:00.000+01:00

So currently reading introductory books on the QL to see if I can get a boost of inspiration or anything obvious I have missed. A couple of things have come to light initially, the first is the amount of repetitive waffle you have to plough through before you get to something tangible to deal with. For example showing you how to plug the QL in and connect it up to a TV when the user book already does that I find it a bit condescending, although I did find the reference to the TV must be able to receive BBC 2 quiet funny.

The second point in another book was a whole load of text around X = X + 10, and although obvious to the programmer what it means, the writer goes on to explain about how it doesn't make mathematical sense, and for the first time I did look at it from both sides. As an engineer I have an understanding of mathematic for formulae and as a programmer an understanding of computer algorithms, so why did I not see this conflict before and just accept the logical sense of it, a formulae X = X + 10 would equate to nonsense. It's interesting to say the least.

True

2011-04-22T22:27:00.000+01:00

It makes me smile seeing some of the the wording used in original QL manuals I have been looking at recently, the first entry into my 'Hall of Infame' in particular some Digital Precision software manuals have phrases such as "I am sure if you send Digital Precision the original disk and a 'fiver', they will be able to replace this". To international readers they must have been scratching their heads as to what on earth that means, to other 'professionals' well I would leave that to to them.

The second entry follows what demonstrates as instructions on what to type in to access files on the microdrive and specifically states "MDV, FLP or whatever ", I cannot help but laugh at this for two reasons, firstly the writer gives the impression he nearly gives up on writing the instructions and cant be bothered to tell you any more (we've all been there) and the likes of Catherine Tate's character "Am I bovvered?" as the second thought that crosses my mind as 'whatever' can no longer be used in the normal context with a big VV made with your own fair hands.

In my head reading 'whatever' always comes out as 'wot evvverrrrrrrr' being subject to either the comic talents reflecting "life!" from Ms Tate or other such TV programmes that are dished out, subjecting us to the barrage of life on the streets for the common 'man' (woman) especially in London or other similar urban areas.

It's a long way, to tip the 'merry'

2011-04-18T13:53:00.000+01:00

Setting out on my trip up north to the Quanta workshop and AGM meeting starts with a playlist of suitable music to listen to/sing along to (yes I am on my own) or shout out to. From Donna Summer to Girls Aloud to Take That, a variety to amuse myself as I am making my way up the M11.

I was listening to the music and perusing the last few days regarding character 181, seemingly a misnomer in the Sinclair QL character set as it doesn't appear to be anywhere else any more. Among the searches on the interweb (as the results from Google list and list and list their titles and brief sentence showing the 'FONT' key words I put in) I fleetingly remember seeing a site reporting the inconclusive information as to what font is agreed upon for road signs in the UK.

So as I drive I am taking particular notice of the blue road signs, until I got to Cambridge where the the sign was telling me to turn off for Cambridge, ah! I thought, Sinclair, Science of Cambridge, birth of the QL etc. Then next sign a mile or so along the road then says Cambridge, and below it said Sandy, wow a place called Sandy (in my head goes 'ding') wondering if this was where Sandy Computers used to be based and its close proximity to Cambridge (i.e. Sinclair). Yes of course its obvious now, but you don't tend put these things together until it really hits you in the face so to speak.

2B or NOT 2B

2011-04-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

So plowing through manuals for QL Interfaces and Disk systems, I am constantly reminded "So which is it Disc or Disk"? I never have really found properly or if I did, I cannot remember.

Wikipedia (that font of all unchecked knowledge) is just as inconclusive.

So for me as of now I try to use 'Disk' when referring to a Disk Drive stuff and 'Disc' when referring to Floppy Disc stuff.

So the instruction manual should read according to my rules, "You place the floppy disc in to the disk drive and then reset your QL. After pressing F1 or F2 the disc will spin up and the operating system will look on the disc for the file BOOT. Once loaded the QL will act upon the Superbasic instructions and if no longer required the Disk drive will cease spinning the floppy disc.

And there you have it.

Hmmm still not sure :(

Then when the Nerdy Gurdy Man

2011-04-14T11:52:00.000+01:00

Slightly off the topic of the QL but somehow related, one of my previous posts triggered a situation and discussion with students discussion jobs roles. In particular the way we now and used to use different spellings for things, Disc and Disk for example but that's another post.

My take on starting a letter or email with 'hello', 'hallo' often had me at a quandary but someone reminded me of another spelling which is 'hullo'. No to me 'Hello' always sounds friendly, 'Hallo' always sounds formal and 'Hullo' just immediately reminds of Mr Beans voice saying the word 'Hullowwww' and sounding very, very nerdy.

I C you baby...

2011-04-14T11:42:00.000+01:00

I have started to put some Hi-Res Integrated Circuit images on my QL Image Repository for all to see, they are either directly related to the QL or indirectly related to the QL, such as the Z80, which was used I think on a peripheral but also as the main processor for the ZX series of Sinclair Computers.

