For most cases where users want to use a QL as a QL, an emulator is a good
solution. For some cases, namely those that may actually generate
applications outside the ever shrinking community, this is not true. For
instance, I got QPC 1 from Marcel and use it on a laptop because it alowes
me to address some of the hardware directly, which I in turn use for
various creative things - the latest of which is a reader for diagnostic
codes for car electronics. In fact, I have so many PAYING projects that
would be a matter of hours with a simple QL 'hardware module' which alowes
simple hardware to be programmed in Sbasic, that I would certainly be in a
FAR better situation financially, and otherwise, if I had it. The uses for
such a simple and small hardware system, even if it is not cheap, are so
large that, financially speaking, the QL market is negligible in
comparison.
I agree that the QL is ideal for being able to put together applications quickly and thoroughly test them, without having to find workarounds to overcome shortcomings in the various DLLs and other routines supplied to poor Windows users.
The problem is getting the outside world to accept that there is another option other than Windows based machines (even MACs have succumbed to this in the end). They do not need to know the inner workings, but I think it would be hard to persuade any manufacturer to utilise a black box with a non-mainstream operating system in it.
To anticipate a question: so why don't I do it? Simple: it requires the OS
and software to be modified and licenced to work on such hardware. Or, I
could ask for the SMSQ source and just use it without telling anyone - it's
hardly a problem of someone going to look insaide various black boxes to
see what's really driving them. The problem with that approach is that
nothing comes back to the community, and the community is the prime source
of software and people who can produce it. It would be only fair to give
something back - but then, if you read carefully, maybe you have noticed
that there is a job for more than one person in this endevour.
Whooppee - some work for us QL boffins.... bring it on and we will endeavour to write the necessary code and maybe for once in its life, someone could actually make something of a living from a QL (deriviative).
--
Rich Mellor
RWAP Software
35 Chantry Croft, Kinsley, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, WF9 5JH
TEL: 01977 610509
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/rwapsoftware
