******************** QL CLUB INTERNATIONAL ******************** ISSUE 117 NOVEMBER 1998 MIKE KENNEALLY E-MAIL MIKEKENNEALLY1@COMPUSERVE.COM ANY AND ALL SOFTWARE SENT TO THE CLUB/NEWSLETTER WILL BE TREATED AS PUBLIC DOMAIN UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR HI ALL, WELL AS THIS IS THE LAST ISSUE BEFORE CHRISTMAS,IT MEANS IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN,THE SAME OLD EXCUSES,NO YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT,WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM MADE OF MONEY! SCROOGE IS HERE AGAIN! ANYWAY MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM MYSELF AND ALL MY FAMILY, DON'T FORGET THERE IS AN ISSUE AT THE END OF THIS MONTH! I AM AMAZED,NAY,GOBSMACKED,HERE IT IS CHRISTMAS ONCE AGAIN AND MOST OF YOU HAVE NOT WRITTEN,EVEN A FEW LINES JUST TO SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS.WHAT HAVE WE ALL DONE TO DESERVE THIS? I KNOW THAT THIS TIME OF YEAR WE ARE ALL BUSY,BUT IT TAKES BUT A FEW MINUTES TO WRITE AND E-MAIL A FEW LINES.I HOPE IN THE NEW YEAR WE SHALL HAVE A BIT MORE INPUT FROM SOME OR ALL OF YOU,THAT WAY IT STOPS US FROM BECOMING STALE.THOSE OF YOU WHO DO WRITE ON A REGULAR BASIS ARE THE BACKBONE OF THE NEWSLETTER AND FOR THAT I THANK YOU,BUT IT WOULD BE NICE TO GET SOME FRESH INPUT AND INSIGHT INTO EXACTLY WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR QL's.SO COME ON AND TELL US. IF YOU ARE AN ABUSER LIKE ME TELL US,NO-ONE IS GOING TO LAUGH.IF YOU ARE A TECHNOPHOBE,TELL US,BUT PLEASE IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE SO THOSE OF US WHO AREN'T CAN TRY TO KEEP UP WITH YOU. THERE MUST BE LOADS AND LOADS OF QL INFORMATION OUT THERE,THAT PEOPLE HAVE SORTED FOR THEMSELVES THAT OTHERS COULD FIND USEFUL.LITTLE PROGRAMS YOU HAVE WRITTEN AND ARE PROUD OF,SHARE THEM WITH US,SOMEONE MAY FIND IT IS JUST WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR. SOME OF YOU MAY HAVE BEEN USING PROGRAMS A CERTAIN WAY THAT HAS NOT OCCURRED TO OTHERS,SHARE IT WITH US.DON'T FORGET WITH THE DEMISE OF A LOT OF SOFTWARE HOUSES OVER THE YEARS WE HAVE COME TO RELY ON OUR OWN INGENUITY.MAYBE SOME OF THE THINGS YOU HAVE WRITTEN COULD BE EXPANDED UPON COULD BE OF COMMERCIAL INTEREST,SEND US A DEMO,YOU NEVER KNOW! ANYWAY ENOUGH SAID,I HOPE IT HAS THIS TIME GOT THROUGH AND WE SHALL BE HEARING FROM MORE OF YOU IN THE NEW YEAR. Can anyone tell me how to write a boot program to launch Archdev for Archive? Thanks - Basil Lee for Martin Jonzen. BASIL IS AS FAR AS I KNOW STILL LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER TO THIS,I AM AFRAID WHEN I WENT TO THE MANCHESTER SUB GROUP MEETING,JOHN GILPIN WAS ON HOLIDAY SO I WON'T SEE HIM TILL JANUARY NOW.SOMEONE ELSE OUT THERE MUST HAVE SOME HELP FOR HIM. To: Mike Kenneally, MIKEKENNEALLY1 From: Christopher M. Catotti, KD4ACE Date: 18/11/98, 05:27 Re: ClubQL Newsletter Dear Mike, I mistakenly thought you were in the U.S.A. I live in Oviedo, Florida, U.S.A. No, I do not yet receive QL Today. The following is a copy of a message I already sent you, and a copy of a message from Roy Wood. Sincerely, Chris Catotti. ========================================================== Please add me to the e-mail list for ClubQL newsletter. I am looking for a QL machine to buy. I have a Timex/Sinclair 1000, a ZX81 and a Cambridge Z88. I have enjoyed using Sir Clive Sinclair's machines so much, I thought I should try a QL. Do you know of any QL's for sale? Best Wishes, Chris Catotti. kd4ace@compuserve.com ============================================================ >Dear Roy Wood, > >I have used a Timex/Sinclair 1000 and ZX81 before, and now frequently >use a Cambridge Z88. The Z88 offers me 20 hours of work on a set of >batteries. My pentium notebook won't even last an hour before the >battery dies. So when I'm on a business trip I type on my Z88 and >transfer files to the pentium. > >My old office mate use to use a QL at home as his primary computer, >and with my growing interest in Sir Clive Sinclair and his machines, >I decided to get a QL and try it out. Any how, I must confess that >I don't know exactly what a "standard JS ROM QL" is. I assume the >GOLD CARD is a QL-compatible disk controller card. Yes I would like >a gold card. I will pre-pay the cost and shipping. Shipping should >be via postal service to: > Hi, I will ask the cost of shipping and let you know the cost. I will be getting a couple of second user Gold Cards sometime in the next few days and I usually check them over and upgrade the ROM to the latest version. The Gold Card is a memory expansion/ extra processor and disk controller card. The regular JS ROM QL (JS was the last ROM version of the operating system) has a 68008 processor. The Gold Card replaces this with a 68000 which speeds things up by about 10 times and adds 2Mb of memory. It will address two 1.44Mb disk drives. The cabling for these drives is different to the standard PC cabling. If you have two drives the drive that the PC sees as the 'A' drive is, in fact, drive 2. If you are able to make up cables then cut the ribbon at line 9 and line 11 and twist it through 180 degrees. This will make line 10 /12 and 12/10. This will make the straight through cable flp1_ and the twist flp2_. I can make this for you is you wish. The drives themselves are standard although the format is of the disk is QL. There is a lot to learn about the way the QL works but welcome to the happy club. The magazine and catalogue will be in the post this week. Regards Roy -- Roy Wood Q Branch web site : http://www.qbranch.demon.co.uk/ ================================================================ I HAVE PUT THIS IN TO SHOW HOW WE CAN HELP ANYBODY WHO WANTS HELP,SO WELCOME TO OUR MERRY BAND CHRIS,ANY HELP YOU NEED OR WANT FROM US THERE IS USUALLY SOMEONE OUT HTERE TO PUT YOU ON THE RIGHT ROAD. Email : dilwyn.jones@dj.softnet.co.uk GEAR: JM/Minerva QL+Gold Card+ED drives+HP Deskjet 320; P90 Black PC and QPC with Canon BJ10sx printer and ZIP drive;Toshiba T2100 486DX2/66 with QPC. Dear Mike, Apologies for missing the last issue, hope this contribution makes it in time for QL117. Blame it on Darren Branagh - he took the step of setting up in business as a QL software trader (Q-Celt Software) and got me to update all my old software from DJC days to re-release them. If nothing else, it kept me out of mischief and taught me how quickly your own programming can fall into self-disrespect when you shudder in horror at some of the silly programming techniques you used all those years ago to ensure your programs didn't work on modern