Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

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RWAP
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Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by RWAP »

I recently helped out someone on World of Spectrum who was struggling to transfer files downloaded from the internet onto his QL.

The thread includes some easy to follow instructions (mainly based on the instructions on the Sinclair QL Homepage by Dilwyn), although these appeared to provide some real issues for this customer which I have not been able to replicate!

I thought it may therefore be useful to see if anyone has any suggestions as to how this can be improved - maybe Dilwyn could provide a copy of the unzip program ready to use in Q-emuLator (as I eventually did).

The thread appears at:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/s ... hp?t=34536

Any ideas as to what may have been the cause of the problem experienced by the user though?


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vanpeebles
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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by vanpeebles »

I know that the self extracting zip file can be very buggy and I had endless battles with it. In the end Dilwyn helped me out with that little manual program to sort it for you.

Rob had similar issues, it's a very tricky step for your first steps onto the QL :?


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dilwyn
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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by dilwyn »

vanpeebles wrote:I know that the self extracting zip file can be very buggy and I had endless battles with it. In the end Dilwyn helped me out with that little manual program to sort it for you.

Rob had similar issues, it's a very tricky step for your first steps onto the QL :?
Sadly, the self-extract (SFX) version of unzip seems to create more problems than it solves nowadays for some people, usually the ones who need it most. It works on some system, not on others. Hardly surprising really, as it was a bit of a hack by JRH in the first place, even he admitted that.

Possibly a more reliable but more fiddly to set up version (which I think what vanpeebles refers to) is available at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/arch/index.html - scroll down the page to Unzip and just below that is a paragraph starting with N.B.. There you'll find a short BASIC program and a headerless Unzip binary which the BASIC program patches. Transfer both files to the emulator (doesn't matter if it loses any headers in the process). Run the little BASIC program to patch and restore the header of the Unzip program. Change the drive names as required. Line 120 is the file length of version 5.32 of Unzip, change it as required if you are using another version. Read through the REM statements for how to change it. If your emulator already has toolkit 2, you could even change line 120 to something like fl = FLEN(\flp1_unzip) to detect the length by itself. The value in 130 is the dataspace to give the program.

100 REMark restore Unzip v5.32 executable file header
110 :
120 fl = 108460 : REMark length in bytes of this version
130 ds = 51270 : REMark dataspace in bytes of this version
140 :
150 REMark reserve some space to "fix" the file in memory
160 REMark use ALCHP in place of RESPR in next line if you have ALCHP
170 base = RESPR(108460) : REMark file length of Unzip
180 :
190 REMark change 'flp1_' to drive name required for loading UNZIP
200 LBYTES flp1_unzip,base
210 :
220 REMark change 'ram1_' to drive name required for saving UNZIP
230 SEXEC ram1_unzip,base,fl,ds
240 :
250 REMark if you used ALCHP in line 150 above,remove REMark in next line
260 REMark RECHP base
270 PRINT #0,'Program finished.'


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dilwyn
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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by dilwyn »

RWAP wrote:I thought it may therefore be useful to see if anyone has any suggestions as to how this can be improved - maybe Dilwyn could provide a copy of the unzip program ready to use in Q-emuLator (as I eventually did).
Good idea. I have QemuLator so I should be able to do this if I can figure out how to move the QemuLator version of unzip into the website for download without losing the QemuLator header int he file. Maybe if you have a ready-made copy you could email me with a line or two of notes as to what a QemuLator user should do to get it into the QemuLator environment ready to go, I could put that directly on my website (to save me a bit of head-scratching).

Dilwyn Jones


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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by RWAP »

dilwyn wrote: Good idea. I have QemuLator so I should be able to do this if I can figure out how to move the QemuLator version of unzip into the website for download without losing the QemuLator header int he file. Maybe if you have a ready-made copy you could email me with a line or two of notes as to what a QemuLator user should do to get it into the QemuLator environment ready to go, I could put that directly on my website (to save me a bit of head-scratching).
Dilwyn Jones
Now if you had read the thread on World of Spectrum, you would see I already did this - I quote:
I have instead copied the unzip program file to a Windows directory under q-emulator and then zipped it up - simply unzip it to your desktop, and point Q-emulator's mdv1_ to the folder unzip on your desktop.

You can get hold of this version of unzip from :

http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/downloads ... -unzip.zip
You will of course need to use a tool on your PC (most Windows versions have this built in nowadays) to right click the downloaded file and extract it to your PC's desktop.

Now the basic instructions as to point q-emulator's mdv1_ to the folder unzip is to

Start q-emulator
Left click on the left hand microdrive slot at the bottom of the display to set up mdv1_
Select 'attach a directory' - point this to the unzip folder created from above on your PC desktop


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M68008
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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by M68008 »

The unregistered version of Q-emuLator emulates a QL with a floppy interface and some extra RAM, but the file system drivers run in non-level2 mode. The unzip self-extract program must be relying on a level2 file system. The 'not found' error is not usually seen in the registered version because the file system is level2 by default, but disabling the level2 option in the QL configuration dialog will result in the 'not found'.


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dilwyn
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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by dilwyn »

I have instead copied the unzip program file to a Windows directory under q-emulator and then zipped it up - simply unzip it to your desktop, and point Q-emulator's mdv1_ to the folder unzip on your desktop.
You can get hold of this version of unzip from :
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/downloads ... -unzip.zip
You will of course need to use a tool on your PC (most Windows versions have this built in nowadays) to right click the downloaded file and extract it to your PC's desktop.
Now the basic instructions as to point q-emulator's mdv1_ to the folder unzip is to
Start q-emulator
Left click on the left hand microdrive slot at the bottom of the display to set up mdv1_
Select 'attach a directory' - point this to the unzip folder created from above on your PC desktop[/quote]
Ah, thanks Rich. This will appear on my website archivers page later today. And thanks too Daniele for the "level 2" notes as to why the SFX seems not to work on some systems.

Dilwyn


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M68008
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Re: Transferring Software from the PC to the QL

Post by M68008 »

Unzip is built in most versions of Windows, or if the file is not too big it can just be distributed uncompressed (file header info won't be lost)


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