Would you like chips with that

2011-04-08T10:32:00.000+01:00

Having several different interface boards now with some not working or not working well, I have been scouring the web for some replacement hard to find Integrated Circuits (ICs). What is amazing is the price range for some of these ICs, from a few pence to several hundred pounds.

A bit of help from the forum put me in touch with an American distributor of electronic components and a bit of creative thinking for another IC used in a less popular computer (Dragon) has allowed me to order ICs from both sources on the same day, both took four days to arrive in the post (not parcel delivery) one however was 150 miles away the other a bit more from the US.

I will now see if I can get the boards working with these replacements components and report back sometime, or if all that QL Tinkering has been in vain :(

Such is the life

I can do it, I can do it, I can really move

2011-04-02T00:04:00.001+01:00

Well as promised a few posts ago I said I would stop bleating about some of the experiences of too much info, not the right info, couldn't understand the info and actually do something about it. Now I am not for one minute saying that all the sites covering the QL are problematic, there is so much information it becomes quite intoxicating and difficult to resist reading and acting on the reading before you have learn't to swim. So here is my simpler introduction if you are new to the QL or returning to the QL website.

https://sites.google.com/site/iwant2learn2/home

Please post any comments here for improvements or other such changes to the site, noting is too simple or too difficult (what am I saying here, I'm not an expert :) )

Some girls have all the luck

2011-03-31T19:50:00.000+01:00

Seriously some people need a reality check on what they think they can sell at any price just by bundling

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170622278041#ht_1186wt_1139

and like a couple of others, repeat selling 78 microdrives for £79, who are they kidding?

I Ain't Misbehaving

2011-03-26T02:07:00.003Z

I just cannot believe it I have just been a victim of one of my own practical jokes, the 'boards have been pretty quiet today except for one item, which made me check a directory and file on the Quanta library CD.

Instead of looking at the directory I was trying to find, I got distracted by another directory, as I recognised the name as being one I created 'EYE LOCK'. This very simple SuperBasic programme was pretending (not very well) to be a protection utility for other QL programmes, however, I couldn't remember exactly how the joke panned out. So I loaded the Superbasic programme in to QPCII and ran it. For quite a few minutes I was trying a variety of changes to the listing in order to get it working under QPCII, especially as it was a relatively simple programme.

After awhile, I got it to the point where I could more or less see on the screen the pseudo instructions. It was also telling me, to note the date on the screen, which was April 1st, hence the joke and spookilly close to the same date this year. Well, I quickly got tired of that and then realised I needed to pick my car up from being fixed with a few repairs to get it through the MOT. I got back an hour later and went to check my emails, Outlook gave me a strange message saying the server is not giving the correct certificate, did I want to continue.

Without much thought I said yes, well actually I clicked on Yes (I am not up to speaking commands to the computer yet), I had one from a bidding website saying I had a winning bid on a QL book, great I thought. Pay Now? it asked and clicking the normal responses took me to the PayPal site, however Google Chrome interrupted saying the server was not secure, come back later.

After a few tries, with it reporting the same message I thought, I will try later and then sent an email to the seller saying PayPal site was down. Did a bit of surfing the web, and about an hour later I checked emails, same server message, checked PayPal still the same message, it was at this point I started to get a little concerned that I had a virus or something worse.

I was trying different websites, that an hour ago were quite accessible, now they were being blocked with this same 'uncertified server error' and telling me to 'try again later', getting more panicky I looked around the computer screen for inspirational clues as to why this was happening to me. It was then I noticed the clock was showing significantly the wrong time, so I checked it. Not only was it showing the wrong time, it was showing the wrong month and the wrong year, it was, according the the clock the 1st April 1986.

It was set by my Superbasic programme 'EYE LOCK' I was playing around with earlier. This program was meant to be a bit of fun for OTHER Quanta people and a little dig at the 'SuperCharge Compiler' 25 years ago, nearly to the day and it was me it caught out. Talk about what goes around comes around, 25 years!!! suffice to say I have paid my winning bid now.

It sounds so nice, what you're proposin'

2011-03-25T09:47:00.000Z

As we approach the Quanta's AGM, the first one for me, I note two things, the first is that there seems to be a flurry (if that is the right word I am thinking of) of activity on the 'boards (a name I will use to describe forums; mailing lists; emails and whatever from now on). Lots of things are being brought up, legalities, procedures, what should be voted on and what shouldn't, what is appropriately proposed and what isn't, my thought on what I observe is "is this normal a few weeks before an AGM?", for seasoned veterans of Quanta, they would know, for the first year for me, I don't.