hardware with hires screens and so on. THAT'LL TEACH YOU DILWYN! On top of that, Darren's had me writing this program called EasyBase, a simple to use little database program. If you've mastered Flashback and DataDesign, EasyBase won't appeal to you, it's a fairly primitive little database program for people who find Archive, DataDesign etc a bit difficult to learn. Enough of the advert, back to the newsletter. Just explaining my absence. On the other hand, since Mike did suggest writing up a program in detail, I may just do that about EasyBase. And what about getting Darren to tell us a bit more about himself now he's joined the brave world of the QL traders? (Just don't mention Bank Of Ireland millenium bug testing to him, that's all) THEY SHOULD USE QL's DILWYN,IT DOESN'T SUFFER FROM IT! My Internet Service Provider (ISP) - Soft-net - has announced a major change in its service. They are now joining the group of ISPs offering a free Internet access service. Soft-net is owned by Software Warehouse, a giant PC product retailer and mail order outfit. In fact, Soft-net will offer a two tier service, the free one (with downsides like you have to pay about 50p/minute for telephone support and you get little or no Web space to set up your own pages), and what they call the 'Gold' service for `4.99 per month where they say you get free telephone support, better user to modem ratios, up to 50MB of Web space, multiple email addresses and so on. I hope to stay with the Gold service, as I don;t think `4.99 per month is too much for the level of service they promise. And if I can learn how to set up a Web site, sometime in 1999 I'll set up the Dilwyn Jones Web Site - you have been warned! And if you're really naughty, I'll put a picture of myself on it! Seriously though, if anyone has experience of this, or can recommend which software to use, I may need help to get it all started. I did go on an HTML course some time ago, but I've forgotten it all and anyway it was purely HTML, no experience of the bloatware PC software I'll probably have to cope with. If I really get 50MB, I'm sure I can pack a lot of QL free stuff such as my PD programs, clipart etc onto that for download! 50MB will hold a hell of a lot of QL software. And just think of the QL Today advert I could put in there... WHAT SOME PEOPLE WILL DO TO GET FREE ADVERTISING! SERIOUSLY THOUGH,DO YOU GET COMPUTER ACTIVE?,ONCE A FORTNIGHT FROM YOUR NEWSAGENT OR BY SUBSCRIPTION AT 99p AN ISSUE.IN THERE THEY HAVE FOR THE LAST FORTNIGHT BEEN DOING A STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO SETTING UP YOUR OWN WEB PAGES,THEY HAVE BEEN USING ADOBE PAGEMILL AND YOU CAN DOWNLOAD A TRIAL VERSION FROM WWW.ADOBE.COM IT SEEMS PRETTY STRAIGHT FORWARD,THEY EVEN USE LANGUAGE I CAN UNDERSTAND.THEY EVEN EXPLAIN LINKS TO OTHER SITES AND COUNTERS TO SEE HOW MANY 'HITS'YOU GET.VERY INTERESTING AND EASY TO USE. I did hear that there is someone out in Austria attempting to write or port TCP/IP protocols to QDOS or SMSQE (don't know which). Some way to go yet I understand, but with any luck by this time next year we might all be happily surfing the net from the comfort of our QLs. Necessity has made me familiar with Internet Exploder and M$Mail or whatever it's called, but I think I'll still feel more comfortable in my safe little QL environment. Put this down as my wish list for 1999 along with wishing I'll finally learn to use Prowess. The incentive to learn Prowess I think will be Paragraph, the pointer driven Prowess based wordprocessor from Francois Lanciault in Canada. You can stick pictures and tables in it and use the Prowess outline fonts. This first version is free, you can get it from most Web sites (try Thierry Godefroy, PROGS and JMS for example). For those without Internet access, the PD libraries will probably supply it in due course. Francois is releasing this first version into free circulation, and presumably using the feedback to create an enhanced version 2 or whatever. It's in your interest to register with Francois in advance of that. Some people reported problems with V1.00 of Paragraph, as in it wouldn't run on some systems, but you need the latest 1998 version of Prowess for it to run. If it works well, and people like it, Paragraph could be one of the reasons for staying with the QL, along with the possibility (at last!) of Internet access and/or email from the QL. THIS SOUNDS VERY PROMISING DILWYN,I KNOW YOU WILL BE KEEPING US UP TO DATE ON DEVELOPMENTS IN QL TODAY,BUT KEEP US INFORMED AS WELL WILL YOU PLEASE. To be fair, emails have already been sent and received from QDOS. Doug laVerne in America has been doing this for years (see his QL Today articles) and Jonathan Hudson has made TCP/IP available for uQLx emulator users, which is a start. I've sold my ALT286+QXL, and my Aurora-based system packed up (again) so my house is a little less cluttered than it was a couple of months ago. The main bits of my Aurora system are being cannibalised into a Minis-QL by Keith Mitchell, so hopefully I'll be able to write about that here in the new year. Thank goodness I've still got a QL and RomDisq, I feel a bit vulnerable relying on just a PC as my main system, as Colin Baskett suggested he did when his tower cased system went down, even though QPC is an excellent emulator. I'm sure Mike will agree with me that Roy Wood's term Potential Catastrophe applies to these damn Windoze machines fearfully accurately. VERY MUCH SO DILWYN,THE ONLY PROBLEM BEING AT THE MOMENT FUNDS ARE SCARCE AND THE PRICE OF QL's ARE HIGH,I HAVE 4 DEAD ONES IN THE DRAWERS UNDER MY BED,BUT IT IS JUST POSSIBLE TO GET ONE WORKING,IF I ONLY KNEW HOW! I've just had a copy of the new freeware Turbo Toolkit version 3b27 from Mark Knight and David Gilham. He has asked me to distribute it as widely as possible on the QL scene, so when I've got my act together I'll put it on a QL Today cover disk and perhaps zip it up for inclusion with Club QL as well? Meantime, if anyone wants a copy, send me a disk with return postage (or 2 IRCs from outside the UK). I can email it, but be warned, it's quite large and needs about half a DSDD disk if I remember correctly. Among the improvements listed that I know of so far are: No direct access to system variables (this was in fact also true of existing version 3 releases from DP Ltd) Better operation with Minerva Tested on a wide variety of modern QDOS and SMSQE and Minerva systems Bugs fixed in TYPE_IN and COMMAND_LINE, improvements to ALLOCATION, DEALLOCATE and SET_PRIORITY. COMPILED now even works in QLiberator