The system requirements issue

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Cristian
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The system requirements issue

Post by Cristian »

In the large variety of softwares, hardwares, roms and emulators concerning QL scene, it's often difficult to understand which (emulated)hardware matches each software and vice versa. For example, the "pointer driven" indication (when present) is crucial, but often not sufficient.
So it's not so rare to loose much time in reading manuals (some of them are good, some not, and some doesn't exist at all) and making several empirical proofs and so on.
Has anyone considered the idea to create some very simple, easy-to-read symbols or alphanumeric sequence, a conventional code to put near each software in order to immediately understand how to configure our (virtual)machine?


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tofro
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by tofro »

Good Idea!

(Might be a bit of work, though, to go through the heaps of existing software and classify.)

Some examples we could use
  • Runs on original QL (128k)
  • Needs memory extension (how much?)
  • Needs floppy drives
  • Supports being run from a subdirectory
  • Runs on Minerva
  • Supports higher screen resolutions than 512x256
  • Will not run on "standard" screen size
  • Needs MODE 8 support
  • Needs the pointer environment
  • Needs extended color modes (GD2)
  • Needs a win_ or other storage medium larger than a floppy
Criteria could obviously be codified into nice icons or ASCII abbreviations.

Tobias


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pjw
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by pjw »

I agree this is a good idea. About time too..

The pointer environment could be split into:
Pointer Interface (ptr_gen only)
Pointer Environment (ptr_gen + wman)
Extended Environment (the above plus Hotkey System II)
This is the terminology TT uses.

A different method, or in addition, one might specify, say, four levels of environment (possibly with a few sub-levels and enhancements each), All, Low-, Medium-, and High-end systems, and define what each level should contain. This would let programmers make assumptions about the capabilities s/he can expect to find, and punters could find any extra toolkits/system extensions required in one place, without having to hunt for them.


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Cristian
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by Cristian »

Well, above all I'm happy to see I'm not the only one perceiving the "system requirements issue" :)
Thanks for your suggestions. Now some general ideas:

- in my opinion we don't need to immediately classify the whole existing software (what a titanic enterprise!). This could be done in the future (if possible): It's more important to start doing something (e.g. for the new added softwares at least);
- whatever method we adopt (symbols, letters etc.) it should be very simple and intuitive;
- let's avoid to specify lots of sub-categories, unless they are necessary.


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dilwyn
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by dilwyn »

Cristian wrote:Well, above all I'm happy to see I'm not the only one perceiving the "system requirements issue" :)
Thanks for your suggestions. Now some general ideas:

- in my opinion we don't need to immediately classify the whole existing software (what a titanic enterprise!). This could be done in the future (if possible): It's more important to start doing something (e.g. for the new added softwares at least);
- whatever method we adopt (symbols, letters etc.) it should be very simple and intuitive;
- let's avoid to specify lots of sub-categories, unless they are necessary.
Thanks for saying that Cristian, I breathe a sigh of relief (as the owner of the largest download site).

It would rely on authors giving me the classifications with any software packages as I simply would not have the time to even try to draw up requirement classification myself.


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Cristian
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by Cristian »

dilwyn wrote: Thanks for saying that Cristian, I breathe a sigh of relief (as the owner of the largest download site).
It would rely on authors giving me the classifications with any software packages as I simply would not have the time to even try to draw up requirement classification myself.
But... actually I believed you became Santa recently :P
Seriously speaking, it's obvious that the whole classification is not up to you :-)
Once decided a classification method, the authors will have the tools to give their support, if they can/want.


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Cristian
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by Cristian »

I'm about to develope a proposal for a very simple text-based classification method. Surely it will be incomplete, but at least it will be a basis for further improvements.


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Cristian
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Re: The system requirements issue

Post by Cristian »

We could split the minimum system requirements into two areas: hardware and software.
For the sake of simplicity, we could use two almost self-explaining text lines.

Here are some examples for the first text line about hardware:

Q -> the 128K basic QL
Q - ICE
Q - 256K - FLP - L2 -> Level 2 directories required
Q - 640K - Her - Min - HDD -> Hermes, Minerva, hard disk
Q40 - 1024x512
QXL - GD2
AUR - GC - FLP -> Aurora, GoldCard....
SGC - HDD

And some examples for the second text line about software:

Qdos
Qdos - TK2
Qdos - TK2 - PE
SMSQE

So here below an hypothetical example for the usage:

Music Player 5
Q - 640K - Her - FLP
Qdos - TK2 - PE



Even if the text codes are almost self-explaining, it may be useful to include also a simple key.
Sorry for possible mistakes: unfortunately my knowledge about QL is limited. At least I hope this could be a basis for further improvements.


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