Text87 and other Software87 products

[RWAP]

Just a note that I have now been in contact with Fred Toussi of Software87.

Unfortunately, he has also declined his permission to make these titles (such as Text87) freeware.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Rich,

Is he going to update Text87, as it was really out of date in the 1990s, 2000s.

It did cause many problems when I was selling the Q60.

Maybe Freddy could supply the format of the Text87 files, so that maybe we could reverse engineer it.

[RWAP]

When you say it is out of date and caused problems - what exactly did you mean?

I can ask him, but not sure he will invest any time in it...

[RWAP]

Apparently, Jochen Merz can still sell Software87 titles if anyone wants a copy!

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Rich,

Text87 would not run on Hi-Colour SMSQ/E systems till Marcel wrote the Plu4Patch programme.

[RWAP]

Well yes - the Plus4Patch means that no changes to the main program are required to get it to run under high colours.

Fred has said that he will look out the source code for the printer drivers, so that hopefully a native HTML printer driver could be written.

[tcat]

Hi,

I have t87+4 demo as avaialble at Dilwyn's site.
Is there a way it can be tricked into working on a plain JS ROM QL with 512K add on RAM?

When I load it over SER2 line, it just does not seem to come up.
Just a thought, e.g. does it look for a default font on a default device, and when not found it quits silently?

Many thanks
Tom

[RWAP]

The executable will look for the fonts and printer drivers on flp1_ which is probably what is causing the issue - it is just a shame that no-one has the contact for Di-Ren - I think their fileserver program implements similar commands to the Toolkit II FSERVE and NFS_USE commands which would overcome this...

I do have a copy of Di-Ren's Fileserver II disk (but the only manual I have is for Fileserver I which does not quite tally)... £8 plus postage

[dex]

I have Text87 (not sure about the version), original package with disk.
The behaviour is the same - it simply does not run when executed from the floppy - SGC + Minerva (i.e., nothing happens after EXEC excepting temporary disk activity, Basic command line cursor is active again. No new job in JOBS list).

[RWAP]

Weird - it works on q-emulator.

Perhaps you need to run the configuration program (plus4setup)...