Library & Helpline

Picture of a Library Guide floppy disk
Library Guide Disk

Quanta maintains a software library for its members, consisting of a couple of hundred disks in about 24 categories. Although closed to new software submissions (most new QL software gets published free on the web nowadays), the software library is still available on floppy disk or on a CD from the Librarian, David Buckley. Contact details are on page 2 of the Quanta magazine, or you can use the enquiry form below.

Library Guide Disk

There is a Library Guide disk, called disk LG01. This is a database (based on the DBAS database system), which allows you to browse the content of the library disks. Expanded memory is required, the library guide disk cannot be run on a 128K QL.

Click here to download the Library Guide disk as a zipped file, which you will need to transfer to a QL format floppy disk to run. The Library Guide itself can be freely distributed and no password is required to extract or use it.

Here is a list of sources of potentially useful articles (file transfer, unzipping, etc) for after you have downloaded the Library Guide – http://www.qlforum.co.uk/

Online Library Guide

The Library Guide may also be viewed online as an HTML page – click here.

Or, as an Excel spreasheet:

Quanta Library CD Download

Picture of a Quanta Library CD
Quanta Library CD

The entire software library is available on a single QXL.WIN format CD-R. Contact the Librarian (David Buckley) to ask how much it will cost and how to obtain the CD-R by snail mail.

Here on the website, members can download the Quanta Library CD as a zipped file from this page. The Quanta Library CD is a zipped copy of the CD, which you should download and unzip on the host operating system of your computer (e.g. Windows, for use with QPC2). To burn a CD of the Library, merely use any CD writer package to make a data CD of all the unzipped content of the zip file. It contains a QXL.WIN storing the entire library of software in QDOS format, arranged by disk number (e.g. disk UG01 is ‘Utilities, General 01’, while directory ‘LG01’ contains a copy of the Library Guide) and various documents you should read.

The Zip file is password protected – members can apply to the Librarian or Membership Secretary for the password.

A QXL.WIN is a file container system or QL files, used by some emulators and QL-compatible systems. The list of emulators supporting QXL.WIN filing systems includes QPC, QPC2, QXL, QemuLator (registered version), uQLx and SMSQmulator. Some other systems can access QXL.WIN with the relevant file transfer software, e.g. Thierry Godefroy’s “Atapi-CD” drivers and Duncan Neithercutt’s “QCDEZE” software available from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/files/index.html

Click on this link to download the zipped Quanta Library.

Members can find further information about the library towards the back of the Members Guide booklet.