The toolkit can now even be installed as an SMSQE module for those who know about such things. Demos_bas file updated Turbo compiled program patch system included - patches startup code in older compiled tasks to remove hard coded references to system variables for use on more modern systems. New functions to handle long words as strings - useful for handling database type applications where you need to be able to store 32 bit values in fixed length strings or to peek and poke them directly into heap memory. Facility to poke a floating point 6 byte value directly into memory for advanced users. New FWINDOW% function for handling large hires screens. Toolkit fully ROMable (although Mark thinks versions from 3.00 have been ROMable). Martin wrote about copyright issues. In theory, all you have to do is to clearly state that something is your copyright and it's your copyright, presumably you have to be able to prove it was your work and when it was done, but claiming copyright on something is not hard. Enforcing it is harder. But here on the QL scene we generally appreciate copyright issues - as a whole we don't rip off people and we're fairly generous too, witness how many PF/freeware progs there are compared to commercial ones. Authors like Jonathan Hudson even specifically allow people to freely distribute copies of their magazine articles (read the footnote he added to QL Today articles, for example). But that's the difference between making something public domain and making something freely copyable - public domain means anyone can do anything with it more or less, whereas with freeware, you keep rights to it, but anyone can copy it for themselves or others as long as they don't make a profit of it. I agree with what Martin says about the newsletter heading and these issues in general - even if you think you don't need permission to copy something it is usually polite to ask first, and I have good experience of asking and finding the original author offering me something even better (more recent programs or information) as a result. POINT TAKEN MARTIN/DILWYN AND MY APOLOGIES.YOU ARE CORRECT IN WHAT YOU ARE SAYING AND OF COURSE IT IS POLITE IF NOTHING ELSE TO ASK FOR PERMISSION FROM THE WRITER BEFORE USING THE WORK. Martin also wrote that Tony Firshman made V1.89 of Aurora available for emualtor users in N. America as Frank Davies did not give free permission to use Sinclair ROM versions over there. Presumably you meant Minerva Martin? In fact, what Frank requires is that people have the politeness to ask, and he has given some people who asked permission to use ROM images and in Tim Swenson's case copies of the QL manual on his Web site. This is another good example of the QL community in action - by asking you will often get this extraordinary helpfulness. Nice to see you and the others at Byfleet Martin. I got to speak to several Club QL members there, apart from Graham I think. Andrew - I had a good laugh after reading about the plot to break into Mike's house and improving his system. We could almost form a benevolence (can't even spell that!) society secretly going round improving PCs all over the country by installing QDOS on them! As to Frank Davies, he and I have managed to tread on each other's toes once or twice too. Frank is a busy guy, he and his wife sell products for 3 or 4 different computers and in my experience he's reasonable if asked politely (that WASN'T a dig at you BTW). What he was trying to do was to protect rights he's paid for a while back. Once I realised this had cost him money, and he was just looking after his permission, I didn't find his attitude objectionable. If asked by the people concerned, he may well have given permission. I got the impression he's more interested in keeping track of who's using the ROM images etc rather than threatening to make people pay for using them, and this doesn't seem unreasonable once the matter had been clarified. The QL FAQ lists apparently make it clear he owns rights in N. America. As it is, Tony Firshman's idea of releasing an older Minerva version makes this less of an issue. I still don't know the updated Amstrad/Sinclair position, though. Andrew Pratt - nice to see you back again. Looking for a job? I think Mike could do with a full time PC/QXL consultant! WHO COUDN'T? Paul McPherson - Steve Johnson's PD library has been taken over by Phil Jordan. Not too sure when he'll be in full swing, but he was at Byfleet in a limited capacity. His address is: 42 Hawthorne Crescent, Cosham, Portsmouth, Hants., PO6 2TP. Telephone 01705-370574 Don't forget, if you want any particular piece of QL PD software, as it is PD and freeware, anyone can copy it for you. Just ask if anyone's got a copy and chances are dozens of copies will land on your mat in a few days thanks to your Club QL friends! On the subject again of the idea of traders and authors describing their products in this newsletter to get around the 'where can I get information' syndrome, it's worth noting that most of the traders have leaflets about their products on their stands at shows. If they could be persuaded to send in the text of their leaflets on disk for those who can't or don't go to shows, that would be one small step in the right direction. THIS IS A GOOD IDEA DILWYN,ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE FRIENDS WE HAVE OVERSEAS WHO CANNOT GET TO A SHOW.IS IT POSSIBLE WHEN YOU DO YOUR SHOW ADVERTS IN QL TODAY TO SEND US A COPY OF IT TO INCLUDE,AS IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE ONE OR TWO OF THE READERS WE HAVE DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO QL TODAY,ALTHOUGH THEY SHOULD! Regarding your idea of making a video to explain aspects of the QL, I think there is a similar idea to hapen in the USA. They are planning two shows (one on each coast) in 1999 and I think they hope to video the presentations at the first show and use it at the second where lecturers can't make both shows. I wonder if they'll make the video available to all and sundry after that? SO LONG AS IT IS IN UK FORMAT SO WE CAN WATCH IT ON OUR VIDEO'S!AS YOU CAN SEE FROM ONE OF OUR NEW FRIENDS,HE IS IN A POSITION TO HELP,MAYBE YOU COULD LIASE WITH HIM. Colin asked about screen dumps. There is a commercial program from Jochen Merz called LDUMP for doing screen dumps (I know nothing much about it) and I seem to remember that there was a Canon screen dump routine on one of Steve Johnson's library disk. There are some printing programs in Quanta library, but I don't know if there is anything specific that would help with