Hello and my QL experience so far

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Chr$
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Chr$ »

I now have a working mdv2_!

That m/b and underside etc in that recent lot of spares looks absolutely mint. From the shiny lustre of the 7805 voltage regulators, lack of serial number, the satisfying cracks when undoing the screws and the empty sockets that don't look like they've ever had chips in them etc... anyway, I removed a Microdrive, popped it in the main machine and all is fine now. I feel better now.


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RWAP
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by RWAP »

As for the position of the buttons at the top - that is part of the QPAC2 button frame. From memory you need to use MenuConfig to configure QPAC2 (or possibly PTR_GEN / WMAN) to set the position of the button frame.

It has been many years since I did that... Top left of a TV screen should be x = 32, y = 16

I will also have spare key tops and pillars for your spare keyboard top - but alas none of the FInnish specific characters


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Chr$
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Chr$ »

RWAP wrote:As for the position of the buttons at the top - that is part of the QPAC2 button frame. From memory you need to use MenuConfig to configure QPAC2 (or possibly PTR_GEN / WMAN) to set the position of the button frame.

It has been many years since I did that... Top left of a TV screen should be x = 32, y = 16

I will also have spare key tops and pillars for your spare keyboard top - but alas none of the FInnish specific characters
I think I'm only missing one Finland specific key but I can't find a pic of a Finnish keyboard anywhere now, even though I remember seeing various international versions on Urs site somewhere! I will certainly consider your offer but first I need to decide what to do with these - they may just end up in my spares box. I'll re-group and will no doubt order some bits from you. Do you also have chips available? I may attempt to make a working machine from the spares. And thanks for the info on the MenuConfig, I'll try to find something along those lines in the directories on win1_.


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dilwyn
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by dilwyn »

Chr$ wrote:Thank you thank you.

I simply used the RGB to Scart cable that I already had for the +3! I picked up an old flat screen TV locally (non HDMI) for 5 Euros. Actually that leads me to another question: When in F2 monitor mode, the final pointer screen with the top menus (I think it's the qman2 screen?) is off screen to the left and the 'HO' of 'HOTKEYS' is off screen (so are the channels below that). How can I shift them over, can it be done from the boot file? I managed to work out how to re-position the 'windows' on the normal red/black screen you get from F2 by slightly changing their size and position.
Quite suprised that the +3 cable worked as well as it did!

Losing bits of the screen edges are, believe it or not, pretty normal for a QL - the issues have been explained pretty regularly here.

The Button Frame of QPAC2 can be reconfigured fairly easily to move the origin by using the MenuConfig program to reconfigure the Buttons setting in the QPAC2 configuration block (from memory, I think it's a Level 2 block so you have to use MenuConfig, not the older Config level 1 program).

1. Execute MenuConfig
2. Tell it to load your "QPAC2" file - the filename may be QPAC2, QPAC2_English, QPAC2_Deutsch... (depends on which version you normally use)
3. Once loaded, tell MenuConfig to configure the "Buttons" part of QPAC2. Here you can alter origin, width, height and Organisation (Rows/Columns)
4. Work your way back from the menu and quit from MenuConfig accepting any offer to save the changes (if you allow it to update something called MenuConfig_inf it will remember the configuration details for next time).

If this doesn't achieve what you wanted to do, another way might be to create a little dummy program to occupy the first slot in the button frame with a fairly anonymous name (start it first in your boot program before anything else gets a chance to start), pushing everything else over a little to the right. OK, not the most elegant solution by any means, but might be a short-term solution until someone can suggest something better.

Good luck - let us know what worked for you!


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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by RWAP »

Chr$ wrote:Do you also have chips available? I may attempt to make a working machine from the spares. And thanks for the info on the MenuConfig, I'll try to find something along those lines in the directories on win1_.
Pretty much everything I have is listed on sellmyretro.com (apart from the keyboard spares which I don't list!)


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Chr$
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Chr$ »

dilwyn wrote:Quite suprised that the +3 cable worked as well as it did!

Losing bits of the screen edges are, believe it or not, pretty normal for a QL - the issues have been explained pretty regularly here.

The Button Frame of QPAC2 can be reconfigured fairly easily to move the origin by using the MenuConfig program to reconfigure the Buttons setting in the QPAC2 configuration block (from memory, I think it's a Level 2 block so you have to use MenuConfig, not the older Config level 1 program).

1. Execute MenuConfig
2. Tell it to load your "QPAC2" file - the filename may be QPAC2, QPAC2_English, QPAC2_Deutsch... (depends on which version you normally use)
3. Once loaded, tell MenuConfig to configure the "Buttons" part of QPAC2. Here you can alter origin, width, height and Organisation (Rows/Columns)
4. Work your way back from the menu and quit from MenuConfig accepting any offer to save the changes (if you allow it to update something called MenuConfig_inf it will remember the configuration details for next time).

If this doesn't achieve what you wanted to do, another way might be to create a little dummy program to occupy the first slot in the button frame with a fairly anonymous name (start it first in your boot program before anything else gets a chance to start), pushing everything else over a little to the right. OK, not the most elegant solution by any means, but might be a short-term solution until someone can suggest something better.

Good luck - let us know what worked for you!
I can't get on with that I'm afraid. I couldn't find anything called 'MenuConfig' anywhere on win1_ in the sys directory, bin directory or anywhere. Also, when the system has started I couldn't find anything like that within the drop down menus either. The closest I could find was a list of things running which also shows their window sizes and positions, but I was unable to change those positions. Should I start a new topic for this, with some pics of what I see etc and perhaps include the standard Tetroid boot file provided with the TDI?


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Artificer
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Artificer »

"
I couldn't find anything called 'MenuConfig' anywhere on win1_
"

If menuconfig is not on your system you can download it from Dilwyn's site here http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/config/index.html

You will need to unzip the file on a QL system to keep the "header" on the executable program.


Cheers


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Chr$
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Chr$ »

Ah right, well that makes a lot more sense then!

I have QL zipped files all sussed out so will try that now.


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Derek_Stewart
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

I have a beta version of the TDI Startup kit, written by Alain Haoui.

If the official release is the same as my version. Please look in the ETC subdirectory where you will find "menuconfig"

You need the Extended Environment or Pointer Interface installed to run Menuconfig.


Regards,

Derek
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Chr$
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Re: Hello and my QL experience so far

Post by Chr$ »

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

I have a beta version of the TDI Startup kit, written by Alain Haoui.

If the official release is the same as my version. Please look in the ETC subdirectory where you will find "menuconfig"

You need the Extended Environment or Pointer Interface installed to run Menuconfig.
Thanks, yes, I managed to get it going and will be experimenting with positions today. What about the other channels that are too far to the left, like the bottom one for the command prompt and the large one above that? Where are they set?


https://QXL.WIN
Collector of QL related computers, accessories and QL games/software.
Ask me about felt pads - I can cut them to size and they have proved excellent for mdv data recovery.
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