Re: [Ql-Users] What's the current (available) version of the PE?
On 09/08/11 21:06, Dilwyn Jones wrote: PTR_GEN WMAN HOT_REXT (English) HOT_REXT (German) ... Thanks Dilwyn. Above is the latest info I have. Took the info from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/pe/index.html Yes, I did have a look via Google, but I should have known to go straight to your site for anything QL related. :-) Unfortunately, I asked the wrong question! What I meant to ask, and failed miserably, was: Is there a generic product version for the Pointer Environment? Similar to when I purchased the QPTR Toolkit many years ago, that came as version x.xx and included two versions of the other files PE and WMAN. I'm interested in the overall version of the PE as a product as opposed to the separate parts - PE and WMAN (and HOT Keys). My apologies for being an idiot, I can't help it! ;-) 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Prices of QL Books
On 09/08/11 07:24, Rich Mellor wrote: Have a look at: URL: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sinclair-QL-Companion-Boris-Allan-Good-Book-/130524493920?pt=Fictionhash=item1e63ddb860 OUCH! £82.13 for a QL book. When you read the small print, it's an ex library book as well. Someone is taking the p*ss! 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Prices of QL Books
On 09/08/11 08:46, Norman Dunbar wrote: OUCH! £82.13 for a QL book. When you read the small print, it's an ex library book as well. Someone is taking the p*ss! It seems everyone may be taking the p*ss: URL:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0273021877/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8condition=used 3 used copies of the same book, £55.60, £79.43 or £80.23 - take your pick. Or get it from Rich for £4.00 ;-) 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Prices of QL Books
On 09/08/11 08:55, Rich Mellor wrote: There are a couple of cheaper books also listed: url:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sinclair-QL-Companion-Boris-Allan-/200632533317?pt=Fictionhash=item2eb6a18145 Ok, I fell for it! Have you read the blurb beneath the book description, basically: we rescue books from going to landfill and sell them at great prices so that you can never not afford to have a book. Hmm, we get the for free and flog them for an extortionate fee more like! Still, I can afford not to have this particular book! 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
[Ql-Users] What's the current (available) version of the PE?
Can someone please tell me the current version of the PE and WMAN please? Thanks. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £15 PC
Morning Marcel, Hmm, where to begin... The very name of WINE itself stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It does not do ANY CPU emulation. So, running QPC is downright out. Ah, ok, sorry. I sit corrected - thanks. (B*gg*r!) Actually there is a WINE port for ARM, but it only works with Windows apps that have been cross-compiled for the ARM architecture (QPC, being much assembler code, cannot be cross compiled). Double b*gg*r! :-( More specifically, SuperBasic is just a language - albeit a good one. So I suppose someone could write a SuperBasic interpreter/compiler in, say C, to be packaged up and/or compiled from source on any Linux. While this is true, most power of the language comes from its extensions and these would all have to be rewritten, too. Possibly. In the case of the extensions and such like that we have for the QL/QPC/whatever. But the base language is excellent by itself. If there ever is a SBasic for Raspeberry Pi (or RasPi as it seems to be known) then it's obvious that TK2 etc won't be available. But the developer(s) wouldn't just be doing the base language as is - there would be up to date stuff, window handling and so forth. It would develop as a new language/development system in its own right, I think so anyway, rather than a straight port from QDOSMSQ to ARM. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £15 PC
I've grown up since then ;-) Ah yes, growing up. The joys of having to find work, stay in it, earning enough to live. No wonder they say that childhood days are the best in your life. Nostalgia, it's not what it used to be. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Alien Hijack Re-released
On 02/08/11 15:47, Rich Mellor wrote: I have now been able to secure the OK to publish Alien Hijack Isn't it a tad ironic that a thread on Aliean Hijack has, itself, been hijacked by a Raspberry Pi! ;-) Cheers, Norm. PS. I wonder how much of this discussion will be appearing soon in the esteemed magazine? ;-) -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
Morning Jiri, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKc_XGuvNIk I watched it last night. Interesting. I did notice a couple of things that may or may not be relevant. The ARM demo was described as something we are working on so I presume it's not finished, which is probably why there isn't a version of Windows for ARM. (Yet?) But, having said that, I'm sure a lot of those netbooks have ARM processors in them and XP supposedly runs on them, so maybe I'm wrong. When demonstrating the ARM system, he kept saying Windows Client. Now I've never heard anyone refer to Windows as Windows Client before, so I'm wondering if the ARM stuff is just a thin client package running Windows from soemthing like a Citrix server [or server farm - Citrix is extremely resource hungry]. Just a couple of observations. Cheers, Norm. PS. I posted this last night from my tablet but it doesn't appear to have appeared - I wonder why. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
On 04/08/11 01:18, Marcel Kilgus wrote: No, it's a proper, native port. Notice how he says that they've re-compiled office for the ARM architecture. Windows NT used to be available for several platforms (x86, MIPS, PPC, IA64), then it was x86 only, now they again did a real ARM port to try to get their share of the netbook/tablet market. Ok, thanks. I was wondering about his choice of words. I have to admit, I never heard him say that they had recompiled Office. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
On 04/08/11 08:38, Norman Dunbar wrote: PS. I posted this last night from my tablet but it doesn't appear to have appeared - I wonder why. I've noticed that although I replied, it has come up as a separate thread. Interesting. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £15 PC
On 04/08/11 12:43, Dilwyn Jones wrote: Whilst I agree with most of what you say, Bryan, the likeliest scenario for using it as a QL is that it will have some form of native OS with which a QL emulator would have to be run.. Based on the actual price of the device, around $25, then I am having extreme difficulty seeing how they can even begin to think about putting a commercial OS on there. Many devices nowadays, for example, most ebook readers, have embedded Linux of some sort simply because (a) it works and (b) it's free and so keeps the prices down. I don't see Microsoft giving away free versions of Windows to help keep the price of anything down - well, not unless you are a big government agency or similar, but then you get screwed on support and software costs. I suspect, but don't know, that it will come with some form of Linux onboard. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £15 PC
Hi Lee, On 04/08/11 16:37, Lee Privett wrote: ... My second point (or question) for what it's worth is that other than machine code routines, peek and poke for fixed memory (screen or systems variables) does SuperBASIC need 680?? emulation? Well, I suspect that QPC will run under WINE on any flavour of Linux, and not necessarily one that has an Intel Processor of x86 fame beneath it. So QPC will probably run fine under WINE under Ubuntu on the Pi. More specifically, SuperBasic is just a language - albeit a good one. So I suppose someone could write a SuperBasic interpreter/compiler in, say C, to be packaged up and/or compiled from source on any Linux. If this person wasw to use something like wxWidgets or QT, then the code would be cross platform and SuperBasic on Windows would be a possibility. The obvious problem would be Machine code - unless the SuperBasic system had a built in 68000 emulator, then assembly will be a non-starter. None (I presume) of the system variables and so on would be the same either. The *language* would be there, just not the platform itself. I think! 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
On 03/08/11 10:42, Dilwyn Jones wrote: If it comes with Linux, one of the Linux QL emulators (uQLx, QLay for Linux) with it... bingo, a £20 QL. They demo it running Ubuntu Linux. I presume it may come with something like that when shipped. If it is at the heart of it a PC, it might not be too long before somebody finds a way to put Windows on it, even though that would mean Windows would be on an unsupported platform and Windows would cost more than the PC it ran on! Doubt it. It's got an ARM processor - I've not (yet) heard of Windows for ARM chips. Alternatively, if the Linux on it was capable of supporting WINE or some such Windows environment, and the processor is up to it, it might open up possibilities for QemuLator, QPC2 and QL2K for example. Assuming it runs a standard ARM based Linux. WINE will be fine. In this case, just think, a £20 system could emulate all our favourite 1980s home computers! Yes, you get to plug it in to the telly again - via an HDMI cable though, none of that UHFstuff here! ;-) 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
On 03/08/11 11:04, Bryan Horstmann wrote: I think from the later info this is a $20 computer £15 to us. There is also some info that WINE isn't an emulator but DOSBOX might be useable. WINE should be usable if the Linux onboard is a standard one. Ubuntu is fairly standard - and that's what they are showing it off with. I believe someone from the QL community has already had contact with them about getting SBASIC or similar on. I doubt that this will work. SBASIC is written in 68000 assembler and the ARM chip runs its own assembly language - I doubt that the two are compatible. Unless someone writes a version of SBASIC in C or C++ perhaps (Now that would make Tony Tebby's eyes water!) which would compile (and hopefully run) on the ARM chip. Portable Apps is a way of running prograns without installing on the host machine and slowing the machine down with installed programmes used infrequently. Yes, but for Windows only I'm afraid. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