what you want to do. Inkjets like the Canon suffer from the problem (like others) that their emulation of Epson graphics is a bit of a compromise, and their pixels (printed dots) are square-ish, whereas the same picture on screen doesn't have the same square dots - the aspect ratio on screen can be as much as 33% different to a screen dump. End result - the screen dumps look a bit squashed or stretched. Dumps can be written to repeat the occasional line to stretch an image to look more like it does on screen but this increases programming complexity and slows things down. Where the image includes screen text, it can make this look horrible, imagine that the repeated line happens to fall on horizontal line parts of text (e.g. the middle stroke of Es or the bottoms of Ls) parts of the text looks thick and not normal. Some printers let you specify different modes for graphics. Dot matrix printers often let you specify CRT 1 or CRT 2 graphics modes, which had the effect of making the proportions as printed more like how they looked on the screen, but this depended on your graphics software knowing how to use these modes, that you could tell the screen dump software to use these print density modes, which wasn't always easy. Modern inkjets don;t always have the full selection of modes in their emulation. Writing printer drivers and screen dumps especially can be among the most irritating and time consuming aspects of programming, and certainly for software support. No matter how good a job you think you've done of writing it, you'll always get endless calls from people unable to get it to work. This may be why so few people choose to contribute articles about it? IT'S NOT THAT DILWYN,OVER THE YEARS FRANK HAS TRIED TO DRUM THESE INTO MY HEAD AND PEOPLE HAVE PROBABLY GOT SICK TO DEATH OF HIM REPEATING HIMSELF FOR MY BENEFIT.THE NUMBER OF TIMES HE HAS SAID THE SAME THING TO ME AND IT STILL HASN'T SUNK IN IS BEYOND COUNTING!THANK GOD HE HAS THE PATIENCE TO TRY! Some printers have emulation mode control from software and document it. On some printers, you have to change a little switch inside (or on more modern printers, change a front panel setting which is remembered by the battery ram or flash memory in the printer). Annoyingly, some printers have software switching facilities and even their programmers reference manuals don;t document them, as you found Colin. If I can find the information, I'll pass it on. As Mike said, if we can find what the printer codes are, it is sometimes possible to insert the codes indirectly in the text of a document, or you may be able to set up an ALTKEY to do the job. BLIMEY,I SAID SOMETHING RIGHT! Finally, Colin asked about linked lists. I don't know much about these. But anyone feeling mischievous can wind up Jochen Merz by asking him if he's got his QD98 double linked list sorting facilities working yet (he was close to blowing a fuse when I spoke to him last about it). Just a reminder that the deadline for any material you would like publicised via the news pages of QL Today Vol 3 Issue 5 is December 15th. All news items gratefully received. We seem to be a little short for some reason this month. Dilwyn Jones dilwyn.jones@dj.softnet.co.uk I KNOW THE FEELING DILWYN! Hi Mike I found the QL page by chance on the internet. Help! my QL is dead. has been for many years, I want to revive it but I know there is a burned out chip in there somewhere. Is there a repair place I can mail the unit to for repairs? Im in New york City (USA). I didnt know there was such a following to the Sinclairs since I got out of it about 15 years ago (wow). but Im interested in getting back and having fun with it. I have all of the Sinclairs computers and the color computer was my fav. can you help me>? please. Larry LARRY,YES WE HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM I HOPE.THERE IS A LETTER IN THIS ISSUE WHICH SHOULD HELP YOU OUT,IF I TELL YOU WHERE YOU WILL MISS OUT ON OTHER THINGS,WELL I HAVE TO GET PEOPLE TO READ IT SOMEHOW!WELCOME TO OUR MERRY BAND AND AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE WE ARE HERE TO HELP IN ANY WAY WE CAN. Hi Mike, You can now send me "zip" files. I have Mime Tools working, thanks to J. R. Hudson and his wonderful port of this program. OK now for the article: Stuff: Aurora with 14" SVGA monitor, QUBide with 2 drives, SGC with 2 1.44 drives, Cardinal 33.6k modem, sHermes, SMSQ/E, QPAC2, plus misc. software, also the original "Black Box". I read in the last issue you were looking for more input from folks, here I am. The last issue "spoke" of making teaching videos. I work for a local cable company,they have a department called "Public Access". It allows almost anybody to borrow a camera and shoot a "show". Then return and edit the "show" using our equipment. They will show you how to use the equipment if anybody is unfamiliar with its use. This way you could make a "master" tape from which to make dubs. OK, now on to a small rant. I am tired of people saying 'you can't do this' or 'you can't do that, with THAT computer! When I purchased my T/S1000 I received a promo for access to CompuServe. I used it with great success with them as well as their access to the internet. I then got a T/S2068 and logged onto many a BBS with it. I also started our company newsletter with it and "WordMaster". I now have my Aurora and 'surf' the web all the time. My provider is Delphi. They have a program called LYNX that allows you access to the internet. My set-up is faster than "Big Blue" as I don't have to wait for graphics and advertisements to download! Lynx is very easy to use, you can go anywhere with it just like the 'other guys'. I have downloaded upgrades for programs with no tribble at all. STAR TREK CREEPS IN AGAIN! THATS THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES! So we CAN do what the other guys do. You might have to look a little harder, set-up a little more in our programs, but they do almost the same. If you have any questions or want more info, write me here or e-mail: mckelveyw@delphi.com I could use a little help of my own. Does anybody know how to set-up GhostScript with Exorcist properly so I can read "pdf" files? GRAHAM LUTZ SHOULD BE ABLE TO HELP YOU THERE,HIS E-MAIL ADDRESS SHOULD BE ON THE ATTACHED LIST. QL forever, Bill McKelvey To: [unknown], MIKEKENNEALLY1 From: Ian Pizer, [100675,632] Date: 17/11/98, 17:20 Re: QLCI ==================================================================== from: e-mail 100675.632@compuserve.com 17.11.98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Gear: AURORA, SGC v2.49, Minerva v1.97, SuperHermes v1.05, QPAC2 v1.38 SMSQ_GOLD v2.85. 