Re: [ql-users] EasyPtr
Dilwyn Jones writes: >Bad day? Bad week? Bad month? YOU BET THANKS TO > ** WINDOWS! If QL <> > Sorry to bring peezee rubbish onto this list guys, I had to get this > off my chest before I explode. I have now worked in three places with My deepest commiserations! When our cool, phlegmatic ST Dilwyn starts using lots of asterisks and exclamation marks you know it must be real serious! Better call in the bomb disposal guys before the bang devastates large swaths of south-western UK. Dilwyn, what I often find quite effective in such situations is to inject 60cc of concentrated Prozac straight into the cerebellum and lie down in a darkened room to the soothing sound of whirring microdrives. The mantra GATE-SKILL (a meaningless phrase) muttered repeatedly under ones breath also helps to relieve tension in extreme cases. (However, it is normally a good idea to switch the latter off before resuming normal activities as a malignant interpretation of it might get you into trouble with the Terrorism Act.) All the best, Per PS: THIS ADVICE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, LIFE, LIMB OR SANITY, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS ADVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE
Mike MacNamara writes: > I almost agree Tony, I think RomDisq is great, BUT, I can > remember phoning you to find out if I could recover my files > after I had tried many times without success, but then succeeded, > in crashing the Romdisq.. After reloading its 'works', it of > course was blank, and again no keyboard to rectify things with. > The simple answer is of course to have a backup on an ED or > several HD disks, not on a HDD because you can't get back into > that having lost the boot and OS and keyboard driver. I think > I'll go along with the albeit slightly slower Eprom solution, but > much safer, and far less stress The answer here is the one youd use with any OS: An Emergency Boot Disk (floppy or CD). Stick a big red lable on it and put it in your EBD box. No fumbling in the dark anymore.. Per
Re: [ql-users] EasyPtr
> If you like you can still send the articles to me and I can have a look at > them. However the next two to three weeks are fully booked getting my new > Just Words! program, AUTO-GRAPH ready. This is because of the need to meet > advertising and copy deadlines so that I can finally put Dilwyn out of his > misery. Poor fellow probably has nightmares of my "quiet smile". (Sorry > Dilwyn, but I am always careful of you media hacks, ever since Melanie > Phillips, yes she of the Daily Mail, twice quoted me when she was a young > reporter on New Society. My fault, I shouldn't have made cynical comments to > put her off the scent!) ;-) Actually, I may well be a dead man by tomorrow night so your worries may not come to anything. Our IT chaps at work have decided to reflash a software upgrade overnight tonight. Last time they did this, it knocked out 60% of the hospital bedside TVs by the following morning and another 20% developed problems immediately afterwards like remote controllers not responding which are still being sorted several days later not being recognised and our life was HELL for days. I have never seen ill patients become so angry. And our oh so clever IT people (based in England) have decided to do this a few hours before the bloody world cup match in the morning so I expect we'll be butchered at work tomorrow when reflashed Windows CE doesn't work like the last time. All right for bloody IT guys in an office hundreds of miles away to decide to do this. Sorry all the 'IT' people on this list, I've become very very disillusioned with our IT people and software and technology which is so atrociously unreliable in hospital environments of all places that at the moment my only urge is to find an IT person and ceremoniously set fire to him/her after mercilessly torturing him/her (give them a QL and watch their frustration when they can't get it to crash every 30 seconds like what they're used to) and then rounding up every PC I can find and make a massive bonfire out of them all. Bad day? Bad week? Bad month? YOU BET THANKS TO ** WINDOWS! If QL Today is late next time, yes it was my fault because I had no patience left with computers after the total fiasco at work, so sorry Geoff, in the great scheme of problems I have at the moment, I am not exactly worrying about what you have up your sleeve! Sorry to bring peezee rubbish onto this list guys, I had to get this off my chest before I explode. I have now worked in three places with totally unfit Windows based software which ought to carry a prominent health warning like tobacco products. Using a QL by comparison is so relaxing it takes my mind off problems (when I get time to use a QL at the moment). -- Dilwyn Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soft.net.uk/dj/index.html
Re: [ql-users] EasyPtr
> I personally haven't heard anything - but then again, I beleieve we need > someone who *understands* all the PE stuff - which I certainly don't. Maybe > we need a PE programming guide for assembly freaks in QL Toady > (And I won't be writing it, I don't have a clue about assembly, I mean PE in > assembly !) He he, I remember your screams of pain when you were trying to learn "Difficult-PTR" originally, wouldn't want to inflict that on you again Norman! -- Dilwyn Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soft.net.uk/dj/index.html
[ql-users] TPTR & CPTR
I am updating my site [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a CPTR version of Hello World, which I hope will help us lesser mortals to write CPTR programs in C. CPTR also has available (but not issued yet) the facility for help windpws to pop up over loose items like other GUI interfaces. There is also an article on how to write a TPTR Hello World Program as well. George and I would like to encourage you programmers to download the extensions and try them out so we get some feedback on what is required. It should be possible to write a IDE using either TPTR or CPTR for either suite but that would be a consorted effort by a group of people. I do not think George would be interested because he can do anything he wants with the present tools and I have not cot the inside knowledge.