My only other recall way back in I think, 1986 of the Quanta AGM was of a furore involving Freddy Vacha (I think I have got that right) from Digital Precision and a possible take-over. I am very hazy about the details mainly because, the only form of instant communication was the land line telephone then, you didn't have everyone's numbers stored up and readily available. So it was when you saw someone who then related it third hand, or reading it in a magazine (a watered down version) or in a letter from a friend or someone in the know, and if it was sent first class then you got the following day whoohoo.

The second thing I am reminded of from noting the goings on is that I haven't got time to reply, or that commenting on it is low on my list of priorities, I am reaching maximum capacity on things I am doing at the moment in regards to the QL. What amazes me is that I seem to be juggling about nine or ten things at the moment, and that I am still doing it, the fact that my brain hasn't given up on me and decided to have a lost memory shut-down sequence, unlike my laptop which has done so three time now.

The fact that I call it juggling and not multitasking is interesting, my other half would have a fit if she new I was doing more than three things at once. For some unknown reason, if I am washing up stuff and she is talking to me, I have to ask her to repeat what she has been saying, and then get accused of not listening to her, how unfair is that? When the boot (no QL pun intended) is on the other foot and I start talking to her about QL stuff, Quanta AGM on any STAR WARS related fact she falls asleep, and I am not allowed to criticise that situation, as if I do I then get accused of sounding nerdy. Oh well, roll on Friday 15, I am going up to Manchester early.

Oh!, think twice, its another day for you...

2011-03-20T22:41:00.001Z

I am reliably informed by the students I teach that having a 'blonde moment' is not sexist nor insulting against blonde women it is just a normal expression used by the youth apparently, so taking that at face value, I have recently had a blonde moment, engaging in a thread (I wont say where but you can guess) just before doing something else, the conversation was about Miracle Systems floppy disk interface, I quickly added I recently got hold of two but they were not working and left it at that.

Suffice to say that later when looking at that thread the response was quizzical as it referred to Trump Card, now I have heard this before on various mailing lists, websites etc. the Trump Card was a bit like the Gold Card or the Super Gold Card fancy name and it did stuff but I never got to know exactly what or I made assumptions about what it did.

The problem here is that when you are trying to catch up several years worth of history, a lot of reading about STUFF tends to blur together, as reading most of the articles is a bit like watching the film The Exorcist with present day expectations, so what, mediocre special effects, naff storyline. Its all out of context as The Exorcist was a turning point film with ground breaking special effects and covering taboo subjects.

With this mind, the STUFF tends to blur and I don't know what any of the significances are as I am reading about it all, just taking note of names that seem familiar, anyhoo, following the follow-up post I went to photograph the two interfaces realising they were not Miracle Systems but Micro Peripherals, if you squint your eyes at the two you will see that it is difficult to see the difference. That was my blonde moment.

I suppose all this will come with time but making those sorts of silly mistakes is inevitable as you get older, however its not until you look in to the history of the QL you then start to realise how many companies were involved. the ones that sold the most, notorious or lasted the longest are now familiar, but there were loads of others.

Finally I put a spin on the oft said CD-ROM publicity phrase Write once Read many times, for posting however it should be Read many times, Write once...

And another one down

2011-03-17T21:50:00.004Z

Further to the post below I have now had a look at the fuss over the FPGA Programmable Gaming Hardware website here http://www.fpgaarcade.com The site doesn't tell you a lot on the main page just a few pictures and a revision type version blog really, so to find out a bit more to start with what does FPGA stand for me be a good start. The pictures do show what the board contains, how small it is and the plethora of connections, it also shows it connected to a power supply, a monitor and running something akin to workbench an Amiga operating system front end, emulating apparently a 68000 processor interesting.

So going down the left hand side navigation bar the next option under News, as that is the default, is Games. The games page just shows picture and further links to the code for the games, pretty basic games at that, frogger, pacman, space invaders all the classics but still no further in finding out what FPGA stands for.

Next is Platforms, again a memory lane trip showing early consoles from the 80's and even one from '78, however this is an emulation page where you can download the software for the consoles and also the Amiga and Atari, hmm 68000 now this is getting interesting except again another acronym to solve VHDL software, what is that?

Next is Parts, guess! go on guess!, yep

Next is FAQ, well hopefully this will contain:
Q. what does FPGA stand for? and
Q. what does VHDL stand for? and yes it does

VHDL stands for Very HarD Language, no seriously it stands for VHSIC Hardware Description Language, a high level language but with another added acronym, fortunately that is explained too.

VHSIC stands for Very High Speed Integrated Circuit

The footnote to the explanation was that IEEE adopted the language VHDL in the 1987, three years after the QL. However that gives us another acronym, IEEE which stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an association for promoting electrical based technology.

Finally we get to FPGA it stands for Field Programmable Gate Array and the explanation goes on to talk about its operation sounding very much like I understood a ULA was described in the ZX SPECTRUM days, oops sorry reader (Uncommitted Logic Array). It is also on this page we get to see another name Xilinx which is significant to the QL, but thats later.

