International QL Report
Publisher(s):
English Micro Connection
Individual Publisher(s):
Bob Dyl
Fan-produced magazine for Sinclair QL owners. IQLR was produced using a Sinclair QL with a Super Gold Card, Minerva ROM, Hermes co-processor, QIMI and Keyboard-90 interfaces, Text87 and Hewlett Packard inkjet and laserjet printers.
| Title | Description | Computers |
|---|---|---|
| "Black Beauty" | Bob named it. After helping Don Walterman build and review the Falkenberg DIY kit to put a QL into a PC type mini tower case and seeing the system that Bob had built for his own QL that was all in black, it inspired me to want to do the same. | Sinclair QL |
| "DiskTidy" A Quanta Library Gem | One of the most interesting and useful utility programs which I have been using for some time is called DISKTIDY. This program allows you to catalog all of your many disks in an orderly manner and brings a definite means of maintaining useful data files. | Sinclair QL |
| "PATHS" on the QL | Following on from the article above using the DEV device on Gold Cards to adapt software to run from subdirectories on ED disks or from hard disks, | now present the second part of this treatise on DEV. This time I show how to use it to implement a facility along the lines of PATH | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| 10 and Still Going Strong! | So the QL was ten years old this year. Well it looks more like it ’s growing like a new born babe. | Sinclair QL |
| 3.2 Meg Disk Drives | We’ve located two suppliers in North America selling these drives. They are advertised as 2.8 or 2.88 meg drives, as this is all the PC will format to. Don’t buy a special controller, the Gold Card does not require it, the PC does. It is a straight forward hookup, using the same cable you presently | Sinclair QL |
| 3.2 Meg Disk Drives | Miracle Systems has informed us that they have an upgrade ROM (version 2.24) for the GOLD CARD that they will provide free of charge when requested by individuals who purchased earlier versions. This replacement chip improves the use of the 3.2 meg drives = ie ag providing a “slow down” option that will make arcade | Sinclair QL |
| 32K Buffer Chip/Panasonic Printers | In a recent issue of the LISTing Newsletter (LIST User Group publication) there was.an interesting offer for a 32K buffer chip for $12.50 plus $1.00 shipping each. Panasonic charges over $50.00 for a similar chip. One of the major advantages of increasing the size of your printer buffer is to allow you to download additional | |
| 3D Terrain | 3D Terrain, written by Ian Thompson and Rich Mellor, is a well thought out, addictive program, that takes data from Abacus and presents it in a 3 Dimensional form ED Note: Unlike some utility programs that generate 3D bar graphs or pie charts, this program produces a topigraphical 3 dimensional landscape presentation of the data).. | Sinclair QL |
| 3Rd Annual Italian QL Fair | QITALY CLUB in conjunction with SPEM of Italy will host the 3rd Italian QL User Fair on Sunday the 12th of January 1992, at Via Ponchielli 26/A, Turin, Italy. | Sinclair QL |
| A Brief History of SMSQ | knew right from the start I should not do it, but so many people were asking for SMS to come out from under its covers that, in early 1992, I outlined a strategy (with Miracle Systems and Jochen Merz) to make a “QL compatible” version of SMS available. | Sinclair QL |
| A Brief Note | As you can see by the size of this issue IQLR has had to cut back in the number of pages per issue. Not for the lack of material, but due to the 72% increase in the cost of paper since the turn of the year and the increased rate of postage both here and | Sinclair QL |
| A Directory Printer | If you have just a few files on, say, flpl, a quick and dirty hard copy of the directory could be obtained by OPEN #3, SER1: STAT #3: WSTAT #3. Unfortunately, for more than about 25 to 30 files, the result is distinctly un-neat. Whence, the following effort to get a mite better organized. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| A File Printer | This program grew out of a want for neatly paged, dated, and identified file printouts. The original version handled only SuperBasic program files. However, when the basic (no pun intended!) similarities between SBasic and text (ASCII) files became obvious, the program was expanded to include text output. The primary difference is that an arbitrary range | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| A Future for the QL | As you may have heard by now, we (PROGS) are working on a new windowing environment for the QL : ProWesS (which is short for “PROGS Windowing System’). A very early version has been shown to some people at the meeting in Eindhoven, and a slightly more recent version is currently distributed on the LINEdesign | Sinclair QL |
| A New House for the QL | After years of tolerating various components of my QL “system” and all of the interconnecting cables associated therewith, occupying most of the space on my desk, I decided it was time to take action. | Sinclair QL |
| A Note from DI-REN | Sinclair QL | |
| A Peek at QLTOOLS | Getting data to and from the QL and MS-DOS has been fairly easy for a while. There are a number of QL programs that will read and write an MS-DOS disk. Sometimes it’s more convenient to be able to have MS-DOS write to a QDOS disk, then there are computers which the QL does not | Sinclair QL |
| A Portable Forth Model, eFORTH | eFORTH is the name of a FORTH model designed to be portable between a large number of the newer and more powerful processors existing now, or becoming available in the near future. FORTH for the QL is a version 32 bits absolute address and 32 bits stack. | Sinclair QL |
| A Reflection - Editor SE | While reviewing the fourth installment of The EDITOR SE, I realized that a screen dump containing the listing of the disk label program with printer control codes never made it into print. I have re-submitted the listing to IQLR with an explanation of each line of the program which appears below. | Sinclair QL |
| A Report - International QL Meeting | Friday February 26th fourteen of us depart from Great Britain for Eindhoven in the dreaded Quanta minibus, driven by Phil Borman (not that Phil’s driving is any reason to dread travelling in it!). Our destination was St Joris college, Eindhoven, for the latest International QL. Meeting, organised by the Dutch and German QL user clubs. | Sinclair QL |
| A Review of Sidewriter | The Sidewriter documentation makes modest sounding claims: Sidewriter prints spreadsheet files (exported from Abacus to Quill) or plain text files in landscape print (sideways). Sidewriter offers options on fonts, output destination, 9 or 24 pin printer, print intensity via number of printing passes, paper width, file line width (sideways down the page), columns per inch | Sinclair QL |
| A Scot's Visit to Oak Ridge | After seeing details of the proposed 3rd North American QL Show in the March/April edition of IQLR, I started to make arrangements immediately; any delay would have ensured that some insuperable problem would arise or that time would slip by until it became too late to get organised. | Sinclair QL |
| A SERMouse Adapter | Sometime ago, having been encouraged by John Impellizzeri’s review of SERMouse, I took the plunge and bought a serial mouse from MEI/Micro for the munificent sum of $7.87 (even better than John’s $10 minimum !). | Sinclair QL |
| A Supplier Responds | I would like to add to Doug LaVernes test of Black Knight which appeared in volume 4 issue 2 of IQLR. The version tested was an early one and contained some oddities, these are now fixed. The same is true for C68 problems, which were mainly related to bad (or no) cache handling. This is | Sinclair QL |
| A Trip Down Memory Lane | Diversity is a good word to use when talking about QL users. This has been well demonstrated by the series of articles run in IQLR describing how different QLers use their systems. To further illustrate this impression, and with the hopes that others will find similarities in their use of QL systems, I have agreed | Sinclair QL |
| Accessing PRINTER_DAT | This article sets out to explain the file structure of the PRINTER_DAT printer driver used by Quill, Archive and Abacus. A program is presented which prints to the screen all of the codes used in the driver and in so doing, shows how you can access the driver for use in your own programs, for | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| ALT(ernatives) | 1 enjoyed Bill Cable’s recent article on using Windex to index a long Quill document. Every time I follow one of Bill’s programs, it acts as a tutorial on Archive programming. | Sinclair QL |
| Alternative to True Multitasking | n the March 1995 issue of QREVIEW there appeared an article titled “BEYOND QUILL” that expressed the sentiment regarding whole disks full of Spellcheckers, whose only service to the user was to indicate how many spelling mistakes were printed in the document just produced is a logical one. In order to correct those mistakes, what | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Amadeus Interlink | I have been requested to put together some details for IQLR regarding our new Amadeus Interlink system. Rather than re-writing existing information, what follows are extracts from a couple information leaflets already available. I, and many others who are familiar with concepts of Amadeus Interlink, believe this product to be of exceptional significance to the | Sinclair QL |
| An ABACUS Without Beads | Mention the wood “Spreadsheet” to the experienced computer user and he will immediately think of a programme for displaying, analysing and manipulating numbers. Indeed the name of the QL’s spreadsheet, ABACUS, indicates that it is a programme which involves calculations. | Sinclair QL |
| An Accountant's View of QLerk | To those who have had little or no training in accounting it should prove a boon as all the terms usually employed by the accounting fraternity are deliberately absent. Instead it relies on a good tutorial, common sense and a help facility. | Sinclair QL |
| An Affordable Keyboard Interface | I was pleased to see Di-Ren’s new ‘affordable’ keyboard interface on the front cover of the last issue of IQLR and the advert on the back was informative but with cover to cover coverage (if you’ll pardon the expression) I was disappointed to see no article within! | Sinclair QL |
| An Author's Response | As the author of WinBack, | read with interest the review of version 2.20 by Don Walterman, in volume 3, issue 5 and would like to comment on his quibbles. | Sinclair QL |
| An Author's Response | The recent review of QINDEX (Vol. 3 Issue 6) contains some errors, possibly due to not understanding the manual properly – and for the record, I would like to make a few corrective and/or explanatory comments:- Firstly, the two programs supplied are not, as Gary states, for those with or without the pointer environment already | Sinclair QL |
| An Italian User's QL System(s) | I’ve been a QL user since March 1987, when | bought a second hand 128Kb JM QL for 150 US Dollars. I then began improving my computer and at the moment I have four complete QL ia) systems, plus one bare 128K model as an emergency backup and test system. | Sinclair QL |
| Archive to DBase | For a starting point in understanding the import/export file structure, refer to the INFORMATION section of the QL manual – it’s the last section of the manual. Page 1 and 2 of this section deal with importing and exporting data. | Sinclair QL |
| Areas Calculator | IMAGE D is a program that allows the user to create a three dimensional object and then manipulate that object in space. You can view the object in a number of different ways; wireframe, hidden line, shaded, one view, three views (front, plan and side views on the same screen) and in perspective. The object | Sinclair QL |
| Around the World in 80 Ways | I’ve been around the world in 80 ways, all from the comfort of home, on my QL, all via a modem and local telephone calls. The only long distance phone call will be to put this article on QBOX-USA bulletin board system in Michigan (from my home in East Tennessee) for Bob Dy! to pick | Sinclair QL |
| ART EPP-1 Programmer V 1.01 | This program was written by Martin Head and is available from Quanta on disk UG_3. I had been wanting to burn eproms using my QL for a long time. The obvious choice was the QEP-3 programmer which has received very positive reviews. Since the QEP-3 ties up the expansion slot, it requires a dedicated QL. | Sinclair QL |
| Banter - A Banner Program | Some time ago, I was approached by my young daughter who wanted to produce banners on the QL. Unfortunately there was no easy way to do this and her request went unanswered. All that has now changed with a piece of software entitled “BANTER” which was written by Nick Ward and is available from DILWYN | Sinclair QL |
| BASIC CPORT - A Review | Up until now it has been “long time no C” for SuperBASIC programmers. But now through the aid of CPORT, SuperBASIC programmers can convert their code to C and take advantage of the speed and enhanced performance of compiled code. CPORT was developed by Charles Dillon, and sells for $179.00 U.S. Distribution is through Digital | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Bits and Pieces | Sinclair QL | |
| Black Components | With interest in Black systems at a high level (even in the PC world), a number of readers have asked us where we obtained our own. Dilwyn Jones (who now has a Black system) supplied us with the Bytewise information. For additional sources, you can search the pages of Computer Shopper Magazine or attend PC | Sinclair QL |
| BlackKnight v1.1 | BlackKnight is a chess-playing program for QDOS and compatibles. It is written by Francois Lanciault of Quebec and distributed by Jochen Merz. It runs under the Pointer Environment, with or without a mouse. BlackKnight features a 5000 move openings library, chess clocks for each player, the ability to set up positions, load and save games, | Sinclair QL |
| BlackKnight Version 1.4 | For those who didn’t see the review of BlackKnight v1.01, BlackKnight is a chess-playing program by Francois Lanciault for QDOS and compatibles. V1.01 had 10 levels of play with time to respond to a move averaging from S seconds at Level 1 to 60 minutes at Level 10. To these 10 levels v1.4 adds a | Sinclair QL |
| Brussels and London Shows | This report comes from an American who had the fortunate coincidence to take a European vacation and be able to pass by the QL Workshop held at the Eurovolley Center in Brussels on June 18. What an exciting time it was for this foreigner to meet with such a wide range of QL enthusiasts who | Sinclair QL |
| Bus Expansion And The QL | Almost from the beginning, QL’ers realized the need for bus expansion. A company by the name of QUEST was the first to advertise a bus expansion system that included additional memory, disk drives and an OS-9 type operating environment. I’ve never seen one in person, but have been told only a small number were sold | Sinclair QL |
| Buyer Beware | It has come to our attention that a North American QL group, or individuals from within the group, are offering the public a “DEAL” on a group hardware buy. From what we’ve been able to learn, it’s no deal, and as a matter of fact the price quoted was $30.00 higher (at current exchange rates), | Sinclair QL |
| C68 Compiler Update | I’ve recently received Release 4.00, the lastest update to C68 for QDOS from Dave Walker. Dave informs me that although there was a long delay between Release 3.05 and Release 4.00, the next release (tentatively titled Release 4.10), will follow fairly quickly as there is already sufficient new facilities that are in the late stages | Sinclair QL |
| CD_PLAYER_BAS | I was interested to read the discussion of tape backup and CD player control in volume 5 issue 2 of IQLR, on page 6, since I sorted this out on my 68040 based SuperQL in January, and all the necessary BASIC will appear in the next PD release of Amiga Qdos! At first I thought | Sinclair QL |