On 03/08/11 11:59, Dilwyn Jones wrote: Interestingly they proudly proclaim they are adequately funded and refuse to take advance orders until they can ship the device! I believe Eben used to work for Sinclair? Maybe he's remembering those days! ;-) There's a picture of a prototype unit running Ubuntu linux 9.04 at http://www.raspberrypi.org/?page_id=11 the only thing is that as the RPi is so small, it's dwarfed by the keyboard, usb hub, even the mouse and all the cables. Hmm, back to the mess of cables hanging off my 1980s QL again :-( Nostalgia - it's not what it used to be! ;-) Going on the assumption that it is a $20 / £15 device, what else is needed to turn it into a usable computer. Off the top of my head I'd list: - Monitor It comes with an HDMI interface to plug into a TV. - Mouse (USB?) - Keyboard (USB?) Yes, these are expected to be USB, probably on a hub. - As it only has 128MB or 256MB RAM, some external hard disk or flash memory (USB) - wifi or network lead (via USB?) I'm led to believe that the B model has ethernet onboard. There is no Wifi as yet. - camera for video calls. I'm sure there's a photo of a B model with a camera module on board ... The possibilities seem endless... Bingo. This is what will make it a success (I sincerely hope) unless the youth of today are too far down the road of everything on my phone for free to be rescued from never having to do stuff for themselves. (Who's an old git then?) 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Raspberry Pi the £20 PC
Evening, interesting, very interesting. I watched and noted the following: * This is something we are working on. So it is not generally available (yet). * He kept saying Windows client running on ARM (natively) I wonder if that is some sort of Citrix type thing rather than proper windows? So, we better get an ARM version of SuperBasic running on Ubuntu quick!!! Cheers, Norm. Sent from Samsung tablet (which only does top posting :-( ) Jiri Dolezal computer.resea...@centrum.cz wrote: Doubt it. It's got an ARM processor - I've not (yet) heard of Windows for ARM chips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKc_XGuvNIk ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QPC2 on 64-bit
On 31/07/11 12:09, Rich Mellor wrote: Yes - I run all three systems here on Windows 7 (64 bit). And, if anyone cares, I run it successfully under Linux 64 bit as well. No problems. Well, none except that CTRL+F4 in a PE application should do a MOVE but Linux grabs the key press first and switches desktops. Interesting! 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
[Ql-Users] QL gets a mention, and picture in Linux User Developer Magazine
The current issue of LUD is doing a piece on the early years of Linux. On page 59, there is a mention of the QL and a photo of one with it's lid up exposing its innards. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QL VROOM re-released
Evening Dilwyn, Me too. I also had another car racing game - can't remember its name or who published it, might have been Psion or English Software. I did a load of work for Freddy V years ago, removing protection from various games and stuff, and making them run in a position independant manner. I received a huge box of microdrive cartridges from him with various softwares on. That kept me busy for a while. One of those was a racing game. No idea which one though. Anyway, brilliant timing re-releasing this just after Jensen Button's grand prix win in Canada! And wasn't it worth waiting for? The way he carved through the pack, stuffing the Ferrari into the bargain - a nice touch that! Although it did have me worried that the stewards at the FIA (Ferrari International Assistance) may have done unto Jenson what they did to Lewis a couple of years back for passing a red car - took the win away. Luckily, they didn't or my wife may have fire bombed FIA HQ! ;-) She's a big Jenson fan. I got the impression that Vettel doesn't like driving in the wet very much. A brilliant drive, lots of overtaking - that's what F1 should be, not racing on tracks where overtaking is almost impossible. That's not racing! Imagine if in a football game it was almost impossible to score - there would be hell to pay. And Man U wouldn't win either! ;-) Anyway, enough ranting. To get back on topic, slightly, does anyone have some decent QDOS style graphics? I'm looking for images of the arrow keys on the key board and maybe a logo (I've seen the ones on Dilwyn's web page by the way - not quite what I need). I'm looking for high quality (ie, probably not done on a QL - sorry!) PNG or SVG or similar. JPG if absolutely necessary. It will become clear, in the future, as to why (Top Secret!) 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QL VROOM re-released
On 14/06/11 21:03, Rich Mellor wrote: You mean you didn't keep copies to help with software preservation? DRAT! I think, in those days, it was called theft! ;-) I've had a look and all I have in MDV these days is Metacomco Pascal, Metacomco C, Metacomco Assembler, QLiberator and Scrabble. Unfortunately, I have no microdrives that I can use. I never did get BCPL though! :-( I do have backups pn FLP though. Unfortunately, I have no flipping FLP drive on my laptop. Sigh. I wonder if the one at work, works . 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Digital Precision Super Forth
On 12/06/11 20:23, Rich Mellor wrote: SuperForth was written by Gerry Jackson - I wonder what happened to him ? Well, according to the comp.lang.forth newsgroup, he's still doing Forth: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.forth/browse_thread/thread/b4bec6b8a1af2c06/94ac7a4e3d4d3a60?hl=enq=#94ac7a4e3d4d3a60 is his latest posting on June 8th. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] LaunchPad
On 10/06/11 15:09, Tony Firshman wrote: now where did you register the LaunchPad trademark Dilwyn? (8-)# With software, it doesn't even have to be registered. Prior use is all that is required. Think back to the Firebird Database versus Mozilla Firebird (browser) a few years ago. The database had been called Firebird for years, but no trade mark is registered. When Mozilla came out and renamed their browser to Firebird, it hit the fan. A cease and desist letter was all it took (eventually) to resolve the problem, and that's how Firefox was born. Had Mozilla not changed the name, court proceedings would have found in favour of the database. (So I'm told by the legal experts anyway.) So, Dilwyn could, if he wanted, ask Apple to cease and desist. ;-) 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QIMI Mice + RasberryPi
Evening Lee, One scenario when this device is available is that uQLx can sit on top of Ubuntu and with a bit of work, far better would be to have S*Basic directly available at switch-on, anyone know how feasible that would be? In a word, and my opinion only, not! :-) I have also been racking my brains as to what I could do with multiple systems such as these inside the QL black box. Multi-multi-multi-multi-task? Ok, being serious for a bit, it happens occasionally! Having SuperBasic available at switch on is probably possible. You can do it in a number of different ways: * Have init be redirected to run a shell that runs whatever that runs SuperBAsic. Once you quit though, you are out of the system and in a shutdown. (I think!) * Have each user's default shell be set to whatever that runs SuperBasic. That way, when the user logs in, they go direct to SuperBasic (ok, via whatever) and when they exit from SuperBasic, they effectively logout. The system stays running and they can login again. * There are other ways, like a startup script that runs SuperBasic somehow. and so on. Problem, how do you run Superbasic - written in 6800x assembly - on a system that will not be running a 6800x processor? Well, you could write SuperBasic in C or C++ (If you must!) or some other language that is processor insensitive. When done and tested, make it Open Source and see if the developers of the Raspberry Pi want to offer it as a built in language. Of course, the advantage is that you would be able to recompile the system for other chip types and hopefully have a working system for all platforms that Linux runs on. Could it be done? Probably. I'm not sure about what copyright etc [still] exists for SuperBasic - both the name, the language and the whatevers that go with it. It might be an interesting project though. Given that, and assuming it can be done, it's easy to set up a new project on Sourceforge and open it up to all and sundry to help with, but how many people on this list (or known to this list) have the ability to do such a thing? Of course, it would work just as happily as a Windows project as well, assuming we use decent cross platform tools (wxWindows, QT, Fox, etc). So, those are my ramblings on the matter. Any comments? 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
Re: [Ql-Users] [ql-users] [off-topic] Updates in Dave-land...
Evening Derek. Apologies for top posting, this tablet doesn't allow inline or bottom posting! I've seen the zip file there, but, it needs lots of preprocessing with TCL and such like to produce anything they say can be used. :-( What I'm doing is parsing the big file and recursively extracting embedded files from within. I almost have it sort of nearly working. I think:-) cheers, Norm. PS. It seems this tablet removes the email I'm replying to! Sent from Samsung tablet ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] [ql-users] [off-topic] Updates in Dave-land...
Morning Dave, FYI: I have no idea whether c68 can handle a single file that large! Lack of output could mean that something has gone wrong, but it could also mean that c68 is simply still working. Well, the file size caused more than C68 to have problems. QED, the editor supplied alongside C68, reads in the first 32676 lines and gives no indication of any problems. Luckily I didn't save! QD loads the file and seems to load all of it, but the line number indicator on the top of the screen has interesting characters when you get too high in line numbers. I am going to have to split the file into it's constituent parts and build a make file to cope I think. 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
Re: [Ql-Users] [ql-users] [off-topic] Updates in Dave-land...
