ROMs and GUIs

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dilwyn
Mr QL
Posts: 2753
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:39 pm

Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by dilwyn »

I think you're finding out rather quickly that for anything other than use as a 128K RAM microdrive only QL, the machine can be a right royal pain for newbie users!

Exapnding it is so fraught with pitfalls, no two expanded systems are alike, that's probably why nobody ever wrote a guide to this early stage. Even a fairly detailed page like my PC transfer and Unzip page can't possibly hope to cover every eventuality - that's why asking here at each stage when things go wrong is probably the best way once trial and error has led to error.

Also, it helps if any error messages are given as although QL error messages can be vague sometimes, occasionally they do help pinpoint sources of error. Hopefully, we'll get you up and running soon and your confidence in the system will grow and you'll start to find preferred applications for the systems, be it games, writing your own BASIC programs, or whatever. That tends to be my little niche for the QL, writing programs - I give them away on my site where I think they might be of use to others.


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dilwyn
Mr QL
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Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:39 pm

Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by dilwyn »

Haemogoblin wrote:I'm an Amiga user, do i have DD disks? Does a Lemming like cliff?? :D
He he, I didn't know lemmings liked cliff richard :twisted:


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vanpeebles
Commissario Pebbli
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Joined: Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:13 pm
Location: North East UK

Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by vanpeebles »

Also don't forget to stop by the chat and say hello. We usually talk about anything, and occasionally the QL :lol:


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dilwyn
Mr QL
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Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:39 pm

Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by dilwyn »

vanpeebles wrote:Also don't forget to stop by the chat and say hello. We usually talk about anything, and occasionally the QL :lol:
In fact, a few of us are on at the moment. Just log in to the Forum and click on the 'online chat' link near the top, should get you onto the online chat system.


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Haemogoblin
Chuggy Microdrive
Posts: 55
Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 12:17 am

Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by Haemogoblin »

dilwyn wrote:
Haemogoblin wrote:Right well I have some news


First the command EW FLP1_UNZIP;'-d FLP2_ FLP1_EXAMPLE_ZIP'

Does not work on my QL, it doesn't seem to know what I'm talk about. Where as it worked fine in the emulator QPC 4.04.

At the moment I'm having a devil of a time getting things to run. I extracted 3d tictactoe, wrote it to floppy which runs fine on the emulator but for some unknown reason errors on the real thing. Telling me read / write fail.
{quote]Sounds like your disk interface doesn't have Toolkit 2 extensions, although if you only have a single drive do NOT use -dFLP2_ as it won't make sense on a single drive system.

What disk interface do you have? If it doesn't say on the casing it might announce itself top of screen on startup, that way we can deduce if it has the right commands you require.

Without Toolkit 2 (and it can be downloaded from my website at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/pe/index.html#tk2download - go for the version which runs from ram for now, I think it's called tk2_bin on there ) you won't be able to run the commands needed for Unzip. Strange - with that QL haul you got I'd have expected there to be Toolkit 2 as either built into a disk interface or as a plug in eprom cartridge for example.

On some interfaces, the toolkit needs to be awakened with a command such as TK2_EXT. Rarely, on some interfaces, the command FLP_EXT may be needed to initialise all disk interface commands.
I have a Cumana disk interface,

TK2_EXT = bad name
FLP_EXT = nothing, it just returns to prompt, not even an error.


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dilwyn
Mr QL
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Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by dilwyn »

Haemogoblin wrote:
I have a Cumana disk interface,

TK2_EXT = bad name
FLP_EXT = nothing, it just returns to prompt, not even an error.
Ah, Cumana interface. There is a replacement manual for that on my website http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/manuals/index.html

TK2_EXT - fine, means that doesn't exist on it.

FLP_EXT - good, returns to prompt without error as it should. Means it's worked and has set up the commands it has on board, EXTRAS, BGET, BPUT, GET, PUT, FPOS, CLOCK, DATA_USE, WDIR, FOPEN, FOP_IN, FOP_NEW, FOP_OVER, FOP_DIR, FLEN, FTYP, FDAT, JOBS, AJOB, SPJOB, RJOB, RENAME, TRUNCATE, VIEW, SPL, SPL_USE, WCOPY, STAT, WSTAT, WDEL, WDEL_F, FLP_USE, but sadly it would appear no EX command for starting the zip/unzip commands.

FLP_USE is quite useful - if you just copy a microdrive cartridge program to floppy disk, it might still try to load other files or programs from MDV, e.g. a BOOT program might LRUN or EXEC another program. Using FLP_USE "mdv" changes the name of the floppy disk driver to MDV, so when you do DIR MDV1_ for example it actually reads the floppy disk drive. A way to fool MDV software to run from FLP if you wish. Enter FLP_USE "flp" to get back to normal (not case sensitive, BTW).

These are a subset of the Toolkit 2 commands, but doesn't seem to include all of Toolkit 2, so you may want to consider adding a full Toolkit 2 if you haven't got one with your tresure trove already.


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Haemogoblin
Chuggy Microdrive
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Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 12:17 am

Re: ROMs and GUIs

Post by Haemogoblin »

Sadly I don't have toolkit no, chance would have been nice :-) but doesn't look like the previous owner bought one. I've been putting a couple of programs back to MDV.


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