2 key mouse via QIMI. 2 DD/HD/ED drives. QUBIDE v1.56, 2 Hard Disks (Connors 420MB, Seagate500?MB). All in a Mini-Tower. EPSON Stylus 800 BW Printer. ZyXEL U-1496E modem. Sony monitor Multiscan 200sf. Hi All It is rare that I think of writing to this newsletter though I enjoy reading the news but I would like to find a solution to a annoying problem. I KNOW IAN,BUT IT'S ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU ANYTIME. Using PC and W98 and various ways of communicating I like to hear what the modem is doing. With AURORA and QTPI this works fine and I hear the modem chatting softly and I know when something has stuck and I need to start connecting again. (The init modem (ZYXEL U-1496E) code is ATZ&N0&R1 and the pre is AT&D0M3DT it is the M3 which controls the speaker, M0 shuts it). However, when I use Netscape all goes quiet and the text info does not warn of a hitch so either one waits and hopes or cancel and re-connect if the connection takes too long (much longer than with AURORA/QTPI). Some comms programs have a separate SCRIPT file to connect to the modem. Netscape does not seem to have one. I tried searching for M0 in Netscape files without success (using a PC program called TextPad which will search in HEX or text). Any ideas how to make the modem speak using Netscape? . Cheers - Ian ========================================================================= Email: torm1358@aol.com Dear All, Well, another busy month has gone by and I'm still unemployed. Things have happened both on the QL level, and on the personal level. Thanks to a passing comment from Dilwyn in the last ClubQL issue, I realised that there was to be a Quanta meet in Byfleet. I had some other things to do so I didn't get along until late in the day. Personality wise, I met Ken from the Surrey group, Dilwyn (to whom I gave thanks) and Cyril (from the London group). After the lively discussions on the internet, I had hoped that there would be some new hardware and software at the show. Unfortunately,neither the Coldfire nor either of the WP appeared. So I contented myself with updating QPAC2 and Qshang. I was also impressed with Thesaurus/grammar-checking programmes and will purchase copies when funds allow. Tony Firshman continues his excellent support for the QL with a couple of new products,Mplane and IBOX. Mplane is a small back-plane to be used for QLs in small boxes. IBOX aims to be a mini-computer for controlling robots. Unfortunately,there is still no date for a new version of Minerva. I also spoke to Roy Wood from Qbranch, an active member of the email group. It was good to put a face to a 'voice.' I don't think Progs made an appearance. IS CYRIL STILL GOING! I HOPE HE'S STILL NOT WANDERING ROUND WITH A HANDFUL OF PRINTOUTS OF PICTURES HE HAS PRINTED OUT,ASKING PEOPLE IF THEY LIKE THEM AS HE USED TO.NICE BLOKE,BUT IF YOU'VE SEEN ONE MANDELBROT YOU'VE SEEN THEM ALL! Jochen, unfortunately, put a damper on my hopes for the continued development of QL emulator on the Apple. He had spoken to the author. The author, he says, has given up his aim of writing the emulator in PowerPC native code(which perhaps wasn't necessary anyway). But more worryingly, Jochen suggested that the author has also given up writing the low level drivers, such as Apple directory support, needed to make conversion of SMSQ worthwhile. This is a bit of a blow because it means we won't be able to use all of the Apple screen and be limited to the original screen sizes. Also, navigation round the Apple directories will remain awkward. THATS A SHAME BUT MAYBE IN THE FUTURE WHO KNOWS,I MEAN HE MUST HAVE NEARLY FINISHED THE EMULATOR SO HE'S NOT GOING TO LET IT SIT AROUND HALF FINISHED IS HE? I think that is all I can remember from the show. As I said in my last missive, I've discovered a slight problem with my new version of the PE and Minerva/Apple emulator. There was slight incompatibility with Minerva and the emulator in that if the mouse was moved while the PE was redrawing windows, parts of the window would be left unupdated. This bug did not appear (as far as I can tell) with the JS rom. This is obviously an obscure bug and has only manifested itself twice so far. It is probably due to the slow speed of my emulator more than anything else (I hope to provide a review of the emulator separately). However, the latest version of the PE produced a more active bug. This time, although the mouse would move the pointer, it seems that PE would forget where the pointer was and not activate any active windows below the pointer. That is, as the pointer moves over bars and buttons, they were not highlighted as active. This was not a problem under my previous version of the PE. Since I was'testing' Qshang at the time, the bug manifested itself as an inability to select tiles. If the pointer is moved using the arrow keys, then PE does see the active windows. This suggests an incompatibility between PTR_GEN/Wman and the Apple-mouse interface programme supplied with the emulator. More seriously, when I retrieved my QL from the loft and set it up using my brother's monitor (powered through the QL), the QL crashed and then refused to work. I wasn't sure if it was because the cold in the loft had affected the QL, or the move from Oxford. Anyway the problem is this. When from idle,the QL is turned on, it boots up normally. However, after a while (I haven't timed it yet), it just crashes;- PE slowly seizes up and then everything stops. Reseting the QL does not work. The screen will either remain blank, or the Minerva logo will appear, but no more. That is, the system does not see the Qubide, SuperGold Card, etc. The hard disk is spun and appears to be read, but the system does not boot. I thought the hard disk had crashed, but as I said,if the QL is left for a while (until cold), then it will boot up again normally. Any ideas before I call Tony Firshman? The only difference with this set up was that I was using the QL psu to power the monitor. Previously, I had powered the monitor through a separate plug. Despite these current problems, I am pleased with my current set up of a boxed QL and an emulator and have decided to get rid of my remaining original black kit. So, any offers for the following: Original boxed QL, with Falkenburg PC keyboard. But NO rom (used for boxed QL) HOW MUCH FOR THIS ONE AND GOLD CARD,I CAN USE ONE OF MY SPARE ROMS.E-MAIL ME. Original boxed QL, with JS ROM, but microdrives continously whir if no cartridge in slot Gold Card