Next is Developer, that just say's Soon! so lets go back to the console page, and last picture at the bottom seems like a test screen, it was clicking on this that was really interesting.
The Spartan 3e Starter kit made by Xilinx is described as having only 1bit RGB output meaning it can only cope with eight colours including black and white (though technically...), does that ring a bell anywhere at all?

http://www.fpgaarcade.com/displaytest.htm

And another one down and another one down, another one bytes the dust

2011-03-17T14:48:00.002Z

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in to the water, nope, scratch that. Just when you thought it was ok to, nope scratch that too. Just when I thought I had a fair number of acronyms under my belt and started to get a handle on things regarding the history of the QL since 1984. A kind soul gently reminds me directly and indirectly this is not the case. Directly being corrected, as the Super Gold Card (SGC) is not an add-on that increases the colours the QL has, no, in fact it adds processing power, memory, floppy access and printer port, quite popular by all accounts as seen below (which is a link to the QL Wiki where the image lies and a much better description than mine, an excellent wiki setup for all things QL and not an image I have have taken).

I presume its called Gold coz of the colour of that damn great big heatsink on the left. Anyway, when I thought I had finished a few understandings (is that a real word?) of acronyms etc. and after being corrected on an assumption about the SGC, another online conversation I observed (lurked) that same evening more acronyms. It was a conversation that referred to some new super duper system that could be used a replacement QL, infact this device could sit inside a QL case on top of a newly designed PCB to replace the existing QL circuit board. This was not only an exciting prospect and an exciting project but also full of more contractions to add to my (mis)understanding of the Sinclair QL in todays context, will it never end?

Japan

2011-03-16T16:05:00.007Z

Is it just me, that found that in the same week the Sinclair ZX81 is 30 years old and the disasters that have occurred in Japan are unfortunate that the '81 could be used to run a Power Station?

Give a little bit, Give a little bit of your code to me

2011-03-16T16:05:00.004Z

Ok Ok I give up, I finally realise I cannot go on using a basic QL without Care Electronic's Toolkit II, or should I say TT's Toolkit 2. so I have an EPROM, an EPROM burner, the ROM code so whats next?

Many a tear has to fall

2011-03-14T11:13:00.001Z

So you have made the decision deliberately or otherwise to get back into computing, specifically the Sinclair QL and you wonder what to do first. My way as I was laid up at the time was to read as much as I could. This has an upside as well as a downside, you do find out things by reading, the more you read, the more you absorb the information obviously. Unfortunately there is a a lot of information out there and it can be a bit daunting to the complete newcomer and very tiresome to the returner.

My advice is to not give up but to concentrate on one particular feature first and leave everything else alone, easier said than done I know, and there will be other things that pop up that either get in the way or distract you in what you are trying to do. At the present I have three projects on the go that need finishing within three weeks as a deadline is looming, all QL related and all interlinked and all with the same priority.

Occasionally I come across a link to a website that I don't recognise or haven't been on before, this has to be checked out to see if it's QL relevant, if there is anything worth reading, if there is anything worth downloading, if there is anything worth trying and irrespective of that it has to be bookmarked.

A lot of the time unfortunately the websites relating to the QL were written or designed during the early stages of the Internet becoming available and sadly are no longer relevant, become a broken link, were poorly designed especially when considering todays modern understanding of the younger target audience attention span. The thing is, is no one as far as I know, has a website that lists web page links that are not worth looking at, the "Bottom Ten" websites instead of the "Top Ten" so to speak hardly makes interesting reading, although in this case it might be useful.

Now what was I doing?

This ain't no upwardly mobile free-way, this is the road to Hell

2011-03-12T07:48:00.002Z

The anniversary of the ZX81 at 30 was portrayed in the press yesterday with quotes like 'running a power- station' a misquote to the computational power the '81 had. For me I bought the kit '81 as I was in electronics at the time, the bought version was £20 pound more, far too much in those days to extend to and the other alternative kit computer was the UK101 again in excess of £100 which was way out of my reach.

From an electronics point of view the ZX81 kit was disappointing, it required no real electronic skills other than soldering IC sockets, let down by that I programmed in space invaders (yes in 1K) from a book and I was hooked, but 1K was too limiting. I started saving up for the BBC Micro model A, got halfway there when out comes the Spectrum, this was too tempting and in colour so I got that.

I eventually produced a game called 'Play Your Cards Right' from the TV series (with sound) and got it accepted on to some Compuserve BBs of all things run by BT, but it wasn't called that then, the name escapes me for the moment. The game got copied/moved/bought out and appeared on a Codemasters compilation tape for the Spectrum awhile after, under somebody elses' name, I wrote to Codemasters about it but never received a reply, never got any money for it either, oh well.