| CDROM on a QXL | Before my life as a computer tech head started, I had a distrust of computers. Those things that could file everyones life into a Big Goverment data base. Then I was introduced to a TS1000 and I thought “How could this little black box be so evil? Look it even plays games.” Being a mechanic, | Sinclair QL |
| CGP-220 Color Printer Converter | I wrote the program that follows to overcome the difficulty of generating QL characters on my CGP-220 (an older Radio Shack/Tandy printer, which I believe to be one of the first color ink-jet printers). With a little tinkering you can get this program to work with any dot matrix printer. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Clocks, Clocks, Clocks! | As the title suggests, this article is about clocks. When I initially plugged in my Gold Card, and Minerva ROM version 1.89 (which I had received at the same time), I suddenly had three external clocks (the third being the QIMI Mouse Interface with clock), all trying to work at once. This created an immediate | Sinclair QL |
| Communicating with Suppliers | At one time or another, you might find an occasion to write or telephone a supplier. As many QL suppliers are one-person operations, and most if not all, User organizations are manned by volunteers, a few points to remember might be in order. | Sinclair QL |
| Communications | I recently received a disk from Don Walterman with the latest versions of Q.E.M. (v2.30), release 2 of Unzip (file decompression) and the Zmodem transfer protocol (rz and sz). This package represents a major advance in QL communications and makes it possible to easily take advantage of the many bulletin boards, (estimated to exceed 25,000) | Sinclair QL |
| Computers 101 (A Tutorial) Part 1 | ||
| Computers 101 (A Tutorial) Part 2 | ||
| Computers 101 (A Tutorial) Part 3 | ||
| Computers 101 (A Tutorial) Part 4 | ||
| Computers 101 (An Addendum) | Sinclair QL | |
| Concorde | In the December 93 issue of IQLR (vol. 3 issue 4) Bill Cable describes a group of programs for building a word index of a text file using the facilities of Archive. As I have never had occasion to use Archive I found it quite instructive to take a look at the code (together with | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Confessions Of A QL Duffer | Having been introduced to computers at the hoary age of sixty plus, my first experiences were with the Timex 2068 computer (the American version of the Spectrum). In 1984, I decided to upgrade to the QL, and I distinctly remember buying my first one from my good friend, Bob Dyl, at the lofty price of | Sinclair QL |
| Conqueror Gold S/E | I came to the Gold Special Edition of PC Conqueror after using the older PC Conqueror for some time, mainly for editing and compiling of programs written in Turbo Pascal. I had used the original emulator for some time, and the new PC Conqueror ran the PC software I had I looked closely to see | Sinclair QL |
| Continuing Rumors | From the Italian QL Show held in January, comes information on the Miracle Graphics Card. It will have two NEW modes. The first, will be an enhanced mode 4 with as many as 256 colors and will be usable with standard QL monitors. The second will be a High Resolution mode of 1024 pixels x | Sinclair QL |
| Continuing Rumors! | The rumors concerning MIRACLE SYSTEMS and their secret GRAPHICS CARD project continue to grow. A reliable source has reported to IQLR, that the proposed Graphics Card will be compatable with current hardware and software, and will support 1024 x 512 pixels in four colors (equal to four QL screens), and 512 x 256 pixels in | Sinclair QL |
| Conversation with Jochen Merz | In a recent conversation with JOCHEN MERZ of Germany, he extolled the virtues of a NEW program named “QDESIGN”. He stated that QDESIGN handles screens up to 2880 x 2880 pixels in two or four colors (dependent on memory size). Screens from the Atari ST, Professional Publisher, Page Designer 2, and Art + may be | Sinclair QL |
| Convert PCX | This useful program converts PC clipart for use on the QL. It converts PC graphics from bit mapped “PCX” format to QL”_SCR” and “Page Designer” formats. The vast array of high quality clipart developed for the PC can now be used in your QL graphics and desktop publishing programs. | Sinclair QL |
| Converting File Formats | As the author of a number of QL programs, I recognise the need for a clear, concise and well laid out user manual. To produce my own manuals I (now) use a desk top publishing package on my PC which gives a very good quality manual indeed. There is one fly in the ointment, however, | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Correction | Issue #1 of IQLR contained a program listing for DIRECTORY-DEVICES. Unfortunately the listing acquired an error when I typed in a “+” instead of a “=” (both symbols are on the same key). I apologize for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused. This is a useful little program and the author was in | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| CORRECTION | In the last issue of IQLR (#4) there was a typographical error in the Assembly Language listing in Will Horton’s article on “LINKING ASSEMBLER INTO C PROGRAMS“. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| CQV1 Real Time Digitizer - A Review | The CQVI video digitizer package consists of the CQV1 hardware, a 3.5″ disk and an 8 page manual. The CQV1 electronics are installed in a black plastic case, measuring 7″(18cm)x4-1/4″ (11cm)x2″(5.5cm). A male edge connector extends out of the front of the case to mate with the ROM Port at the rear of the QL. | Sinclair QL |
| Creating Custom 3.5" Disk Labels | Have you ever looked at the customized label on a disk of commercial software that you just purchased and wish you could recreate it on the working copy of the disk? I have been using the following methods and programs to create customized labels for my disks rather than simply handwriting the title on a | Sinclair QL |
| Creating Quad Density 5 1/4" Disk Drives | With all the interest in ED disks these days, it may seem odd to discuss 5 1/4″ drives. Well, I use both 3 1/2″ and 5 1/4″ drives on my systems. I like to be able to cope with any format that comes along. Advertisements for quad density 5 1/4″ (just called quad from now | Sinclair QL |
| CRYPT | My brother is an accountant and in the course of his work handles a great deal of confidential information about his client’s financial affairs. When he bought a new QI recently he asked me to provide him with a password system so that if the computer was stolen this confidential information would not fall into | Sinclair QL |
| CST THOR Support | We recently received a flyer from COWO ELECTRONIC, in Sursee, Switzerland expressing their continued support of the THOR range of personnel computers. COWO Electronic are the authors of THOR-DESK which was to have been incorporated into the Thor XVI system. | Sinclair QL |
| Cueshell | Cueshell bills itself as the “Desktop Program’. I have found it a very useful complement to QPAC2. As I’m still finding new ways to do things with QPAC2 it is a bit difficult to compare Cueshell directly to QPAC2. There are certain tasks I find easier to do from within Cueshell while other things are | Sinclair QL |
| D-I-Y Toolkit | Richard Alexander of C.G.H. Services (U.K.) reports that Simon N. Goodwin, the author of the popular QL WORLD DIY column, has designated C.G.H. Services, as the official distributor of his D-I-Y TOOLKIT. It is sold and supplied in 14 different modules. Write to C.G.H. Services for a concise listing of the different modules. | Sinclair QL |
| DATADesign: Reply to the Review | “Thank you for your review of our database program DATAdesign. As DATAdesign is constantly being improved and developed, we would like to point out the improvements made since the release of the reviewed copy. | Sinclair QL |
| Datadesign: Review Of A New Database | I am a big fan of PSION’s ARCHIVE Database and a promoter of the use of databases in general. Bob Dyl recently loaned me a copy of DATAdesign by PROGS (PROfessional and Grafical Software – programmers Joachim & Nathan Van der Auwera) of Belgium to review. To my knowledge, the QL only had ARCHIVE and | Sinclair QL |
| Deskjet 320 Printer - A Review | The Deskjet 320 is one of a line of low cost inkjet printers from Hewlett Packard. The printer is designed for mobile computing on the PC, but it can be used with a QL too (in fact, I only use it on the QL!). | |
| Deskjet-A5 | A4 size pages of text (or American near equivalent), to A5 size, side by side in landscape format. It does this by sideways printing using a Hewlett Packard DeskJet 500 Printer. If the paper is folded down the middle, it makes the sort of pamphlet common in sales literature, church service leaflets, etc. If there | Sinclair QL |
| DEV Device and DEV_USE | Many QL users now have access to level 2 directories on their systems, either through hard disks or through using HD or ED disks. It is easy enough to put software into these directories to make sure that individual disks or drives don’t become cluttered with masses of small programs. But many QL programs were | Sinclair QL |
| DEV Device Driver & DEV Manager | DEV Manager is a software utility for setting up and controlling the ‘DEV’ device driver. While you can do these same things direct from SuperBASIC, DEV Manager makes it easier by using the Pointer Environment to make it a point and click operation. | Sinclair QL |
| Dilwyn Jones Computing | A POTTED HISTORY OF MY COMPANY AND I! My involvement with Sinclair computers goes back to the very early days when I wrote some books on programming the ZX81/TS1000 and Spectrum/TS2068. After writing a great deal of BASIC programs in the first few years of the QL, | eventually wrote what were my first large | Sinclair QL |
| Directory Device | Directory-devices are all devices which allow the storing of data with a name (for instance: MDV, FLP, RAM, WIN, FDK…). Many programs, even pointer driven ones, don’t know which devices are connected to the QL. When using a pointer driven program it’s nice to select also the device with a mouse, so I wrote a | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Directory Printer Listing - Correction | In our last issue (Vol. 2 issue 4) a number of typo’s crept into the program listing. We inadvertantly interpreted two single quotes (‘ ‘) to be a double quote (“). We apologize the the author and our readers for any inconvience or frustration this may have caused. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Disk Drive Cable Extender | The DISK DRIVE CABLE EXTENDER is a product that came about out of necessity. After hasseling with the tight cable and cramped working conditions when changing drive cables on the Gold Card (works equally well on the Trump Card), and frequently pulling the Gold Card loose from the edge connector, we decided that what was | Sinclair QL |
| Disk Mate - A Review | DISK Mate is a menu driven disk utility for files and disks, by Pal Monstad of NASA Computing, Norway. The program requires at least 512K and ToolKit II. | Sinclair QL |
| Disk Mate 4 (Version 4.45) | One area of programming that is especially well represented on the QL is file handling. This is hardly surprising really since all information held by a computer is in a file of some kind and the one thing you learn early on is that making backups stops headaches and large dents in the wall nearest | Sinclair QL |
| Disk Mate 5 - Version 5.07 | At the request of Bob Dyl, I have found myself reviewing another disk utility. However, I really didn’t know what I was getting into. You see, Disk Mate 5 operates under the Pointer Environment and I have had only limited experience with the Pointer Environment some six or seven years ago with QRAM! Last year | Sinclair QL |
| DJToolkit - A Review | Let me start with a few historical notes. During the development of the QL, much effort was devoted to keeping QDOS (and SuperBasic) as compact as possible. As a result, performance was not all it could have been, opening the way for system accelerators such as “Lightning”. | Sinclair QL |
| Documents in Text87 | Your Document can consist of one part or be broken into parts called SECTIONS. LAYOUT(s) for your document PAGE(s) can have one or several FRAMES (rectangles) into which you wish to put the SECTION(s) of your document. Each PAGE of the final document can have the LAYOUT that you choose. | Sinclair QL |
| Dust Covers | Awhile back, IQLR subscriber Kenton Garrett of Lansing, Kansas, USA raved about a company he’d found in Florida that manufactured dust covers for computers and their peripherals. Kenton had them make a few special covers for him, and to his surprise, the prices were quite reasonable. To quote him, “custom covers at standard item pricing”. | Sinclair QL |
| Easy NETworking | Amongst the QL fraternity there are a lot of users about with more than one QL or QXL who have never considered connecting them together. Why not? It really is very simple, I promise you. | Sinclair QL |
| Easy Pointer III - A Review | 1 have of late, as anyone who reads the Quanta magazine knows, been experimenting with the Pointer Interface, and writing about my experiences to boot. In the middle of learning and writing about programming under pointer in assembler a package arrived from the States containing Easy Pointer and a request to review it from that | Sinclair QL |
| Editor SE (Part 1) | My affiliation with The Editor and Editor SE started in 1987. I had heard so much about this terrific program as being an excellent file and text editor – and yes, a word processor too. From several QL users in my local Timex/Sinclair computer club (LIST), I was advised that this was a program which | Sinclair QL |
| Editor SE (Part 2) | n the first installment of this Editor series I explained how to write command files and outlined the Editor HELP files. I also mentioned that if you are an Editor user and wish to have hard copies of the PSION 4_hob’s or XCHANGE hob, you can use The Editor to do most of the work | Sinclair QL |
| Editor SE (Part 4) | This section of the tutorial will be devoted to setting up ALTKEY (Hotkeys) commands within The EDITOR. If you haven’t used ALTKEYS within a program for the QL, you will be in for a very pleasant surprise! Below is a SuperBASIC listing which will make “life a lot easier’ when working within EDITOR. All you | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Editorial | It is with sadness that we report to you the final issue of SINCLAIR QL WORLD published by Arcwind Ltd of the UK. Long the bell-weather of the QL community first as SINCLAIR QL USER and most recently SINCLAIR QL WORLD it stood alone as the one commercially produced magazine. | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | In our attempt to continually improve our magazine, we pay a lot of attention to what our readers have to say. Many of you stated that the print style we used was too big, while others stated that we should use more of the page as we did in our last issue. Some of you | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | We’ve been overwhelmed and gratified by the tremendous response you’ve given our INAUGURAL ISSUE. “IQLR’ is being read in AUSTRALIA, BELIZE, CANADA, FRANCE, GERMANY, ISRAEL, ITALY, NORWAY, SWITZERLAND, UNITED KINGDOM, and the UNITED STATES. Our aim is to keep you informed of the many new and exciting developments in the QL world, as well as | |
| Editorial | As Fall approaches, many QLer’s are returning from vacations, others are stowing away the garden tools and lawn furniture, while others return to school. September ushers in the beginning of the computing season, and an exciting one it promises to be. So much is going on, you’d never know the QL is out of production. | |
| Editorial | With this issue we have reached the milestone of issue #4, and are collecting articles and tidbits for issue #5. In recent conversations with subscribers, we found a widespread belief that we had all the material we wanted, so they had not sent anything in for publication. Nothing could be further from the truth. Folks, | |
