Today I Received...

Tell us about your other hobbies & none QL related items here :)
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XorA
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by XorA »

polka wrote:To XorA : I guess I will also test this one soon. What is actually slow about its full sreen display ?
Takes a long time comparitvely speaking to write the screen update to video ram under xorg.

A delay that does not happen if running on console without xorg.

It may still be faster than BBQL, I haven't tested for a while under xorg.


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NormanDunbar
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by NormanDunbar »

Hi Dilwyn,
dilwyn wrote:Thank you polka. I have never owned or used a Pi of any type, so seeing the emulator run on it is very informative.
Seeing as how it is you Dilwyn, I have a spare (currently unused) Pi Zero W, the smallest and least powerful one, but it has WiFi. You can have it if you want to play/try it out? Happy to do hand-holding as well, if necessary to get it setup.

All it needs is a micro SD card of about 16 GB (smaller between 4 and 8 will work, but limits the space available to install software and patches obviously), plus a HDMI monitor, keyboard and mouse. I use a wireless USB mouse and keyboard from ASDA! Your phone charger should be man enough to power it - it takes 5V from a USB micro cable. For best results, a proper power supply is advised, but a powered USB hub also works, as does the charger solution!

The kit came with my MagPi magazine subscription when they used to give you one every renewal, but after Covid, that's gone down to new subscribers only. The kit comes as follows:
  • Pi Zero W (W = Wifi/Wireless).
  • Case with three interchangeable tops, depending on what you are doing.
  • Mini HDMI to HMDI adaptor. (I use this to an HDMI to VGA adaptor as my monitor is not HDMI.)
  • Camera adaptor lead for the Pi Camera.
  • Micro USB to USB adaptor cable.
If you find you don't like it after having a play, just bung it back in the post. :D


Let me know what you think.


Cheers,
Norm.


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NormanDunbar
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by NormanDunbar »

OOPS! That was supposed to be a DM to Dilwyn.
Never mind.


Why do they put lightning conductors on churches?
Author of Arduino Software Internals
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No longer on Twitter, find me on https://mastodon.scot/@NormanDunbar.
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bwinkel67
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by bwinkel67 »

Hi Norm,

It's Dilwyn, here's my address (uhm...just ignore that it's in the US):

...

:-)


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NormanDunbar
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by NormanDunbar »

Ha! I already know Dilwyn's address. :D :D :D :D :D :D


Why do they put lightning conductors on churches?
Author of Arduino Software Internals
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No longer on Twitter, find me on https://mastodon.scot/@NormanDunbar.
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dilwyn
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by dilwyn »

NormanDunbar wrote: Seeing as how it is you Dilwyn, I have a spare (currently unused) Pi Zero W, the smallest and least powerful one, but it has WiFi. You can have it if you want to play/try it out? Happy to do hand-holding as well, if necessary to get it setup.
Ha! That's a very nice offer Norman. Most kind of you. The thought is appreciated.

But in reality, I don't even have time for the computers I already have :(

Starting to put the house back together today after an expensive central heating upgrade, I'm not even sure where the QLs are at the moment :oops:

So I humbly decline your most kind offer, better it went to someone more likely to appreciate the device.
bwinkel67 wrote:Hi Norm,

It's Dilwyn, here's my address (uhm...just ignore that it's in the US):
...
:-)
He he he.

Will see you outside to sort out the attempted ID theft, bwinkel67... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:


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NormanDunbar
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by NormanDunbar »

dilwyn wrote:Ha! That's a very nice offer Norman. Most kind of you. The thought is appreciated.
But in reality, I don't even have time for the computers I already have :(
Starting to put the house back together today after an expensive central heating upgrade, I'm not even sure where the QLs are at the moment :oops:
So I humbly decline your most kind offer, better it went to someone more likely to appreciate the device.
No worries Dilwyn, it was sat here currently idle, so I thought, if you wanted to play with it, you could. It will get used for something soon no doubt. I have three Pis at the moment in work - one is running my CD collection which has a DAC on top to play back the FLAC encoded CDs in my collection. I'm using Volumio as my player and can access it from the browser or from the command line. :D

There's another running PiHole to get rid of the bleeding adverts that are a major problem these days. You don't notice they are missing after a while, but once you go off to a hotel and use theirs, god it's awful! My dashboard tells me some days that 60% plus of my internet traffic is adverts.

Of course, I realise that adverts sell and some companies need the income, but I never buy from adverts nor from cold callers so it's moot here I'm afraid.

I'm setting up a third Pi as a NAS, running Open Media Vault. I had a WD (Western Digital) NAS connected to my network as well as a small WD USB drive, two sets of backups, what could possibly go wrong? First the NAS died, but I still had the USB. Nope, that dies a day later. I've gone off WD products now!

My Pi4 is used for development work when I can't be bothered firing up the laptop. You'd be surprised how good, and fairly fast, a 4GB Pi4 can be for day to day work. Obvioulsy, that depends on what you do for work of course!

Anyway, enough waffle!


Cheers,
Norm.


Why do they put lightning conductors on churches?
Author of Arduino Software Internals
Author of Arduino Interrupts

No longer on Twitter, find me on https://mastodon.scot/@NormanDunbar.
RichardCGH
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by RichardCGH »

Today I received a copy of QL World Vol 1 Issue 5 December 1985.
At this date QL User was a far superior magazine, but when the two merged it became QL World and not QL User.

I'm still collecting the hard copy copies of the QL mags - there's a batch of QL Users on the way so I'll update my wants list to that later.
But QL Worlds still wanted : 1985 /4 ; Sept and Oct 1989 ; March, Oct 1992 and then everything from August 1993 to the end in May 1994.
(I'm avoiding copies for sale at silly prices.)

Looking through old copies of the mags the content is pretty uninspiring.
Anyone thinking of getting a QL and looking at the mags would see listings for mediocre games, adverts for expensive programming and utility programs, hardware reviews and problem solving,
companies going bust or failing to deliver goods, products being announced that never saw the light of day and so forth.
The mags were clearly aimed an older and more serious demographic - the idea that the QL could be used for fun was kept to game reviews (with black and white screen dumps :( )

Anyways I'll continue my quest for the remaining issues.


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dex
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by dex »

Looking through old copies of the mags the content is pretty uninspiring.
Not quite.
I remember articles from QL users, how they use their QL:
Priest using QL to print church materials, music sheets and posters.
Freelance photographer and newspaper writer, running several databases and text documents in Quill/Archive simultaneously, comparing this with mono-tasking MS-DOS PC.
Pathology department, using QL with microdrives for storing and archiving histology results - one cartridge for one year data.
That one preparing lecture slides using Easel on QL (photographing them from screen to diapositive film).
And that one, creating Fleet Tactical Command game, with networking and multiple tasks, comparing it again against the mono-tasking non-networked MS-DOS PC.
This style of articles was very inspiring for me!


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dilwyn
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Re: Today I Received...

Post by dilwyn »

I agree dex. Back in the day, I used to look forward to receiving each issue of both QL User and QL World and always read them from cover to cover.


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