[ql-users] SMSQ/E License
All your problems would be solved if you use the LGPL license, if the soure and code is going to be free. Anybody would be able to sell comercial programs using the updated SMSQ/E code. Official versions would still have to be ratified by the appropiate person.
Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE
- Original Message - From: "Tony Firshman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 6:04 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE > > On Thu, 20 Jun 2002 at 12:38:59, Mike MacNamara wrote: > (ref: <00ab01c2184f$12b9e190$c272893e@macnamarxmjd3y>) > > > > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > >www.macnamaras.com > >- Original Message - > >From: "Jochen Merz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 11:39 AM > >Subject: Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE > > > >Thanks Jochen, if you load 'new' code into ram rather than 'old' > >code then lrespr an 'updated' code over it, surely that takes > >longer? One of my biggest problems with QLs, as they used > >Superhermes, was Lrespr'ing the Superhermes code in before a > >keyboard would work. Any problems with disks or programs( > >corrupted/deleted boots) caused a lock out. What a hassle to > >make a boot disk(if I could find a S/Hermes disk) to try and get > >back in, > The perfect solution to this is to put the sH code in as a 'romn' file > on RomDisq - and it is then loaded before the BOOT program. > > that is until SMSQ/E came with the Superhermes code > >already installed (thanks Roy), If I 'lost' the OS in the same > >way it would be a real drag. Surely better with 'new' code on > >eprom, where it is reasonably safe? > but slower. > I would go for speed any time. The time and ram involved is small. I almost agree Tony, I think RomDisq is great, BUT, I can remember phoning you to find out if I could recover my files after I had tried many times without success, but then succeeded, in crashing the Romdisq.. After reloading its 'works', it of course was blank, and again no keyboard to rectify things with. The simple answer is of course to have a backup on an ED or several HD disks, not on a HDD because you can't get back into that having lost the boot and OS and keyboard driver. I think I'll go along with the albeit slightly slower Eprom solution, but much safer, and far less stress regards Mike. > > -- > Tony Firshman > >
Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE
Jochen wrote: >Loading the OS from (slow access) EPROM to (fast access) RAM >is of benefit. Yep, and it takes just a memory copy from ROM to RAM, which the OS can apply to itself at startup. BTW the Q60 with its 32 bit wide ROM bus isn't much slower than RAM. >SMSQ/E is so small, that the speed you gain >will outweight the memory loss easily. That was done on other >systems to gain speed. The "old" code is erased anyway, so does >not take up any additional RAM. Problem is boot speed if upgrade is on (hard)disk instead of ROM. If you load the new OS from disk, using an older version of the OS, you always need to boot the whole OS twice. This would happen on Qxx if upgrades come only on (hard)disk. On the other hand, SMSQ/E could be (almost) as fast as a simple loader. AFAIK it just wastes time with ineffient hardware initialization. Peter
Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE
On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, Tony Firshman wrote: > I would go for speed any time. The time and ram involved is small. This raises an interesting question, and I'd like to just play this out so people can see why I think it is interesting. The QL and etc had the OS in ROM, and it was unlikely to be superceded. It was loaded directly, and executed in situ. The upgrade/expansions would copy the OS from (EP)ROM into RAM, then execute it there. I believe the Q60 is like this too. The Goldfire will have the OS in flash, and while using the same system, at least if the OS is updated, the image that is loaded can be the current one in all cases, and not 'load the default