| Editorial | Two new products have made their way onto the QL scene, the long awaited TEXT87 PLUS4 wordprocessor (see News Release in this issue). It is a major rewrite of their TEXT 87, and we look forward to reviewing it. Jurgen Falkenberg has released his “Hard Disk Interface” (Gold Card version due this spring). This interface | |
| Editorial | This issue completes Volume One of IQLR, and we look forward to our second year of publication. You, our subscribers and readers have made IQLR a voice in the International QL Community, for this, we owe you our thanks. This past year has established or reestablished lines of communications. No longer are NORTH AMERICANS isolated | |
| Editorial | With the approach of the fall and winter computing seasons and most of us back from our holiday/vacations we leave behind us what proved to be a very active QL summer. If only a third of the rumored NEW software and hardware actually sees the light of day, the months ahead could be one of | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | With the approach of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, comes a wealth of NEW products for the QL. Some like HERMES, a new co-processor, and QSPREAD, a new spreadsheet are major developments (see the articles pertaining to them in this issue). | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | With this issue, we begin a new feature entitled “MORE THAN A NAME”. Along with a picture on the front cover, will be an auto-biography. We intend to highlight those people/companies that you have heard of over the years, but probably know very little about. These are people who have, and are contributing much to | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | Another holiday season is at hand, and we at IQLR, wish you a HAPPY, HEALTHY, and PROSPEROUS New Year. | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | An interesting piece of mail arrived recently, it was a disk version of DILWYN JONES COMPUTING catalog. We thought it a novel way to deliver a catalog, as a matter of fact we like it so much, that we are willing to pass it on to anyone who sends a formatted disk and postage cost. | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | Another year has come and gone, (time flies when your having fun) this issue marks the completion of Volume 2 of IQLR (time to RENEW your SUBSCRIPTION, we only mention it three times). Volume 3 of IQLR promises to be a great year for QDOS and the QL, starting with Miracle System’s new hardware, continuing | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | This issue marks the beginning of our THIRD year of operation, and we’d like to thank you, our readers for making it all possible. This is a BIG year for our community, with two International QL Meetings already behind us ( the 4th Italian QL Meeting , and the International QL Meeting held at Eindhoven | Sinclair QL |
| Editorial | There’s plenty of news to report starting with MIRACLE Systems announcement that the software for the QXL is near completion. Now any PC can Multi-Task, provided it has a QXL installed. | Sinclair QL |
| Eindhoven Meeting | This venue is developing into a regular international meeting place for Dutch, Belgians and German QL users living near the Dutch border. There was also representation from Britain, France and Switzerland. It is probably not very precise referring to “QL users” since Ataris running SMSQ/E and PCs enlivened by QXLs were very much in evidence | Sinclair QL |
| Ergon Development - Who Are We? | To answer the first question, we are Marco Ternelli and Davide Santachiara and together we’re Ergon Development. Our interest like yours is in the QL/QDOS and we’re writing some really interesting programs (see our advert elsewhere in this issue) for this system. Now about us. | Sinclair QL |
| Ergon Floppy Disk Utilities | My affection for the Ergon Floppy Disk Utility program first started when I received a PD diskette containing the Ergon Demo Disk from the IQLR Software Library, IQLR-022, US $2.50. I had no idea that this disk contained the FDU program. All files on the disk were archived and had to be unzipped and even | Sinclair QL |
| Exeqtor Limited Edition | Some time ago I wrote you conceming our projected ‘SuperQL’, and discussed the possibility of offering it in kit form (see IQLR issue #3, page 13). COWO Electronic of Switzerland, and we at QLYMPIC Computer Systems here in Germany, are proud to announce to your readers, that we are NOW building the “SuperQL’, which we | Sinclair QL |
| Fantastic Price Reduction | Miracle Systems have announced a tremendous reduction in the price of their GOLD CARDS. The export price for delivery outside the UK is now 200 Pounds Sterling. | Sinclair QL |
| File Management Tips | COPYING FILES – If you have Toolkit II and use the WCOPY command to copy a disk, you can enter WCOPY FLP1_,FLP2_ rather than the longer WCOPY FLP1_ to FLP2… | Sinclair QL |
| File Transfers - QL/Archive to PC/DBase | This is the first of several articles concerning the interchange of data between QL/QDOS applications programs and MSDOS applications programs. While I have both a QL and an MSDOS computer, by choice I do my work on the QL. Often it may involve either database information from a computer at work, or database information that | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Filename Extensions | You may have noticed that most software authors use filenames ending with “_BAS”, “_OBJ”, “_BIN”, or other three or four character endings, and wondered as to the significance. | Sinclair QL |
| Files & The C-Programming Language | There are times when a program needs to access disk-based storage systems. Text files or data is normally stored or retrieved from a floppy or hard drive. On the QL, data files can also be transferred across the serial ports, in the same manner as a floppy drive. The subject of this article is the | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Files II - A File Handling Utility | As a veteran of some six years of using TASKMASTER as my multitasking control software in a gradually improving hardware environment, I have had many an occasion to be thankful for it’s fine characteristics. Among these, I would cite particularly the ease with which one can jump around amongst the four Psion programs. These have | Sinclair QL |
| Flightdeck - A Review | As the name implies, FLIGHTDECK is a flight simulation program for the QL. The cost of the program including shipping and handling is 15 Pounds Sterling. | Sinclair QL |
| Floppy Disk Drive Troubles and My Solution | After experiencing some problems with my QL’s disk drives and troubleshooting the problem, | wrote this account of what I found and what I did. Hopefully my experience will help someone else. | Sinclair QL |
| FLP/RAM Level 2 Replacement Eprom | Once in a great while, a product comes along that is a MUST, the FLP/RAM Level 2 EPROM Replacement Chip from Jochen Merz of Germany is just such a product. | Sinclair QL |
| Food for Thought | This is your chance to ask the tough questions many QL’ers have been pondering. Or maybe you can respond to a question and help us all. Whatever the case this is your column. It depends on your input. This column is intended to be a forum where legitimate questions and responses can be aired for | Sinclair QL |
| Food for Thought | This is your chance to ask the tough questions many QL’ers have been pondering. Or maybe you can respond to a question and help us all. Whatever the case this is your column. It depends on your input. This column is intended to be a forum where legitimate questions and responses can be aired for | Sinclair QL |
| Foto-DBase | Foto-DBase is a database of people with digitised photo. It requires a QL with at least 256 kbytes of RAM, and you can ’graphics epi to Epson and compatible printers (9 or 24 pin). | Sinclair QL |
| Geneva Chatter | There is nothing like an invitation to write an article to get one to sit in front of the keyboard. So, what will I write about? I wrote in QUANTA about a near disaster with my QL which they published in their October issue – now the French QL Club (QLCF) have made a translation | Sinclair QL |
| Getting a Byte on the Page | When I first got my QL the printer I had was a Brother M1009 – a nine pin dot matrix with both serial and parallel ports but only one font. This served me very well for many years but recent circumstances led me to look for a a better device to produce my documents. These | Sinclair QL |
| Getting the Most Out of SBASIC | More and more people are using SBASIC – the wonderful SuperBASIC compatible language which comes with any SMSQ for the GoldCard, SuperGoldCard, all ATARIs and the QXL. It offers far more facilies besides being very fast and able to be executed many times at the same time (we will make use of this feature in | Sinclair QL |
| Getting the Most Out of SBASIC | 1t is very nice to have the flexible Level 3 Device Drivers of SMSQ – you can read and write DOS and TOS disks as if they were QDOS disks. There is absolutely no problem in converting bitmap graphics images or vector graphics, fonts etc. However, if you transfer text which contains special characters (foreign | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Going Dutch for the Weekend | Ah, the best laid plans of mice and QLers! With the best of altruistic motives I offered to transport three members of Quanta in my car to the Eindhoven meeting on the 4th March but my car had other ideas. A couple of days before the meeting it’s radiator decided to commit Hari Kari and | Sinclair QL |
| Going Online with Your QL | I’ve been asked to explain how to use your QL to call a bulletin board system (BBS). 1 had problems trying to follow a structured approach to explaining everything necessary to use your QL online. So, I decided to just ramble in a couple directions, explaining as I go. Hopefully you’ll get the information you | Sinclair QL |
| Greeting Cards with LINEdesign | While PC users have had different programs available that make it easy for them to create greeting cards, the QL world doesn’t have such convenient tools (yet?). Many of those people have found out just how fun and unique creating their own personal cards can be. In fact, some people create custom cards as a | Sinclair QL |
| Grey Wolf - A Review | This was my first introduction to “Grey Wolf,” a World War II submarine simulation game. Upon boot, up you are asked three questions; if you want to hear engine noise, if you want a training mission, and the degree of difficulty 1-5 with 5 being the most difficult; the default to the first two questions | Sinclair QL |
| GT Prolog - QL | Attempting to write a review of GT-Prolog (GTP) has proved to be rather more difficult than anticipated. There is, first of all, the necessity for familiarization with a new language. This, of course, was to be expected. What was not foreseen was the difficulty in reading (or rather, interpreting) the accompanying manual. | Sinclair QL |
| GT Prolog - QL (Part 2) | Sinclair QL | |
| Help! Help! | In the near future, we hope to be able to offer our readers the best in PUBLIC DOMAIN software from around the world. To this end, we need TRANSLATORS to translate into English, software in the following languages : FRENCH, GERMAN, and ITALIAN. We currently have over 50 disks іп these languages waiting to be | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint | Unbranded Sony 3.5″ diskettes can be purchased in bulk at prices far below the retail price of the disks with Sony’s name imprinted on them. | |
| Helpful Hint - Serial Mouse | Many users have reported problems when attempting to use Albin Hessler’s Serial Mouse software. Frank Davis of Mechanical Affinity reports that most of the problems he has seen can be solved by following three basic steps: first, its necessary to make a small QL cable to hook to a serial mouse; the second, requires people | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint #1 | It can be difficult to insert a peripheral device (i.e. Trump or Gold Card) into the expansion slot of the QL while they are both horizontal. If you stand the the QL on it’s end with the expansion slot up, you will find that the device will slide in or out without snagging any of | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint #1 - Un-numbered Boot Programs | Following up a hint in a previous issue, boot programs do not have to be manually typed in to add line numbers. You can, of course, load them into an editor and manually add line numbers, but it is much easier to let the QL do it automatically. | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint #2 | With so many new hardware upgrades, I find that I am changing or remounting chips with increasing frequency. Just recently I mounted two Gold Card chips (version changes), an upgraded MINERVA ROM and the Keyboard Interface, which required lifting the 8049 chip. Some people have no problems slipping chips in and out of their QLs, | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint #2 - Using Printer Control Codes in Quill | rovided your printer is set to ignore the MSB (Most Significant Byte) of byte values sent to it, (many are shipped with this as a default setting and normally this can be changed by a DIP switch inside the printer or from software), it is possible to send control codes by using CHR$(155) from the | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint #3 | Occasionally, you run across a program that has an unlistable BOOT program. Attempts to list it to the screen results in it executing. The easiest way to get around this is to use the command; “COPY Кірі Boot TO SCR”. This will display the listing to the screen. You can then copy down the program | Sinclair QL |
| Helpful Hint: External Keyboard-90 Interface | This was an idea that I hadn’t considered of interest to anyone until Tony Firshman commented on it at the “MIRACLE in NEWPORT” show. I have been using Jurgen Falkenberg’s external Keyboard-90 Interface for several years and use a QL keyboard top that has a blank plate in place of the keys. I cut a | Sinclair QL |
| Image D | IMAGE D is a program that allows the user to create a three dimensional object and then manipulate that object in space. You can view the object in a number of different ways; wireframe, hidden line, shaded, one view, three views (front, plan and side views on the same screen) and in perspective. The object | Sinclair QL |
| Improving the QL's Sound | In this article I will describe a couple of ways to improve the sound output of the QL. While I haven’t yet figured out a way to add a PC Soundblaster type board to the QL, what it does have can be improved with a few small changes. These changes can be done to any | Sinclair QL |
| In The Pipeline | Work continues on the GRAPHICS CARD from Miracle Systems, as well as TWO NEW PRODUCTS. The first is an honest to goodness, PARALLEL PORT, and the second is a true SERIAL PORT. While no delivery dates were given by Miracle on these last two items, they are expected in the not too distant future. All | Sinclair QL |
| In The Pipeline | Work continues on Miracle System’s GRAPHICS CARD. No release date has been announced. Qview and TF Services of the UK are working on a replacement for the QL’s coprocessor, the 8049 chip. This chip controls the QL’s keyboard and serial ports. The advantages of using a 8749 or equivalent chip would be increased speed and | Sinclair QL |
| Inaugural Issue | Welcome to the Inaugural Issue of the “INTERNATIONAL QL REPORT”. After consultation with many QL users worldwide, we are proud to present you with a NEW type of NEWSLETTER. One that will endeavor to inform you of the many NEW and EXCITING developments in the QL WORLD as they occur, without the normal four to | |
| Installing a Hard Disk | Here is the saga of my recent activities in updating my QL to be really modern and have a HARD DISK! (An old QL with Super Gold Card, Hermes, Minerva, SMSQ/E, Sermouse). I write this because it shows how naive one can be. Hard disk? Easy – buy one. | Sinclair QL |