Hi Dave, I have no idea whether c68 can handle a single file that large! Lack of output could mean that something has gone wrong, but it could also mean that c68 is simply still working. Ok, I've not been able to repeat the original error where nothing appeared on screen. When I attempt to comile the code now, I get an error about insufficient memory. I suspect the bufp parameter is what I need to adjust, but I see in the docs that that affects the LD linker only. I don't see anything under C68 in the docs, have I missed something. I'm compiling on QPC with 64 MB RAM, so I should be able to up the buffer size a bit. In theory there should be no upper size limit (RAM permitting). However it has never (to my knowledge) been tested against such a large source as a single file. I wonder why the SQLite people have produced it that way in the first place - it must be an absolute pig to maintain. They have two systems, one where all the files are split and another, called the Amalgamation, where everything has been preprocessed, the include files are inline and so on. This makes it easier, apparently, for people to compile the system into their apps or as a library. I can probably work with the individual files as well without any trouble, but I haven't tried yet. I assume, from past experience, that progress will be slow. Probably very slow. :-( If you are doing a test compilation I would make sure that you have disabled all the optimization options. The optimisation processes will keep running until no further improvements can be made, and the larger the file the longer it will take to run. I was referring to my own progress as opposed to casting aspersions on C68 - hope you didn't get the wrong impression! ;-) It is probably also a good idea to stop after the c68 phase has completed, and run the assemble phase separately. I also do not know if AS68 is likely to choke on such a large file and that would at least give you a clue. Another possibility is to use a version of c68 compiled to run on a PC under Linux as that is likely to run much faster. I don't suppose there's one already compiled etc - or am I about to roll my own from the source? Time to dive into the docs again I think. It's been quite a few years since I did any C68 work, I'm having to try and remember everything I've forgotten! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] [ql-users] [off-topic] Updates in Dave-land...
Interesting, my reply from last night doesn't appear to have arrived. Try again! That's a good and healthy list. If you port SQLlite to QDOS so it can be used with some SBASIC extensions, I would have a lot of use for it. Or any SQL subset that supported the basics... I've had that one on my radar for years to be honest. Never got as far as doing anything with it. How is that going? I actually downloaded the latest source code this very week and attempted a trail compile under C68 - in an interesting way, I think it failed. The compiler produced no warnings, no errors, no output file and not a single message to the screen! I've never seen that happen before. The source file (for there is only one) is over 4mb in size which makes me wonder if C68 can actually handle such a large file in one go. Maybe Dave Walker will notice and chip in. I assume, from past experience, that progress will be slow. Probably very slow. :-( 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
Re: [Ql-Users] FAO: Dave Walker - possible bug in C68?
Morning Marcel, Try ex cc;'-c -v -tmpram1_ win3_source_test_c' Notice the lack of a space between tmp and ram1_... Yes, that works perfectly! Thanks. Shame I was following the cc_doc file which gives as an example -tmp ram1_ with a space. Sigh. I notice a number of the parameters appear to take no space while others do take a space. I never noticed how inconsistent this was in the past! Thanks again. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] [ql-users] [off-topic] Updates in Dave-land...
Hi Dave, On 26/05/11 05:44, Dave Park wrote: ... Instead, I am working on Good luck with that lot then Dave. For my sins, here's what I'm up to: * Working! * Making sure my bees stay healthy * Writing documentation for the firebird Open Source database (www.firebirdsql.org) * My QL Today stuff on assembler. * Writing a beginner's guide to database design. * Still trying to port SQLITE 3 to QDOS. * Attempting to create an ebook reader for the QL. possibly pointer driven as well. * And some other stuff that I'd rather not mention just yet. However, like many things, time seems to be the bug-bear. :-( 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Delaying code
Morning Lee, regarding delaying code, I have seen the following (or something like it) used to wipe the keyboard buffer before running a PAUSE command: repeat read_keys a$ = inkey$(#whatever) if a$='' then exit read_keys end repeat read_keys PAUSE n I'm thinking, but have not tested, that you could build that into a procedure perhaps? define procedure my_pause (milli_seconds) remark: Untested! Assumes valid value in milli_seconds! for x = 0 to milli_seconds repeat read_keys a$ = inkey$(#whatever) if a$='' then exit read_keys end repeat read_keys PAUSE 1 end for x end define my_pause Obviously, all that checking and reading of keyboard buffers may throw the timing out slightly (a lot?) but it might work. Cheers, Norm. PS. I read your blog too. Feedback? What's that, no-one ever gives feedback on my articles in QL Today - except George! ;-) -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Delaying code
On 23/05/11 22:59, Dilwyn Jones wrote: There is a SUSPEND keyword in one of my little extensions toolkits on http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/tk/index.html SlowGold anyone? I wrote it many years ago to do exactly that, slow down a gold card. I'm sure Dilwyn will have it on his site somewhere http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/utils/slowgold.zip also the slug: http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/utils/slug.zip HTH 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Quanta Website Down
On 12/04/11 11:05, Rich Mellor wrote: I see the Quanta website is just displaying a blank home page at the moment. View Source shows something is there, the head and body are both empty though. I suspect someone may be doing an upgrade? I'm not sure if the TYPO3 system puts up a holding page, like Wordpress, when the system is under maintenance. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Announcement about the future of Ser-USB
Adrian, Don't take the lack of communication to be lack of interest in the overall hardware solution I agree with Rich. While your device is of no use to me whatsoever, I have been following along all your emails to this list, and I've been watching your web site as well. I'm interested enough to follow along, even though I'm afraid I'll never have a need for the finished article. As someone who writes articles in QL Today, I know what it's like to produce something to a great wall of silence. Feedback seems to be only bad (you made a mistake etc!) rather than good work, keep it up. Keeping that in mind great work, keep it up. I admire the way you have handled the trials of getting your device to work on a standard QL, but lets face it, the original serial ports did have their difficulties even with printers! Especially if you had something else attached to the other port - typical Sinclair, get it working (almost) then ship it out! Maybe, one day when you get time, you can write up an article about writing a device driver! ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Announcement about the future of Ser-USB
On 12/04/11 16:18, Adrian Ives wrote: Footnote: If anyone wants to propose a hack to QDOS/SMSQ to allow the slave block flush operation to be deferred by the device driver code I would be very interested to discuss the possibility. Now this might sound a bit harsh, but it's not intended to - I'm certainly not in a position to criticise, but, the man you might need is Tony Tebby. For ages now I've been reading his articles in QL Today where everything computer hardware and software related since the QL came out has been done wrong. Windows is wrong, Unix is most definitely wrong, parallel processing is wrong, multi-core CPUs are wrong. Etc. Well, this problem with the salve blocks doesn't sound very right to me and he wrote it (As far as I'm aware anyway). Having said that, I'm out of here for three weeks! How's that for hit and run? :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Sir C on radio4
Hi Dilwyn, Well, thinking of the Asimov robot, there is a new exoskeleton which can help paralysed people walk, go up stairs etc (was on the news earlier this week, made in Israel I think). The solution for Norman might be an Asimov he can sit inside, tell it where he wants to go, then sleep while it walks him there ;-) I like your thinking Dilwyn. However, much as I am a lazy b*gg*r when it comes to exercise, I think I'll leave the use of the exoskeleton (as seem in the Alien movies) for those who really need them. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Simple HowTo to make SBasic jobs PEable...
Morning Martyn, Off the top of my head at the moment, I'm not running QPC just now ... Have I missed something obvious, or is it necessary to develop a standalone app using the PE tools available just to achieve this? I have a feeling you are right. Unless an app is written for the PE, then the PE won't do much with it. I remember years ago, ahen I fist installed the PE and WMAN files, nothing happened. I then stared editing some source code - C68 I think - and I CTRL-C'd to the command line to compile my efforts. As ever, there were errors. I CTR_C'd back to the editor. I remember my shock at seeing the entire window automatically being refreshed for me - this was the PE helping me out! I think I can use the HOT_KEY system as well to put SBasic programs to sleep in the button frame by, in my case, ALT + dot (or is it ALT+F1? I can't remember at the moment!) I agree, by the way, that the PE docs are quire hard to follow. I'm currently working my way through them and writing things up in my long running series of articles in QL Today. IN summary, there are a few things that the PE gives you - non-destructive windows, button frame and so on, but in the main, unless a program is written for the PE, it won't be making much use of the PE itself. Other opinions will arrive shortly I suspect - probably correcting me! ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Sir C on radio4
On 07/04/11 16:14, Tony Firshman wrote: He mentioned he has another electric vehicle in the offing. This new one just *has* to be better, but that is not saying much. Stuff the C5 or the X1, I want one of these from Honda! http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=cuIJRsAuCHQ Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Sir C on radio4
On 08/04/11 11:31, Tony Firshman wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=cuIJRsAuCHQ I think walking is easier (8-)# It may well be, but I'm lazy! ;-) Did you notice how gingerly they used it, and they have been practising! It is clearly not as easy as they make out. Prototype perhaps? Lets face it, sitting on one wheel and staying upright has to be a tad strange! A more relevant application of the same sensor chip (presumably) is for use in wheelchairs that can stand up to normal head height on two wheels and go up and down stairs. http://tinyurl.com/5srprpp Murphy's law though is that Hardware always goes worng! I'm sure that 'worng' was a deliberate typo! ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Today, 25 years ago (IV)...
