Minerva4Q68

[Martin_Head]

Just a quick question.

If I start Minerva4Q68 from SMSQ/E with LRESPR. Once Minerva has started, Can I safely mount QXL.WIN container files in Minerva4Q68, that were mounted by SMSQ/E beforehand. i.e. When Minerva4Q68 starts, is SMSQ/E completely gone. And any open files are closed.

[janbredenbeek]

Just a quick question.

If I start Minerva4Q68 from SMSQ/E with LRESPR. Once Minerva has started, Can I safely mount QXL.WIN container files in Minerva4Q68, that were mounted by SMSQ/E beforehand. i.e. When Minerva4Q68 starts, is SMSQ/E completely gone. And any open files are closed.

You should close the files opened in SMSQ/E, at least if they were opened for write. This because the Minerva loader overwrites SMSQ/E and then boots Minerva.

Note that after closing files opened for write, there is a delay of about 1 second before the data is written to the SD card so you should also allow for that. The red lights next to the SD card slots should be completely off.

[Martin_Head]

I've had a play with this. But I've found I can't do what I wanted. I wanted to start Minerva, then use WIN_DRIVE to mount whatever QXL.WIN file I wanted.
But there's no WIN_DRIVE, or CART_DIR$ commands in Minerva4Q68. You have to use menu config to set the Minerva4Q68 WIN associations first.

I suppose you could have multiple copies of the Min4Q68_rext file with different menu config settings, and just start whichever one you wanted.

Slightly off topic, If I try to format a WIN drive, Minerva4Q68 hangs. Or if I try to format a WIN drive with the same medium name, then FORMAT returns without error, but does not do anything to the drive.
So should you only format WIN drives in SMSQ/E?

Also at the opening Minerva screen, Pressing CTRL-Fx hangs the system. Not surprisingly as there won't be any WIN drivers, and maybe no keyboard driver.

I'm working on a keywords and concepts documents for Minerva4Q68 like these I did for the Q68 https://www.qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=52246#p52246 So I may be posting odd questions.

[janbredenbeek]

I've had a play with this. But I've found I can't do what I wanted. I wanted to start Minerva, then use WIN_DRIVE to mount whatever QXL.WIN file I wanted.
But there's no WIN_DRIVE, or CART_DIR$ commands in Minerva4Q68. You have to use menu config to set the Minerva4Q68 WIN associations first.

I suppose you could have multiple copies of the Min4Q68_rext file with different menu config settings, and just start whichever one you wanted.

Slightly off topic, If I try to format a WIN drive, Minerva4Q68 hangs. Or if I try to format a WIN drive with the same medium name, then FORMAT returns without error, but does not do anything to the drive.
So should you only format WIN drives in SMSQ/E?

I've actually never tried formatting from Minerva. But it's indeed a pity that Minerva's SD card driver is very limited (AFAIK it originated from the original QLSD driver, which was later enhanced by Marcel Kilgus for SMSQ/E). The solution would be to backport the driver from SMSQ/E, which would be quite some work as the driver model is very different.

Also at the opening Minerva screen, Pressing CTRL-Fx hangs the system. Not surprisingly as there won't be any WIN drivers, and maybe no keyboard driver.

The keyboard driver currently resides in the extension ROM area so booting without extension ROMs would leave Minerva with no input device, since there is no IPC in the Q68.
Moving the keyboard driver into Minerva itself will require removing other code to fit in 48K, or extending it beyond 48K (which would preclude any extension ROM at $C000).

[Martin_Head]

Thanks for that.

I will add a warning in the FORMAT description to not format WIN drives, and to do it in SMSQ/E.

I have already added a warning in the concepts document to avoid starting Minerva with CTRL-Fx.

Another quick question, Is the QUB device like the SMSQ/E one , in that it should only be used for reading, and not written to.

[BSJR]

...
I've actually never tried formatting from Minerva. But it's indeed a pity that Minerva's SD card driver is very limited (AFAIK it originated from the original QLSD driver, which was later enhanced by Marcel Kilgus for SMSQ/E). The solution would be to backport the driver from SMSQ/E, which would be quite some work as the driver model is very different.

There is a tool on the Marcel Kilgus site that adds a few of the Q68-SMSQ/E commands to the QL-SD Minerva package.
(CARD_RENF, CARD_CREATE, CARD_DIR$)
https://www.kilgus.net/ql/ql-sd/

BSJR

[janbredenbeek]

There is a tool on the Marcel Kilgus site that adds a few of the Q68-SMSQ/E commands to the QL-SD Minerva package.
(CARD_RENF, CARD_CREATE, CARD_DIR$)
https://www.kilgus.net/ql/ql-sd/

Thanks, I just discovered I had already downloaded this months ago.

I have my doubts if this works for the Q68 (or QIMSI for that matter) as these are likely to use low-level I/O, which is at different ports compared to QLSD.

[Martin_Head]

Here's the first version of my Minerva4Q68 keywords and concepts documents. They are in Libre office and PDF versions.

Please let me know if you spot any errors or omissions.

[pjw]

Nice work, Martin While Im unlikely to try out Minerva on Q68 in the near future, I just skimmed quickly through the manuals out of curiosity.

I noticed only a few possible error:

In the concepts guide, p 45. Theres a SuperBASIC program listed:

..
110 COLOUR_QL.
..

I presume this command does not exist in Minerva4Q68? Could confuse a newcomer..

On page 54: serial I/O sun-system should be serial I/O sub-system.

Min4Q68keywords: Are there no WIN_XXX commands, such as WIN_DRIVE?

[Martin_Head]

Thanks for the feedback. The documents are an edited version of the one's I did for the Q68, (which was and edited version of the QPC2 one's), So that COLOUR_QL was something I missed.

As Jan said earlier, the WIN driver's a bit limited. You can only set the WIN drive associations with the menuconfig program. And if you try to FORMAT a WIN drive, then Minerva usually hangs. And the only CARD_xxx command is CARD_INIT