A small demonstration program written in BASIC for users of QubATA to explore the content of an ISO9660 CD and copy selected files to a QDOS destination device such as RAM1_. The program is based on something supplied with QCDEZE, modified to show how direct raw sector access works with the QubATA driver. It should work on both QDOS and SMSQ/E systems with the QubATA driver installed. Requires Toolkit 2, Menu_Rext and obviously a CD-ROM drive connected to QubIDE. You have to set suitable parameters (CD device number and destination for copy) at the beginning before starting.
This is a complete new driver from Alain Haoui for QUBIDE cards fitted with the version 2 GAL chip upgrade.
QubATA can be installed in a ROM on the QUBIDE card, or LRESPRed into RAM as a _rext file. Both versions are included in the distribution.
This is v3.06, and includes a new manual as a PDF file.
Screen shot of QubATA driver starting up
Several new and enhanced commands are inluded.
Fast device detection, up to 16×2 devices (with Expander), full compliance with ATA/ATAPI-4 protocol and removable media support, full Trashcan and associated utilities, enhanced direct raw access and “alien” devices support.
There is also CD Data support and Audio playing set of commands (largely compatible with those in QPC2 – audio is played via the CD drive panel), optimised and working slave blocks buffering with various sizes (up to 64 sectors per block) without side effects.
Includes a simple CD player program written in BASIC, along the lines of that supplied with QPC2.
Full unsigned arithmetic allowing big partitions/files up to 2GBytes, the largest for the QDOS FS with this driver.
Screen dump showing a 2GB win3_ !
IMPORTANT: QubATA only works on QUBIDE cards with v2 GAL chips. Also, not yet fully tested on the newer integrated QUBIDEs.
Download it from the QL ROMs page http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/qlrom/index.html#Qubide on my website (note: 946KB download)
Original QUBIDE, with the Q-Branch version 2 GAL chips and v2.01 EPROM
The first question is likely to be “How can I ensure my QUBIDE is compatible with this?”
Firstly, check the version number of your existing QUBIDE software – it’s displayed as the QUBIDE drivers start up. If this is V2.00 or later, it’s likely that your QUBIDE will be compatible since the v2.xx software needs the upgraded GAL chips.
If the QUBIDE has v1.xx software it’s likely it might not work with QubATA software since that relies on the presence of the upgraded GAL chips. On an original version 1 QUBIDE, these were simply labelled GAL1 and GAL2 (see the photo), on a version 2 QUBIDE, they may be labelled GAL1A and GAL1B.
For newer QUBIDEs such as those from José Leandro, or Zaxon in Poland (available through SellMyRetro.com), or the Russian Trump Card clone with integrated QUBIDE, you would be better advised ot contact the supplier to ask what version they supply. Alan Haoui has been able to get QubATA working with a prototype of the Russian Trump Card with QUBIDE, but it may still be worth checking with the supplier.
One way of testing is to start the QUBIDE with its on-board software, then once you have booted up, try to LRESPR the QubATA software:
LRESPR dddn_QATA306b_rext
dddn_ might be flp1_ or win1_ (wherever you saved this file). The filename may vary depending on which version you use. Always try this with the version with filename ending with _rext. The version with filename ending in _rom is designed to be burned into an EPROM and plugged into the EPROM socket on the QUBIDE. The _rom version won’t work if you LRESPR it.
Alain says that this will do no harm on QUBIDEs which have older software. You need to watch the message as the software starts up. It unlinks the original QUBIDE software (don’t worry, the link is restored next time you swithc on the QL/QUBIDE) and if it fails to work with your system there will simply be an error message.
We are seeking to locate the code necessary to produce further runs of the QUBIDE upgrade chipset, plus of course permission from the original developers Nasta and Phil Borman to make these available.
A new version of the Jeu d’Adventure, an English translation of a French adventure game is now available, which can run on an SBASIC system. Improved by Derek Stewart, this version needs Toolkit 2. Derek has fixed a couple of little errors and added a help and quit option. Both the updated version and original version (with two little corrections) are in this zip file, while the original Advent.zip will remain on the site for posterity.
Urs König gave us an update on the status of the QDT QL desktop software from Jim Hunkins.
“I followed the development of QDT very closely, from early alphas until release. Met Jim a few times in the US and Canada at and around QL shows (1995, 2002, 2004, 2006). See Shows folder in the Sinclair QL Picture Gallery (SQPG) either online or on THE DISTRIBUTION (folder THE_DISTRIBUTION\pic\Shows\…). BTW: One of my 1st videos on my YouTube channel is about QDT.