| Intergroup Freeware Exchange | The INTERGROUP FREEWARE EXCHANGE, serviced by the SINCLAIR QL USER CLUB e.v. (SQLUC) of Germany, have announced the establishment of the library. Membership is open to QL USER GROUPS worldwide. | Sinclair QL |
| International Computer Dictionary | The last year or two has seen a tremendous increase in the international exchange of group libraries and Public Domain software. Many of these programs are of commercial quality and make fine additions to any QL User’s library. The majority of these programs are written (understandably so) in the author’s native language, including documentation and | Sinclair QL |
| International Computer Glossary | I thought this might be a good time to bring you up to date on the status of the International Computer Glossary, especially to those that worked so hard to provide input and resolve discrepancies. | Sinclair QL |
| International QL Meeting | On Saturday the 21st of March 1992, the Sinclair QL User Club of Germany will be hosting the “INTERNATIONAL QL MEETING” in the city of Munster-Roxel in northwestern Germany, at the Tilbecker Strasse 24, from 8 am until 10 pm. This meeting is dedicated entirely to a discussion of current QL/QDOS developments.In addition, there will | Sinclair QL |
| International QL News | This column is designed to bring together new and/or changing developments within the QL community. The information contained here has been reported to us by individuals and/or suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL |
| International QL News | This column is designed to bring together new and/or changing developments within the QDOS community. The information contained here has been reported to IQLR by individuals and/or suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL |
| International QL News | This column is designed to bring together new and/or changing developments within the QDOS community. The information contained here has been reported to IQLR by individuals and/or suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL |
| International QL News | This column is designed to bring together new and lor changing developments within the QDOS community. The information contained here has been reported to IQLR by individuals and /or suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL |
| International QL News | This column is intended to bring together new and/or changing developments within the QDOS community. The information contained here has been reported by individuals and suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL |
| International QL News | This column is intended to bring together new and/or changing developments within the QDOS community. The information contained here has been reported by individuals and suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL |
| IQLR Buyer's Registry | Since our last issue Rob Martin of Gainesville, Florida organized and spearheaded a group buy of Miracle System’s Gold Card. A discount of 27% was agreed to by Miracle for a purchase of five or more units. Even though the response was overwhelming, it took a lot of work on Rob’s part as well as | Sinclair QL |
| IQLR Library | As we mentioned in our last issue, IQLR is in the process of building a library of FREEWARE, PUBLIC DOMAIN and SHAREWARE software. The purpose of the library, is to offer very good software to our readers who may not have access to them via the QL related Bulletin Boards at a modest fee. | Sinclair QL |
| IQLR Nerve Center | Many years ago when I decided my computer needed a home, I looked at the many different varieties of computer work stations available commerically. None were exactly what I wanted, so I built my own using Canadian Birch plywood and Eastern White Pine. The eagle you see everywhere is part of my family’s heritage, and | Sinclair QL |
| IQLR Special | We are happy to announce that IQLR has made special arrangements with C.G.H. Services of the UK, and author Simon Goodwin, to offer the D-I-Y TOOLKIT of QL World fame, as a group buy, in its entirety at a bargain price. | Sinclair QL |
| It's Time for the Next Leap | Do we need a next generation QL, or more accurately put, a new QDOS/SMSQ hardware platform? | Sinclair QL |
| Joining Hands - QReview & IQLR | To best serve the QL community, as of this issue , QReview is merging with IQLR. This means that I will still have an active outlet for reviews, news and articles but with less of the administration duties and the late nights. | Sinclair QL |
| LANG_BAS | The following SBASIC program was inadvertantly not sent along with the text for the article “SMSQ Language Dependent Modules” printed in Volume 5 Issue 1. This listing should have been printed at the end of the text on page 12. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Late Breaking News | Sinclair QL | |
| Late Breaking News | After we had gone to press with this issue, I had two telephone conversations, the first with Phil Borman Chairperson of QUANTA, and the second with Stuart Honeyball the genius of MIRACLE SYSTEMS. | Sinclair QL |
| Late Breaking News | Miracle Systems has announced 4 different configurations for their new QXL PC CARD. It will be offered as either Meg, 2Meg, 5Meg, or 8Meg boards with the sockets in place for future upgrade. | Sinclair QL |
| Lightning Gold Card S/E | Let me start with a few historical notes. During the development of the QL, much effort was devoted to keeping QDOS (and SuperBasic) as compact as possible. As a result, performance was not all it could have been, opening the way for system accelerators such as “Lightning”. | Sinclair QL |
| LINEdesign 'Mirror' Function | I noticed in the article describing the use of LINEdesign to make greeting cards that the author had not found a ‘mirroring’ or ‘reflecting’ function within LINEdesign (J D Hunkins, IQLR, Vol 5, Issue 5, January/February 1996, p29). | Sinclair QL |
| LINEdesign V1.05 | LINEdesign modestly describes itself as “the vector-drawing package”. I’ve found it to be much more than that. LINEdesign is supplied on eleven disks. Ten of the disks contain fonts, borders and clip art. | Sinclair QL |
| Linked Lists And C -Programming | My last article on Pointers and Structures demonstrated the way pointers are used to access data within a C Program. This article will relate the concepts of pointers and structures to another mechanism, the linked list. The concept of the linked list is not unique to the CProgramming Language, it is also used in Pascal, | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Linking Assembler Into C Programs | With the advent of the C-68 “C” Compiler (available from IQLR), an entire library of QDOS functions are available. However, there may be times when you need a special purpose routine that isn’t available in this library, or if you use the Metacomco QLC which only comes with an all purpose QDOS trap function. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Masterpiece by Miracle Systems | The long awaited GRAPHICS CARD, now titled the “Masterpiece Enhanced Graphics Card” will soon see the light of day. | Sinclair QL |
| Matcher: An Archive Utility Program | We have all had the experience of receiving 2 or 3 copies of the same catalog each with a slightly different version of our address on it. Mail order companies buy address databases from many sources and often the same address may be in more than one in a slightly different form. This fools the | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Mathematical Operations & The C-Programming Language | This article will introduce the C Programmer to the mathematical tools provided in the C math library (C68). The methods of working with floating point numbers in C is somewhat different than other programming languages. Most languages provide commands to perform such functions as: square root, logarithm, trigonometric functions, etcetera. However in C there is | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| maus.comp.ql | This article is intended for QL users who have access to Usenet or any other means to receive such conferences or forums. Intl.QI is an international area to discuss anything related with the QL. It originates from the QBOXnet, an independent private network of bulletin boards (Fido) which run on QLs or compatible machines. | Sinclair QL |
| Meet Miracle System's Team | With the soon to be released QXL (see cover photo) PC card, and work continuing on the long awaited GRAPHICS CARD and SCSI interfaces, we thought you’d like to meet the brilliant team leading us into the 21st century. | Sinclair QL |
| Mega Disk Drives & The Gold Card | Recently we’ve discovered that when married to the Gold Card, not all 3.2 meg disk drives are created equal. After further research, numerous calls to Miracle Systems, and the expenditure of $160.00, we are convinced that the 3.2 meg disk drives listed in issue #3 of TQLR are not FULLY compatible with the Gold Card. | Sinclair QL |
| Megatoolkit Review | Megatoolkit adds over 200 new extensions to SuperBASIC (226 by my count!) that can be roughly grouped into the following categories: channels, screen handling, system, system traps, devices, basic utilities and miscellaneous. These new commands and functions can be used to help make your computing life with the QL easier. | Sinclair QL |
| Meta-Drivers | Have you ever needed to do something like flp3_use winl_temporary_directory (instead of the more restricting win_use)? Did it ever seem nice to you to be able to use existing drivers to access new devices? Have you ever wished file name length limits did not interfere with network routing? Have you, for that matter, ever wanted | Sinclair QL |
| Microdrive Cartridges | The QL is in it’s eighth year, and many users still depend upon the much maligned microdrives. As you know, mdv cartridges have become quite expensive, and hard to get. There are still a few dealers in the U.K. offering used once cartridges, but their numbers are dwindling fast. ABLEX is producing mdv cartridges again | Sinclair QL |
| Mine Field | While checking the QL Anonymous FTP site, maya.dei.unipd.it, in Italy, I ran across a program called Mine Field. All I saw was a file name, so 1 downloaded it to my computer for further examination. | Sinclair QL |
| Minerva Bug? | On occasion, I attempt to translate a program, written as “spaghetti code” in one of the several primitive Basics, into SuperBasic. Where the author has left little or no room between lines, it becomes necessary to renumber the program in order to get some working room. In the course of one such attempt, I encountered | Sinclair QL |
| Minerva II Tidbit | Here is a small utility for snooping about in the Minerva II ram. There’s nothing sacred about the limits on i: i = 0 TO 255 will give you EVERYTHING. The given values exclude the control and clock area (0-15) and unassigned, reserved areas (33-34, 164-251, 255). The PAUSE is there just to keep the | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Minerva ROM Upgrade | QVIEW has announced the latest version of its popular ROM upgrade. Version 1.89 represents a significant advancement over earlier versions, it now incorporates a REALTIME CLOCK with buffer, and a I2C BUS INTERFACE to reach the outside world. The new price is 65 Pounds Sterling, with a 5 Pound discount for QUANTA members. | Sinclair QL |
| Mini-Editorial | It’s that time of year again, this issue marks the completion of Volume III, on to Volume IV with more enthusiasm than we had when we launched Volume I. With all the shows taking place this year (including MIRACLE in NEWPORT II), with the release of MAJOR new hardware items and the promise of many, | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle Gold Card | Miracle Systems of the U.K. have announced and delivered the first shipments of their new SUPER interface. The GOLD CARD fits entirely within the QL’s expansion port and uses CMOS technology throughout, resulting in very low heat generation. The MEAT of the GOLD CARD is a 16 megahertz 16 bit 68000 processor which accesses its | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle in Newport | Photos from the event. | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle in Newport - An Englishman's View | When I heard that Bob Dyl was organising a QL event in Newport, it seemed heaven sent, as I had just given up in the infamous ’free’ Hoover tickets! (Editor’s Note: Hoover had a promotion that offered free airline tickets if you purchased one of their appliances, it ended up badly.) There also appeared to | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle in Newport II | IQLR will be sponsoring the second annual North American QL/QDOS get-together on Saturday the 14th of May 1994. The Salvation Army Building on Memorial Boulevard in Newport, Rhode Island will most likely be the center of activities. A large building that can easily hold 200 to 300 people with plenty of space for numerous supplier | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle in Newport II | As mentioned in our last issue, IQLR will be sponsoring the second annual North American QL/QDOS get-together on Saturday the 14th of May 1994. All who were present at MIRACLE in NEWPORT 93 will attest that it’s much more than a computer show. It’s more i a happening, starting days before as people arrive and | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle in Newport II | The show was held on the 14th of May 1994 at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in Middletown, Rhode Island, USA. Despite the number of supplier cancellations in the two weeks prior to the show, attendance, while lower than expected, wasn’t bad at all. Most important was that QL’ers had a real good time, and | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle Watch | Miracle Systems are about to launch three new products, the long awaited GRAPHICS CARD, the PC CARD, and a SCSI INTERFACE. The GRAPHICS CARD is much more than its name’implies, in our last issue I stated that it was more like a new computer when married to the Gold Card. From the information I have, | Sinclair QL |
| Miracle's New QXL | At the 4th Italian QL Meeting held January 24th of this year, Miracle Systems unvailed their NEW PC card officially dubbed the “QXL”. Stuart Honeyball of Miracle Systems informed IQLR that it will operate on a PC XT or above (including clones). The operating system is SMSQ (a derivative of Tony Tebby’s SMS-2) and is | Sinclair QL |
| Monochrome Monitors: Making Yours Brighter | T have a PC with QXL-Card and SMSQ/E. But I still use a normal German QL with floppies, Trumpcard and a monochrome monitor. It makes no noise and is therefore good for thinking. But with my monochrome monitor (Philips) I had the problem, that the screen was not bright enough for many of my programms. | Sinclair QL |
| More on Timing | Eros Forenzi’s article on operating speeds (IQLR 4-6) got me to thinking about timings other than those shown. For instance, only three of the four cache and second screen combinations are shown and SMSQ/E is not covered. The following constitutes my feeble efforts to date. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| MSDOS Lotus <-> QL Abacus | Transfer of MSDOS/Lotus data to QDOS/ Abacus files is a multi step procedure. It involves going through the MSDOS DBase (or similiar) database program. | Sinclair QL |
| Muenchen Meeting | Sinclair QL | |
| NESQLUG Fall-Fest | For a few weeks in the the Fall the prettiest place on earth is in the mountains of New England. The sugar maple leaves are ablazé with vibrant red leaves. Bill and Mary’s house is right in the middle of it, and NESQLUG is having a weekend of QL learning and fun there. Anyone who | Sinclair QL |
| Network Flush | Robin Barker of Di-Ren has sent in the following program which allows a QL Network Flush without using Toolkit II. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| New From Denmark - ArcED | ArcED is the new professional TEXT-EDITING-SYSTEM for programmers of all QDOS compatible computers, written by Steen Kastoft Hansen of Denmark. Not just another editor, ArcED offers you a complete new dimension in editing. Itis a configurable full screen Text-Editor, with over 35 direct key commands including user definable function keys. Its inbuilt command line interpreter | Sinclair QL |