Trump Card (700K) RGB monitor Assorted microdrive cartridges. Miracle serial-parallel printer cable. An original QXL I know Miracle have had a bad press recently, but I still think it is sad to lose another manufacturer. I KNOW AND I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND HIM TO BE ONE OF THE FRIENDLIEST AND EASIEST BLOKES TO TALK TO AS WELL. Personally, I have had a busy month. We returned to Korea for my brother-in-laws wedding. Now, to go to Korea just for a wedding is a bit much. Normally,I probably wouldn't have bothered. However, since I am a specialist(sic) on Korea and am looking for employment, I couldn't really turn the chance down. I spoke to several people, including a headhunter so hopefully something will come out of the trip. I HOPE SO MATE,AFTER ALL THAT WORK YOU DID IT WOULD BE A SHAME IF NOTHING CAME OF IT. Colin B asked about BJ10-sx and printing graphics. I have a similar problem(except that mine might be a -ex). Anyway, the problem is that Prog's ProWes comes with a disk-manual. My printer prints from Text87 OK, but when I tried to print the ProWes manual using Prowes, the printer went into barney mode. Luckily I was able to stop it before too much paper was wasted. I will have a look to see what my current dip-switch settings are, but any help is appreciated. My current project, computer wise, has been to create a web site. The first attempt can be found at http://members.aol.com/torm1358/homepage.htm. That's it for this month, Yours, Andrew Pratt USING THE Q-EMULATOR ON AN APPLE POWERBOOK 165 The Apple Powerbook is a portable computer using an Motorola 68030 at 30Mhz (I think). It is a rather old product (i.e. 5 years) and so cheap enough for a student to buy. The Q-emuLator, from Daniele Terdina, allows me to have a portable QL. I have successfully used the emulator with both JS and Minerva roms. Unfortunately, it is not possible to use SMSQ with the emulator. In fact, the Powerbook is a little too slow to run the emulator properly. I suspect that with the JS rom, I am getting speeds of something like 70% of the original QL,but with the Minerva rom, it appears to be around 90% of an original rom. That is, the emulator is much more useable with the Minerva rom. I also generally install the PE environment, which of course, also adds a small overhead to the speed of the machine. Of course, with a faster Mac, the difference in speed would be far less obvious. With a slow-speed QL like this, it is possible to see the machine 'think,'and it is interesting to compare how the JS and Minerva roms do things differently. Generally, the JS rom seems to plod through things at an even pace. Like the tortoise, it will get there in the end, but is in no hurry to complete any one task. In comparison, Minerva seems to zip along. This is most noticeable with screen handling. Everything is calculated and drawn evenly by JS. Minerva though, appears to pause for a little thought, and then draws the screen far faster. This difference is even noticeable with the PE environment. I use two WP programmes. I use QD to write notes because it produces and ASCII file as you have typed the document and it can be ported to almost any WP programme. It is this programme I use during lectures for note-taking. For more serious written work, I use Text87 plus4. QD only works under the PE environment. QD is useable under JS (and Minerva), but it is too easy to fill the keyboard buffer up. The keyboard buffer is, in fact, very good because you get both the QL buffer and the Apple keyboard buffer, so it is possible to type a fair pace faster than the QL displays the words. However, if you type for more than a minute or two without a pause with the JS rom, then the buffer will fill up and characters will be lost. The same problem occurs with Minerva except that its effect is delayed because Minerva works faster and so processes more characters before the buffer fills up. Under normal conditions,say, typing two sentences and then pausing for a few moments to think or listen to the speakers next point, then QD with Minerva is perfectly useable. The slow speed of the emulator has exposed one bug in the emulator/QD. This is that when you enter newline when the buffer is fullish, then the following characters are often lost. Mr Terdina reports that he can not replicate this bug so it must be due to a quirk of using the emulator on a slow Mac. However, Text87 on the JS rom is virtually unusable. Obviously, the PE adds an overhead so I created a minimal boot which just loaded Text87 to try and squeeze as much speed out of the machine as possible. However, although Text87 was faster, it still was not really useable. However, with Minerva, things are a little different. With the PE environment installed, then it is possible (with a little patience when large fonts are drawn) to use Text87 to read documents. Page redraw and typing though remain painfully slow. However,without PE then Text87 is more useable and WPing can be done reasonably well,though things are slow and one can only really type short sentences with pauses for thought. I do not have an Apple printer so have not tried printing via the emulator. There are a few annoying features on the Apple side though. The first is that with the 165 there is a roller ball in the middle of the palm rest. Knock this when you are typing and (in QD), the curser will move and your typing will appear somewhere else in the document. Worse, Mr Tredina has obviously had difficulty getting the Apple directory structure to communicate with the QL files system. His solution has been to have 'microdrive' slots on the Apple side. Using the Apple file menu (which is far worse than the QL one) to move through the Apple directories. This is a little clumbersome if you have the PE installed because then one has to activate the files menu on the QL side as well to manipulate the files. Usefully, and in contradiction to Mac system operating rules, files delete does delete a file… Also conveniently, Mr Tredina has made flp,mdv, and win all point to the same device so one's current boot programme will work without alteration. The Apple special keys (ALT, CTRL, etc) and mouse operation are also different from the QL system, but Mr Tredina has found acceptable alternatives. He is also free with memory allocation with far more memory is available than currently available in the QL world (excluding other emulator-based systems). One of the best features is the ability to turn sound off,and control the speed of the emulator independently to that of the Mac. The