---
title: "Quill Filesaver"
type: "article"
slug: "quill-filesaver-2"
url: "http://localhost/article/quill-filesaver-2/"
markdown_url: "http://localhost/article/quill-filesaver-2.md"
published_at: "2026-01-19T11:26:50+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-01-19T11:26:52+00:00"
featured_image:
  url: "http://localhost/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ts-2068-windows-1.png"
excerpt: "More than once, my QL has mangled a long Quill document through poor disk or microdrive I/O. Either I removed the cartridge before closing a file, or the QL tried to write part of the file to a non-existent track on the disk or the QL crashed. The result is the same - any attempt…"
category:
  - name: "Sinclair Timex User Group Newsletter"
    slug: "sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter"
    taxonomy: "category"
    url: "http://localhost/category/periodicals/sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter/"
post_tag:
  - name: "QL"
    slug: "ql"
    taxonomy: "post_tag"
    url: "http://localhost/tag/ql/"
  - name: "Type-in program"
    slug: "type-in-program"
    taxonomy: "post_tag"
    url: "http://localhost/tag/type-in-program/"
model:
  - name: "Sinclair QL"
    slug: "sinclair-ql"
    taxonomy: "model"
    url: "http://localhost/model/sinclair-ql/"
indiv:
  - name: "Jim Rodlin"
    slug: "jim-rodlin"
    taxonomy: "indiv"
    url: "http://localhost/indiv/jim-rodlin/"
publication_r:
  id: 21538
  title: "Sinclair Timex User Group Newsletter"
  type: "periodical"
  url: "http://localhost/periodical/sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter/"
authors_r:
  - name: "Jim Rodlin"
    slug: "jim-rodlin"
    taxonomy: "indiv"
    url: "http://localhost/indiv/jim-rodlin/"
volume: "7"
issue: "5"
issues_articles:
  - id: 50150
    title: "BCS Sinclair-Timex User Group Newsletter v7 n5"
    type: "issue"
    url: "http://localhost/issue/bcs-sinclair-timex-user-group-newsletter-v7-n5/"
pages: "8"
pubdate: "September/October 1988"
archive_link: false
---

# Quill Filesaver

More than once, my QL has mangled a long Quill document through poor disk or microdrive I/O. Either I removed the cartridge before closing a file, or the QL tried to write part of the file to a non-existent track on the disk or the QL crashed. The result is the same – any attempt to reload the file into Quill results 1n a File IO Incomplete error, disastrous if you forgot to periodically backup your work.

One such encounter forced me to take a deeper look at how Quill files are stored. I could do this with “BGET”, which reads a single byte from a file. Most disk systems and toolkits have this command.