The plot certainly thickens here...
Andrew wrote:i have never used QLay, but I was curious - so I downloaded QLay2K 0.1 build 0101 64 bits edition from Dillwyn's site
- doesn't need any special installation - just unzip it in a directory and run QL2K-x64.exe
- It works ! (on a Windows 10 PC - from any directory and any drive)
- has sound
- I was able to write a short program and run it
- I was not able to load and access a .mdv image (I have a bunch of .mdv images that work with QEmulator and vDriveQL - I have no idea if these images should also work with QLay or not)
- I have no idea how to create a qlay.dir file so I have not even tried to use win_
I downloaded QLay2 and extracted from the archive the WIN and MDV samples and tried to use them wih QL2k
They do not work !
if i load the mdv file as MDV1_ then QL2k starts but no cursor is shown
if I load .win file as WIN1_ then QL2K starts, cursor it shown and you can write and run programs, but dir WIN1_ results in "not found"
Also tried the QL2k 0.1 build 0101 32 bits edition - same results
How very odd - I couldn't get anywhere near writing a program, as it wouldn't allow me to do
anything without an error. The thought occurs, where I may have been going wrong was in trying to go straight from build 96 to build 101, but if build 96 wasn't working properly, there'd not have been a lot of point continuing.
Again, excuse the extremely noobish questions here, but is an .MDV file as universal to QL emulators as a .TAP would be to Spectrum emulators, a .P to ZX81 emulators, etc.? QemuLator's documentation
implies that an .MDV I've created with QLAY 0.90 will be recognised, but until I've stumped up £26 or so for it, I'll not be able to find out.
Unless, of course, someone else does it for me...
In true Blue Peter fashion,
here's one I made earlier. This is Gossamer, a type-in from Sinclair User, which I typed back in April, when all I knew about (or at least, all I knew I could get working) was QLAY for DOS. It's a simple program to draw patterns of symmetrical lines on the low-res screen. The package contains:
- An .MDV file. This started out, I think, as one of the QL business software cartridges that I copied and deleted all the files, because I couldn't work out how QLAYT generated a new one.
dir mdv1_ and it'll show the name as QLAY.MDV whatever happens, as I usually found it more convenient to copy any cartridge to the QLAY folder, rename it QLAY.MDV and have MDV1 in the QLAY.RC config file pointing at that. The program's been saved with
save mdv1_gossamer_bas and it should show up with just that one SuperBASIC file on there.
- A folder called "files", which I had QLAY pointing to, designated as WIN3. Hence,
save win3_gossamer_bas creates two files inside that folder, GOSSAMER (just eight characters, it cuts off the _BAS, so I now keep it to three or four characters unless the program calls for anything different) and QLAY.DIR that, I assume, contains the headers. If I've got my QL lore correct, GOSSAMER should be nothing more than the SuperBASIC program contained in a text file, with line-feed only at the end of each line.
So here's what I'd need as a further test - see if the .MDV file and/or the raw text file GOSSAMER will work in a registered version of QemuLator - or QPC2, or any other QL emulator that you can get working. If it's all kosher, I'll probably continue doing my type-ins on QLAY for now. If not... the investigation continues.