By this time the Sinclair QL was being advertised and having owned two Sinclair computers already, additionally having seen two of the earlier ones at my work (MK 14 and ZX80, I just couldn't resist buying the QL, the rest it seems, is my history.

I was this close >< to getting a C5 as well

I'm on the road to nowhere.....ha!

2011-03-11T02:32:00.000Z

For a couple of weeks at least in the back of my mind there has been a nagging thought as to why I am currently so enthused about returning to the QL, this may or may not be unique to me, I don't know. So to start I need to explore contextually how I got to this point, the advances in technology has been one driver, however going back even further before I left school and started work, my 'hobby' if you could call it that, was messing about in my parent's cellar with the electrics.

Normally blowing the occasional fuse and sometimes complete sections of very old cable (yep pretty dangerous), however like most teenagers I had no real idea what I wanted to do when I left school, but with my interest in electrics, it seemed logical that my first step on the career ladder should follow this line, so my first job was to become an electrician.

My hobby by this time had moved on from simple electrics to engineering, electrical motors and such. Changing jobs to become an engineer followed suit thereafter, however I moved on again and got in to electronics in a fairly big way, and so eventually so did my career, around the 1980s my electronic enthusiasm was starting to wane a little and that's when I turned to computing.

So by now hopefully you can see the pattern, job follows hobby, hobby moves on, job follows hobby. At some point this must have become quite boring to me, never being able to separate the two things. of course this whole thing could be over simplification but nevertheless this is why I think retro computing and specifically back to the QL is so tempting and slightly out of control. This new hobby is it not something my current job can follow and unless I change career into journalism and the one Retro Magazine (as far as I know) that exists, I am not likely to pursue it either, therefore it can remain a hobby and keep it separate from work, hurrah. Am I the only one that has followed this sort of route I wonder?

Man Down! Get Me A Medic

2011-03-10T22:06:00.000Z

I recently got hold of some QL peripherals, from that well known car parking space named and located between D-Bay and F-Bay. What attracted me to the purchase was one particular item, a floppy disk interface board that the seller stated was from Medic, and for those who do not know the history surrounding Medic in the early years of the Sinclair QL then they should look it up somewhere, I am sure an accurate description of what actually went on with that company is written down and just wants to be found.

From my perspective however, as a then QL owner and a potential buyer of QL add-ons but without the actual finances to do so, Medic appeared to have the X-Factor, the very flashy and colourful ads in the QL magazines couldn't fail to impress, they seem to be giving away nearly free, four colourful games while potential buyers were waiting for the all in one package of memory and interface to make its appearance as demonstrated at one of those Sinclair Shows. It was expensive I seem to remember nearly up to the price of the original QL and although I used to dream and drool over the advert (once a month it seems), I could never afford it. I did send off for the games though, I cannot remember if I had to pay anything, something like postage or some other cost, alas I never got anything in return.

The image of that cleverly design expansion box surround in keeping with the design of the QL, a very natural looking extension and the description of how good the system was, must of stayed with me, as when the Medic Circuit made its appearance I just had to obtain it, so I did. It was not guaranteed to work but that didn't matter, it was another piece of my QL history hunger that I find myself needing to satisfy. Well here is a picture of the interface card, you can see the external power coming from the large smoothing capacitor to the top right. Slightly above that, being a blank bit of the circuit board where I suppose the the voltage control chip and heat-sink would be, it seems about the right sized space for one with a linked out holes for a 3-pin 78?? regulator.

Two x dual row sockets which I am reliably informed is the floppy disk connection and a (bi-directional) parallel port. Of the three large chips top left, one is an EPROM 2764(middle), the one below is an 8059 or WD1770 and the largest chip is marked as a 4500A. The memory chips are M5K4164 and I suppose that filling the other 8 empty sockets with same would increase the memory to a maximum of 512K the standard for the original QL, that is if it works, still yet to try that, maybe at the weekend.

On another matter:
Considering the short and sporadic time I have been using a real QL he last couple of weeks, today I distinctly noticed two quirks (no not the Tetris clone, different spelling). The first was that I was starting to get used to the keyboard and not watching intently the keys being pressed, considering most of the commands I actually to is DIR LOAD MDV1_ and FLP1_ you could say his is hardly surprising, however secondly reverse side of things is that I still cannot get used to left/right arrow keys way over to the left of the space-bar and not to the right as they I expect them to be, hmmmn!

I think I can, I think I can, I thought I could, I thought I could

2011-03-09T20:48:00.000Z

Much to my other half's slight annoyance of using my current QL setup in front of the dressing table where I have perched our redundant second TV for anyone staying over to watch something, although it will have to be DVD as I haven't got around to putting in an aerial for that room yet and I lost the impetus since Virgin gave us cable.