| New from Digital Precision | We have recently released our latest update to “PERFECTION SPECIAL EDITION’. This version has a massive 35 million megabyte file handling capacity, or put another way, 4 billion lines or paragraphs (seems just about the right size for IQLR). | Sinclair QL |
| New from Dilwyn Jones Computing | Recently we’ve released a number of new software packages, and a major upgrade for WINBACK (our hard disk backup software), The following is a short description of each item. | Sinclair QL |
| New from Jochen Merz Software | А couple of exciting new products have emerged from Jochen Merz; the first is “SER MOUSE'” a software driver which allows you to connect a MS-DOS serial mouse to one of the serial ports of the QL. | Sinclair QL |
| New from Jochen Merz Software | QSPREAD a spreadsheet for the 1990’s is now being shipped. Written by Oliver Fink a highly respected guru of the Pointer Environment, QSPREAD can be completely driven by the mouse or the keyboard. | Sinclair QL |
| New Product: QPLANE | The consortium of Zeljko Nastasic of Croatia and Ron Dunnett of the UK have launched their second product “QPLANE” a powered QL Back Plane. From personal experience, get the deepest tower case you can, usually 16″ or better (this can eliminate or reduce any cutting of the case’s frame that otherwise might be necessary). If | Sinclair QL |
| New Software | We have received a number of NEW SOFTWARE packages. In future issues we will bring you HANDS-ON reviews. | Sinclair QL |
| New Use for an Old Silicon Friend | A human (as opposed to silicon) friend with a photo lab asked my assistance in solving a problem. The photo printer (original cost in the mid-$70K range), which is computer controlled, was on the blink due to a dead display – a single line flourescent dot-matrix readout. It was analogous to trying to use your | Sinclair QL |
| New! Hermes Co-Processor from QVIEW | The QL’s second processor, the Intelligent Peripheral Controller (IPC 8049), handles sound and the serial port, as well as keyboard input. The code in the present 8049 suffers from a number of problems. | Sinclair QL |
| News Flash! | With the recent collapse of Robert Maxwell’s publishing empire, and most if not all of its operations scheduled for the auction block, there was real concern for the fate of “QL World”. We are happy to report, that we have been informed, the employee’s of MCPC Ltd. have purchased the group publishing “QL World” along | Sinclair QL |
| News from Digital Precision | Freedy Vachha of Digital Precision would like the readers of IQLR to know that as of the 10th of October 1994 DP. has NO orders, refunds due or correspondence outstanding. He would also like to thank the loyal DP customers who put up with delays caused by developments on the personal front. | Sinclair QL |
| News from Europe | Two international QL meetings will be held soon in Europe, the first is the “4th Italian QL Meeting” organized by Ergon Development and QITALY Club it will be held at Reggio Emilia, Italy on the 24th of January 1993. The second meeting will be the “International QL Meeting” organized by the Dutch QL group SIN_QL_AIR | Sinclair QL |
| News from Miracle Systems | Miracle is now shipping their re-designed DISK ADAPTER (allows the use of up to 4 disk drives with Trump or Gold Cards), and they are presently re-designing their QL CENTRONICS interface, we’ve been told that the new version will fit under the hood of a Centronics male connector and eliminate the need for the box. | Sinclair QL |
| News Italian Style | g: The 7th Italian QL meeting was held in Reggio Emilia Italy. The meeting was attended by about 40 people. This is really a good result for various reasons. First of all the long awaited new hardware pieces were not available for the meeting – think about SuperHermes, the QL Graphic Card or the QXL | Sinclair QL |
| NEWS RELEASE - QL HDD-CARD | The QL HDD-CARD is an interface board for the QL’s expansion port that allows you to connect a standard PC-hard drive controller of either the MFM (controller type OMTI 5520 or WD 1002A-WX1), or RLL hard drive (controller type OMTI 5527, WD 1602-27X or 1002A-27X) to the Sinclair QL. The driver for the new device | Sinclair QL |
| News Release - Text87 Plus4 | TEXT87 PLUS4 is finally out of wraps. Based on the proven technology introduced in the previous releases of text87, the new PLUS4 is a complete rewrite in object orientated ANSI C and 68000 assembly language using state of-the-art development tools and crosscompilers not availabie for ine QL. These tools have enabied us to surpass the | Sinclair QL |
| Norwegian Connection | It was good to hear that the QL continues on in the USA. Here in Norway we have a group of 40 members, and most have at least one QL. We publish “SINCLAIR MAGAZINE” 6-7 times a year. It’s 28 A5 (roughly 5 1/4″ by 8 3/4″ paper) pages filled with reviews. Our group also | Sinclair QL |
| Notes - QL, Serial Ports & Modems | This little article is about some things I’ve learned and observed while using my QL and its serial ports. This info may be common knowledge, especially to seasoned QL communications veterans but for the benefit of others, here it is. First of all, Hermes is highly recommended for anyone using a QL and its serial | Sinclair QL |
| Notes & Jottings | As the graphic to the left attests “Another Era Dawns” on the QL community, in fact referring to the QL community really only specifies one area, thus the graphic states QDOS and SMSQ/E. WHY ? The answer is simple, QDOS, SMS, SMSQ and SMSQ/E in one form or another are operating on a multitude of | Sinclair QL |
| Notes & News from JMS | Sinclair QL | |
| Notes from the Publisher | It’s with great anticipation that we end our fourth year of publication and begin work on our fifth. The number of International QL shows continues to grow, more and more high quality PD software is finding its way into users hands, more hardware developments than we’ve seen in years are about to break on the | Sinclair QL |
| Notes on QSI Speed Index Table | Below you will find the extensive results of recent tests using QSI Speed Index (available on most QL Bulletin Boards as public domain software). All but a few tests have been done by me using the English version of ARCHIVE 2.38 on an empty machine with just TK2 enabled. | Sinclair QL |
| Notes on XCHANGE | With the recent release of XCHANGE into the Public Domain (QL version only), and the lack of available documentation (at least in North America), it became apparent that QL users needed something in addition to their knowledge of QUILL. The following notes on XCHANGE have been extracted from the XCHANGE HELP and QUILL HELP files | Sinclair QL |
| Of Mice and Menus | Ah mice. Little furry creatures running around and squeaking and women standing on chairs in early sixties sitcoms or little plastic objects that either aggravate or enhance the lot of computer users. Before you turn the page and read something else let me say that this article is not an attempt to get people to | Sinclair QL |
| Olimpo: Multiplatform Development in C | There are different kinds of computer architectures, operating systems and personal configurations, but all of them are intended to do the same thing: running your favorite software. When you find (or write) a program that is worth to you, you would like it to run on any computer, not just your QL, Mac or whatever | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Online With The QL | The September/October IQLR mentioned that 41% of those responding to the questionnaire used their QL’s primarily for communications. Although, this number is larger than expected, it still indicates that over half of all QL owners DO NOT use modems, even though it is now cheaper than ever to get “online”. | Sinclair QL |
| OOPS! | Issue #5 : in Doug Dewey’s article “What Use Is The QL In Education“, the program “DBTUTOR” was mentioned. We apologize for not mentioning that this program was written by Bill Cable (a frequent contributor to IQLR), and could be purchased from Bill. | Sinclair QL |
| Open World V2.12 | Open World converts graphics from other computers into the QL display format. It can generate MODE 4, MODE 8, or dithered two-colour screens which use patterns instead of shades of grey. | Sinclair QL |
| Ordering From Overseas | A few methods learned over the years, help make ordering hardware and software from overseas fairly simple. FIRST of all, the MAJOR suppliers in the U.K. accept CREDIT CARDS. SECOND, those that don’t, including the GERMAN and ITALIAN suppliers require payment in their currency. | |
| Organizing a QL Show | It all started with a bit of leg pulling. I kept asking Bruce Nicholls when he was going to organise a QReview show now that Bob Dyl had organised his second Miracle In Newport. Bruce replied by challenging me to organise a QL show in the North West of England somewhere. Eventually, I gave in | Sinclair QL |
| Our Readers Speak | As the publisher of IQLR, I have the opportunity to hear from a large number of QL users worldwide. I’m constantly being renewed by the encouragement and enthusiasm of QLers. Their loyality and steadfastness in support of our little machines, is unmatched in the computer world (and they said the QL was dead). | Sinclair QL |
| P/D Software | Recently two pieces of Public Domain Software have been sent to IQLR for the purpose of making them available to our readers. The first progam is titled “MERINO TIL” (sent to us by Salvadore Merino of Spain) which is intended as a Multimedia Database Language. | Sinclair QL |
| Page Designer 3 | Page Designer 3 (PD3) is the long anticipated next generation desktop publisher. It operates under the extended environment (pointer environment) and takes advantage of many of the environment features. PD3 can be controlled almost completely by mouse, and though a mouse is highly recommended, it can also be used from the keyboard. With PD3 you | Sinclair QL |
| PC Pursuit | In the article “ONLINE WITH THE QL” by Ron Blizzard in issue #4, Ron mentioned PC PURSUIT, an online service that let’s you call BBS’s in all major cities in the evenings for a flat monthly fee. PC PURSUIT is a service of US SPRINT, their regular membership fee is $30.00 per month. That includes | |
| Perfection Plus S/E (version 5.09) | If you are still using Quill, you probably have a huge wish list for improvements. What would you do if you could get all these wishes fulfilled (and more)? The authors of Perfection have obviously listened to the many complaints people have with the original Quill word processor. These complaints have all been addressed. Perfection | Sinclair QL |
| PFData & the DATAdesign APL | DATAdesign was the first program I bought when I made the transition to Pointer Environment programs and I have been a PROGS fan ever since. Archive, for me at least, was a seriously annoying program to deal with but I think that is because I tend to use databases in a different way to a | Sinclair QL |
| PFList | PFlist is, to put it simply, a file listing program. But before you get too unexcited, check out just what it can really do. The program is of course able to produce program listings with the traditional footer including page number and your choice of text. | Sinclair QL |
| Preliminary Review: QDesign | QDesign is a drawing package far superior to any we have seen for the QL. The program, written by Jorg Schiemann is distributed by Jochen Merz Software (see Product Sources). QDesign is provided on disk, requires 512K memory, Toolkit II and a JS or later Rom. One of the most significant differences between QDesign and | Sinclair QL |
| Primus? | With the intention to develop a reliable and powerful QL compatible computer which could be used continuously in an industrial environment a modular computer system has been developed. | Sinclair QL |
| PRINT_MAC | PRINT_MAC is my first C program, while not very sophisticated, it prints MACINTOSH screen files (sometimes called ReadMac files – I think ReadMac is a Macintosh program) to an HP DESKJET printer. The program has minimal error checking, and has been compiled using C68 version 3.05. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Printmaster - A Review | Every so often, a program comes along that is so useful you wonder how you ever managed without it. Printermaster is one of those rare programs. | Sinclair QL |
| Products for HP DeskJet Owners | Recently two products have come to our attention. The first is a high quality laser paper produced by WEYERHAEUSER named FIRST CHOICE. It is by far the best paper I have ever used, to the degree that I cannot tell the difference between a page printed on my DeskJet 500 or my LaserJet IIP, the | |
| PROforma (Vector Graphics/Fonts on a Plate) | PROforma itself is a Font and Raster Manager program from PROGS. What you get when you buy PROforma in this package is the actual PROforma program and access to PROforma through a library of functions. If the programmer is writing their code in either ‘C’ or assembly (not interpreted SuperBASIC), they can use the PROforma | Sinclair QL |
| PROGS of Belgium | Hello everyone, we are Joachim and Nathan Van der Auwera from Professional and Graphical Software (PROGS). To be exact, we are not yet professional, because we are both still studying a 4-year computer science course in Belgium, our homeland. Nathan is in his last year, Joachim in his third. However we are doing our best | Sinclair QL |
| Prolog Prologue | This issue of IQLR sees the launch of GT-Prolog, a new implementation of the Prolog language widely used within industry and academia for the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications and for symbolic programming generally. Although GT-Prolog isn’t the first Prolog system for the QL (that honour goes to Hans Lub’s QL Prolog, available from | Sinclair QL |
| ProWesS: QL Windowing Meets the Future | The good people at PROGs Professional and Graphical Software are at it again. We all know them from programs such as Line Design and PFList. They developed the Proforma graphics engine which brought modem vectored graphics to the QL. | Sinclair QL |
| Psion Chess - Version 2.02Q | I have just rediscovered an old friend of mine, Psion Chess, thanks to Gunther Strube. Gunther has kindly made a new version of Psion Chess available to owners of the program. I just received my copy and am very pleased with it. Improvements include: no copy protection, no need for microdrives (this is great for | Sinclair QL |
| Public Domain Software Library | We have recently acquired the public domain “C-68 COMPILER” from Dave Walker of the UK. It comes on seven disks which include not only the executable compiler, linker, library and tutorial, but also the the source code and extensive documentation. The tutorial is excellent , requires no prior knowledge of “C” and covers C programming | Sinclair QL |
| Q_Liberator A Review | Q-Liberator, in my view, is one of the three most important QL programs in the current scene, with Turbo and C68 making up the other two. Much of the commercial QL software available is written in SuperBASIC, and compiled with one of the two major SuperBASIC compilers. While probably the bulk of non-Pointer Environment (PE) | Sinclair QL |
| Q-emuLator | Q-emuLator is a new software emulator for the QL that runs on Macintosh computers. It includes no hardware parts and it is not a QDOS compatible operating system like SMSQ. | Sinclair QL |
| QBIDE Hard Disk Interface | A QL compatible IDE hard disk interface is now a reality. Through the cooperation of Zeljko Nastasic of Croatia (designed and built the circuit board) and Ron Dunnett of Great Britain who will market the interface. | Sinclair QL |
| QBox-USA BBS | QBox-USA is a computer bulletin board system (BBS) set up by QL enthusiasts in the US for all QL enthusiasts in North America (although we welcome callers from anywhere). We maintain a link (Fidonet) with European BBS’s that carry QL related message areas. With QBox-USA North American QL users can keep in touch with our | Sinclair QL |
