Mark Swift's Website

[Peter]

Hi,

I saw with regret that Mark Swift's website
http://www.mswift.unisonplus.net/ql/index.html
seems permanently down.

I wonder wether his QL/Amiga related downloads are available somewhere else?
I think Mark's work is very much worth to be conserved.

Peter

[dilwyn]

Hi,
I saw with regret that Mark Swift's website
http://www.mswift.unisonplus.net/ql/index.html
seems permanently down.
I wonder wether his QL/Amiga related downloads are available somewhere else?
I think Mark's work is very much worth to be conserved.
Peter

I have most if not all of the content of his site saved on my hard drive, with the intention of ensuring it's all on my website at some point. If there is something in particular you need, I'll check if I have it or not and could email it to you.

[XorA]

I have most if not all of the content of his site saved on my hard drive, with the intention of ensuring it's all on my website at some point. If there is something in particular you need, I'll check if I have it or not and could email it to you.

I would be interested in UAEQLKickROM.zip and UAEQLADF.zip

If people want to see at least the text of the page it is in archive.org

https://web.archive.org/web/20120217124 ... index.html

Graeme

[Peter]

I have most if not all of the content of his site saved on my hard drive, with the intention of ensuring it's all on my website at some point.

Glad that you saved it. Maybe the point has come now?

If there is something in particular you need, I'll check if I have it or not and could email it to you.

Thank you. I was only interested in the documentation files at the time, which were archived on the "wayback machine". However, most files are not.

[neozeed]

Guess no hope for QZ.zip?

OS Classic - QL emulator for Amiga and Q40 computers
QZ.zip 1343226 08/10/99 QDOS Classic v3.25 (beta p) - full src & bin

I guess you have it already in that one zip...
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/emu/QDOSclassic.zip

[Mark Swift]

Hi,

The website disappeared around Feb 2012. It wasn't planned.

A few years earlier, my Union (Unison) had provided free web hosting to its members. Access was limited to a particular dial up provider.
Unfortunately when dial up was a thing of the past, I got locked out of the site and nobody at Unison could tell me who was actually hosting or how I could gain access again.

Before this, I had zipped up my working source files from my Q40 in order to upload to my then website.
These working source files ended up being the missing QZ.zip file that you mention.


Until recently, I hadn't really worked on the emulator since 2002.
Around that time, I copied the sources to my Mac and played around in UAE for a while.

I had planned to improve the stand-alone Kickstart ROM by adding support for the real-time clock and for physical memory checking (the QDOS kickstart ROM assumed 2MB Chip RAM). I didn't intend to stop working on the emulator, but time marched on.


I always felt that I had left the emulator unfinished, so in Summer this year I started work on it again.
Finding the time is hard going, but this is what I've done so far:

* Fixed some bugs in the Amiga FLP routines. One that prevented access to 40 track disks, and one that prevented access to FLP2. Thinking back, my Amiga A4000 only had one floppy so maybe that is why I didn't notice those bugs way back when.
* Added hardware support for the Amiga real-time clock.
* Added some missing vectors for interrupt levels 0 to 7 to the end of the Kickstart ROM which prevented use on 68000 (A500/A600).
* Added a seed to the Kickstart ROM, so that the checksum always adds up to 001e001f. The last long word in the Kickstart ROM has a dual purpose. It is used for both a ROM checksum and for the interrupt levels 6 and 7 vectors. The checksum must therefore always add up to 001e001f.
* Removed some code from QuBIDE that (oddly) deliberately crashed if it didn't find supported hardware ('Gal 1 error').
* Not done the memory checking yet, so at the moment the Kickstart ROM still assumes 2MB of CHIP RAM. (So type ACE_ON to get mode 8 colours).


I am using FS-UAE as my real Amiga is just a little too imposing - so is still in my loft.
If you are interested, I've attached a zipped up copy of my FS-UAE directory, containing "Configurations" (for FS-UAE), "Floppies" (720k images), "Hard Drives" (QubIDE) and "Kickstarts" (QDOS only).

I haven't attached any sources, as it's still work in progress and needs tidying up.

[Peter]

Great to hear that you started working on QDOS Classic again!
I privately created a Q68 variant of QDOS Classic. If you are interested in joining that with your sources, or want to look at the Q68 itself, please let me know. For the Q68 variant of QDOS Classic, there is an SD card driver with QLWA filesystem thanks to Wolfgang.
If you are still using a Q40/Q60, there is also a new harddisk driver, which allows QDOS Classic to co-exist with SMSQ/E and Linux on the same harddisk.

[Mark Swift]

Hi Peter,
Nice to hear from you again.
It would be great to join the sources together. How do you want to go about this?
Would you want to send me your sources?
...and let me know which assembler you use.
The alternative hard disk driver sounds interesting. Is the code for this open source?
Let me know.

[Peter]

It would be great to join the sources together. How do you want to go about this?
Would you want to send me your sources?

Yes, but it was a forked project, and I'd prefer to send them in a way that fits your original source tree.
It was long ago, I need to dig into it again after some more urgent work was done.
Are you interested in the Q68 hardware itself? Or alternatively a Qzero which is compatible?
Otherwise testing would be difficult. There is work in progress for a Q68 emulator, but it is not yet ready.

...and let me know which assembler you use.

QMAC

The alternative hard disk driver sounds interesting. Is the code for this open source?

Yes, done by Richard Zidlkicky. I need to ask him for the latest version and come back. I'm just not convinced if Qubide is still the way to go. There is a QLWA (SMSQ/E filesystem) driver for the Q68 variant of QDOS Classic - just SD card instead of IDE. If there was a chance to also get a QLWA driver for the Qx0 (or even Amiga?) variant QDOS Classic, that would be preferable IMHO.

[napsternds]

I always felt that I had left the emulator unfinished, so in Summer this year I started work on it again.
Finding the time is hard going, but this is what I've done so far:

* Fixed some bugs in the Amiga FLP routines. One that prevented access to 40 track disks, and one that prevented access to FLP2. Thinking back, my Amiga A4000 only had one floppy so maybe that is why I didn't notice those bugs way back when.
* Added hardware support for the Amiga real-time clock.
* Added some missing vectors for interrupt levels 0 to 7 to the end of the Kickstart ROM which prevented use on 68000 (A500/A600).
* Added a seed to the Kickstart ROM, so that the checksum always adds up to 001e001f. The last long word in the Kickstart ROM has a dual purpose. It is used for both a ROM checksum and for the interrupt levels 6 and 7 vectors. The checksum must therefore always add up to 001e001f.
* Removed some code from QuBIDE that (oddly) deliberately crashed if it didn't find supported hardware ('Gal 1 error').
* Not done the memory checking yet, so at the moment the Kickstart ROM still assumes 2MB of CHIP RAM. (So type ACE_ON to get mode 8 colours).

Mark,

Having you in the forum is great news. A few days ago, I started trying to get some specific setup working with QDOSclassic UAE ROM, but got stuck after some tries. Amazingly, when 'googleing' for additional info, I got to this post, which was created.

Looks like you had been working in everything I needed.....

Thank you, and Happy New Year to all!