OS, then run a boot file and load the current OS' I therefore propose that an early objective of the SMSQ open development team should be to create a bootloader version of SMSQ that only includes the code necessary to access the desired storage device, and copy the OS image into RAM, so a whole copy of SMSQ need not be committed to ROM or flash. Obviously, this should have some degree of configurability, so the actual OS image could be copied from a floppy/HD or flash, as applicable. If it contained some code that would allow selection from multiple OS images (eg: hold down F5 and it pops up a list of available OS versions for you to select from) that might be very powerful and helpful too, and also give some safety element in the event of a failed OS upgrade. What do you think? How could the idea of loading an OS be made consistent across platforms, and is the benefit sufficiently worth it? Dave
Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE
On Thu, 20 Jun 2002 at 11:29:11, Mike MacNamara wrote: (ref: <009901c21845$52631370$c272893e@macnamarxmjd3y>) > >- >From: "Roy Wood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 12:03 AM >Subject: Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE > > >> >> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard >> Zidlicky<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >writes >> >> >Absolutely not. If you are building hardware you can't simply >provide >> >the user with an official SMSQ version in EPROM and a patch on >a floppy >> >disk and expect him to apply the patch to the EPROM. >> No need. All versions of SMSQ/E for the Qxx (which is what we >are >> talking about here - possibly the GoldFire later but that will >have >> flash ROM) are LRESPR'able over the source code on the ROM. >That is what >> I do because I have an early version of the ROM. >Whets the point in having an EPROM if you have to LRESPR on >patches and extensions, apart from the waste of memory and >loading time, altering boots, etc. Who wants old code lying about >when they can have good clean updates instead, not me for sure. It is not a patch but the whole operating system. It is the way I do it, as the OS runs faster from RAM. -- Tony Firshman
Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE
On Thu, 20 Jun 2002 at 12:38:59, Mike MacNamara wrote: (ref: <00ab01c2184f$12b9e190$c272893e@macnamarxmjd3y>) > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >www.macnamaras.com >- Original Message - >From: "Jochen Merz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 11:39 AM >Subject: Re: [ql-users] This is the LICENCE > > >> >> >> > Whets the point in having an EPROM if you have to LRESPR on >> > patches and extensions, apart from the waste of memory and >> > loading time, altering boots, etc. Who wants old code lying >about >> > when they can have good clean updates instead, not me for >sure. >> >> Loading the OS from (slow access) EPROM to (fast access) RAM >> is of benefit. SMSQ/E is so small, that the speed you gain >> will outweigh the memory loss easily. That was done on other >> systems to gain speed. The "old" code is erased anyway, so does >> not take up any additional RAM. > >Thanks Jochen, if you load 'new' code into ram rather than 'old' >code then lrespr an 'updated' code over it, surely that takes >longer? One of my biggest problems with QLs, as they used >Superhermes, was Lrespr'ing the Superhermes code in before a >keyboard would work. Any problems with disks or programs( >corrupted/deleted boots) caused a lock out. What a hassle to >make a boot disk(if I could find a S/Hermes disk) to try and get >back in, The perfect solution to this is to put the sH code in as a 'romn' file on RomDisq - and it is then loaded before the BOOT program. > that is until SMSQ/E came with the Superhermes code >already installed (thanks Roy), If I 'lost' the OS in the same >way it would be a real drag. Surely better with 'new' code on >eprom, where it is reasonably safe? but slower. I would go for speed any time. The time and ram involved is small. -- Tony Firshman