mouse, however, has exposed an incompatibility between Minerva and PE/Q-emuLator. Again, it is an obscure bug (only occurring twice) and is probably due to the slowness of my set-up. I have found that if the mouse is moved while the PE is drawing a window then PE seems to forget where it was and leave parts of the previous window remaining on-screen. One other PE/Q-emuLator bug has surfaced and this happened after I installed the latest version of Qpac2. Now, although the mouse would move the pointer,it seems that PE would forget where the pointer was and not activate any active windows below the pointer. That is, as the pointer moves over bars and buttons, they were not highlighted as active. This was not a problem that occurred with my previous version of the PE. Since I was 'testing' Qshang at the time, the bug manifested itself as an inability to select tiles. If the pointer is moved using the arrow keys, then PE does see the active windows. This suggests an incompatibility between PTR_GEN/Wman and the Apple-mouse interface programme supplied with the emulator. All in all, I like the emulator and can't wait to get the money together to get a faster Apple to run the emulator on. If I might be so bold, I would like to suggest three areas that might be improved. The most obvious is the file/directory system. I am given to understand that Mr Terdina no longer has the time to develop a proper emulation of the Apple file structure, or no longer thinks that it can be done. In that case, I think the next best alternative is to split mdv, flp and win as separate 'devices' pointing to user-defined directories. Since the Rom allows for 8 such devices, the three names would allow a total of 24 directories to be specified, which should be enough for most purposes. However, only mdv1/2 need be changeable after boot,all the others could be fixed. My second idea is to link the PE and the Mac system slightly better. The Mac allows text to be copied, and so does Mr Merz's excellent Menu/Scrap system. So, if data is copied into the Apple stuffer-buffer, I would like the Q-emuLator to test if the Scrap system had been installed on the QL, and if so, allow the data to be copied to the QL scrap buffer. Of course there are problems, there is a size restriction on the QL side that presumably does not exist with the Apple, and the Apple will also happily put graphics into the buffer, which the QL can not handle My third wish would be for an emulator module for the Minerva's battery-ram, which would allow the storing and retrieval of defaults. NICE REVIEW IAN,COME ON YOU LOT OUT THERE IF IAN CAN DO IT SO CAN YOU! *! Martin Wheatley martinw@wheatleym.freeserve.co.uk PC running PC Xchange and Q-Emulator Well not really a lot to say this month. The only thing I can find to reply to from last months newsletter is Andrew Halliwell's statement that Q-Emulator is free. It's not! It's time limited shareware which for those who don't know means you get a few days to try it and then it stops working unless you pay for it Martin Wheatley SHORTEST ONE IN 117 ISSUES MARTIN,BUT I GET THE MESSAGE. Michael Kite 24th November 1998 Equipment: Gold Card; QL Minerva 1.97 mk.1; Hermes; Two 3.5" Disc drives; One 5.25 Disc Drive; Philips colour Monitor; SERMouse; Seikosha SP-1000AS 9 pin printer Epson RX 80F/T+ 9 pin printer with parallel port and added serial port. 486 PC with 540 meg hard drive and C.D.: The PC is only used for things which are compatible with the computers at work. Hello all Well its nearly the offical time of good cheer again so hears wishing every one a merry christmas and a happy new year. Mike could you please send me a copy of this months mag (QL117). I hope you have got your computor and its soft wear sorted now. It is very frustrating when you think you are going to get a lot of things done, only to find it will not do what it did yesterday. TELL ME ABOUT IT MIKE,I'M SAT HERE WITH EVERYTHING CROSSED! I have just re_arranged the room were the computers are set out to give me a bit more room. However the time I have had to use them this year has been very limited. This has been due to working away from the factory and getting home late alot of days. The wife and I took a trip on the eurostar train from Waterloo to Brussels a few weeks ago. It is a great way to travel and took 2hrs .38 mins total. It travels at 180 miles per hour in france and is only in the tunnel for 19 mins. You do not even see the sea and the ride is so smooth. YES MIKE,BUT YOU DON'T SAY IT TOOK YOU 6 HOURS TO GET TO WATERLOO,ANYWAY TO BE POLITICALLY CORRECT IT IS NO LONGER TO BE CALLED WATERLOO NOW WE ARE IN EUROPE.GOD ALONE KNOWS WHAT IT IS TO BE CALLED AGINCOURT,PERHAPS? I APOLOGISE TO OUR EUROPEAN READERS.BUT THIS IS GOING TO FAR! Wells thats it for now Mike Kite. !#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!# J.C.Marcus GEAR: Aurora + SGC, Minerva 1.97/SMSQ/E, Hermes, Qubide/170M HDD, 2xHD, CUB 653, Epson LQ500; JS QL with GC and 2xDD Hello Again Mike, Just a quick note in order to put myself in contact again! I've just been through the busiest summer of my life, workwise - really incredible. If I did not mention it before, I work as a sound engineer (ala Mr. Wood, but with a lot less hair), and the summer fiesta season here is usually quite busy, but this year was something else altogether. Anyway, it's more or less over now, and I'm slowly trying to get back to "normal". GOOD MAYBE WE CAN HAVE YOU FOR THE WINTER,WELCOME BACK. On top of everything else, I suffered the "obligatory" hard disk drive crash in the middle of it all, and among other things, lost all my copies of CQLI for the year. I've therefore enclosed a couple of disks - could you please bring me up to date? I know I should have kept backups on disk, but there's another lesson for me..... I SHALL PUT AS MANY AS I CAN IN ZIP FILES ON THE DISCS. The crash was actually quite strange, in that it took a couple of weeks of "playing up" before it all went west. What would happen, is that the system would boot up ok, and function normally for a while, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, and then the HDD would just "disappear". I thought that it might have something to do with the "Bad FAT" problem as described by Nasta in QL Today a while ago, compounded by the "dirty" supply I have here. I therefore tried the various solutions he suggested - a series termination board, ferrites all over the place etc, etc, but to no avail. I wonder if anyone else has had this problem? OK, enough for today. Hopefully, I'll be able to be more regular now! KEEP TAKING THE SYRUP JC. Regards, JC !