| QD and QBASIC Review | QD is an unusual editor for the QL for two reasons; firstly because it uses the Pointer Environment, and secondly because it is mainly aimed at programmers rather than those writing text. The Pointer Environment is now becoming more popular, and QD is one of many programs being actively developed in the QL marketplace. Much | Sinclair QL |
| QD The Editor V5.00 | QD – What is it? In simple terms it is a pointer driven ASCII text file editor. It does not profess to be, nor has it ever claimed to be, a word processor in any way shape or form. So what is there about the program that makes it different from all the other text | Sinclair QL |
| QD Version 8.03 | The text editing program, QD, has been undergoing constant revision by Jochen Merz over the last few years and has now arrived at version 8.03. Whilst this is certainly not the final version of the program we feel that the time has come to say a few words about how users can get the full | Sinclair QL |
| QDOS in a Laboratory | the beginning there was a little Casio calculator. Being a laboratory for food and water analysis, we needed many calculations. We did what everybody else did, used a calculator. Much of what was put into the calculator was the same every time. Our chemist, Ole Haukeland, bought a programmable Texas calculator to put formulas into. | Sinclair QL |
| QDOS, QL - The Future | First of all, this article describes my personal impressions – I’m not a fortune teller! Some people ask about the future, and it’s an important question. When I say QL. I mean everything which simulates the operating system of the QL (you all know by now that my main machines are ATARIs running QDOS or | Sinclair QL |
| QL - HDD Card | After purchasing the Gold Card, the next hardware upgrade I wanted was a hard disk. I bought the QL-HDD-Card at the ’Miracle in Newport’. The package I purchased included the HDD-Card, an Omti MFM 8 bit controller and a 90 degree adapter that folds the two cards up next to each other. I can’t praise | Sinclair QL |
| QL - PC Fileserver | In the past, a number of articles have been written describing how to transfer files from a QL to a PC. These usually involved using terminal programs on both ends or writing some basic program to manage a file transfer. These methods are cumbersome at best. I will admit that I’ve always wished there was | Sinclair QL |
| QL <-> MSDOS <-> QXL | In previous articles, I have discussed file transfer techniques between the QL Psion suite and the *de facto” MSDOS standard Lotus and Dbase programs. In this article, I will discuss the implantation of a QL brain into an MSDOS computer via Miracle Systems QXL. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| QL 2000 | Before I explain my ideas on a possible successor to the QL, | will attempt to clarify a few points. | am NOT an expert. I definitely lack the skills, and I probably don’t have the talent, to devise any kind of QL replacement. | Sinclair QL |
| QL 2000 Tower Case QL | All you need in one box, expandable yet affordable, with plenty of space for tinkering and upgrading. With the QL-2000 we are presenting a completely new concept for expansion of your QL system to a compact, professional reliable unit. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Abacus <-> MSDOS Lotus | Welcome to part 3 of the QL <–> MSDOS applications data transfer series. In this section, we will examine the transfer of data from QL Abacus/XCHANGE to MSDOS Lotus. This transfer is of spreadsheet data (both entered and calculted) only. Cell formulas are not transfered, but the result calculated by the formula is. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Advancement Working Group | A new International QL Group is forming headquartered in the U.K.,the name of this group is QLAW. It is the brainchild of Dr. Sohail S. Bhatti. DR. Bhatti is a well respected member of the QL community, and a frequent contributor to QUANTA and its famous LIBRARY. | Sinclair QL |
| QL BBS Message Reader | The first release of the QL BBS Message Reader is now currently available as Freeware. This program allows for easy reading of bulletin board service (BBS) messages off-line. The Message Reader is a standalone program and can accept ASCII message files captured from most terminal programs. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Clip Art Collection V2.12 | This QL Clip Art collection contains over 10,000 images converted and ported from the Public Domain and from commercial sources. You can use the images without any restrictions. All the images (screens) were converted using Carlos Delhaz (thanks Carlos) powerful “unGIF v0.73” and my own routines. Whenever possible pictures were converted in their original sizes | Sinclair QL |
| QL Data Acquisition System | I wish this was a review. Unfortunately it isn’t because this interface is no longer in production. What if we could convince the manufacturer to put it back into production? Thats what I thought when I ran across some articles on this board. This card was only advertised for a short time in QZX (a | Sinclair QL |
| QL Genealogist | QL_GENEALOGIST, 2nd Edition is an update to Chris Boutal’s very innovative and well received QL_GENEALOGIST Family Tree program. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Genealogist | Sinclair QL | |
| QL Home Finance-Revisited | In the early days of the QL, Sinclair released a number of third party software packages under the Sinclair banner. One of the best was a terrific financial software package entitled “QL-HOME FINANCE “, written by BUZZ SOFTWARE. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| QL Interfaces | Over the years there has been many add-ons for the QL. Here are drawings of many of them so that you may identify them easily. If you have one that is not mentioned, then please write to me via the editor of IQLR to help complete the library. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Keyboard 90 Interface | Juergen Falkenberg of COMPUTER TECHNIK has launched, and is delivering his new KEYBOARD INTERFACE. We believe it to be the BEST ever designed for the QL. They offer two versions, the FIRST fits internally inside the QL. You remove the 8049 chip from its socket, fit the interface board to the empty socket, then replace | Sinclair QL |
| QL Pente | Besides computers, board gaming is one of my other hobbies. My interest goes the full gamut of board games, from hex-based war games to the abstract games, such as Othello or Kensington. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Public Domain Software | One thing lacking in IQLR at the moment is news about QL PD Software especially what is offered on the Communications Super Highway. As I have access to both Fidonet and Internet I thought that some examples would be in order. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Rom Switching Board - Review | The QL ROM Switching Board is a small circuit board, produced by members of the QLEA Quanta sub-group in England. This board allows you to install both a Minerva EPROM plus an original Sinclair ROM into the QL. Either of the two ROMS can be selected by means of a switch and a reset of | Sinclair QL |
| QL ROM-Card | In our endeavor to bring you interesting developments in the QL world, we’ve discovered an ideal expansion board for those of you with unexpanded machines, or non TRUMP CARD RAM expansion and disk drive interface. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Serial Cable Pinouts | The following diagrams illustrate the pinouts for the two connectors required for assembling a serial to printer/modem cable. The parts are available at any Radio Shack (Tandy) store. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Spares & Repairs | A growing number of our North American readers have written us concerning SPARE PARTS and/or QL REPAIRS. We find that this is a worldwide concern of many QLer’s. Therefore the reason for this article, | Sinclair QL |
| QL Spin Doctor | I’ve always had a fascination with disk drives. I I started working on computers 16 years ago when disk drives were actually large enough drives that you could repair them outside of a clean room. I spent many hours replacing and aligning heads, rewriting servo code and all the other jobs necessary to keep disk | Sinclair QL |
| QL Spin Doctor | This issue I’d like to discuss Sony ED drives. First though, a few updates to last issues firmware lists for disk interfaces. Update the Miracle Super Gold Card firmware to 2.49. Apparently there is a version 1.17 Cumana rom in existence. If anyone has access to one please let me know. Also add QUBIDE to | Sinclair QL |
| QL Survivor's Source Book | The “QL SURVIVOR’S SOURCE BOOK” is a project of the SeaCoast QL User Group. It lists sources in the following four catagories: all the known QL HARDWARE SUPPLIERS, QL PUBLICATIONS (major), QL SOFTWARE SUPPLIERS, and QL USER GROUPS worldwide. Under each company/individual a number of their products are listed. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Survivor's Source Book | We are happy to announce the release of the second edition of the “QL SURVIVOR’S SOURCE BOOK” (QLSSB). It’s been completely rewritten and expanded with the addition of three new categories. | Sinclair QL |
| QL Tidbits | The average IQLR reader and we assume it holds true for the general QL population has 2.4 QLs. | Sinclair QL |
| QL World Sold Again | It has just been reported to IQLR, that QL WORLD has been SOLD by the people who purchased it from the collapsed Maxwell Empire. The new publishers are reported to be a company named ARCWIND, and we believe that Helen Armstrong will remain as editor. The May 1992 issue will be late by a couple | Sinclair QL |
| QL-2000 Tower Case QL DIY-KIT | This kit is from Computer Technik /Jiirgen Falkenberg in Germany and lets you move your QL into a modern mini-tower case. You gain many advantages from this move: disk drives in the same cabinet as the computer, room for expansion cards in the same case, stable power supply, one power switch for the system, smaller | Sinclair QL |
| QLAW Update | SUPER QL PROJECT: Up until now, we’ve been deliberately vague about future plans, so as not to raise expectations and then dash hopes. I now wish to share some thoughts aid perhaps generate some comments from you as well. | Sinclair QL |
| QLEA - Quanta Subgroup Of East Anglia | Until three years ago, there had never been a QUANTA subgroup in the Eastern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. A couple of abortive attempts to start a group were made, but it was Geraint Jones who finally managed to get a nucleus of interested QL owners to meet monthly at Thetford, a small town on | Sinclair QL |
| QLers in the Oak Ridge | My small commuter prop plane was swooping low over a lush, green region. Everywhere I looked I saw small hills covered with a thick growth of trees and shrubs. Rivers flowed, their water dark and sluggish. Scattered throughout this rich landscape were houses tucked between trees, roads winding through the land, and the fast approaching | Sinclair QL |
| QLs On The Internet | The Internet is a loose collection of worldwide computers and networks, connected by some sort of physical and logical link. One of the more well-known portions of the Internet is the Defense Data Network (DDN). Access to Internet is available through gateways provided by many commercial networks such as CompuServe, MCI Mail, Sprint Mail, and | Sinclair QL |
| QMATHS 1 | “QMATHS'” first appeared in DP’s ads around December 1991 (not having the Sept & Oct 91 QL Worlds, I can’t be more precise) as the “QMATHS MATHEMATICAL SYSTEM”. In June 1992, like an amoeba, the system split into two parts. It is Part One that will be reviewed here. I have no information at this | Sinclair QL |
| QMATHS 1 - A Review: Part 2 of 2 | In Part 1 of this Review, I covered Qmaths and Qfract. In this final portion, 1 propose to discuss the Surface Modeller, High Precision Calculator, and Mathematical Compendium, the last being a sort of mish-mash of items that may not have fit neatly into a previous category. | Sinclair QL |
| QMATHS 2 - A Review | Recently two pieces of Public Domain Software have been sent to IQLR for the purpose of making them available to our readers. The first progam is titled “MERINO TIL” (sent to us by Salvadore Merino of Spain) which is intended as a Multimedia Database Language. | Sinclair QL |
| QPAC II - Optimal Configuration | In today’s world, QPAC II is the QL’s “de facto” version of Windows 3, and has been since QRAM, (QPAC’s predecessor) first appeared. QPAC II’s history has been a little like Windows 1 and 2, for PC’s and compatibles. First of all, a revolutionary program was released, and a few people started using it on | Sinclair QL |
| QPAC2 (My) Boot | There has been a lot said and written about QPAC 2. The designer of this program (Mr. Tony Tebby) made it flexible and adaptable to most all situations. In so doing, many have trouble getting started using this program. It is not one of those pieces of software that we buy, put it in the | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| QPAC2 for Starters | If you are one of those people who have purchased QPAC2 but have never actually used it then this is for you QPAC2, Tony Tebby’s QL Pointer Accessories, is a marvellous piece of software giving the QL a powerful front end but there are 2 obstacles in the way of getting started with it and | Sinclair QL |
| QPAC2 Version Numbers | I keep getting asked about the differences in more recent versions of QPAC2, so here is a list of changes, abbreviated from extensive notes I received from Tony Tebby. | Sinclair QL |
| QTOP and the 3.2 Meg Drive | In the previous issue, I mentioned that I wanted to write an article explaining how I was using my 3.2 Meg drive as a mini hard drive. As luck would have it, I had just about completed setting up my first “Master Disk”, when COWO ELECTRONIC came out with an upgrade to QTOP (the front-end | Sinclair QL |
| Quanta Library | Some time ago, I was approached by my young daughter who wanted to produce banners on the QL. Unfortunately there was no easy way to do this and her request went unanswered. All that has now changed with a piece of software entitled “BANTER” which was written by Nick Ward and is available from DILWYN | Sinclair QL |
| Quanta Library Update | We have recently received the latest additions to the Quanta Library. The first four disks are in a compressed form. It’s all very easy, just run the boot program on each disk and follow the menu. The 4 disks translate into 10 NEW Quanta disks plus upgrades or additions to three others. | Sinclair QL |
| QUBIDE version 1.28 | QUBIDE is an IDE hard disk interface for the QL. Before describing it in detail, I’d like to explain how this interface ever came into existence. Months ago, one of the discussion threads on QBox was some wishful thinking about using IDE drives on the QL. IDE was discussed for some time when Zelijko Nastasic | Sinclair QL |
| Quick Mandelbrot III | Quick Mandelbrot III is the latest upgrade to the program. Among the updates are an increase in maximum iterations to 511 (for Gold Card users), addition of Mode 4 operation, and some code changes in the interests of more speed. | Sinclair QL |
| Quick Notes for Gold Card Users | Some 1.44 Meg drives can be set by the jumper pins to NOT check for the additional hole that identifies the disk as a high density disk. I inadvertently set my drive that way, and find that it automatically formats regular (cheaper) 3 1/2″ 720K disks to 1.44 megs without any problems. | Sinclair QL |
| Quill - Deskjet 500 | This is a follow up on printing with the DESKJET 500 printer from the last issue of IQLR. This time we are dealing with printing of QUILL (QLWP) documents. This is accomplished by using INSTALL _BAS to create a PRINTER dat file for the DESKJET 500 printer. All of the features of this printer will | Sinclair QL |
| Quill With An Ill Will | Recently, I stumbled across an anomalous (actually, berserk might be more like it !) behavior of Quill during the attempted editing of a large (106060 bytes) imported file. Memory should have been no problem; I was operating with Super Gold Card 2.49, with the assistance of Minerva 1.97. | Sinclair QL |
