The Sinclair QL Forum

I've got a few files on a microdrive and I am not sure what they are, for example one is named fata_aba another sss_doc

Is there a way of dumping these files? Similar to using head or less on unix?

EDIT looks like these are abacus and quill files. I don't have either program so can the line editor be used?

Head over to Dilwyn's fine web site and grab the latest versions of Quill/Abacus. It's at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/psions/index.html there are versions for microdrive and floppy as required.

These files are in a specific format and contain numerous binary characters that a text editor will probably choke on. There are, for example, in the Qull doc, control codes embedded in the paragraph text to toggle on and off various text attributes like bold, underlined etc. Your chances of a successful extract of the data are slim I'm afraid.

HTH

Cheers,
Norm.

Thanks

The biggest problem I can see is getting those files onto Microdrive

Citizenfish wrote:Thanks

The biggest problem I can see is getting those files onto Microdrive

That depends what other hardware you have available, e.g. an FLP1_ floppy drive or a WIN1_ HDD setup, serial cable (with BT connector for the QL-end) or some other modern alternatives.

If you just have a standalone QL with nothing else then you're a bit stuck. I do sell blank carts that are pretty good and could certainly put the Psion software onto those, but then there would be no guarantee that your _aba and _doc files are readable... and even if they are, the content may not be worth going to much trouble for!

I'd happily buy a md with Quill on it. Let me know details

You can simply copy the file to scr_ in order to dump it to a console, like in
That might give you some textual hints on what is in there. You can stop the "scrolling by" of the file by pressing <CTRL>+F5. Note you will be seeing a lot of glibberish around the actual text.