#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!# P. McPHERSON, YOUR Ref No: QL117 25th NOVEMBER 1998. Fraternal Greetings Everybody, Current equipment: JM QL with Gold Card, Cumana disk drives and an Amstrad DMP3160 printer. First off, can I thank Darren and Dilwyn for getting me a nice new QL which is up and running very well - thanks a lot, it really is appreciated! Collin Baskett was asking about the feasability of using a QL with a TV as opposed to a monitor. Well Collin, I have use an old portable black and white TV which I picked up for `10 without too many problems. Having said that, my primary use of my QL is word processing and the odd data base. I have discovered that the biggest problem is with left hand margins, but this can invariably be overcome by simply resetting them. A portable colour TV would overcome the difficulty that can be encountered when trying to recognise colours when using, for the sake of argument QPAC 2 and green on black text is definitely kinder to the eyes, but this has to be offset by the larger tube, and therefore the more space, required by a colour set. So, my experience has taught me that whilst a colour monitor is highly desirable, a TV, be it black and white or colour, is a practical substitute for the way I use my QL. My advice would be to connect your QL to your main domestic TV and see if you can live with the results with the applications you use the most. If you can live with the results, check your local newspaper ads for a cheap TV which will keep you up and running until you can get hold of another monitor. Make sure that you check that such a TV has a wide contrast range before parting with your money though - if it's flat, it's a sure sign that the tube has had it. I was a bit disappointed at the response to my suggestion in last months newsletter regarding the creation of a series of QL related video "tutorials". Of those voicing a view either way, thus far being just 2 in favour, and 11 against the idea which hardy justifies going ahead with such a project. This, of course, discounts any views expressed in this months newsletter. Perhaps I was being a little over ambitious, or perhaps it is just a question of being far too little, far too late as far as the QL and it's users are concerned. It's a pity that somebody didn't come up with the idea a few years earlier, when there were far more users and suppliers around, the idea might have been a little much more viable then. THIS IS TRUE,MAYBE IT WOULD HAVE ATTRACTED MORE USERS IN THE BEGINNING,BUT AS YOU CAN SEE YOUR IDEA HAS NOT FALLEN ON DEAF EARS! BEST WISHES PAUL & BOB #! Martin Burke, 29th November, 1998. Dear Mike and Friends, JM version + Trump 768, JS+SGC + HermesLite + twin 3.5" disks, Philips CM8833 colour monitor (under repair) and its Tandy twin, 8056 printer, Epson RX80 F/T, and Brother HR10 daisy-wheel printer; PSION3a, Z88. ... So I finally managed to peruse "Ql115". A confusing matter: at first it seemed there was only my missive in it. Just lately I have been in the habit of NOT having a look at the directory of the disk first. A quick phone call to Mike led to the notion that I had posted it straight back to myself (though it took long enough to arrive)! Mike had mentioned that QL114 had been merged with QL115 but that had passed me by. When I - much later - looked at the disk directory, I found that there was a QL116 there as well as the Ql115.. ... So, as I did in fact mention the last time: that problem with my HermesLite and new JS. I took both models down to the November London Quanta meeting and found a volunteer with the strength and foolhardiness to force the Hermes in where it belonged. Result happiness. I can now use HD disks: more happiness. I have even started using QPAC2. But copying from disk to disk I was shocked to find out that all the files were copied were given the date of copying - the current system/machine date - rather than the original one. I could not find out how to avoid this: if anyone knows, please give me a clue. A SIMPLE SOLUTION MAYBE TO SIMPLE,LIKE MYSELF.WHY NOT CHANGE THE CLOCK ON THE MACHINE USING SDATE THEN WHEN FINISHED CHANGE IT BACK? Mike asks "Am I weird or what?" Why does he need to ask? I suppose we could put it to a vote. YOU'VE GOT MINE! Paul's idea of a demonstration video has much merit but I fear the market would be rather small. It would also require a great deal of thought as to what should be explained - and how. I have dealt with the public domain thingy as a P.S. It tends to go on a bit - oh, alright then, I tend to go on a bit - and it could P..S some people off. Yours, Martin Burke. #! The concepts of copyright and public domain have both legal and logical (philosophical?) aspects. It might help to think of a right of way: there is a right to travel along the route but the land still belongs to someone else, who can complain if harm is done to it or their right of possession. I never went much further than A level law - failed, though naturally I passed Burke's Law - but I believe that copyright is usually effectively automatic. Asking permission is not - normally - a legal requirement so long as the quote is not over a certain length. But correct attribution is sensible and any attempt to claim that the words/sense were anyone else's could be actionable in a civil court, whether or not the words/sense were expressed in the public or private domain. The text of this newsletter has - possibly - not been declared public domain: more of a private conversation but we don't care - and are even pleased - if people listen in. There are plenty of "ideas" which no-one can really claim ownership of, though their expression of it may have a different standing. Thus if I state that it is easy to demonstrate that almost any Conservative M.P. can be proven to be a least a little foolish, a little mad or a little corrupt, I am merely stating a commonplace. (This also applies to many non-Conservative M.P.s.) For those who are interested, my proof is merely a listing of the Tory government's privatisations, giving the value at which assets were sold, the estimated value before sale, the actual market-value after sale and the consequent loss to the national exchequer. The mixture of this process of asset-stripping with the Tory claim to favour "tax reductions" suggests at least illogicality: taxes could have been reduced if the assets had been sold at "fair value". All this is common knowledge, public domain: I can at best claim copyright to "the way I tell 'em".