| QuizMaster II | QUIZMASTER II is a recently upgraded program originally developed by Impact Entertainments in 1988. The program was upgraded in 1993 by Rich Mellor. It is similar to computerized quiz games found in pubs and clubs throughout the UK, but the questions are not at all limited to UK topics. The two modules, with a total | Sinclair QL |
| QXL ... at Full Throttle | After a lot of deliberation, I finally succumbed to it’s allure and bought a QXL. Very strange for a QL user who does not own a PC. And a very strange QXL as well – one which originally came without a 68040 CPU. | Sinclair QL |
| QXL In Command | In the last issue of IQLR, I (Tom) gave some preliminary observations on the Miracle Systems QXL. AI Boehm sent several E-mail messages dealing with the QXL and finally suggested that what is needed is a continuing series of IQLR articles dealing with the QXL. Having had a little more time to evaluate the QXL, | Sinclair QL |
| QXL In Command | The QXL uses the PC’s hard disk by formatting a segment of it for its own use. The segment can be 1 up to 66 Mbytes in size. The QXL manual warns not to go higher then 63 but I (Al) have successfully formatted 66 Mbytes on several computers without any trouble – so far. | Sinclair QL |
| QXL in Command | Early in November, the latest SMSQ version 2.31 arrived. It corrected the earlier glitches and both Al and Tom believe that the QXL is now fully functional. A word of thanks is due to all those at Miracle Systems and any who helped with the testing. And now in January 2.47 has arrived!! | Sinclair QL |
| QXL In Command | A program can be started in the QXL and it will continue computing when control is passed back to the PC by pressing CTRL SCROLL LOCK. This feature is handy when using a long number cruncher type of program. Of course, the program will pause when it tries to print to the screen, access a | Sinclair QL |
| QXL In Command | There is a new QXL logo printed on a small plastic square that can be pasted on your computer so that everyone will know that it is running the QXL and not the you know what. Bob Dyl, us, and others decided to use “QXL IN CHARGE” with some stylized lightning. Thus, the logo won’t | Sinclair QL |
| QXL in Command | (Tom) recently purchased an IOMEGA Zip Drive for US $200. It connects to the parallel port of the PC and, after loading appropriate software, functions as a 100 Megabyte removable medium hard drive. The disks ($15 each) are slightly larger than a standard 3.5 inch floppy and come preformatted in PC or Macintosh format. | Sinclair QL |
| QXL In Command | The font technology and test formatting capabilities of Windows and OS/2 word processors is, to be truthful, superior to Quill and Perfection (I have not tried TEXT 87). However, my (Tom) experience is that I get so distracted by these features that it seriously detracts from my ability to effectively compose a message – the | Sinclair QL |
| Ramblings... | intend to cover several subjects in this article starting with the EMC directive. The EMC directive has already generated a lot of discussion and there seems little point in me adding to the confusion that already exists. I have just one statement to make regarding the subject, and that is; Di-Ren products will continue to | Sinclair QL |
| RAMDISK Correction | An error occurred when I printed the RAM Disk article reproduced in the Nov/Dec 92 issue of IQLR. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| RDS (Random Dot Stereograms) | Somewhere in this issue of IQLR there should be a page with lots of dots on it; dots that seem to be a random pattern, with a pair of small hollow boxes along one edge. If you change your focus while looking at a RDS and allow the image processing computer in your brain to | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Reader Profiles | Michael Simpson, Anthony Magnus, and March Renick. | Sinclair QL |
| Reading MSDOS Disks On The QL - Part I: The Root Directory | The original impetus for this article came from having a few Shareware disks lying about, gathering dust. Inevitably, I wondered about the feasibility of reading Big Blue’s efforts on the QL. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Reading MSDOS Disks on the QL - Part II: Copying MSDOS Files | Part I contained a brief description of the MSDOS disk organization. Table 1, below, expands on that description to include placement of clusters. The tabular form should allow visualization of interrelations among the disk parameters superior to any verbal description. For instance, the expressions in Procedure trsise should be fairly readily derivable from the Table. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Reading MSDOS Disks on the QL - Part III: The Boot Record and File Allocation Table | Parts I and II implicitly assumed a 40-track disk being used on an 80-track drive. Examining the boot record will be primarily useful in determing whether this is, in fact, the case. All the MSDOS disks I have so far examined have been the 40_track (720 sector) type but others are possible. In fact, there | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Reflections | What kind of year has it been for the QL? As an individual involved with the QL since it’s introduction in 1984, I can honestly say, that the level of co-operation and development has reached heights never before attained. I’d like to review some of the hardware and software developments, both commercial and public domain, | Sinclair QL |
| Renewing Printer Ribbons | This article illustrates my trials and tribulations with some workable ideas pertaining to renewing printer ribbons, including some pitfalls. With the realization that the new breed of laser and ink jet printers are becoming more commonplace, I feel that there are a large majority of computer users who stil] use dot matrix printers. Perhaps, sometime | |
| Repairing the QL | The QL computer is a comparatively easy machine to repair as most it’s functions are controlled by specially designed ULA integrated circuits. | Sinclair QL |
| Replace: An Archive Utility | Database systems and database oriented software play an increasingly important role in personal computing. Computers are fantastic for sorting and using information, tasks that database systems are specifically designed for. When you purchased your QL you received a well designed and powerful database system in ARCHIVE. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Report From Juergen Falkenberg | Juergen Falkenberg of COMPUTER TECHNIK reports, that he is now shipping improved versions of his QL SCANNER. He states, that they have developed an extremely powerful color scanner, for high resolution digitizing of pictures with the Sinclair QL. A minimum of 256K memory expansion is required. | Sinclair QL |
| Review of Image Processor 2 | Image Processor 2 from Dilwyn Jones Computing is a powerful program to aid in editing or creating QL screen pictures. It includes handy and powerful utilities such as converting from one screen mode to another, removing color, changing one color to another, adding text, enhancing images, block and window handling and the ability to zoom | Sinclair QL |
| Review of QINDEX | QINDEX, as the name applies is an indexing program. It will produce an index from either a Quill file or from an ASCII text file. Since I do not own Text 87 or Perfection, | cannot comment on its compatibility with their files. However, if neither of these type files work, you can always save | Sinclair QL |
| Review: QL Quick Posters | QUICK POSTERS published by Dilwyn Jones Computing, makes text only posters simple and effortlessly, by harnessing the facilities built into many modern printers. It is supplied on both disk and mdv. You receive the main program together with an update_doc, printer drivers, and demonstration pages. The program will run on an unexpanded QL. A backup | Sinclair QL |
| Rock-Fall - A Review | This review is of the program Rock-Fall by Andrew Toone which is called a “Boulderdash Clone”. When I tried to find out what Boulderdash was I ran into a problem. I spent time in several bookstores and a library trying to find a reference to any program called Boulderdash. Finally I found a book that | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Rock'n'QL | During a recent phone conversation between myself and our esteemed editor I was asked to write something about how I use my little black box – but before I do that here is a little history. In the early eighties I was singing in a rock’n’roll band as well as learning the beginnings of my | Sinclair QL |
| Ron's P/D Library | With the great explosion of Public Domain software on the QL scene, we have asked Ron Dunnett of QUBBESoft P/D, the leading commercial supplier of PD software, if he would be willing to share some comments on his library. This is the first of what we hope will be an on going PD column. | Sinclair QL |
| Routine Auto-Locator | Have you ever, in the course of developing a moderately complex SuperBasic program, found yourself scrolling madly up and down through multitudinous lines in search of the routine that currently needed modification ? I have, and it can be annoying, to say the least. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| RS-232 Peripheral Interface | Recently I have been engaged in a project to collect temperature data to analyze the thermal properties of homes. This project will eventually lead to the development of a microprocessor controlled thermostat. However, to begin work, data must be collected and analyzed to understand the thermal properties of a home in a quantitative manner. | Sinclair QL |
| Rumors! Rumors! | Rumors are flying wildly in the U.K., It has been said that QUANTA is in negotiations with REBEL ELECTRONICS to take over the REBEL HARD DISK INTERFACE design. It has been suggested that it would be offered as a kit, and as a fully assembled version. | Sinclair QL |
| Running a Gold Card from 5 Volts | The QL normally runs as we all know from 9 volts, which if you have transfered your QL to a PC case (with a switch mode power supply), causes a few problems. The solution to this problem is to run the whole system on 5 volts, but the backup clock on Gold Card will not | Sinclair QL |
| Save And Load Arrays | If you have ever created an array in SuperBasic you may have run into a slight problem. How do you save it? The manual is of no help, At least I couldn’t find instructions there. Even Jan Jones excellent book was, in this area, totally lacking. The program that follows will show the procedures to | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| SBASIC | Great News ! The enclosed disc contains SBASIC’ the letter from Miracle Systems began. The disc in question was release 2.16 of the QXL software and after backing up the disc and trying it out, it was indeed impressive. | Sinclair QL |
| SBYTES and the Gold Card | A number of years ago, it was determined, that heat buildup could be reduced in the QL by replacing the ROM’s with an EPROM. EPROMs run cooler than ROMs and one EPROM can replace both of the original ROM chips. The SBYTES command allows the code on the ROM to be copied to disk or | Sinclair QL |
| Scandinavian QL Meeting | The Swedish QL User Group is planning a QL meeting to be held on the 1st and 2nd of October 1994 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The exact location is yet to be decided upon, more details will be forwarded in good time before the meeting. It is our hope to attract a number of suppliers as | Sinclair QL |
| Screen Dazzler | SCREEN DAZZLER loads and runs one of the many screen manipulation or graphical display programs included with the program. At the start of the timeout period, at random one of the six included programs is loaded from FLP1 ( as supplied ). There are some dazzling displays on the screen at this time. When you | Sinclair QL |
| Screen Snatcher | Screen Snatcher is a powerful utility which has one purpose, to save a copy of the current screen display to disk, microdrive or RAM disk. This program may not appear to be of value to everyone using a QL, however, if you have ever wanted to save a copy of text mixed with some foreign | Sinclair QL |
| Scripting in QTPI | Jonathan Hudson’s QTPI program has been evolving for some time, beginning as a ‘simple’ terminal program under another name and evolving into a pointer environment, full featured communications package with drop down menus, multiple transfer protocols, etc. His latest version adds the powerful capabilities of scripting. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Security on the QL | It is 3.30pm on a blazing hot day in early May and I am driving along the Sussex coastline to interview John Wakefield of Wakefield Security Systems Limited. I came in contact with John through a letter I had published in the February ’95 Quanta magazine. I had just moved from Hamburg, in Germany, to | Sinclair QL |
| Seeing is Believing | You sit down, switch on your QL and patiently wait for the start-up prompt to appear on the screen… how easily we take for granted that a computer can display pictures an a monitor. Would you ever think that a complex process is performed by about 30% of the hardware in your computer just to | Sinclair QL |
| Seeking Applications Software | As you all know there are not too many applications around in the QL scene. The question is: why? One reason might be, that potential programmers don’t see a market in the QL scene, which is probably true. You need to be an enthusiast. However, some excellent software like QTPI and QFAX, which are very | Sinclair QL |
| SERMouse (Ver 3.01) - A Review | SERMouse is a software driver that allows you to connect a PC type serial mouse to one of the QL’s serial ports. No disassembly of the QL is necessary. The mouse can then be used to control the pointer if you’re using the pointer environment allowing much easier and faster control than the cursor keys. | Sinclair QL |
| Setting-Up RGB/CGA Video Monitors | “Why is an RGB monitor better than a composite monitor”? This question has been asked over and over again. In simple terms – a composite signal from a computer has every video element that RGB signals have. They are: Red, Blue, & Green video signals, Horizontal or Composite sync and Vertical sync signals which are | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| SGC Printer Cable | Having assembled my QL in a MID-Size Tower Case it became apparent with the purchase of a Super Gold Card that if 1 wanted to maintain tiddy control of the QL’s cables, the one supplied by Miracle just wouldn’t do. I wanted to be able to connect the cable to the back of the case, | Sinclair QL |
| SlowGold Reviewed | SlowGold is a set of routines used to slow the QL down. It was intended for Gold Card users but it also works on a standard QL. Why would anyone want to slow their QL and/or Gold Card down?!? Most software runs much better on a Gold Card equipped QL. The problem is that some | Sinclair QL |
| SMSQ An Explanation | There seems to be a lot of confusion about the three systems listed above, understandable perhaps, as the initials on their own mean very little to the uninitiated. I will try to explain the differences without going into too much technical detail. If it is still not clear, let me know and I’ll try again! | Sinclair QL |
| SMSQ Language Dependent Modules | n order to be able to distribute versions of SMSQ which provide messages in more than one language and to support multiple keyboard layouts, SMSQ uses a uniform “language dependent module” structure. | Sinclair QL |
| SMSQ Modules | SMSQ/E is delivered as a single file which provides an operating system, a command line Processor / program interpreter (SBASIC), various language modules and a complete set of device drivers for the target system. SMSQ/E is, however, not a monolithic unit, but a collection of modules providing different functions. It is possible, for example, to | Sinclair QL |
