Psion Software with Gold Card

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Chr$
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Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by Chr$ »

Now that I have a working original GC attached to my QL I've just been playing around with my normal QL stuff.

It doesn't seem to work with anything from the original Psion suite. Is that normal? I read that the Psion progs like to take all the available RAM. When I try to EW e.g. Quill, it goes bananas, corrupt screen, accessing random mdv's, it even managed to change my vMap configuration! Searching online doesn't reveal anything related to GC/Psion use so perhaps I have another issue.

Any ideas?


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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by tofro »

The Psion suite becomes confused if there is "too much" free memory available.
You can often work around this if you simply hog some memory during start-up of the program and release it afterwards:

Code: Select all

100 REMark needs TK2
110 a = ALCHP (1024 * 1024) : REMark Grab 1MB of memory (adjust with SGC/GC - leave around 256k free for Quill)
120 EW win1_quill
130 RECHP (a)


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RalfR
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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by RalfR »

Hmm, first an EW, then an ALCHP.....? ;)

For those things, the early programs from the QRAM suite are very useful to patch the Psion programs. Or use Qpac 2 "Execute" Sub-menu "Psion".
Last edited by RalfR on Wed Feb 12, 2020 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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janbredenbeek
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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by janbredenbeek »

Chr$ wrote:Now that I have a working original GC attached to my QL I've just been playing around with my normal QL stuff.
It doesn't seem to work with anything from the original Psion suite. Is that normal? I read that the Psion progs like to take all the available RAM. When I try to EW e.g. Quill, it goes bananas, corrupt screen, accessing random mdv's, it even managed to change my vMap configuration! Searching online doesn't reveal anything related to GC/Psion use so perhaps I have another issue.
You might try Quill-e v2.4 on DIlwyn's download page here: http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/psions/index.html.
If you have the Pointer Environment, you can start Quill with the EXEP command like this: EXEP Quill,p,256 to allow 256K to be reserved for Quill.
Also note that the Psion programs don't handle subdirectories, if the document you want to load is in a subdirectory you have to use the DEV_USE command to make a devx_ device point into the subdirectory and use 'devx_name_doc' in Quill to load the document.

Jan


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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by janbredenbeek »

Ralf R. wrote:Hmm, first an EW, then an ALCHP.....? ;)

For those things, the early programs from the QRAM suite are very useful to patch the Psion programs. Or use Qpac 2 "Execute" Sub-menu "Psion".
Yes I remember starting the patched versions using EW GRQUILL, EW GRABACUS etc. ;) .
This was later incorporated in the EXEP command with the P parameter, e.g. EXEP Quill,p,256.


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Andrew
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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by Andrew »

What Psion versions are you using ?
I use XChange 3.90 with GC and SGC and have not encountered any issues.


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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by tofro »

Ralf R. wrote:Hmm, first an EW, then an ALCHP.....? ;)
Don't get that.


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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by Chr$ »

Andrew wrote:What Psion versions are you using ?
2.3 or 2.35, I can't remember exactly. Quite an ancient 'original' one.

Tobias, I couldn't get your ALCHP trick to work.

I'll try EXEP Quill,p,256 but will probably move over to Xchange then (I've used that on the QXLII).


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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by RalfR »

tofro wrote:
Ralf R. wrote:Hmm, first an EW, then an ALCHP.....? ;)
Don't get that.
If you EW you never reach ALCHP to release memory. Only if you quit QUILL.


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tofro
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Re: Psion Software with Gold Card

Post by tofro »

Ralf R. wrote:
tofro wrote:
Ralf R. wrote:Hmm, first an EW, then an ALCHP.....? ;)
Don't get that.
If you EW you never reach ALCHP to release memory. Only if you quit QUILL.
ALCHP allocates the memory and hides it from Quill.

RECHP releases it once Quill is done.

And the ALCHP obviously is before the EW.

I still don't get your point (maybe you confuse the two commands?).


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