The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi
I am a retro computer enthusiast. I am always impressed by the QL which was the first 68k based home computer. It was released 2 weeks before the Macintosh, it was also with faster clock, with color graphics, and 4 times cheaper! I have started several small software projects for the QL. I have to confess I have problems. I am reading forum materials trying to resolve them. I am still unsure about an emulator to use. I prefer Linux. So I started with MAME/MESS. It works and has a good debugger but this emulator is very basic and has issues. I tried Zesarux, it looks very advanced but the keyboard barely works. Now I am trying to use something under Microsoft Windows...

Hi,
QPC2 is probably the answer to your search. You can find it here https://www.kilgus.net/qpc/downloads/

Regards,
Peter.

Hi Vol,

I use Linux. I have QPC2 version 5.01 running under Wine on Linux Mint 20.3 64bit on an old Dell Vostro 17" laptop. QPC2 is a Windows program, but apart from not being able to access floppy discs, runs perfectly on Linux. I've been using it for years.

You can get it at https://www.kilgus.net/qpc/downloads/ and Marcel Kilgus, the developer, is on this forum and is extremely helpful.

The other emulators in common use, are Java based, SMSQmulator is one, and for the life of me, I can't remember the other! There are plenty people using them here who can help if you have problems. QPC is written in C and assembler, I believe, so no Java required.


HTH

Cheers,
Norm.

A warm welcome

Thanks a lot for your advice. However QPC and SMSQmulator are the super-QL emulators, they cannot just emulate an good old QL from the 80s.
I have also discovered sQLux. It seems it is the best variant for me. However I am a bit shocked that the same benchmark runs on MAME/MESS 4 times faster than on sQLux! So one of these emulators has rather very inaccurate timings.
Sorry, I seem to have delved too deeply into emulators in this thread. I'm going to test more emulators and start a dedicated thread about it later.

vol wrote:Thanks a lot for your advice. However QPC and SMSQmulator are the super-QL emulators, they cannot just emulate an good old QL from the 80s.
I have also discovered sQLux. It seems it is the best variant for me. However I am a bit shocked that the same benchmark runs on MAME/MESS 4 times faster than on sQLux! So one of these emulators has rather very inaccurate timings.
Sorry, I seem to have delved too deeply into emulators in this thread. I'm going to test more emulators and start a dedicated thread about it later.

sQLux doesnt emulate the hardware, so it doesnt attempt any form of "accurate timing".

One of the easiest way to try out and compare virtual QLs (emulated 68K) with a fundamental basic setup of software is QL/E.

QL/E is portable and comes with QPC2, SMSQmulator, QPC1, uQLx and sQLux. Plus it's able to run with the registered edition of Q-emuLator.

And having a closer look at the implementation of the QL/E system is a good learning lab, of how a well-designed QL system may look like.

vol wrote:Hi
I am a retro computer enthusiast. I am always impressed by the QL which was the first 68k based home computer. It was released 2 weeks before the Macintosh, it was also with faster clock, with color graphics, and 4 times cheaper! I have started several small software projects for the QL. I have to confess I have problems. I am reading forum materials trying to resolve them. I am still unsure about an emulator to use. I prefer Linux. So I started with MAME/MESS. It works and has a good debugger but this emulator is very basic and has issues. I tried Zesarux, it looks very advanced but the keyboard barely works. Now I am trying to use something under Microsoft Windows...

Just so I understand correctly, you are trying to find a Linux based QL emulator, correct?

Thanks for the warm welcome and helpful information!