On 07/04/11 09:29, Urs Koenig (QL) wrote: Amstrad and Sinclair computers got married! :-( I just had a horrible though, imagine what Clive and Alan's kids would look like! ;-) I'll get my coat ... Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Tyche
Afternoon all, On 06/04/11 10:52, Dilwyn Jones wrote: Gerard Phelan had the idea of asking a search engine how to pronounce it (now why didn't I think of that?). That's what I did too! http://www.forvo.com/word/tyche/ Interesting in that the word is Greek and is pronounced Tee-chee. Tyche is/was the goddess of [good] fortune. Also: http://www.goddess.com.au/goddesses/Tyche.htm says (amongst other stuff): Tyche (pronounced tee-chee) is the Greek goddess of fortune. Although she was a daughter of Zeus, she was reputed to be quite irresponsible. She preferred to run about juggling a ball than to carry the Cornucopia filled with golden fruit, instead entrusting the task to her assistant Plutus. The first set of dice were found in Tyche's temple perhaps indicating the capriciousness of life and luck and the fickle manner in which she decided the fortunes of mortals. Just goes to show, never trust an Internet Search Engine to give you *one* definitive answer! ;-) For example: http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=Tyche pronounces it completely differently. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Quanta's Web Collapse, PDFs again (in QL Today)
Hi Dilwyn, No! Should I be? I'm only ironing, nothing dangerous! ;-) Ironing, or smoothing out the bugs? Well, both! Ironing to smooth out the bugs in my shirts for next week. :-) Anyway, how can you be reading your email while ironing ??? Iron a shirt, read a mail, iron a shirt ... My office is where I do the ironing! But you are an IT pro...I only take weekely backups because not enough changes (normally) get done in one week on any of the small-time stuff I do. I may be an IT pro but I don't often backup my laptop, so last week I decided that just in case I had better write myself an rsync script to backup certain folders to my USB drive. While it all worked under testing, I noticed that my Documents folder was full of backups of my on-line library (ie, about 500 assorted manuals that I use for work) and all my documents were gone. I know *how* it happened - the rsync script was written to remove from the backup area anything no longer in the library area. I don't know *why* it happened as I had not written the script in my Documents folder and neither had I run it from there - so how it managed to backup the library and wipe my files from the wrong folder, I have no idea! You only stand up just before you throw another PC running Windows out the window! ;-) Yup! As the caption competition picture my son sent to me for the March issue of the magazine shows ;-) Your son seems to do a lot of that sort of thing! At long last! Seems that forcing M$ to allow Windows user to select other browsers might be having an influence. I'm not sure. I have a feeling that the Firefox browser got so many good write-ups, even in Windows magazines - that the vast majority of Web sites that used to say not using IE, tough! decided that that was no longer the way to go. People started seeing Not using a standards compliant browser? Tough messages instead and, as Firefox is fast, secure and free, people started using it, showed their friends and it spread. That article is not 100% clear on it, though, because the direct comparison was with IE7.0 specifically and mentions that the figure might be different if you base it on users using all versions of IE. Still that was 2009, so it must be even truer today. Thank goodness. Yes, and one thing the article didn't mention was the fact that a lot of browsers have a setting that allows them to pretend to be IE - and the figures for IE may include lots of numbers for browsers that are not IE! At the very best you'd have to admit that you are denying a big group the joys of accessing your website if it won't work on IE! Then you'd say (probably) thank goodness I *may* be denying some people, but no-one has complained so far. And, the content is there and visible even with IE, you just have to scroll down a little bit. Yes, that's the difficult part. Give an average emailer the choice of pretty colours, fonts, pictures etc under their control against simple plain text, you probably know which they'd choose. Probably not the same as you and I would. Yes, that's my point. M$ decide to adopt a new standard simply by dint of numbers. You buy a PC, you pay the Windows tax and, in most cases, you use the software provided in its default settings. Hence, suddenly, HTML becomes frequently used. And a jolly good rant it was too. I enjoyed it. Cheers! Drat, failed in my efforts to annoy Norman :o( :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Quanta's Web Collapse, PDFs again (in QL Today)
Hi Lee, On 03/04/11 15:44, Lee Privett wrote: Even with Mr Dunbar's incorrect address Google Chrome (under XP) got me thereafter one more click, as for the Quanta website, that is currently displaying correctly in Chrome, and displays correctly in Opera too but not in IE 8, IE9 will not run in XP hence I changed to Chrome. That's strange, I used my XP in a VM system to run IE8 on my website and it was working fine for me yesterday! Still Chrome is good! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Quanta's Web Collapse, PDFs again (in QL Today)
Hi Dilwyn, Next point of course is that (as Norman suggested) should we go the extra mile to make sure that the body of IE users get web pages that will display as intended on IE or just take the viewpoint that This website doesn't display correctly on Internet Exploder. Tough. Try another browser. Remember the days of IE5 when banks and some online shops refused point blank to allow you to shop unless you used IE? The boot is on the other foot now! ;-) What goes around, comes around - be nice to people on the way up because you will meet them again on the way down! Of course, it's the age-old question of how far do you take compatibility? Follow the example set by Microsoft then. I have to use Windows 2000 at work. I cannot install the latest version of Oracle on that platform because M$ have changed a DLL entry point named GetUserHomeDirectory (or something similar) to GetUserHomeDirectoryA and the compilers used now generate this latter version rather than the former. This breaks Windows 2000. 003, XP, 2008, Vista and Windows 7 work fine, just not 2000. So, Microsoft don't care much for backward compatibility. ... Marcel went to great lengths to ensure some compatibility with older software not written to modern standards. How far can people be reasonably expected to go to make websites and software work on all systems past and present? Marcel did indeed go to great lengths and I think I once read that Digital Precision went to great lengths *not* to get Turbo to fix bugs in the QL because some old programs that could be compiled used those bugs to work! I hope, I really really do. I hope it all works out for Quanta too. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
[Ql-Users] Quanta's Web Collapse, PDFs again (in QL Today)
I wonder if I may comment on the details of the problems with the Quanta Web Page on Page 4 or the latest QL Today. (I have extreme difficulty typing Today rather than Toady!) The statement that Internet Explorer correctly, displays the menu items on the left hand side, but the rest of the screen appears blank until the user scrolls down to below the menu. amuses me somewhat. I know exactly about this problem because my own web site at http://qdosmsg.dunbar-it.co.uk has the same problem with IE but not with anything else. (IE 9 does manage to display the pages properly I have to add.) Equally, my old website page for QStripper used to have a comment at the top that said something about the big blank space and the fact that the menu scrolled off the top when you scrolled the page. Only IE gave these problems. The cause is simple, Microsoft don't do standards. End of story. They think that they are too big and important for standards and ignore them, or change them as they see fit. The affected web sites are using CSS and versions of IE that I have tested on my old web site failed miserably, up as far as IE 8 Beta, to render the page correctly according to the CSS rules. At work I use the same Wiki system (DocuWiki) as I do for the above web site. Because the Government's chosen browser is IE 6.0 (the one with the most security holes and bugs in - go figure) we have to work with that. If I use a decent template for our work wiki, it's horrible under IE, so I have to use one that make the system look like a late 70's web page rather than something a tad more modern. My own web page doesn't display correctly using IE 6 and neither does the Quanta web page. Gone are the days, thankfully, when you used to see web sites with signs on them saying best views in Internet Explorer, now you see Using IE? Shame. Why not get a proper browser that follows standards and you will enjoy this site all the more. (Or words to that effect!) I decided with my own web site to use a template that I liked and if IE didn't work, then sorry, that's just tough. The properly written browsers do display the site correctly, so the solution is to get a proper browser. Harsh, possibly, but fair. The world no longer cow-tows to Microsoft. Moving on Also on Page 4, it mentions that I created a test PDF of Volume 5 issue 1, this was Volume 15 in actual fact, but no worries - I'm hardly one to criticise others for making typos am I! Not with the state of some of my articles. :-) The PD I produced was in the full defaults for Open Office 3 and as such, the font size may have been bigger than usual. I also produced it with white space between paragraphs - something not often done in QL Today - and my biggest bugbear with the magazine. As Geoff mentions, I created a single column layout at first as this is easiest to read on screen - you don't want to scroll down the page to read the first column, then back up and then down again to read the second column. In addition, where two articles share a page, you read down, up, down again to finish the first article, then down up and down to read the start of the second! It's excellent on paper where your eyes do the moving, but not on screen - unless you have one of those monitors that displays a full A4 page in portrait format! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Quanta's Web Collapse, PDFs again (in QL Today)
I know exactly about this problem because my own web site at http://qdosmsg.dunbar-it.co.uk has the same problem with IE but not with anything else. (IE 9 does manage to display the pages properly I have to add.) This site appears not to exist! This is why I said that I'm not in a position to criticise people for making typos! The proper URL should be http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk and not as above. Sigh! Cheers, Norman. PS. I note you are busy again George . updating pages all over the place! -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Quanta's Web Collapse, PDFs again (in QL Today)
Corrections: On 02/04/11 18:11, Norman Dunbar wrote: While I would be the last person on this planet to stand up for Micro$oft, You only stand up just before you throw another PC running Windows out the window! ;-) You only stand up for Microsoft was what I meant to say! As of two months ago, the most used browser in all of Europe was Firefox 3. See http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/firefox-3-0-is-europe-s-most-popular-browser-588938 Sigh. As of March 31st 2009. Where I got two months ago I have no idea. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] One for the QL Collectors out there
Evening Lee,
Opening a con_ {b x d} {a X x Y} _k then saying the _k has no effect
I cannot remember ever seeing _k before, does anyone know what it could or does
mean?
