QUILL do not save documents

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Derek_Stewart
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

I tried loading your Quill file: text_doc in the previous message, with Quill v2.35 flp version from the QL Homepage and the The Distribution files.

The file text_doc can not be loaded.

I also tried Norman QStripper, which reported that the file "test_doc" did not have the correct header file, see screen dump of error message window.
QStripper_Error.png
QStripper_Error.png (13.93 KiB) Viewed 7607 times
I loaded SMSQmualtor with Quill v2.35 and just executed the QUILL programme and saved and loaded a quill file. I did have to insert the device, i.e. win1_text_doc

Okay this was an emulator, but I do not think there is any difference to usoing Quill on a a real QL. Most Quill versions were designed for 128K machines with microdrives.

The new QL hardware, SD, CFD cards, Qubide hard drives, use Quill in the same way. The only problem is that with a QL with lots of memory Quill grabs all the remaining memory, the solution is to use the Guardian option in the QPAC2 System. Since this is now freely available not a problem.

Can describe how you are operating the QL to save the Quill file.


Regards,

Derek
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dely
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by dely »

Can describe how you are operating the QL to save the Quill file.

Code: Select all

LRUN "win1_quill_quill_boot" 
F3
S
win1_testfile
ENTER
I have also tried running Quill from root folder, using WIN_USE FLP and saving as flp1_testfile, etc. Still all documents saved in Quill are sized 64 bytes.

Files saved in Easel, Abacus, Archive are correct and they are loading fine.

Thank you.


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NormanDunbar
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by NormanDunbar »

dely wrote:No, it does not. It is from TOOLKIT which I do not have.

But using informations from this post: http://qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=322#p2048 I have got following numbers:

325 and 640 :)

Thank you,
OK, looks like you have a decent amount of memory, quill should be OK.

Stupid question time, you do have free space on the sd drive? Sorry, but I had to ask!

Can you send me the quill executable that you are using? Zipped if possible. Send to norman (at) dunbar (hyphen) it (dot) co (dot) uk - you know the score, change the bits in brackets to whatever characters.

I'll try and run it to see if it saves files properly.


Cheers,
Norm.


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dely
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by dely »

Thanks. I have sent you an email with zipped image of my CF card.


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NormanDunbar
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by NormanDunbar »

Just to let you know that I have your image file, thanks.

I was only really wanting the quill executable to be honest, but I'll see what I can do when I have a moment or two. We have a medical problem in the family just now that's taking a lot of our time, so progress won't be as fast as I had hoped, sorry.


Cheers,
Norm.


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ol42
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by ol42 »

dely wrote:Hello,

I am new user of QL and QUBIDE and I am looking for help with QUILL.

I have transferred PSION's office (from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/psions/index.html) to my QUBIDE CF card and everything works fine except for saving QUILL documents. When I try to save a document created in QUILL and load it back I get error:

Not a valid QUILL file

I have transferred file to PC and after examination I realized that all files saved by Quill are 64 bytes (see attached file).

Files saved in Easel, Abacus, Archive are correct and they are loading fine. What could be wrong with Quill?

My setup: German QL, QUBIDE (QUBIDE/REBEL Driver v1.56 1997), 256MB CF card.

Thanks for help!
Hi Dely,

Have you found a solution meanwhile? If not and if you are still interested in this topic I can state that I god the very same problem of not being able to save any Quill documents to the QUBIDE drive but I was able to workaround that by a small background job which reserves some memory before Quill is started and releases this memory afterwords. This avoids that Quill consumes all of the QL's memory which is the obvious reason why accessing QUBIDE does not work. If you are interested I can share this program with you.

Best Regards,

Otto


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dely
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by dely »

Hello Otto,

No, I haven't found and I'm interested in your fix. Thank you.


ol42
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by ol42 »

dely wrote:Hello Otto,

No, I haven't found and I'm interested in your fix. Thank you.

Hello Dely,

alright, I have uploaded and shared two QL zip archives to my Google drive. You can access both of them via the following URL:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B55OP ... nJwbFJraVk

You need to transfer them to your QL and unzip them there in order to maintain QDOS file headers.

quill_qubidefix.zip : provides my operational Quill version with a patched boot basic program. Unzip it to your win1_quill folder.
protmem.zip : provides the source code of the heap memory reservation utility. I used C68 to compile this on the QL

Start Quill then with the command 'lrun win1_quill_boot'. You should be able to save your documents to your IDE driver (SD card).

