At 16:19 10/12/2004 -0500, you wrote:
Yes very, all I want to be able to do in an XP PC environment is "sbytes address, length, file"
I cant find any facility in DOS or Windows, no QBASIC
If you are only trying to see parameters stored upon the booting of your PC
Thanks for the answer to a request not made. Above was stated what I needed to achieve. I did not wish to burden mailboxes with the full background.
But it does highlight a fundamental issue in the current discussions on "whither".
There are a number of things so simple to perform on SuperBasic, I have felt the loss of QL facilities for years since having to migrate to the PC.
We know that the M'Soft environment is hampered to a great extent by retaining backward compatibility, there seems to be heavy pressure to handicap QLetc developments similarly. You really have to let the QLuddites go.
As a newcomer here, a longtime exQLer with a string nostalgia and hankering for some of that old facility, I feel I can comment as an outsider with no axe to grind.
Use the results of the survey to get some measure of the user community.
Run a supplementary one to see how many might be interested in upgrading to a variety of suggested options. A particular question was missing from the first, to ascertain what mainstream system may be used in conjunction with QLetc.
Is a new board to be considered, plug into QL. Aurora or PC ? Quantity - QLuser base or wider ?
Did not Miracle founder to a large extent on account of the costs of Brussel's approval ?
So small quantity for "private club members" or a sufficiently large quantity to get the price down to a marketable level.
My impression of some of Nasta's remark's was that he was working towards a versatile process or function controller with a familiar and friendly QDOS interface, would fit well in the former category. On the other hand a SuperQXL_PCI could bring the old benefits to the ubiquitous, ridiculously cheap machine we all love to hate. The market could be huge but investment also.
If the latter were the option then it should have the facility to use any PC peripheral through the existing Windows drivers and use the same filing system as the host, yes a big break and no old software would carry over (Tho' I do remember a SOS Xchange). There is probably some bright spark out there that could create a buffer through which any prior SW's IO calls could be translated. Being like QXL it would run a 68x chip for all those programmers familiarity. And Superbasic for the lesser folk like self.
A hell of a project, I wonder if it would give some ability to run any Macware ?
But my own Xmas sticking would be well filled if S'Basic were implemented on a MS window, file system and IO access as above. No need for fancy graphics, but all the fundamental facilities eg. direct sector access, and the command line to tell the machine to perform without all the pretties of Visual Basic .
DT
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