If my brain hasn't let me down again, I'm pretty sure that 'k' defines
the length of the keyboard buffer for this channel.
Cheers,
Norman.
--
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
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Re: [Ql-Users] One for the QL Collectors out there
Evening Petri your brain agrees with the QL User Guide Concepts section. I wish I had a memory like that. Trust me, that sort of thing doesn't happen all that often - ask my wife! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Today
Apologies to George and everyone else, and if the staff at Quanta Magazine Towers are enjoying this, then it's my own fault, We all make mistakes. Said the dalek climbing off the dustbin! ;-) -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Ser-USB on Minerva
On 12/03/11 17:20, Dave Park wrote: I just want to repeat that the idea of an FPGA-based QL is not mine and belongs to Peter Graf - the only reason I found it necessary to mention his project was to establish that he has already done some work on a project of this type - informally. As a non-hardware person - I don't (yet) understand electronics, and from the sidelines, should we (as a group) not therefore be helping Peter to finish his kit rather than talking/thinking about another? Are we a community? Just a thought. It's perfectly possible that Peter may not want any help, but surely we could ask/offer where we are willing and have the skills? Cheers, Norman. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Ser-USB on Minerva
Hi Dave, I respectfully 100% disagree. :) No worries! When a community leaves everything to one individual, any number of problems can arise. Abandonment, accident, distraction, personal matters. That was my point too - although, unmentioned. If peter has been working for a while he may be losing interest, or motivation etc. My suggestion was to **offer** assistance. I mentioned that peter may have his reasons for not asking for help, that's fine. But we should at least offer - if we are able to. Also, often the individual has their own goals that may not coincide with the needs or best interests of the community. Agreed. SNIP Suggesting people shouldn't even talk about ideas because someone _maybe_ has a project of undefined goal and specification that they haven't publicly discussed with anyone, and which may not surface for several more years... I never suggested that we shouldn't talk about things - I enjoy the hardware discussions even though most of the time I'm clueless - I was merely suggesting that if a (similar) project to what was being discussed was actually in progress, then maybe we should consider cooperating. SNIP Respectfully, And taken as such. ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
[Ql-Users] Memories are made of this ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674 Cheers, Norman. -- 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
[Ql-Users] Wasted evening?
Sigh! Last night, I was doing some work on the next exciting article in the Pointer Environment series of Assembly programming for Ql Today. Basically, in the application window hit routine, I was attempting to print out all the meaningful data about the registers when the routine is called. Try as I might, the keystroke in D2.B would not print, unless a special case of -1, 0, 1 or 2. I spent ages looking, tracing with JMON and so on, I could see the keycode in D2.B but it simply refused to print when copied to D1.B. I was using IO_SBYTE/IOB_SBYT to print the keycode. There were never any errors seen after printing the keystroke as the trap always returned with D0=0 and the Z flag set. Eventually, I gave up and decided to pen a help me email to the list. While doing exactly that, I typed in a bit of the code and suddenly realised that I was a pillock! I was calling trap #1 rather than trap #3 - instead of printing a byte to a channel, I was force removing a (thankfully non-existent) job! Duh! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Disk driver
On 04/03/11 11:20, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote: I guess I could throw IDIS at the problem :) Gosh! IDIS, that's going back a while! I remember finding a couple of bugs in IDIS when it first came out - a short BSR, for example, wasn't decoded correctly. Freddy V (Mr Digital Precision) gave me a copy of IDIS-SE to see if that cured the problem. Duh! It didn't and I spent many a happy time exchanging letters (!!!) with the developer until we got the problems resolved. I find DISA to be a much better disassembler these days - it has inbuilt knowledge of various QDOSMSQ structures, like config blocks and so on, and can, when you tell it, disassemble those correctly with one click. Nice. DEA is/was an extremely powerful disassembler. It has a steep learning curve though and may require updating. I once wrote an article on using it - can't remember which QL comic it was for though, might have been IQLR or QL Today, not sure. I must fire up IDIS-SE though soon, just for nostalgic reasons. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QL Disk driver
On 04/03/11 11:59, Rich Mellor wrote: I still like and use DEAssembler (to give it its full name) Me too, but I find that at my age, trying to remember the correct sequence of events is getting more and more difficult! I happened to re-write the manual for this and Ergon's other projects... Are copies available? Electronic is fine, if possible? Cost? Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Window Manager 2
On 03/03/11 14:56, Bob Spelten wrote: I have just produced my first piece of asm that Gwass turned into a working bin function. (it took only a handful of system crashes, and I haven't even read Norman's series. ;) ) Sigh! I knew it was only George and me! ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Window Manager 2
On 03/03/11 15:26, Dilwyn Jones wrote: Count me in too! Couldn't have written display_cde and other bits and pieces without your articles. THREE!! That's a 50% increase in readers since yesterday! Statistics - 86% are made up! ;-) Do you still use DJToolkit then? A lot of good stuff went into that one! I was clearing out some stuff just last week and found a ROM with DJTK on it. Shame I can't plug it in to QPC! ;-) I originally learned from Andy Pennell's books. Yes, me too. I still use the old Computer One assembler despite having planned to learn to use Gwass or Gwasl several times - lack of time etc (excuses, excuses). GWASL is simple: 1. Configure. (Once!) 2. EX gwasl_bin. 3. Press 1. Start Assembling. 4. Type ASM file name. 5. Press ENTER. That's it. Output file is whatever the source was called with _bin instead of _asm. Listing and errors go to _lst and the symbol table to _SYM. The only problem I have with gwasl is slightly irritating - if I'm looking at the errors in the _LST file, and I fix the _ASM file, when I try to re-assemble, I just get beeped at. Other than that, I use it for all my assembling - even though I paid for QMAC, QMAC upgrades and QMAKE. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Window Manager 2
On 03/03/11 15:41, Bob Spelten wrote: I will probably dig up my old QL Todays and have another look at it. It should make a lot more sense now. ;) Bob, there's something (fairly large) in your inbox. :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Window Manager 2
On 03/03/11 16:41, Wolfgang Lenerz wrote: Oh waoh, so, to guttenberg (sorry only the german readers will understand that) Norman, that's an increase in readership of 100 % (or is it? If you go from 0 to 1; by how mùany percent have you increased?). Well, work it out 1/0 * 100 = 100/0 = infinity! You can't get any higher than that. You certainly guttenburged me there! Except, another infinity of course . ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] scale and drawing on the QL
On 02/03/11 20:43, Dave Park wrote: I have, a few weeks ago, asked Jan Jones for permission to reprint/reformat it (whatever she agrees to) so a cleaner copy is available to the community than the scan that is generally available... That would be great. I have a really bad scan of this book in PDF format. It's dire. And because the text seems to be dot matrix printed, OCR is hopeless. :-( I had planned - sometime - getting the text out somehow and DocBooking it and from that, I can have PDF, HTML, DOC, DOCX, ODT, etc - all from the same source file. (EPub as well and Man pages if I like!) Obviously the format would change from the current book, but the print would be better and so would the listings etc. However, if anyone extracts the text with a better OCR that I've got (Abbey Fine Reader Pro Version 8 - if I remember correctly!) and is willing to share, I'll do the conversion to DocBook XML. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] scale and drawing on the QL
Morning Tim, I should be able to find it and give it to anyone who is working on making a better copy. It would save them some time. Yes please! Thanks. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] The First Survey - Results!