I say gave, I seem to be paying a far bit for it, anyhoo, I had two QLs sitting in their boxes for some months before I got one out to test it (I haven't actually told my financial adviser that I got two yet, one is hidden up in the loft, maybe some other time), and obviously it didn't come with an aerial lead, rather than buy one I thought I'll make one up. A few days later using all white components I am a proud owner of a 4 meter aerial lead for connecting the QL to the TV.

Plugging everything in and switching it on was my first disappointment, I had flashbacks to a recent (either the QL forum or the mailing list not sure which) comment from someone who was experiencing what seemed to be a number of hardware issues under the bonnet of his QL with some home brew modifications to boot (no pun intended). One of the issues resulted in the appearance on the screen of streaks especially where white was the colour, across the display, unfortunately this was exactly what I had! My first thought was I had a fading fast QL.

However now with my proper head on I realised pretty quickly that the length of cable could have something to with it. so off down to the local electronic store to buy another extortionate priced component a seven pin DIN plug.

This is where yet another 'dawn of realisation' occurs, its been 20 odd years since I have done any serious electronic work, for a start I now wear glasses and looking at tiny pins for soldering with a steady hand was long gone. I un-retired my trusty rusty soldering iron however, and set to work making up a DIN to Scart lead. Well I am happy to say that worked fine except for one slight problem which you may be able to see in the image below. Somewhere along the lines of reading the pin outs, colour coding of the Scart plug cables seems to have gone awry, oh well.

Yes, I know "shouldn't that border be green?"

Dont Just Stand There - Shoot Him

2011-03-08T10:14:00.000Z

If you haven't already guessed by now, I like to use lines from film, television and music and titles for my various activities on the web and electronic communication have seen there fair share, this post being no exception.

Rather than just rant about how difficult it was/is for a person returning to the QL scene (albeit Quanta Membership, subscription to QL Today etc.) to find the right information or to be gently lead through a process I thought I would do something about it.

Now I am not coming up with anything new (I dont think), just putting the information through a filter so to speak, simplifying and making it slightly less daunting for someone new to the QL, returning to the QL or just want a refresher to the QL or QL related stuff.

So when it is more or less ready I will let you know here.

De-coupled for a moment

2011-03-07T23:03:00.000Z

Its funny the things you stumble across while looking for something else, I found this site after a link after a link after a search I was doing for a QL e-books.

http://nettopdf.info/en/ebook/Sinclair%20ql-1.html

Although some duff links there on the page there are a few interesting ones about the QL, technical ones mainly about monitors and a PDF from Dilwyns web site on the PCML floppy disk interface and finally a PDF about the Q40. Actually thinking about a bit more I am not sure of the legalities of this site and it maybe what you would call a leech site or then again just a clever search engine.

The Information Train, First Coupling

2011-03-06T11:39:00.000Z

I wasn't intending to do entry each day but this one was important to me, yesterday, I formatted my first floppy disk ever! using an original QL, yes I know 'big deal' and 'only 27 years late' especially as most of the equipment is that old. But never the less it happened, it worked however the process didn't go that smoothly. Obtaining a PCML floppy disk interface from RWAP, a brand new disk drive from Maplin, retrieving a dust ridden sawdust covered floppy disk ribbon cable with a twisted pair and slightly rusty but older disk drive (also with a bit of sawdust on it) from my garage. I had everything to try to get things working, so first job was to plug in the interface, switch on and see what gives. The extensions notice comes up, all well and good but there seems a bit of a delay before F1/F2 boxes appear, hmmn I thought that normally intimates something wrong or expanded memory, and as far as I know the interface doesn't have any. This is not looking good, but pressing F2 the noisy mdv whirring away and I set about checking memory and then finding out after trying every conceivable variation of PRINT MEM to PRINT FREE_MEMORY I came to the conclusion the JM ROM QL doesn't have that keyword, no I didn't have my QL manual with me, yes it's on my laptop in a PDF file downstairs and I am too lazy to get and go down there to look.

You have to consider here that besides all the other reasons for returning to the QL one important one to me is that sorting out these issues is part of the fun of QL'ing and that it uses my brain to do so, as recently I have felt I needed this particular level of challenging tasks to get it moving again. I will let you know if it works in a couple of years.

Well eventually I did go downstairs to the laptop and asked the question on the 'mailing list', got the answer and found out that my PCML interface had 256K ram on it, 'result', I did let RWAP know this just in case he had any others lying about, as this one was not advertised as such.

A few days later returning to the floppy disk set up, I went about thinking that there was something missing, there was, a power supply. I needed one for the floppy disk as unlike the USB version I have for the laptop which just plugs in and that is it, the old method needed a separate supply. I had visions of building one out of and old PC I have in the garage, didn't fancy that too bulky and over the top. Then I remembered I had a duff external hard-drive and casing with its own plug-in to the mains power supply and with a bit of adapting the Molex four pin power lead needed converting to the floppy disk style of power socket (well thats easy I've got that).