You can obtain the archiver software (zip/unzip) and further instructions how to use them under the following URL's:
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/arch/archivers.zip
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk

Have fun and
Best Regards,

Otto


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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by RWAP »

I have been speaking with Alain Haoui who has looked into this some more and yes, it seems that the issue with Quill is because it grabs all of the memory - the problem is that the level 2 driver built into the QubIDE needs to be able to load the directory record into memory before it can handle file access, but has no room to load it because of Quill !

The original v1.56 driver for QubIDE does not report any error for some reason. However, Alain has now tried his new QubATA 3.x driver with Zaxon's QubIDE clone (see other thread) and whilst this cannot fix the issue, it does report "Unable to open file" in Quill, so that you know the file has not been saved.

Without QPAC2, the best way to avoid Quill grabbing all memory is to use a Quill mod available with this patch utility from Dilwyn site made by Martin Head (http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/psions/Psion_Mod.zip) This allows you to limit the memory used by Quill but you need TK2 installed, because you have to pass the size of memory to use as a parameter to the patched version of Quill.

Alain has sent Dilwyn a copy of his v2.30 Quill patched (ready to use), but if you want to patch your own version of Quill you will need to:

a) Link in and enable Toolkit II - for example:
addr=RESPR(16876)
LBYTES xxx_tk226_bin,addr
CALL addr
TK2_EXT

b) Pass the maximum amount of memory which can be allocated to Quill:
EW win1_quimod;"m=100000"


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ql_freak
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Re: QUILL do not save documents

Post by ql_freak »

You can also try this program, which was published in QL World long ago. It has the additional advantage, that it enables the cursor of the first CON channel. So even the Psion programs have then a flashing cursor near the top left corner and you can switch in out of them with CTRL-C WITHOUT Pointer Interface!

If you have a Minerva or SMSQ-ROM you should change the RETurn in function SYS_VARS (last function) to: RETURN VER$(-2)

Code: Select all

100 REMark TASKFORCE utility program
110 REMark QL WORLD DIY TOOLKIT 3/89
120 REMark Copyright 1989 Phil Spink
130 :
140 CLS
150 REMark Free RAM = (SV.BASIC)-(SV.FREE)
160 free_k=INT((SYS_L(16)-SYS_L(12))/1024)
170 PRINT'TASKFORCE'!free_k;'K bytes free'
180 INPUT\'Enter task name & device'!task_name$
190 INPUT\'Enter reserved space in K'!space$
200 :
210 REMark Reserve memory and load task
220 space='0'&space$
230 IF space<free_k AND space>=1
240   DIM dummy$(space-1,1022)
250 END IF 
260 IF SYS_W(96)=0:POKE_W SYS_VARS+96,1
270 task_tag=SYS_W(96)
280 EXEC task_name$
290 PAUSE 200:REMark Delay to allow memory allocation
300 :
310 REMark Enable cursor of task's first CON channel
320 ch_bas=SYS_L(120)
330 last_ch_num=SYS_W(114)
340 FOR ch_ptr=ch_bas TO ch_bas+last_ch_num*4STEP 4
350   REMark Is the channel open?
360   IF PEEK(ch_ptr)<>255
370     ch_def=PEEK_L(ch_ptr)
380     REMark Is its driver the same as for #0?
390     IF PEEK_L(ch_def+4)=PEEK_L(PEEK_L(ch_bas)+4)
400       REMark Is it owned by the correct task?
410       IF PEEK_W(ch_def+8)=task_tag
420         REMark Is it too big to be a SCR definition?
430         IF PEEK_L(ch_def)>120
440           POKE ch_def+67,1:REMark Set SD.CURF
450           EXIT ch_ptr
460         END IF 
470       END IF 
480     END IF 
490   END IF 
500   NEXT ch_ptr
510   PRINT\'WARNING! No CON channel in'!task_name$
520 END FOR ch_ptr
530 CLEAR
540 STOP
550 :
560 DEFine FuNction SYS_L(addr)
570 RETurn PEEK_L(SYS_VARS+addr)
580 END DEFine 
590 :
600 DEFine FuNction SYS_W(addr)
610 RETurn PEEK_W(SYS_VARS+addr)
620 END DEFine 
630 :
640 DEFine FuNction SYS_VARS
650 RETurn 163840
660 END DEFine 


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