Morning Geoff, Could you then please put your survey results on your website with a link? Much easier to read that as a poor text file at the end of an email. In all fairness to Dave, he did say that the email was in HTML format and quite large. Unfortunately, it seems that the list prevents HTML postings and has converted it to plain text - with all the attendant formatting troubles and loss of clarity. The QL community is a good deal more conservative that we probably would like to think, Interesting. I wonder if there is a correlation between the lack of internet access on the QL and the seeming lack of interest in getting QL stuff from the internet? Maybe, people using the QL can't be bothered to fire up a laptop or desktop just to get a magazine? Just a random thought. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] The First Survey - Results!
Dave, As I thought, only George and I read my articles on QL Assembly Language! ;-( You read your own articles? Isn't that like laughing at your own jokes? :P But of course. Don't you know that's one way to double my readers! Plus, I get to find all sorts of mistakes that I didn't see when I proof read it! :-( I have never seen a typo in QL Today. But then, the headline on my last copy was Q60 released! There are a few - usually in my own articles. I'm good at whihc and clinet these days! QL Today and Quanta are both in the modern struggle to stay relevant when the internet is a more immediate information source. Maybe. Maybe not. I read plenty of magazines as part of my work life - Linux and Oracle for example - I also use the internet, but much prefer to read paper based magazines. Especially in the bath! They can't get by just by providing news any more. Quanta does have the advantage of being a club and having many other services. QL Today isn't just a news magazine. There are many interesting articles, sometimes even about off topic subjects that may just be relevant, albeit remotely, to QL users. I'd start by putting every past issue of their magazines on their respective websites in a password protected area, and publish the password in the current magazine. Someone scanned in one issue recently - check the list archives - and it came to around 50MB for a text searchable pdf. That was during a long run of emails on why can't we get a pdf copy of QL Today? - which has been covered here, in the magazine and I suspect, there's more to come in the next issue! Also, how about an annual award ceremony for best new h/w, software, utility, lifetime achievement awards - so we can all pat ourselves on the back? *grins* Heck, I might even go to England for that. We can't do that without a snappy name, like the Oscars for example. Suggestions? Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] The First Survey - Results!
Question 14*Can you program in Assembly Language?* Yes 32 44% No 40 56% As I thought, only George and I read my articles on QL Assembly Language! ;-( ... 4340156 do not no, never seen it but people seem to refer to it as ql toady which implies its full of mistakes This is a joke right? Complaining about mistakes with this grammar! ;-) (That was a joke too!) The reason for calling it QL Toady is not because it is full of mistakes, but someone spelt (spelled? Tony which is correct?) it incorrectly once and it stuck as it is somewhat amusing. I can see where this is coming from though, The Guardian often has spelling mistakes and is known as The Gruniard. Mmmm. Very interesting point this person has brought up - should we stop calling it QL Toady? We could be sending out the wrong signals. ... Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] [ql-users] ATX controller...
TF: I don't, but my memory is not what it used to be! Me: How long have you had this problem? TF: What problem? :-) (Sorry!) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Finally a reply
Morning Dilwyn, However, the failure to explain all this publicly and the fact it went on for a long time without explanation does give the impression of negligence in updating the website, whereas the truth is that the whole sorry situation is actually down to the CMS not working as it should on the free server spaces used, making it impossible to provide a decent website while that system is in use. I sneaked a peek at the home page source code. Looks like Quanta are using TYP03 as the CMS (www.typ03.org) which is not one I've heard of in the past, but a qucik web search shows that some pretty big organisations use it - Thomas Cook, Unicef, Lidl etc - so it can't be a problem with the CMS per se. Maybe it's the people using it? Maybe the free hosting company can't cope with the load, who knows. The system itself seems pretty light on resources, so maybe the switch to a paid for host will help. My own website (http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk) - or maybe I should call it George's web site as he is doing most of the updating at the moment (thanks George) - is run on a simple Wiki (www.Dokuwiki.org) which is useful and simple and works pretty well even when broadband is reduced to an 11 mbs (bits not bytes!) wireless connection! (Which is what I have to use at work!). However, I don't think that would be suitable for Quanta. I do think that CMS is the way to go with a enterprise web site these days, it takes far too long and is not really cost effective to be hand coding HTML - even with a WYSISWYG HTML editor - you need to be able to connect, edit, save and disconnect, not messing about with HTML and then trying to FTP the results to the right place etc etc. However, I've been on the site (using the above mentioned wifi link) and it's very responsive, quite fast - and it looks good. So, I'm rather concerned at the fact that you have problems with it when editing or updating - I'm loathe to believe that the free hosting is at fault, unless your bandwidth is throttled somehow and the editing process is hitting a limit? Not much help I know, just random thoughts mainly, and a bit of encouragement. 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
[Ql-Users] 57 images of dismantling a Sinclair ZX-81.
http://www.techrepublic.com/photos/sinclair-zx81-teardown/6196127?tag=nl.e101 Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Ql-Users Digest, Vol 84, Issue 81
Morning Paul, BETTER, one of the kids wet tongue! :-) (Psst, they still remember that little lesson in life) My dad was always messing around with old single cylinder petrol engines, trying to make them work. I used to help him. My main task was to hold onto the bare plug lead wire while he cranked the engine over - to see if it was generating power! I remember that lesson very well - I only did it once! It - the lesson - came in very handy when I was a Honda Motorcycle mechanic (and also as a Yamaha Outboard Motor Mechanic - they weren't called engineers back then!) as I knew to avoid the business end of a plug lead! I think today's kids are far too molly-coddled! No spark in them. (Ha ha!) ;-) -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Spring 2011 QL Survey Website
Simon, Does anyone know the web address to the interesting QL website which you can access after filling out the questionaire? I've tried searching for it and checking out links on other QL websites but can not find it again. Try http://www.nonstickglue.com/QL_Hardware_Library/surveythanks.html. -- 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
[Ql-Users] What the hell happened?
I go to Madrid for 4 days, and when I get back, I have 207 emails, unread, in my QL-Users folder! Been busy around these parts then! I'll catch up later. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Wishlist of future SuperBASIC extensions...
On 11/02/11 15:06, Plastic wrote: I'll match your increments and raise you referenced pointers... I'll 'C' your increments and referenced pointers. In fact, I'll C68 them! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] New QL
Morning Lee, ... so I was unable to try any emulators to see if they would work, has anyone else faired better? I tried. I downloaded the VirtualBox package and imported it as a VM. Starts quickly, can see my hard drive (the VirtualBox one). However, plugging in my USB stick where QPC lives - does something because if the stick is connected to my XP VM that I'm running, I get an error (from VirtualBox). If the stick is not otherwise in use, nothing happens in ReactOS - it doesn't react actually! I can't see the device in explorer or anywhere. I tried setting up a shared folder and restarting the VM. Still unable to see it. So it seems that it can see it's own drive and a CD drive, but nothing else. I'm impressed though, the package manager is how Windows should be! But while I managed to install Firefox 3.6.13 I can't get it to install the flash player - it barfs with an Address Violation with a read of address 0. Dereferencing a NULL pointer perhaps? So progress from 1996 until now (same length of time that I've been married!) is not particularly good. Don't get me wrong, it is great so far, but it seems that if you try and do something too far outside the box, you will fail. I cannot get QPC to run simply because I can't find a way to get the system to recognise any option that I might have for installing it! Shame. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] GWASS is updated
On 09/02/11 16:51, tobias.froesc...@t-online.de wrote: Why can't programmers tell Christmas from Halloween? Because DEC 25 is OCT 31! Oh dear, bad jokes R us! There are 10 types of developer in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] File transfers
Evening, Has anyone solved this problem? Have I missed something in back issues of Quanta Mag or QLT? IF file format = qxl.win AND you run Mac, Linux or Windows AND you got QT Creator from www.trolltech.com AND you have subversion THEN you can click this link: http://qxlwin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/qxlwin/?view=tar to download source code for QXLWin a cross platform that allows you to open a qxl.win file and extract files. Then open the qxlwin.pro file in QT Creator compile. Unfortunately, it only allows you to open read text files, but with a little work, it could be updated (it's on my 'eventaly to do' list) to extract any type of file and save it to local disc. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] SuperBASIC oddities...
