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.
Download from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/games/index.html
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.
This is a version of the Qubide card, based on the original design from Jan Polenicek – see http://hardware.speccy.org/temp/qubide-i.html
Polish Qubide clone (picture from SellMyRetro.com)
The interface includes an IDE hard disk connector and 512K of RAM expansion. There is no through connector for other interfaces.
This Qubide costs £60 plus shipping costs and may be ordered online through SellMyRetro.com
http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/qubide-interface-for-sinclair-ql-21804
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.
Follow his progress on the thread ‘QL Zip Port of Infozip v19’ on QL Forum http://www.qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1704
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.
Peter Sulzer writes:
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
http://peter-sulzer.bplaced.net/htdocs/downloadInc.php#charConvert
Screenshots of all my programs can be found on the “Startseite” (http://peter-sulzer.bplaced.net), example:
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.
Norman Dunbar writes:
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.
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/SBASIC_reference_manual_online/
SuperBASIC Online Manual
In the last issue we mentioned that Simone Voltolini has been busy setting up a bulletin board system reachable via Telnet or via QTPI on the QL (with TCP/SER support on a PC and a serial cable).
Simone quickly added:
The official e-mail of the BBS is active and can send and receive:
outsoft@retrobbs.sinclair.homepc.it
Further updates on 4th November:
And again on 19th November:
Other interesting features are in development.
You connect with the Linux terminal or Mac via telnet or via the web directly clickando the link http://telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/sinclair-retro-bbs/
With Windows, you can download TeraTerm which is a great free terminal and log on by typing the address and selecting the standard Telnet port 23 connection.
For connecting to it directly via a Sinclair machine please watch Simone Voltolini’s video here (in Italian for now):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvgtBJeej9M
Jan Bredenbeek has updated his QLTERM program to make it possible to connect from a QL using a terminal application via a serial port to another machine: https://files.bredenbeek.net/s/hbqfO4RAV38nvRI
A survey of Italian QL users found that:
By analyzing the answers it was found that the “average Italian QL user” has had (and still has) more than 2 QLs and only one-third of the sample had a single QL. As their preferred emulator, QPC and Qemulator are head-to-head, with little more than 10% using Qlay. Other emulators are just unused.
As for the additional devices, no QL user has ever maintained his computer in its basic version. Therefore, the “average configuration” is as follows: QL with Minerva ROM, Qubide, Gold Card and Trump Card.
Also interesting is to note that the QL or its emulator are mainly used almost daily or monthly, and users programmed in Superbasic in the past even if there is more than a third of them who still works on the code today.
Finally Black Phoenix is considered an interesting system, but it’s not used by the most because it does not replace a normal PC. A third of users utilize it as an alternative to PCs for personal data while another third is not interested in the project.
To help any new Italian QL users, Davide Santachiara compiled this little list of online QL facilities in Italy.
There is an Italian mailing list. To subscribe just send an email to sinclair-italy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Quantum technology web site: http://www.hunggartorino.it/ql/language/it/
Ergon Development web site: http://www.sinclairql.it