Morning Tony,
... The QL was quite the reverse - it was so trouble-prone it *demanded* tinkering at every level. That is what made (and makes) it so attractive, and gave Quanta its name - Isn't QL Users and Tinkerers Assocation?
It is indeed the source of the name.
The Sinclair kit always came with a decent sized manual which explained things like the screen format, the system variables and so on. All the information you needed was there - maybe not described as well as it could be, but it was there.
Now, scroll forward to Windows XP, for example, and what do you get? a tiny little booklet, of no use what-so-ever, with the most important bit of information buried in the small print on page 19 (I wonder how many people got that far in reading it?) which states that "your administrator user is set up without a password".
That would be the one that gets caught within 10 minutes of connecting to the internet then?
Linux systems are a little different, the information is there, but as Linux runs on so many different hardware platforms, it's unlikely that there will ever be the hardware details for tinkering - but at least the OS is well (ok, possibly nearly well) documented.
Sinclair was the best, from the ZX81 (In my case) through the Spectrum to the QL, all came with excellent manuals.
Just my £0.02. Cheers, Norm. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
