The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi,

The manual refers to a Card in slot 1, which has the QWA container files in a FAT32 partition, which must be the first partition.

A SD Card in Slot 2 can have 4 primary FAT16 partitions.

These are selectable by the FAT_DRIVE command.

Note, that if you change the SD Card, the command CARD_INIT <cardno>

The manuals are supplied to me and I do not have any input into the content or format.

My on-off use of the Q68 has been a partial success so far. I have been trying to configure the Q68 to look like my
high resolution QPC setup and, in the process, have "mashed" the contents of quite a few 4GB SDHC cards.

I am now able to easily format and partition FAT16 cards using Linux MINT. I can now create 4 primary partitions that can be read
in slot 2, but when I tried to use the latest version (V3.38) of SMSQ for Q68 I found that, in the FAT device settings, Fat1_ is blanked out.
I am thus unable to set Fat1_ to read from card 2.

The other problem I have encountered is that even with the "Enable CON background I/O" set to yes, the Q68 does not update
background windows.

Tinyfpga wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 11:24 am The other problem I have encountered is that even with the "Enable CON background I/O" set to yes, the Q68 does not update
background windows.

Does "PE_BGON" (which affects the same setting, but from within SBASIC) do something?

PE_BGON does the trick. Thanks for the tip.
I don't know what the CON setting does. Its NO/YES setting has no effect on background updating.

One more session and I think I will have my Q68 looking like my QPC setups. I use mode 4 (1024 x 768) in
monochrome for maximum display performance. None of the mode 4 colour settings suit my configuration.

Tinyfpga wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 11:24 am I am now able to easily format and partition FAT16 cards using Linux MINT. I can now create 4 primary partitions that can be read
in slot 2, but when I tried to use the latest version (V3.38) of SMSQ for Q68 I found that, in the FAT device settings, Fat1_ is blanked out.
I am thus unable to set Fat1_ to read from card 2.

If you have downloaded a Q68 SMSQ/E from the SMSQ/E web site, there is some configuration to be done, the names of the WIN1, WIN2 QWA containers are not what is expected.

The FAT and QUB device is disabled.

You need to configure SMSQ/E to suite your setup.

I configure SMSQ/E so that:
WIN1 : QLWA.WIN
WIN2 : QLWA2.WIN

FAT Drive enabled
QUB drive enabled

I have pointed this out to Wolfgang, but nothing has ever changed.

But this is trival as we all von use MENUCONFIG to alter the CONFIG BLOCKS in software.