The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi Derek

So good to good reviews already.

I am interested in buying 2 Q68.

I see there will be another run in Jan/Feb. Which is no problem

What do I need to do progress this order.

IRB

Fired up my wee-beastie during lunch today, having hacked-together a USB to 2.1mm jack cable to power it.

Worked like a charm! Clearly a lot of thought went in to the pre-installed environment, which gives me ideas for my QPC setup as well!

This was my first experience of a rock solid display for the first time on a non-emulated QL - gorgeous!

Having only ever played with either the standard QL display modes and those available on QPC, I was very pleasantly surprised at how functional the 512x384 mode 33 worked. Amazing what a few (128) extra lines of display can make - along with a splash of colour!

Early days yet, but I can see developing my various projects moving over to Q68 in the future!

Well done again, fellas!

tofro wrote:

daniel_baum wrote:Hello,

A question about file transfer - is it safe to mount a QXL.win file on a Q68 SD card directly in QPC, or will this cause fragmentation?

If this is possible it would obviously be the ideal method of file transfer between PCs and QLs.

D.

Yes, it is possible and will not cause fragmentation (neither Q68 nor QPC touch the size of and allocation of space for the .win file)

But there's an even more ideal method for transferring files to and fro the SD card:

http://www.wlenerz.com/qlstuff/QxlwinReader.zip

That is QXLWinReader, a java multi platform application that allows you to drag-and-drop copy files between a PC (running Windows or Linux) or Mac and a QXL.win file without starting an emulator first.

Tobias

Thanks,

I've used this excellent application to transfer files to my Mist. ISTR that in that case it was actually recommended not to write directly to the SD card but rather to copy the files to the PC, transfer the files and then copy the container file back to the SD card.

D.

IRB wrote:Hi Derek

So good to good reviews already.

I am interested in buying 2 Q68.

I see there will be another run in Jan/Feb. Which is no problem

What do I need to do progress this order.

IRB

Hi,

I have added you to the Batch 2 list.

martyn_hill wrote:Fired up my wee-beastie during lunch today, having hacked-together a USB to 2.1mm jack cable to power it.

Worked like a charm! Clearly a lot of thought went in to the pre-installed environment, which gives me ideas for my QPC setup as well!

This was my first experience of a rock solid display for the first time on a non-emulated QL - gorgeous!

Having only ever played with either the standard QL display modes and those available on QPC, I was very pleasantly surprised at how functional the 512x384 mode 33 worked. Amazing what a few (128) extra lines of display can make - along with a splash of colour!

Early days yet, but I can see developing my various projects moving over to Q68 in the future!

Well done again, fellas!

Hi Martyn,

Glad everything worked OK.

I configured Q-DOCK in DISP_MODE 6 because other Hi-Resolution modes slow the Q68 down.

You might want to try the DISP_MODE 1 : QL MOde 4 which gives a very compatable mode.

Or disable it altogether, which is the first thing I'll do. I am a text-only kind of guy.

Ideally, there would be more choices. Plain desktop no windows system would be a common choice.

Dave wrote:Or disable it altogether, which is the first thing I'll do. I am a text-only kind of guy.

Ideally, there would be more choices. Plain desktop no windows system would be a common choice.

I was a dyed-in-the-wool text-only guy, and nothing on the QL scene has changed my mind (ICE, Prowess, QDT etc) However, Im no masochist, and I have (initially reluctantly) succumbed to the "QRAM" paradigm, which to my mind, fits in very well with everything the QL stands for. With that you have hotkeys, buttons, non-destructive windows, mice and menus, all while still keeping the command line on a short leash. I would never go back to the dark ages now. Of course, the old BBQL is not really up to it, but with your spanking new toy, with power, colours and millions of microdrives' worth of storage space, I hope more people will explore and develop this kind of stuff. We're just at the beginning. Just my 0.0000002 bitcoin's worth..

...so did I waste my time configuring software thst rakes advantage of SMSQ/E.

No, you didn't.

I'm porting a couple of standalone games that will run using the whole machine. If other items are multitasking, that's just a waste of resources.

My plan is to distribute it as SD images that can be directly copied and be complete bootable running environments. There will also be a hardware wifi dongle for co-operative play, that will plug in the serial port. The game can be played without the dongle, and if someone gets the ethernet fully working that could be supported too.

So, it would be nice to have the windowed environments, but going straight to an old school QL desktop withy nothing else running is useful too, and a very lean development environment.

Derek_Stewart wrote:...so did I waste my time configuring software thst rakes advantage of SMSQ/E.

No I have enjoyed seeing all the new stuff. Now I know what launchpad looks like, after seeing Dilwyn discuss working on it many times in the chat room