The Sinclair QL Forum

RWAP wrote:Excellent work - is this now all ready to be added to Dilwyn's site?

It could do with someone sitting down with the manual and using it to work the program. I've not got around to that yet.

Also I don't know it it's worth annotating the manual with the French words used in the program. Again that's the sitting down with the manual and program.

I don't know how difficult it would be to patch the program into English. It's a compiled program, so I suspect the French text may scattered all over the program.

Just a little update.. I got around to trying to use the manual with the program to do the example.

It didn't work too well.. I think the manual is for version 1 of Tridim, this is version 2. There is an update_doc supplied, that I have now translated which shows where I was going a bit wrong. But I still haven't got a drawing up on the screen yet.

So my manual wants another update. I am also looking at trying to patch the text in the program into English.

Another update.
I have attached an English translation of the program, and a user manual. Both are still a work in progress. So don't take them as finals.

I have only translated the Boot programs and the main Tridim_exe so far, So let me know if you find any bits of French I have missed.

After loading the program, it takes about 20 seconds for the main menu items to appear.

Sometimes the program does not draw correctly, I don't yet know what's causing that yet, but as you can see, it can work.

This is doing the worked example, and the last picture is from the Handling program.

Excellent progress

I'm going for a release of Tridim, it contains the following..

English and French versions of the program as Qemulator mdv and Floppy disk images. The Floppy disk images have been patched to use FLP rather than MDV.

English and French user manuals in LibreOffice and PDF formats. The English manual has been updated with the 'tridim updates' document and further editing, but the French one has not. So French users should refer to the English manual.

I did not want to put the document through a English to French translation program, after it had already been through a French to English translation program. I will leave that to a French speaker.

tridim_MASTER.mdv - This is as far as I can manage with the files that I received, a Qemulator image of a master cartridge complete with the copy protection intact. It is not actually needed to use the program.

There is still a problem with drawing the objects in Tridim itself, but the objects draw correctly in the Handling/Manipulation program. I don't know if this is a bug in the program, or an issue with Qemulator. I have not been able to get the program to run correctly in QPC2. I can get Tridim to run, but when you try to display an object, the program locks up.

I would be interested to know if someone could back port it to a real QL, to see if the problem still exists.

Martin_Head wrote: I can get Tridim to run, but when you try to display an object, the program locks up.
I would be interested to know if someone could back port it to a real QL, to see if the problem still exists.

Martin, you're doing a great work.
Tridim seems to run correctly on my QL (JM Rom and TrumpCard). I can load objects from disk and display them correctly. I also created some random object and displayed it.

I have just done some experimenting with Tridim on Qemulator, and I have found that if I run Tridim in 128K memory mode, the program draws OK. But in 384K memory mode it draws corrupted.

Also in 128K mode, you don't seem to have to wait the 20 seconds for the menu items to appear.

Hi Martin,

that sounds like someone has hard coded the screen base address to me!


Cheers,
Norm.

NormanDunbar wrote:Hi Martin,

that sounds like someone has hard coded the screen base address to me!


Cheers,
Norm.

If you are referring to the QPC2 problem. It may have something to do with it. Although I ran QPC2 in 512x256 QL colour mode, so the screen address should have been in the right place. But I do have corruption problems with QPC2 v4 when in that mode using floppy disks/images when loading screen images into the display. Although it seems to work OK if I use a QXL.WIN file instead. I have not investigated it any further, as I would like to take a little break form Tridim at the moment.

If you are referring to the Qemulator memory thing. I don't see why the screen base address would change.

Hi Martin,

did you check what the screen base address was in 128kb and 384kb modes? If it moved addresses then that could be a reason for drawing problems.

DJToolkit, Minerva etc have funtions to return the screen address, if you don't have something suitable.

Cheers,
Norm.