Eidersoft ICE System

[RWAP]

I have preserved pretty much all of the ICE system software today from Eidersoft.

There may be other titles (I am not sure), but I have today managed to retrieve:

ICE ROM image v1.12
MICE ROM image v2.1 (this is the ROM with integrated three button mouse)
DRAWING OFF_ICE (Disk only)
ICICLE
ICE TOOLKIT v2.00
PUBLISHING OFF_ICE (DISK only)
ARTice
MiceArt
Choice v2.00 of the software

It makes a good little suite with a nice GUI.

Was there ICEburg as well?

[Dave]

Hi,

It's great that you're finding and "restoring" this old stuff.

Are you 'curating' it? That is, are you securing safe, modern copies of the contents so it is preserved well into the future? Also, can you offer a service where if someone has corrupted software, and you have a good copy, you can 'restore' their copy for a nominal fee?

[RWAP]

Yes, basically that is what I am doing - see www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/updates.html

I am collecting the software into a version which runs under q-emulator, so that it can then be easily copied to disk or emailed to people who need it. It can be converted to other emulators too, but that is more work, so just done on an as needed basis.

The problem is time - I am a commercial trader, so I cannot devote the hours that it takes to preserve this software and find the last published versions, so I just concentrate on what I am going to list second hand for sale.

For example, for the ICE system - I have all of this second hand, but I had to use 4 cartridges to get a working copy of the ICE Toolkit, then found one which had a later version (v2.00) so had to start again.

Software preservation is where other QL users can lend a hand...

[RWAP]

Unfortunately, I cannot find a version of the program ARTiced which will work with just the keyboard - all of the working versions I have are in fact MICEart and appear to need a 3 button mouse!

[Dave]

Rich, I know I am in the US and therefore much practical use to you, but if there's anything I can do to assist you, let me know.

I have unlimited web server space (I have my own webserver) so I can host whatever you'd like.

I have undertaken to do a similar project focused on hardware and firmware - not prone to the same degradation, but prone to losing manuals. Also, it would be good to ensure people had the latest versions of firmware for their expansion cards.

If we can think of any way to help each other, we should - we have the same goal in mind.

Dave

[RWAP]

Dave - server space is not so much of an issue - from a software point of view, it is the time and cost involved in getting hold of the software and transferring it to hard disk here (I do have regular backups to an external hard disk).

I do wonder about putting all of the preserved software somewhere in the internet and whether this might be a second safe option to preserving it on my own PC and USB hard disk (thinking of loss if there was a house fire, for example).

On the hardware side of things....

I have various ROMs here etc which I inherited from Tony Firshman, although they appear to be earlier versions of much of the hardware EPROMs. Again, I would just not have the time to put them all into EPROM cards, copy them to disk, check ROM versions etc - plus there is always the constant risk to the QL of inserting unknown EPROMs in the ROM cartridge, and switching on/off the QL.

If I had an EPROM programmer, this may be easier, but I cannot justify one just for a preservation project, that no-one else seems too bothered about.

What I don't really want is for a further dilution of the QL Wiki by your own site competing for hardware details, and I wonder if the two projects would be better merged in some way.

[Dave]

What I don't really want is for a further dilution of the QL Wiki by your own site competing for hardware details, and I wonder if the two projects would be better merged in some way.

I thought about this carefully and it did alter the focus of my site slightly. I view a wiki as a documentation and reference project. A wiki is a handy place to check history and events, but it's not a good place to do development, which is the focus of my site.

I openly extend the offer to you to present all data and info to you for the wiki, so it is authoritative. My site will focus more on active development of s/w and h/w, and provide the resources to discuss and design around known standards. So they both do need the same information, but accessed and referenced in different ways.

When the wiki becomes more complete and authoritative, I will almost exclusively refer to it, but also host the information locally for distributed back-up and multiple viewpoints reasons.

I likely will tread on a couple of toes and force people to shuffle over a bit as I squeeze my site into the web sphere (eg: there will be a developers forum based on phpBB) but it doesn't conflict with the wiki, or qlforums, but will refer to them repeatedly. The main focus is to concentrate developer attention in one place - something neither the wiki or qlforums or the ql-users list do, and ql-developers is all but defunct and a poor vehicle for the task.

With utmost respect and admiration...

Dave

[thorsinclair]

The wiki is a great effort, a huge work task and I visit it very often, just to look at the recent updates. It's a very good source for information on soft- and hardware and many more about the QL.

It would be interesting to have a development blog for (new) hardware developments or mods. If you are following the mailing list there is plenty of new developments (and discussions) inside but sometimes you are loosing track. I think a blog with pictures and text would be the right ambiente. Not that I want to cut off the mailing list, don't get me wrong, the wiki, the mailing list, the dev blog and a website like the one of Dylwin can perfectly coexist.

My 2 cents

[Dave]

If Dilwyn sees you spell his name like that, he'll start charging you extra...

[Mr_Navigator]

On the hardware side of things....

I have various ROMs here etc which I inherited from Tony Firshman, although they appear to be earlier versions of much of the hardware EPROMs. Again, I would just not have the time to put them all into EPROM cards, copy them to disk, check ROM versions etc - plus there is always the constant risk to the QL of inserting unknown EPROMs in the ROM cartridge, and switching on/off the QL.

If I had an EPROM programmer, this may be easier, but I cannot justify one just for a preservation project, that no-one else seems too bothered about.

I have just recently acquired two EPROM burner type things, and an eraser, came with load of EPROMS, a Spectrum +3 with lots of other stuff haven't looked at it all yet but if I can be any help I would like to, however as I said never used an EPROM thingy before so bit of a learning curve for me also.