On 08/02/11 13:54, gdgqler wrote: Recursion is always fun. I had to look it up in the dictionary, it said: Recursion: see recursion. :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Approaches to parsing in SuperBASIC
On 06/02/11 20:14, Plastic wrote: I don't have anything - restarting from scratch. Jan Jones' SuperBasic book is online at http://www.speccy.org/sinclairql/archivo/docs/books/qlsbtdh.pdf - the quality of the PDF is about as good as the original print run. :-) I bought this book years ago from Quanta, and was completely horrified by the quality of print. Nothing to do with Quanta of course, just a commercial book that looks like it was run off on a dot matrix printer! The download is 2.2 MB, it is not text searchable at all and is pretty cr4p. However, it's better than nothing! Just! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Approaches to parsing in SuperBASIC
Morning all, On 07/02/11 10:34, Dave Walker wrote: Just a suggestion - if you are going to work on producing a better version of the manual then I would suggest that PDF is NOT the best format. It does not tend to display well on modern ereader type devices, and does not support features such as text-flow if font sizes are zoomed. I would suggest that a format such as epub is better, and failing that the standard fall back of word format. It is easy enough to create PDF files from these formats, but going the other way is much harder and sometimes impossible. If you had a book in epub format then a program such as Calibre can easily convert it into HTML suitable for use on a web site. I agree entirely. I use Calibre on my laptop to manage over 350 manuals and books that I need for my work, and I'm adding more almost daily. These are then copied over to my iRiver Story for use at work when I'm away from the laptop. PDF handling on all these gizmos is pretty bad, but I can read ebooks in this format by selecting reflow to convert on the fly to epub. It's not ideal as sometimes diagrams get butchered beyond all possible belief. I create all my own PDFs using Docbook XML and from that I can generate PDF/HTML/WORDML/RTF/EPub/Etc from exactly the same source file. Having said that, my iRiver does have problems with pre formatted text that extends too far right in some of my documents when using the Docbook sources to create ePub files. I can [easily?] fix it by setting better margins I suspect, but I haven't tried yet. It's in my todo list! So, my advice to anyone considering writing documents is simple, do it in Docbook. Do it once and create many different formats. Unfortunately the learning curve is not shallow, but it's not steep either! Have fun. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Approaches to parsing in SuperBASIC
I have already made it a project for the future to re-do the manual, make it into a searchable website, etc. Dilwyn supplies the UserGuide in PDF format on his QL On A Stcik system. It's already searchable. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Approaches to parsing in SuperBASIC
SVG format by any chance? Scales beautifully at [almost] any resolution. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Wondering...
Dave, On 07/02/11 16:56, Plastic wrote: It seems I will have to start saving for a UK spec QL, pronto. Having a real QL to work on is important to me. I might have a spare. No idea what it is like though - I might get a chance to test it tonight. It's been sitting around for a good few years now. I'm not sure if it has microdrives though - I tended to remove them for some unknown reason when I had my Gold card. Would you need the power supply as well? Of so, it will be a b*gg*r to post to wherever you are. Very heavy! I have a feeling the keyboard may be shot though - membrane most likely. However, I'll check and see what's what. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Wondering...
Evening Dave, I've dug out a QL for you, with no microdrives, but it has a network lead, a TV lead and three original feet. You can have it free. If it's ok with you, I'd rather not send the power supply. :-( I've plugged it in to a LCD TV and it works fine, the picture is a bit out of focus (to my eye) and adjusting the fine tuning around channel 36 makes no difference. I suspect the UHF modulator needs a bit of time to warm up perhaps. Drop me a private email to let me know where you want it sending please: Norman (at) dunbar (hyphen) it (dot) co (dot) uk. I've got two more, one with a really bad picture and one that appears to be dead. :-( I'll worry about them some other time. Just discovered, two microdrives are present after all! Thought it was heavier than the others! I have tested all the keys on the keyboard - thay all work fine with and without shift, ctrl and alt. Looks like it's a runner. However, I have to say that it's s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Approaches to parsing in SuperBASIC
Evening Tony, Well http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/ doesn't give the lightest clue as to what platform, and neither does the View all files link. Not a good start. It's ALL platforms. They are all the same. Welcome to my nightmare! That's how I got stuck even before I started. What you get from there is the XSL that validates your XML as being DocBook and allows you, with the suitable use of an XSLT processor, to convert your XML source into PDF/HTML/Whatever. I'll see if I can find some tutorials etc, but the Docbook book from O'Reilly is available on line. http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/docbook.html There is also an online version of the Docbook XSL at the same location. That explains how to modify the Docbook XSl to make it do stuff how you want it to. Might help. Look also for the XML Mind Editor (XME) which comes in two flavours Personal and paid for. Look also the the XSL-FO utility which takes your XML source, an XSL stylesheet and produces whatever you want as output. XME = http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/ with the download at http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/download.shtml XSLFO = http://www.xmlmind.com/foconverter/ with the personal download at http://www.xmlmind.com/foconverter/downloadperso.shtml Both are WIndows or Linux etc. HTH - and happy to answer questions. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] 12th February 2011
PS Purely off topic but I shall expect you all to rush to Derby. Apparently we have come 4th in Lonely Planet's list of the top ten world places you must visit because of the quality of our ales. I have friends in Derby - Willington to be exact. What do I know about Derby? It's where Bass have a factory. The red triangle is their registered trade mark. It, the red triangle, was the very first ever trade mark to be registered. That's about all! Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] IDE versus SD card
Ian, How many erase/re-write cycles is each bit in modern flash memory good for nowadays? SD cards would be great for storing libraries of programs and data that don't change frequently, but what about using them, for example, for frequently changing temporary files generated by running programs (the sort of thing we should probably use RAMdisks for given enough RAM)? Do hard-disks still have the advantage there? A lot of them nowadays have load balancing code in the hardware. If it notices a hot spot, it reorganises the data to avoid that hot spot. Cheaper ones, probably done. I have a 256 Mb From Crucial which I wrote about many years ago in QL Toady - around 2002 or 2003, it still works and is in use daily. I continually read and rewrite it. It is my own QL On a Stick with QPC and two hard drives, plus it contans my subversion repositories for my QL Toady articles, my work on Firebird Database Docs, programming projects and so on. It also gets quite well hammered as a general purpose floppy disc as I copy stuff from my laptop to my desktop using it, and delete the files afterwards. So, buy your cards from a reputable source, pay a little extra for them, and you should be fine. I recommend http://www.crucial.com/uk - service is excellent and quaility is likewise, excellent. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Reality check
By PCs I take it you mean machines running Windows. I access this group but don't use a PC. Likewise, given the definition above. But not the same as you. Guess how. Forbidden fruit is a clue (8-)# Um, is a pineapple? :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QXL.WIN
On 30/01/11 13:04, Dilwyn Jones wrote: Does anyone know if there is a limit on the number of files in a QXL.WIN directory (or the entire QXL.WIN for that matter)? No, not off hand, does http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/doku.php?id=qdosmsq:fs:qlwa help any? Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] GWASL and LIB instruction?
Morning Petri, Ummm how would I calculate an offset to a routine compiled inside this _BIN from the _ASM I'm copying it into? Include the SYM file created when the lib file was assembled. here is an example from a recent article on Easy PEasy (QL Today V15 issue 1): ; ; Pull in the Easy PEasy stuff next - code routines and sprites. ; in win1_ass_pe_peas_sym_lst lib win1_ass_pe_peas_bin in win1_ass_pe_csprc_sym_lst lib win1_ass_pe_csprc_bin The SYM file defines the offsets into the LIB'd file as offsets from the current location. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Help! Reasons for MT.FRJOB Failing
Adrian, This is the code that I'm using at the end of my USB_RD (and USB_WR) job: moveq #mt.frjob,d0 moveq #me,d1 moveq #0,d3 trap#1 ; Remove ourselves! The only problem is that it doesn't work! This reminds me of something I used to do many years ago, and the reason I did it was because i saw it done by someone better than me: kill_memoveq #mt.frjob,d0 moveq #me,d1 moveq #0,d3 trap #1 bra.s kill_me I can't remember if it was Andy Pennell or Adrian Dickens or Chas Dillon. Someone did it though. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Help! Reasons for MT.FRJOB Failing
Hi George, Interesting. I've never to my knowledge needed the final branch in any of my programs. With the branch in, the program is not going to do very much until it eventually decides to stop. Without that anything may presumably occur. I have a funny feeling you called me to task many years ago in QL Toady when I wrote some code with it in! ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] QL On A Stick
Dilwyn, Would anyone be willing and able to help us with this? I'll gladly send a CD copy of the Windows version to anyone willing to help. Bung me over the CD then please and I'll see what works and what doesn't. I have access to XP running in an emulator on this laptop plus OpenSuse 11.2 64 bit, OpenSuse 11.3 32 and 64 bit, OpenSuse 11.4 64 bit, Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 64 bit, Linux Mint 10 64 bit, PCLinuxOS 32 bit as well. I can even, god forbid, install Ubuntu as well - just to make sure I cover the popular versions. Oh, ok, Fedora too then, if I must! :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] What would you most like to see in a new version of QDOSMSQ?
