Re: Why the QL ?
Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:29 pm
I bought my first computer (a ZX81 complete with 16K RAM pack) off my brother when he upgraded to a Spectrum. I was only 13 and soon learnt to program in ZX BASIC and worked my way through the Toni Baker book on programming in assembly. My ZX81 was balanced on a board on my bed, the TV on a shelf about 2 feet above the bed - not ideal, but I managed to learn a lot and soon surpassed my brother's skills (he was studying an O level computers course at the time). AI still remember working out the Z80 codes by hand on paper and then typing the program into a hex loader (I couldn't afford an assembler !)
I was drawn to the QL by it being more than the Spectrum - aimed at programmers, developers and business; I wanted to learn all about the enhanced "SuperBASIC" and 68000 machine programming, so I bought myself a QL in 1984 and my first program was the Metacomco Assembler (no games software for me!)
I then fell in love with the QL's ability to quickly create meaningful SuperBASIC programs, full of procedures and functions, which I could then learn to re-code as a new keyword in machine code, figuring out how to get the most out of both SuperBASIC and the 68000 routines. I wrote a few bits of early software (alas none of which was ever published in QL World); the remains of which was given to the PD libraries (thanks Ian Blundell of the original QL-Forum microdrive magazine, and Richard Alexander of CGH Services).
I then got involved in writing review articles for QL World / QL User and through that began testing and bug fixing (rather than write a negative review, I would fix the program or proffer my suggestions!).
Whilst SuperBASIC was a much more structured language than the original ZX BASIC, unfortunately, some software authors were stuck in their ways, and so my first "paid" QL programming job (whilst I was at University) was to take the horrendous code that was D-Day, and re-write it so that it could (a) compile and (b) you could complete the game! With permission from Games Workshop, and under the guidance of CGH Services, D-Day MKII was born and even included features which were in the original program, but disabled as the authors could not seem to get them to work.
From there, I teamed up closely with CGH Services, and you can find bits of my code, improvements and bugfixes in a wide range of software, including adventures from Alan Pemberton, CGH Software titles, Talent software games and adventures, Ergon Developments utilities (although mainly I wrote the manuals for them and highlighted where features needed fixing / improvement), and Sharps' Inc's War in the East, as well as even more PD software and bits in the Quanta library.
Roy Wood was also instrumental in me taking on the SBASIC / SuperBASIC Reference Manual which had been started by Franz Hermann and Peter Jaeger in Germany - he showed it to me at a QL show one day and asked if I would be interested. About 1000 pages later, it was ready for publication....
Over the years, I have learnt a lot from programming the QL and many of the routines I wrote on the QL are still in use by me today - albeit running in C, PHP, Perl or even ladder logic!
I was drawn to the QL by it being more than the Spectrum - aimed at programmers, developers and business; I wanted to learn all about the enhanced "SuperBASIC" and 68000 machine programming, so I bought myself a QL in 1984 and my first program was the Metacomco Assembler (no games software for me!)
I then fell in love with the QL's ability to quickly create meaningful SuperBASIC programs, full of procedures and functions, which I could then learn to re-code as a new keyword in machine code, figuring out how to get the most out of both SuperBASIC and the 68000 routines. I wrote a few bits of early software (alas none of which was ever published in QL World); the remains of which was given to the PD libraries (thanks Ian Blundell of the original QL-Forum microdrive magazine, and Richard Alexander of CGH Services).
I then got involved in writing review articles for QL World / QL User and through that began testing and bug fixing (rather than write a negative review, I would fix the program or proffer my suggestions!).
Whilst SuperBASIC was a much more structured language than the original ZX BASIC, unfortunately, some software authors were stuck in their ways, and so my first "paid" QL programming job (whilst I was at University) was to take the horrendous code that was D-Day, and re-write it so that it could (a) compile and (b) you could complete the game! With permission from Games Workshop, and under the guidance of CGH Services, D-Day MKII was born and even included features which were in the original program, but disabled as the authors could not seem to get them to work.
From there, I teamed up closely with CGH Services, and you can find bits of my code, improvements and bugfixes in a wide range of software, including adventures from Alan Pemberton, CGH Software titles, Talent software games and adventures, Ergon Developments utilities (although mainly I wrote the manuals for them and highlighted where features needed fixing / improvement), and Sharps' Inc's War in the East, as well as even more PD software and bits in the Quanta library.
Roy Wood was also instrumental in me taking on the SBASIC / SuperBASIC Reference Manual which had been started by Franz Hermann and Peter Jaeger in Germany - he showed it to me at a QL show one day and asked if I would be interested. About 1000 pages later, it was ready for publication....
Over the years, I have learnt a lot from programming the QL and many of the routines I wrote on the QL are still in use by me today - albeit running in C, PHP, Perl or even ladder logic!