QL Games Cartridge

The original QL games Microdrive cartridge supplied with the QL has been available from the Games page on my website for a while now.  It includes the games Pirate, Zfred, Gun, Breakout and Hunt (Treasure Hunt).

Sadly, it turns out it was partly broken all along. If you downloaded this before 27th March 2014 you may find it does not work due to a missing file called ‘mc’ which caused the Breakout game to fail, so you should download the amended version now on the website.

The problem areas have  been rectified and/or improved by Rich Mellor, many  thanks Rich. This now needs Toolkit II to get the Zfred game to work on more  than a standard 128K RAM QL. Rich has also added a MODE 8 command at the  start of the Treasure Hunt game to improve the look of the display when it is first run and supplied the ‘mc’ file which was missing from the earlier version.

I’ve also added a scanned PDF of the original 2-page instructions letter sent out by Sinclair with the QL Games Cartridge.

Download both from the Games page on my website:

http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/games/index.html

SMSQ/E Manual

A new version of the complete SMSQ/E manual is now available. I have been fortunate to have the original Text 87 files from Jochen Merz, who kindly gave me permission to make use of them to produce and release the new version of the manuals.

What I wanted to do was to bring them up to date, as the paper copies I had were from some time ago. Even the documents I got from Jochen did not include mention of some of the more recent keywords and facilities added to SMSQ/E, for example, there was little or no mention of the Home Thing facility.

Fortunately, the SMSQ/E Registrar Wolfgang Lenerz has ensured that some documentation updates were available in the SMSQ/E source files which could be downloaded from his website at http://www.wlenerz.com/smsqe/  so between those notes and looking at the sources I was able to enhance and update the manual.

This version is an all-in-one manual. It includes the supplements for the various hardware platforms (QL, QXL, QPC, Q40/Q60 and Atari emulator, though not yet SMSQmulator). The hope is that the SMSQ/E Registrar can make this manual available via his SMSQ/E site to ensure it’s kept up to date as SMSQ/E evolves in the future.

The 108 A4 page manual (and an A5 version) is available to download in PDF, ePub, Mobi and azw3 (Kindle) eBook formats from my QL eBooks page at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/ebooks/index.html

SMSQ/E v3.20

Wolfgang Lenerz has announced that version 3.20 of SMSQ/E is now out. This is mainly a bug fix release, curing a problem which might arise when trying to write to a read-only file if a single byte is sent to a DV3 channel. It also adds (to SMSQmulator only) a Java-based timer function (see above).

Other recent changes have included the integration of QPC-specific code, a facility to have different text sizes (different CSIZEs) in application windows, window move with transparency facility and the code base now includes the Gold Card drivers for the 256 colour (Aurora-style) colour mode, which is now available in QPC2 and SMSQmulator in addition to Aurora with Super Gold Card.

The binaries of all official versions of SMSQ/E (Gold Card, Q40, QPC, QXL, Atari and SMSQmulator) can be downloaded from the SMSQ/E Registrar’s site at http://www.wlenerz.com/smsqe/

SMSQ/E website logo

 

The QemuLator versions of SMSQ/E are not integrated with the general SMSQ/E versions – two versions (which are a few versions behind what is available from Wolfgang’s site) are available for use with QemuLator’s Aurora and Q60 compatible ‘display card’ modes only from Daniele Terdina’s website at http://www.terdina.net/ql/software.html

SMSQmulator v1.27

Wolfgang Lenerz has announced that version 1.27 of the Java-based emulator is available to download free from his website at http://www.wlenerz.com/SMSQmulator/

It now is possible to configure it so that it doesn’t use much CPU time when the machine is idle. Changes to this only take effect after the next reset. Please read the manual section in this respect.

Other recent updates to the emulator include:

  • Also now has Aurora compatible screen mode.
  • SHIFT ESC now makes a copyright symbol.
  • MEM device for using QXL.WIN from RAM when SMSQmulator is run as an embedded applet from a website.
  • Millisecond timer using Java keywords JTMRSET and JTMRGET.
  • Sound device added in v1.23, meaning you can now use _ub (unsigned byte) sound files merely by COPYing them to the SOUND device, e.g. COPY test_ub TO SOUND. The SOUND device is largely compatible with Simon Goodwin’s SOUND driver for other systems.
Screen shot of the software supplied with SMSQmulator

The Software Supplied With SMSQmulator

SMSQmulator Update

Wolfgang Lenerz has announced that version 1.27 of the Java-based emulator is available to download free from his website at http://www.wlenerz.com/SMSQmulator/

It now is possible to configure it so that it doesn’t use much CPU time when the machine is idle. Changes to this only take effect after the next reset. Please read the manual section in this respect.

Other recent updates to the emulator include:

Also now has Aurora compatible screen mode.

  • SHIFT ESC now makes a copyright symbol.
  • MEM device for using QXL.WIN from RAM when SMSQmulator is run as an embedded applet from a website.
  • Millisecond timer using Java keywords JTMRSET and JTMRGET.
  • Sound device added in v1.23, meaning you can now use _ub (unsigned byte) sound files merely by COPYing them to the SOUND device, e.g. COPY test_ub TO SOUND. The SOUND device is largely compatible with Simon Goodwin’s SOUND driver for other systems.

QPC2 v4.02

QPC2 v4.02 has just been released. I have only recently converted to Windows 7 and found that the SMSQ/E soft reset using CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+TAB didn’t work anymore as Windows now uses CTRL+ALT+TAB for one of its many task switchers (ignoring the SHIFT key). It wasn’t exactly easy, but I finally found a workaround for this.

Also, QPC_VER$ was broken on QPC2v4.

Includes SMSQ/E v3.19 with fixed appsup-window support.

Also, there is a new qpcdemo.win with updated software on it. Plus it now includes QPAC2, as every proper system should have that!

SMSQ/E v. 3.19 is out.

This contains Marcel’s bugfix for the csize in appsub windows. This is also and foremost the first version on my stite that also incorporates the QPC specific sources allowing you to compile SMSQE for QPC. The “binaries” file already contains an SMSQ/E v.3.19 file for QPC.

QL Dust Covers

Daniel Rigley (Riggz) at World of Spectrum has been making Spectrum dust covers. Following a request from Peter Scott at Ql Forum, they can now make QL dust covers too.  They said: “We can make these with or without the flaps. I reckon with flaps £15 and without £12 +£1 UK postage and £3 E.U. Anyone can email me at riggz101@yahoo.co.uk. They just have to state (QL cover) in the title.”

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46268

Farmer by Talent, Re-released by RWAP

We have now managed to resurrect yet another former Talent title – FARMER written by J.K. of Finland (would love to know who that was!)

Farmer is a platform game where you play the role of a Farmer who needs to harvest the tomatoes, bananas and pears from your fields.

Whoever said that farming was easy – as well as the usual fear over crop yields and pricing, this year has been unusual.

Not only did your somewhat eccentric uncle leave you a farm where the fields are not joined together, where you have to jump between them or risk the danger of falling down holes between the fields, but the farm appears to have come with its own infestation of monsters whose only pleasure is killing farmhands.

Even the weather has been against you – with all the recent high rain fall, some of the fields have developed soft earth which has turned into sink holes, where the land may give way underneath you.

You can jump over areas, but if you happen to fall too far, you may have to use up one of your three umbrellas as a parachute to slow your fall, instead of losing a life. Luckily there is a lift to get back up to the higher fields.

Once all of the crops have been gathered in, you can move to the next level by jumping into the coloured flashing square.

Order it from http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/Sinclair-QL-Platform-Arcade-Game%3A-Farmer-3626