----- Original Message -----
From: Norman Dunbar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: [ql-users] Plight of a Software House
> You wrote :
>
> >> QLib/EasyPTR allows you to make some professional looking programs.
It's
> >> just a pity that the latter is such a b*gg*r to learn.
>
> Have you seen the (excellent) tutorial that was published in Quanta and I
> think is available on Dilwyn's web site, on using EasyPTR ?
> I thoroughly recommend it :o)
>
By some strange coincidence would that tutorial be written by a certain
Norman Dunbar?
By an even stranger coincidence would that be the same Norman Dunbar who
writes those obscure and lengthy articles in QL Today that no one
understands? ;-)
Seriously, I have forgotten whose aids I used when I first learnt EasyPTR,
but without them I would never have succeeded. There is a huge step that has
to be overcome in writing your first pointer program, and unexpected snakes
in the grass. My first effort ran perfectly under old QL ROMs, Minerva, and
SMSQ, but not SMSQ-E and I still don't know why. The pity is that this puts
people off, but once you have got over that first step, writing more
programs is much easier and you become addicted to the pointer environment.
I still get problems that puzzle me, however. My new program contains a lot
of sprites. If I call a sprite using SPRW and its name, it works the first
time I call it but not the second and subsequent times. The secret is to use
SPRA to find its address and then call it using SPRW and the address. There
are lots of little things like this in EasyPTR that can make it confusing,
particularly for the beginner.
Geoff Wicks