Floppy disk in hand, I am already to go, powering up the QL and the Maplin floppy disk drive, connecting the ribbon cable between them, typing in DIR FLP1_ and... nothing 'not found'. Oh well next thing to try was the other three combinations of the ribbon cable, polarity and before the twisted pair. Each time everything was powered down, powered up, F2, type in the command, still nothing.

Some general email conversation with Rich from RWAP covered the issue around new 3.5 floppy drive not having the D0/D1 selection link and causing a problem for the drive to be recognised, remembering this I swapped the Maplin 3.5 floppy drive for the sawdusted version and after another set of trial and error ribbon cable combinations hey presto I have a directory, now to try format!

The final working setup, still yet to be refined and cased appropriately

Anyone want a 3.5 brand new floppy drive?

The Information Train, Second Carriage

2011-03-05T11:23:00.000Z

Now here is a thing, I was pondering about one of the first niggles I had returning to the QL and cannot help but compare to the years spent programming in Quick Basic 4.5 (Microsoft's last finest hour) and MSDOS.

The copy and paste shortcuts but even more important for a command line operating system was keyboard history, originally in DOS it was an add-in from a third party until Microsoft (as they did) decided it should be integral to their own OS by buying out the company who devised it and using or just copying oops I meant backward engineering oops I meant deciding it would be a good feature (in response to their customers feedback) and got their engineers (thats what they called them then) to write that original feature in to the next OS release. So keyboard history became the norm and was expected, simply by pressing the up/down arrow in the editing window.

Imagine my naivety when switching on the QL (real) or running an emulator, pressing F2 and seeing the big red screen,
Ok here goes, DIR [return]
--bad parameter what!
Ah! DIR MDV1 [return]
--not found
Underscore yes thats it, underscore everything needs an underscore at the end, OK I am not typing all that out again, where's the UP ARROW
--blank
UP ARROW

--blank

UP ARROW

--blank

UP ARROW

--blank

what! no recall? no history? bugger!

Right lets try QemuLator

JS ROM, Toolkit II very nice, never got to JS ROM my original QL was a JM and I saved like mad to buy Toolkit II at the Sinclair Fair at Olympia, London one year, anyway back from reminiscing, I tried the same thing and got the exact same results. I thought without that one basic requirement, typing out everything again without recall this is going to be a short dip in to retro computing.

Some days (it could be weeks) later and at the same, time reading/scanning/looking through Dilwyn's Site or Quanta Library CD (not sure which now) and at the specs of QPC2, I find a program called 'History' written by a contributor and that QPC2 has up/down history using the cursor keys, hurrah progress.

Well by now you should have guessed I have QPC2 as my main QL emulator, but I also have installed on my laptop QL2K and QemuLator, registered with one still thinking about the other. Now before you start writing in any comments, this morning I was again perusing Dilwyn's Site at the 'emulator page' as it was updated last October and I didn't remember with what so looking down the list I noticed that there was an emulator for the Amiga and the Atari ST. It just so happens that I have come in to possession of and Amiga 1200 and an Atari ST yesterday, again got them off eBay while getting a little carried away with bidding using my secret methodology of 'this is my best chance of winning a bid ploy'. So you could say either 'stupidly' or 'accidentally' I now have both these machines, and I wasn't sure what to do with them but now I know, run the QL emulator on them, I will only need to get QL on a Stick (Linux version) working on my net-book and I will have the full set :)

My interest this morning was to read a bit more about the Amiga emulator, so I opened up the zip file qdos4amiga1.lha on Dilwyn's site and there is a DOC file for the Quill which surprisingly opened up in MS WORD with no real problem, so reading down the information I get to this point:

›1m›4m AMIGA-QDOS v3.24 FEATURES›0m

* FASTER than the original QL
* LOADS/SAVES to QL floppy disks
* Hard disk support via QubIDE ROM
* SOUND supported in full (all possible convolutions of BEEP)
* SYSTEM VARIABLES movable (even into FAST RAM).
* 2ND-SCREEN fully usable (like MINERVA ROM)
* SCREEN modes 4 and 8 BOTH supported
* KEYBOARD history from standard <ALT><ENTER> combination
* ALL known machines supported A500, A500+, A600, A1200, A4000 etc
* FOR COMPATIBILITY, data and instruction caches can be enabled/disabled
* QDOS support disk included with release
* BASED ON a JS ROM with many JS ROM bug fixes.
* SOURCE included

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a double take moment, 'keyboard history', 'standard combination' and 'based on a JS ROM', could this be, using ALT+ENTER? no sooner was I firing up both QL2K and QemuLator with JS ROMs, low and behold ALT+ENTER recalls the last line, so where is this written? did I miss it before? was it in the JS ROM version of the QL Manual? can I be bothered to look? well maybe...

