The Sinclair QL Forum

SinclairSociety wrote:It was Sinclair QL time for me again..

SinclairSociety wrote:It was Sinclair QL time for me again.. and today I finally found a moment to create a video showing how to load and use downloaded microdrive images made for the vDrive.

[SETUP]
Bank3

[Bank2]
MISC\MDV1.MDV      ;
MISC\MDV4.MDV      ;
MISC\MDV5.MDV      ;
MISC\MDV6.MDV      ;
MISC\MDV7.MDV      ;
MISC\MDV8.MDV      ;


[Bank3]
GAMES\Assault.MDV  ;
GAMES\Cavern.mdv   ;
GAMES\MCosmic.MDV  ;
GAMES\MCrunch.MDV  ;
GAMES\Metropol.MDV ;
GAMES\MTreasur.MDV ;


[Bank4]
GAMES\Qbert.MDV    ;
GAMES\QLGames.mdv  ;
GAMES\Speed.MDV    ;
GAMES\Spook.MDV    ;
GAMES\3DOXO.MDV    ;
GAMES\ATTACK.MDV   ;


[Bank5]
GAMES\BUGSBOMB.MDV ;
GAMES\CHESS.MDV    ;
GAMES\FROGGY.MDV   ;
GAMES\GUNNER.MDV   ;
GAMES\PACMAN.MDV   ;
GAMES\PALADIN.MDV  ;


[Bank6]
GAMES\PUDGE.MDV    ;
GAMES\QBALL.MDV    ;
GAMES\Qbert2.MDV   ;
GAMES\QGAMES.MDV   ;
GAMES\SPACEINV.MDV ;
GAMES\SPACEPOD.MDV ;


[Bank7]
GAMES\SPACERAI.MDV ;
GAMES\STARBURS.MDV ;
GAMES\STARPORT.MDV ;
GAMES\WIPEOUT.MDV  ;
GAMES\ZAPMAN.MDV   ;


[Bank8]
MISC\OTHER.MDV     ;
MISC\SOURCE.MDV    ;
MISC\DIGIC.MDV     ;

bwinkel67 wrote:

SinclairSociety wrote:It was Sinclair QL time for me again.. and today I finally found a moment to create a video showing how to load and use downloaded microdrive images made for the vDrive.

You don't really need to load the boot file on the vDrive unless you need to use more than 6 MDV images in a session. As long as you can remember the MDV images you've assigned to the current bank then just boot up the QL and your MDV3 to MDV8 are there to be used as normal MDV drives (i.e. dir mdv3_ will work right from reset/reboot).

I find it easier to just edit the VDRIVEQL.CFG file on the SD card on my PC/MAC in a text editor (i.e. Notepad) and then when I'm using the SD card on the QL I just have to remember the mapping of the 6 MDV's I have for that session.

So the name of the bank that appears at the top after [SETUP] is the current bank (and the entries in the list for each bank map to MDV3 through MDV8 in order). Simply change it to the name of the other banks...and the label Bank#, with # being a number, is just my internal formatting, you can call it anything you like. I also organizes things into folders on the SD card and simply give path names (so in the CFG file above I have a folder called GAMES and one called MISC and all images are within those).

Oh, and a better Pacman is Spook (found on SPOOK.MDV from Dilwyn's website).

In any case, vDrive really is simple and seamless with no need for any ROM extensions and one reason I really like it. As long as you are familiar with the standard QL dir, load, lrun, and exec commands you won't even know you have one.

mlasham wrote:vmap only allows mdv1 and mdv2 to be mapped to the internal drives, or ext1 or ext2 - so mdv3-8 cannot be mapped to mdv1 from what I can see.

Andrew wrote:

mlasham wrote:vmap only allows mdv1 and mdv2 to be mapped to the internal drives, or ext1 or ext2 - so mdv3-8 cannot be mapped to mdv1 from what I can see.

That is not true - vMap modes 3 to 8 will map the internal drives as mdv3 -8
See the chart in the vMap manual https://vdrivezx.files.wordpress.com/20 ... manual.pdf

mlasham wrote: How do you get around many of those .mdv images you have assigned to vdrives <> mdv1 that expect the game to be in mdv1_ ?
for example, spook.mdv wants to be on mdv1_

vmap only allows mdv1 and mdv2 to be mapped to the internal drives, or ext1 or ext2 - so mdv3-8 cannot be mapped to mdv1 from what I can see.