I decided in the end to finish off the RenumQB program and post it on my website. I don'rt consider it adequately tested, so any feedback welcome.
Hope it proves useful to anyone trying to convert old BASIC listings to QL. https://dilwyn.theqlforum.com/basic/renumqb.zip Dilwyn On Fri, 12 Sept 2025 at 16:14, Dilwyn Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > > It's good to know that others are doing this. Until Marcos said today, > I had no idea there were others interested in trying to port old BASIC > programs from other computers. > > I have quite a few text adventure games here (well, all types of > programs really), salvaged from that old hard drive, and written in > various old BASICs. > > If anyone would like a copy of one or two of them to try to convert to > QL BASIC, just let me know! Most (not all) are un-tokenised ASCII > listings, plain text files essentially, so would not need an emulator > or original computer to decode and transfer to a QL environment. > > Although it's not often you hear of people taking an interest in text > adventures on the QL scene, I suppose that seeing "new" software > appear may spur others on to produce more software for the QL. In my > case, I always thought that once I retired, I'd have more time to > write QL software. Sadly, that didn't quite work out - if anything I > seem to be busier than ever since I retired! > > I've quietly been writing some routines to help with porting and > converting such old listings to QL BASIC, just to make life simpler > for myself when converting them - I tend to find that "hand-editing" > these old BASIC programs tends to produce too many errors which take > too long to correct, so any way of part-automating the conversion > might reduce the time it takes to produce a QL version. > > An example of such a program is something I call RENUMQB which takes a > source program with or without line numbers and renumbers, including > non-computed GOTO and GOSUB statements. Older programs like these are > often a spaghetti of randomly numbered GOTOs, so it helps me tidy up > the listings by renumbering evenly before you even start converting > the BASIC itself, especially if there are line numbers higher than the > QL BASIC allows. Once I've tested these little utilities enough I hope > to release them as a package to help with converting such old BASIC > listings. If anyone would like a copy of RENUMQB to test (accepting > that it's an early version so far, probably with bugs), please let me > know. > > For programs which are in tokenised format (i.e. they just look like > garbage when you view them to the screen on a QL), there is a > Detokeniser program on my website: > https://dilwyn.theqlforum.com/basic/detokenize.zip > > Unless it's one of the supported formats, you'll need to compile your > own token DATA statements in the program, although it already handles > a number of formats like Applesoft, GWBASIC, MBASIC, MSX, Nascom, Pet, > TRS80. Sadly, the original author has passed away, so I suppose it's > unlikely to get updated any further. > > Dilwyn > > On Fri, 12 Sept 2025 at 15:54, Derek via Ql-Users > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi > > > > I have ported some text adventures: > > > > ESCAPE FROM S.S.A.D.B > > DOGSTAR > > > > from the Infocom archives, but thought there would be no interest in text > > adventures games... > > Regards, Derek > > > > On 12 September 2025 14:02:48 BST, Marcos Cruz via Ql-Users > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > >Dilwyn Jones via Ql-Users escribió/skribis/wrote/scrit > > >(2025-09-10T17:20:11+0100): > > > > > >> Dracula is a horror text adventure I've ported to the QL. Originally > > >> written by Elizabeth Arkush in 1984, it's been ported to SuperBASIC > > >> and slightly enhanced. > > > > > >Thank you, Dilwyn. Good work! > > > > > >I love to program and to port text adventures. > > > > > >I have tried it with SMSQmulator and it works great. > > > > > >I have noted two issues: > > > > > >- The <BOOT> file loads <DRACULA_bas> and <dracula_scr>, but the files > > > in the zip are called <DRACULA.bas> and DRACULA.scr>. > > >- Your version is case-insensitive, so you may remove the original > > > message "Please type in CAPITALS ONLY." at the start. > > > > > >By the way, do you know where the original code is published? It is not > > >in IF Archive (https://ifarchive.org), IFDB (https://ifdb.org) or even > > >Internet Archive (https://archive.org). I have tried also several search > > >engines but got no useful result. > > > > > > > > >-- > > >Marcos Cruz > > >http://programandala.net > > >_______________________________________________ > > >QL-Users Mailing List > > _______________________________________________ > > QL-Users Mailing List _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