Hi George, Is this because some of the space is taken up with QDOS vectors thus covering up some of the Motorola exception vectors? The solution is to use the VBR to relocate the exception vectors (possible with 68020+). Yes indeed, this is why. However, the solution still doesn't allow everything to be used. Only a number of the exception handlers and the traps from 5 to 15. I was meaning I'd like the standard features of the processor to be completely available in the ideal 680xx OS. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
[Ql-Users] What would you most like to see in a new version of QDOSMSQ?
I may regret starting this, but as the subject says, what would you like to see in QDOSMSQ given that we were starting from scratch with the intention of writing a completely new OS? Disclaimer: No, I'm NOT thinking of writing one! For me, the following: * Ability to hook into the OS from any language, Basic, Assembler, C, whatever. * A windowing system that is simple to use. From any language. * Libraries that applications can link to at run time, as opposed to static linking at compile time. * Multitasking, obviously! * A file system that is not restricted to 36 characters. See http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/2009/05/whats-wrong-with-this-file-system/ for a pseudo-rant on the matter. * Industry standard floating point format. * Industry standard graphics format(s) - PNG, for example. JPG if we must! SVG would be nice. * Speed and efficiency! ;-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] What would you most like to see in a new version of QDOSMSQ?
Hi George, * A windowing system that is simple to use. From any language. This also is true of SMSQE Is it? * Libraries that applications can link to at run time, as opposed to static linking at compile time. How would that work? If I write a program I like to know in advance what it will contain True, but lets say you have a graphics application that needs to display an SVG graphic. Would you write an SVG decoder routine? No, you'd use the one built in to the OS as a library (dll on windows, so (shared object) file in Linux for example). The distributed application would not need to distribute the library as it is there on all computers running the OS in question. Your application is less resource intensive and downloads faster - ok, I realise the Windows apps are still available on two DVDs for an install! There's nothing to stop you statically linking the library to your application, of course, that way you know that the version you wrote it to work with is always available regardless of what version of the OS or library in question is built in to the customer's computer. * A file system that is not restricted to 36 characters. See http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/2009/05/whats-wrong-with-this-file-system/ for a pseudo-rant on the matter. Well - that's not in SMSQE. I know! ;-) * Industry standard graphics format(s) - PNG, for example. JPG if we must! SVG would be nice. Photon displays JPEG on a QL Yes, photon does. But does anything else which has not been especially written to do so? Nope. So, this belongs in a graphics layer on top of (perhaps?) the OS. So, presumably, SMSQE is more than half way there? I think you may have taken me up wrong. I'm not complaining that QDOSMSQ is not good enough, I was asking what we would like to see in an ideal OS. SMSQ is pretty well there, I disagree that the windowing system is easy to code - the more I look into it for QL Toady, the more I find myself wondering why TT wrote stuff the way he did. Until I finally decoded EasyPTR3 many years ago, I had great difficulties getting anything pointer driven to work. It's only now I'm even attempting to look at it (the PE) from an assembly viewpoint! SMSQ has lots of colours now and bigger screen resolution etc which is a great improvement over the old days of 512*256 and 8 colours, but that was 1984. The sound system is still pretty lacking though Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] What would you most like to see in a new version of QDOSMSQ?
On 27/01/11 15:48, gdgqler wrote: Of course. but why at runtime? Code reuse and/or share-ability. If you have 10 applications running and each one needs the same library code, isn't it much better to have one copy used by all, rather than running the system with 10 copies of the same code? That way, the space hogged by the 9 duplicates can be used to run another application? It seems dangerous to me to rely on a routine which might have changed since the last time you looked at it. How can you know that the next time your program runs it won't produce different or faulty results because the DLL now contains something different? Works fine for Linux, HP-UX, Windows etc! The usual (Unix) case is that when version 6 of a library comes out, a link to the new *.so file is created, and you get an *.so.6 created. This is what your program is looking for. Other programs may be looking for *.so.5 = so they find that their link, created when release 5 went in, is still pointing at the *.so file, even though it is now the *.so from release 6. The versions are backwards compatible in that features in .5 are still there in .6. Easy. On QDOSMSQ the similar thing would be things I suspect, They are shared - the Menu Thing that Jochen produces is shared and usable by all sorts of programs, and only one version has to be in RAM at the time. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] What would you most like to see in a new version ofQDOSMSQ?
Hi Ralf, Would be better as a kind of THG% in the system. I see you beat me to it! However, that is in the existing QDOSMSQ system. A brand new one may decide to implement the JPEG Thing differently, perhaps. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] What would you most like to see in a new version of QDOSMSQ?
One thing I would like to see in SMSQ is the correct MC680xx vector table at the start of the OS. :-) -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Programming project request...
Morning Dave, My real heart's desire is, ironically, a hardware/software project, to put together a package of an ARM-based embedded computer with Linux, booting right into uQLx, so that it is basically a QL. Getting it so it can fit inside a QL case with PSU and a couple of laptop SATA HDs or compact flash cards Far too costly - it will cost you and 'ARM' and a leg. ;-) (Sorry, couldn't resist!) -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] Programming project request...
Hi Tony, ... I said That must have cost you an arm and a leg - innocently I assure you. He had physical problems and very little use of his arms and hands. Oh dear! I used to have an expression for my unwillingness to carry out a requested task, or whatever. I used to reply I'd rather stick my arm in a mincer!. I used it for many years, possibly irritating many people as I did so. One day a new girl started at work in my office. I was just about to use the expression, in her presence, when I noticed that she had an artificial arm! I stopped using that expression there and then! :-) Cheers, Norman. -- 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
Re: [Ql-Users] WMAN queries
Hi George, I simply use QMON. Putting a break point at ahit0... Very wise, that's what I did. Interesting results. Starting the program and pressing TAB to activate the application sub-window gives two hits. On entry to the first hit, I see the pointer position in D1, the keystroke in D2 as -1 (external keystroke), the event in D4 as 0. D6 is also 0. Giving QMON a go command, I immediately get a second hit. This time, D1 has changed to new pointer position, D2 is 0, D4 is still zero and D6 is $80. So, for the TAB key, I see the pointer position changing, a mystery value in D6 and the keystroke conges too. Nothing else. D4 never indicates an event but the docs say PT__DO or PT__CANCEL only, or zero. Without moving the pointer, I now press F1 and get a break. This time D1 is unchanged (as expected) D2 is zero as is D4 and D6. Giving QMON a go results in an immediate hit with the only change being D6 now set to $80. For my own curiosity, I tried a SPACE. This time I got a hit with D2 = 1 (as expected) and D4 D6 = 0. With an ENTER I get D2 = 2 (as expected) and D6=0 but D4 is now = $10 for PT_DO, the event number. And finally, I tried ESC. Nothing happened. However, as I have a loose item with ESC as the selection key, I put a break on the afun0_0 code and it was catching the ESC event before the application sub-window. The pointer position was interesting. It appears to be (as documented) the absolute position relative to the start of the screen (0,0) and not the application sub-window, however, I was emulation with a window dimension of 1024 by 768 and was able to get a pointer position of 3936,658 and 3872,649 - which is interesting to say the least! So, for the double hit with the TAB key i *think* what I'm seeing is : Hit 1: External keystroke detected. Window is activated causing a hit. Pointer pos is where it was on screen when TAB key pressed. Hit 2: Pointer has changed position within the application sub-window causing another hit. Pointer jumps from where it was when TAB pressed to where it is defaulted to be in the window on activation. For the F1 double hit, I have no idea at all! There are no keystokes, no changes of pointer position and no events, as such, as the PT__HELP event expected by F1 is handled by WMAN and never gets to the application sub-window hit routine in D4. I don't intent to spend much more time on this foible. :-) Thanks for your help/input. Cheers, Norman. -- 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
