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Info/files into, out of QL (w/ Win machine, Mac)

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 11:12 pm
by aisling42
Let's see if I'm in the right place:
I'm looking for pointers to information. That's without being told outright "how to" or "the information itself". Unless there's a willing soul out there :D .

I'm looking for pointers to how to get things in and out of a QL, (which platform I've just recently re-activated), by floppy/SneakerNet or whatever means. F'rinstance I've seen reference recently to use of Ser ports and cables. I had experience with these matters when dear old dad passed away and left his enhanced QL. If I can pull it off, that may become a mainstay of my home office. Psion 4 (viz., Xchange) still is worthwhile. Not to mention Psion Chess (google "1985 micro World Champion"), for which I still have an eye towards another QUANTA article).

I have for instance a QL (SGC, Qubide, Rebel, floppies), Win98 (!), Linuxes/ces, various Mac Laptops from 2000 - 2012, OS X 10.4.x - 10.8.5 - 10.13.4 . And ethernet cables & switches all over the house. While it would be nice to create the ability to get from any platform to any other, even if only by floppy, that's not my main focus. I want to get files, even if small (.le.1.44M) to & from the QL esp with the old Windows machine or OS X on the main Mac.

One f'rinstance is that I used to know something about QL's being able to R&W IBM diskettesl (for that matter Mac/OS X has some analogous abilities). I can't find the info now--e.g. my TK2 doc'n doesn't show anything like "FMT_IBM" or "FORMAT" with some "IBM" parameter.

Thanks everyone,
Doug LaVerne USA
QL since 90s; more

Re: Info/files into, out of QL (w/ Win machine, Mac)

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:11 am
by RWAP
Hi Doug,

As you have a Super Gold Card and floppy disk drives it gives you some nice options.

a) Use SMSQ/e on the QL. This allows you to read/write directly to DOS formatted disks just as if they were QL ones.
b) Use QL formatted disks, but use a QL emulator on the PC to read them and store the files - q-emulator and QPC2 are both capable of reading QL formatted disks and copying them onto the PC file system

You can also find a range of utilities for converting the QL file formats into something which is easier to handle on the PC (once you copy the contents across) - http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/filetran/index.html I particularly like ql2pc by Geoff Wicks.