QDT (Apple Mac OS X Aqua cousin) demo at 2002 US QL show
Last commercial version of QDT was 1.02, released in 2006 (months before the Niagara Fall QL show). There is a notation of letters to identify the type of release (r=full, u=update, d=demo). Demo versions did not have the full functionality and were distributed through various channels (version 0.62d on the QL Today Cover Disk 14, Volume 9 Issue 4 , Nov/Dec 2004; version 1.00d online in January 2005).
I approached Jim by email in December 2013 during my preparations for the “QL IS 30” activities (THE DISTRIBUTION, QL/E re-release, etc.) and asked him to release QDT as freeware or even public domain. On January 2nd 2014, after some back and forth where we also had Jochen in the loop, Jim agreed to declare QDT freeware and more importantly started to prepare an updated version 1.10r (Full release) based on version 1.02r. It started a back and forth development and test period where I’ve spent hours if not days testing QDT and reviewing the documentation until on February 7th 2014 the full package was ready for release, inclusion in THE DISTRIBUTION, re-distribution, and integration into QL/E.
The full package of the latest QDT version 1.10r can be found on THE DISTRIBUTION (folder THE_DISTRIBUTION\xcl\qdt\). Or you can enjoy QDT installed and pre-configured on QL/E and Black Phoenix.
I’m still in contact with Jim (yes, he replies to me), who is a very talented and dedicated engineer working at AMD. There might come something related to QDT in the (near) future. Please be patient and do not push. It is not helping to put pressure on him.
To sum up: Yes, QDT is freeware now (since 2014) and yes, it’s the most recent and full version which became freeware.”
Tetroid in Russia has developed a new interface combining his existing Trump Card clone with a Qubide clone to provide an all in one memory/disk/compact flash card interface with Toolkit II on board.
The card has an IDE hard disk connector and a Compact Flash memory card connector. It comes with 768K add-on RAM, like a Trump Card. In fact, the developer says it has 1MB RAM on board but only 768K of this is usable, making a total of 896K RAM like a Trump Card. The addressing space and memory map of the QL’s 68008 design imposes this limit.
Prototype boards have been sent out to users to beta-test and will in due course be made available via SellMyRetro.com.
Developer Tetroid is on QL Forum under that name, so questions about this interface may be directed to him via QL Forum.
Tetroid’s new Trump Card clone with Qubide on board
In the meantime, the original Trump Card clone is still available through SellMyRetro.com at http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/sinclair-ql-ram-expansion-and-floppy-disk-interface-10861 for $106.99 plus shipping costs.
Polish developer Zaxon, who has produced a range of SD card interfaces and sound interfaces for the Spectrum and other computers, has released his first QL interface.
Tomas Kral has ported an early version of Zip to QL using the qdos-gcc compiler, the idea being to learn, improve and have fun with C coding. Tomas says that this version needs less memory and does not support level 2 directories and is generally better suited to bare QLs with minimal expanded memory. He says it’s not intended to replace the existing work of Jonathan Hudson.
A Windows program from Norman Dunbar to examine the internals of a QDOS Archive file. Originally written to help Norman to track down just how corrupted an Archive database file of his was.
Norman has included the source code on GitHub. It’s written in C++ and he has included a link to download the free Borland C++ compiler version 10.1
Norman has also included information on the Archive data file and header formats, intended to supplement and replace some out of date Archive file format information on other websites.
I have written a character conversion Application for windows, which can convert single chars to any substitution.
I have written it for my homepage, to translate all German Umlauts to html escape sequences (e. g. ‘ä’ to “ä”), but if you edit the *.ini-File, this program can also be used, to convert from QL character set to the ANSI character set of windows. It can convert a lot of different characters in one “run” (there is a table, where you can add substitutions, or add them to the *.ini-file).
It is a program with GUI (a WPF application), the working routine runs as a separate thread (doesn’t block the UI) and it can substitute whole directories (unfortunately it currently doesn’t recurse into subdirectories).
If anyone wants to test it, there is a preliminary download for QL users
There is one self extracting RAR-archive for the executable and a ZIP-archive with the source (published under the GNU GPL V1 or newer). The *.exe and *.ini file in the source archive can be found in subdirectory charConvert/bin/debug. You must also copy the subdirectory “de-DE” below the directory where charConvert.exe is stored if you want to get the German version (default is English).
The program should be pretty self explanatory. The *.ini file must be in the same directory as the *.exe. WARNING: There are file managers for Windows (e. g. Q-Dir) which don’t pass the program directory to the program. Then the *.ini file cannot be loaded. The normal Windows File manager does it correctly.
I’ve done some more work on the SuperBasic Online Manual. Some of the introductory chapters and appendices had formatting errors in that lines of code were rendering as plain text. These have been fixed.
I also took the liberty of adding DJToolkit version 1.16, the latest version, to the manual. Well, if I can’t blow my own trumpet …..
As usual, the build is automatic and there is html, pdf and epub files to download if you want your own local copy.