Information Train

2011-03-04T21:15:00.000Z

Joining Quanta and looking at their website you eventually find a page directing you to a load of other 'useful' sites, some of which are very useful, some contain a loads of information others you only spend a very short time before you realise you need to move on to the next. All of these sites contain links pages but not all the links work, some of the links are dead, why?.

Information is worth money on the web, the currency is is time, spending time looking at information that is out of date is so so annoying. Especially when your trying to find out the latest information about something. If I am new to the QL scene or returning to the QL scene and I want to find out the latest situation on what I can get, do I need to know the history? maybe, do I need to know what I can get hold of now? definitely, do I need to know whats no longer available? well its not high on the list but some sites don't tell you this, dates guys information needs to be dated, blogs are really good for that automatically, unfortunately a lot of websites don't.

The Sinclair QL web ring is a great example of things all going wrong, with about three useful sites on it and the rest no longer exist, what a waste of time. Decent sites should take car how they are perceived went attached to such annoying irregularities.

The first two sites I came across that showed immediate promise will be no surprise to anyone, http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/ and http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/ looking for emulator on RWAP you get straight away that "it is becoming increasingly more common to use an emulator as a means of using older computer systems, without needing to clutter up your desk space. In recent years, the QL has spawned many emulators working on various computer platforms.", this is exactly what you need, on Dilwyn's site, clicking on emulators what's the first thing we get "Updated:30/10/10", exactly the information we need and then on to the downloads.

Why cant all cars be made this way?

Receiving computer equipment from eBay

2011-03-04T20:16:00.000Z

What is it about peoples pride in what they send parcels to others, amongst the box containing the QL I recently purchased were two broken CDs and dirt at the bottom of t he box as if it had been used as a table in a greenhouse for growing tomatoes with, and filthy, a quick once over with a cloth wouldn't go amiss surely...

Day One - what else would you put in a title?

2011-03-04T16:27:00.000Z

Well, as a re-noobie or re-newbie depending on your preference of spelling, I have come back to the Sinclair QL, and have been 'in it' for a fair few months now. It was suggested to me by a veteran of the QL scene that a blog of my experiences may be beneficial to others and I thought why not!

So here we are, my very first entry 'Back to the QL' a label I have attached to myself obviously influence by three of my favourite films starring M J Fox who recently appeared on an TV episode of the Good Wife as a lawyer who lost but won his case against the main protagonist of the series. Back to the QL describes where I currently am in the form of what we/I/people in generally describe as a hobby, and I ended here mainly due to the use of Apples' iPad whose tied in software (APPS) have a few emulations and it was looking at those on the worl wide web that I stumbled across QUANTA (for those of you who don't know, an acronym for the QL Users ANd Tinkerers Association).

Now reaching that certain age were things that have used to have 'no effect when you're young' but now 'overwhelm' you when your more mature, nostalgia took hold, and my own personal hard drive started up, the memory releasing bytes to the CPU in my head of just how much fun messing about with 'the QL'? or more likely 'Superbasic' really was. Nostalgia it may be but the fact that Quanta had a website and was still going, wow, the internet didn't exist when I left the scene around '87.

So I rejoined Quanta, got a few back issues and read, looked up as many websites as possible about the QL, joined the Mailing List' and read, or more appropriately lurked for awhile. In the meantime I decide to get a QL again and my first port of call was eBay. I had to sell my original QL as money was bit tight in those days, I expanded the memory internally myself to 640K soldering DIL sockets on top of the existing memory chips, that was fiddly, couldn't afford expansion and drooled over Medics adverts in the magazines with their built in floppy system. I could just about afford two or three microdrive cartridges a year! and had one game bought for me as a Christmas present.

Today its a little easier financially, and I was surprised by the amount of QLs being advertised in eBay, anyway I got one, then I got another and waited patiently for them to arrive. I say patiently, I did a lot of reading both online & PDFs and paper based trying to catch-up with what has been going in the QL World since the late 80s. Acronyms are a plenty and for a novice (which was now how I felt), I had no idea what people were talking about, SGC? why are they talking about Star Gate Control are they all SG1 fans hurrah! oh! nope, they must be talking about some such piece of hardware. Oh look they've even shortened it now to 'GC, oh there's a SGC and a GC and so it goes on. Ah ha 'Super Gold Card' and therefore it must be 'Gold Card', great so now we know, its a card, I wonder what type of card it is? A new language for some, perfectly normal for those in the know, the trouble being, you cannot interject every five minutes asking someone for an explanation of each turn of phrase or abbreviation thats used, there is flow in the conversation that must continue. Sometimes it took weeks and embarrassingly on one occasion nearly two weeks to find out one particular acronym. someone did suggest a list, which was countermanded by "started that, but never finished", any way can't agree on a format, so lets do two lists then, oh well move on to the next topic.