| SMSQ/E - Hints and Tips | We recently discovered a number of problem solutions to various problems which arose when faulty programs were used in conjunction with SMSQ/E. These problems are not faults of SMSQ/E but become visible under it. | Sinclair QL |
| SMSQ/E on the QXL | For the last several months, there has been a lot of press and discussion of SMSQ/E, Tony Tebby’s latest serving of QL software inspiration (and sweat). In case you haven’t had a chance to keep up with the news, SMSQ/E is a new operating system written by Tony Tebby to replace QDOS on any QL | Sinclair QL |
| Software News | Two major packages have just been released by the PROGS (note their adverts in this issue). The first is the long-awaited “Version 3 of DATADESIGN” (fully relational database) now offered in two configurations. The first section is the DATABASE and the second is DATADESIGN API (application Programming Interface) that allows the user to program DATADESIGN | Sinclair QL |
| Software Producers - Take Note | In response to the column “OUR READERS SPEAK” in the last issue, we received a number of calls and letters. A large number of them dealt with what seems to be an increasing problem. With the increased sophistication of QL software, more and more packages require some type of configuration before the program can be | Sinclair QL |
| SOLVIT-PLUS 2 | Users of SOLVIT-PLUS 2 who purchased the programme from Dilwyn Jones Computing are entitled to a free upgrade. If you wish to take advantage of this offer, send Master Disk 1 and one I.R.C. The Disk will be returned with the latest version. | Sinclair QL |
| Special Anniversary Issue | With this issue, we begin our second year of publication. We’ve received many encouraging letters with your subscription renewals, and we’ll endeavor to continue providing you with a timely, quality publication. We would also like to welcome the many new readers who have joined us. During the past year you’ve received advanced information on the | |
| Spreadsheets/DeskJet 500 | Having recently taken advantage of what I think is a good price on the HP DESKJET 500 printer, I then had the task of changing the printer drivers for the Psion software that I use with it. | Sinclair QL |
| Squidgy Round the World | Squidgy Round the World Version 6.5 is a colourful QL arcade game with up to 50 locations written by Michael Crowe. As a character, Squidgy is introduced as a friendly being pursued by certain characters who would like to perform experiments on him. Why would these people want to do this to this poor little | Sinclair QL |
| Statistical Analysis System | Mechanical Design Analysis Consultants (MeDAC) has decided to market their Statistical Analysis System. This system was designed by our Chief Design Analyst (Glen E. Smelcer) after 12 years working in the Design Analysis Department of INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO. and 15 years working in the Reliability Design Analysis Department of the JOHN DEERE Dubuque Works. | Sinclair QL |
| Strings And The C-Programming Language | Strings are a means of storing and manipulating text, such as names and sentences. In C, strings are not a formal data type but an array of type “char”. When you think about a string in C, it is a series of characters, formed into an array. In other programming languages strings are also treated | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Super Disk Utility | Most cataloguing methods applied to collections of items, be they books or chapters in a book, involve relatively complex indexing techniques such as alternating between numerals (Arabic or Roman) and alphabetical characters. On the other hand, it is generally simpler, and often preferable, to use a straightforward numerical order when dealing with collections of closely | Sinclair QL |
| Super QL - The Next Generation | In the past there were two major problems restricting the development of the QL. The first was Amstrad’s copyright of the QDOS operating system, and their unwillingness to license it to another party. The second major obstacle was the lack of a proper bus system. It was widely reported several years ago that this is | Sinclair QL |
| Super QL Report | I now have Qdos running 00 a 50 MHz 68060 system, with 10 Mb RAM. The processor came direct from Motorola, as part of their Alpha/Beta test program, and is fitted on a CyberStorm Amiga accelerator board, made by Phase Five in Germany; Escom have agreed to use this board on thousands of the new | Sinclair QL |
| Talking to the World | In addition to logging into specialized bulletin boards such as QBOX USA to talk with other QL users (see the last issue of IQLR), you have the opportunity to access an even bigger part of the ‘information superhighway’ that has been much talked about. And unlike what many people think, this so called superhighway has | Sinclair QL |
| Teac 3.5" ED Disk Drives | Teac has released yet another version of their popular ED disk drives. The new drive number is TEAC FD-235J 5637. Since all three drives are being sold we thought it might be a good idea if we reprinted the jumper modifications for all three. Please remember to keep a record of the original factory settings. | Sinclair QL |
| TEXT_WIDTH | The following program demonstrates how to set up a procedure for printing text you’ve written, so that your choice of characters per line will be printed while still looking neat. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Text'n'Graphics - A Review | T’N’G is a program that fills a void between a word processor/text editor and desk top publishing software. It contains something for every QL user even though each of us use our QL differently. If you require single or multiple page fliers with a graphic illustration or perhaps an illustrated cover for a document or | Sinclair QL |
| Text87 plus 4 - A Review | This review of text87 plus 4 is being written using text 87. I rarely turn on my QL without using text87 for something. This doesn’t mean I’m always writing letters. I also use text87 to find information. I have a 1.2 MByte file containing all the zip codes of cities in the United States. To | Sinclair QL |
| The 3rd North American QL Show | Sinclair QL | |
| The Great Pizza Challenge | Having read Zelijko Nastasic’s pizza challenge (how many windows can you open?) in Volume 5 issue 4, I set the same problem to my second year students, but with more stringent control (size of window, maximum delay for any window operation, etc.) leaving them a free choice of computer system. | Sinclair QL |
| The Greek New Testament (on the QL) | Those of us who have an intense desire to understand the reasons and purpose of life, search, study and discuss what we can of the contents of many different records of the past, including the Sumarian Scripts, the Egyptian Cuneform writings and the Mayan Records. Many of these writings are to-day being studied by scholars | Sinclair QL |
| The International QL Meeting | The 21st March 1992 saw the International QL Meeting in Germany, organized by the Sinclair QL User Club e.V. Munster-Roxel, NW Germany was the location, and QL/QDOS enthusiasts from several countries gathered in a school hall to see, try out and discuss everything to do with the QL. I was part of a contingent of | Sinclair QL |
| The Jochen Merz Story | Growing Up With Sinclair Computers I’m not very good writing in English. Well enough for you to understand my technical manuals, but definitely not for curriculum vitae. Anyway, you should understand what I’m talking about, and if not, condemn the German education system for being unable to teach proper English. The most interesting year was | |
| The Lonely Joker | The Lonely Joker is an excellent implementation of the card game Solitaire (Patience). When used with a mouse, this version is certainly equal to or better than the ones bundled with “Windows” for the IBM or commonly found on the Macintosh. | Sinclair QL |
| The Lonely Joker (Napoleon) | A number of months ago my father purchased the game “LONELY JOKER’, and I’ve been playing the three different games ever since. The most difficult of the three is “NAPOLEON”, the documentation really doesn’t go far enough in explaining how to play. So, here is a simplified explanation of the way I play the game. | Sinclair QL |
| The Lonely Joker II | THE LONELY JOKER was reviewed in IQLR Vol. 2 No. 2. Since then it has some major changes and a few minor ones. They have added 3 more games to double the original 3 games. This review is on Version 2. | Sinclair QL |
| The New Teac 3.2mb Disk Drives | After recently adding a GOLD CARD to my QL system | began to think about taking advantage of the ability to use the new EXTRA HIGH DENSITY (ED) disk drives. Armed with my back issues of IQLR, I picked up a couple of computer magazines and started looking at ads that featured the 2.88 MB | Sinclair QL |
| The Oracle | The Oracle isa pointer environment game for the QL that requires cleverness and cunning to solve an ancient puzzle. Itchy trigger fingers and fast reflexes are not needed. The object of the game is to set 72 tiles of various colors and containing different symbols on a playing board consisting of 96 squares while making | Sinclair QL |
| The PE - An Idiot's Guide | This article is intended as a user’s guide to the Pointer Environment. Some astute readers may already have noticed the words an idiot’s guide – please don’t be offended – the idiot is me! | Sinclair QL |
| The Problems I've Seen | Dennis has asked me to add some comments about my experiences repairing QL motherboards. I haven’t taken detailed notes while making individual repairs so this will just be some general observations. Dennis follows a more structured approach than I do. However, his description of his work area fits mine as well. | Sinclair QL |
| The QL and BCPL | Some nine years ago, I bought my QL, for one-sixth of the original price. I found the name: Quantum Leap hardware wise not appropriate, but from the software point of view the QL was, and is a revelation. | Sinclair QL |
| The QL at Work and QLAY | Tariki is a 2nd generation ceramics studio that produces a wide range of stoneware art. We make everything from platters, bowls, garden tables, to large scale ceramic and steel sculptures. Tariki was created by my father in the mid fifties. He moved the studio to Meriden in 1961. The studio has a family tradition of | Sinclair QL |
| The QL Hacker's Journal | The QL Hacker’s Journal (QHJ) is a relatively new publication for the QL (first issue: Jan. 1991). As editor of the CATS Newsletter, I felt that many of the programming articles I’d written, or wanted to write, would not interest the majority of the CATS readership. I realized the need of a forum where QL | Sinclair QL |
| The QL in Norway: N.A.S.A | Have you ever heard of Norway? If your answer is no, please take a look at a map. You will find Norway to the northeast of the British Isles. By the way, there are no ice bears in the streets as far as I know! As you can see, Norway is a very small country, | Sinclair QL |
| The Quanta AGM | For many years I’ve read the various printed reports, seen the many pictures of smiling QL users and wished I could have been there. This year was different, I’m in some of those reports and pictures. Thanks to the urging of Stuart Honeyball of Miracle Systems, Quanta’s long-time treasurer John Taylor and many others, I | Sinclair QL |
| The Russians are Coming! | Andrew Lavrov and Anatoly Tishin, both from Russia, are planning to design and manufacture a very powerful Sinclair QL clone as soon as possible. The machine they have in mind will not only be able to clone the QL, but should be capable of cloning any other MC680xx-based computer as well (Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, | Sinclair QL |
| The Serial Port BBS | The Serial Port bulletin board has an active Timex/Sinclair SIG (Special Interest Group) area continuously since 1983. Recently, activity on the SIG has increased, matching the rebirth of the QL. | Sinclair QL |
| The Shape of Things to Come | Finally, the QL is to get a major revamp of it’s graphics capability – rumours of this piece of hardware started a while back, when the Super Goldcard was still in development, and Stuart Honeyball himself finally put a stop to them – by making public the specifications – at the Reggio Emillia “Garage meeting’ | Sinclair QL |
| The Story of "RAM" | Anybody who is into computers these days is bound to hear things like dynamic RAM, cache RAM, video RAM, static RAM, dual port RAM. Almost anyone knows about RAM, but what are these strange words in front? What do they all mean? | Sinclair QL |
| The Stripper | No, this is a program to strip out control codes froma Quill _ DOC file leaving it with no end of line characters between paragraphs, turning it into a TRUE plain text file. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| The Super Gold Card | OK the title is a little play on words. Miracle’s new Super Gold Card is quick! Even if you already have the original Gold Card, the Super Gold Card improves on it in many ways including speed, cpu, memory and additional features. | Sinclair QL |
| The World Wide Web | Many of you will have heard of the mainstream computers new madness, the World Wide Web. This little article is not intended to introduce you into the World Wide Web, but just give you a little overview of some of its possibilities. I’ll assume that you are connected to the ‘net’ and know how to | Sinclair QL |
| The ZM Spectrum Emulation Package | A little more than a year ago, the Italian software house, Ergon Development started writing a program to emulate the Sinclair Spectrum 48K on the QL. The first version of the emulator was launched at the International QL meeting in Muenster – Germany, in March ’92. Other versions followed, with the very latest in January | Sinclair QL |
| Things in SMSQ/E (Part 1) | As you probably know SMSQ/E contains lots of various Things. Some of the useful ones are explained in the SMSQ/E manual, and wherever an SBASIC call to any Thing exists it is documented. However, programmer’s information to the various Things might be useful, as well as a bit more detailed explanation. | Sinclair QL |
| Things in SMSQ/E (Part 2) | Sinclair QL | |
| This and That | The Intergroup Freeware Exchange (IFE) library has at last count, grown to over 145 disks of Public Domain software. This library, (available on 31/2″ disks only), maintained by Franz Herrmann of Germany is a virtual treasure trove of programs, (many of which are commercial grade) from all over the world. Without a doubt this library | Sinclair QL |
| Thor XVI Support | We’ve recently been reminded of the many unanswered complaints Thor owners have expressed, as well as their inability to get a response to their inquiries from Thor International. This is a world-wide problem, and there is some question as to whether Thor is still in business. Our telephone calls and letters have gone unanswered as | Sinclair QL |
| Thoughts on "Improving the QL's Sound" | 1 would like to submit some thoughts regarding the article in the last issue of IQLR written by: John J. Impellizzeri “Improving The QL’s Sound”. It would be wise to insure that the amplifier and external speaker device be powered from a line transformer type of power supply. Some small and inexpensive amplifiers are line | Sinclair QL |
| Thoughts on QL Repairs | Those were interesting articles by Dennis Briggs and Don Walterman in the last issue of IQLR on QL repairs. Here are a few comments based on some 1300 QL repairs for customers. | Sinclair QL |
| Tidbits | The following short routines may be useful to you. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Tidbits | The following constitute miscellaneous thoughts on how to (or, perhaps, not to) do things. I consider the first example to be an exercise in dangerous living, a disaster waiting to happen. I believe it is appropriately named. All that is required is some glitch just after the DELETE and all is lost! (I have actually | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Tips/Tricks & Problem Solutions | Sinclair QL | |
| TOOLKIT II Tutorial - Part 3 | Sinclair QL | |
| TOOLKIT II Tutorial - Part 4 | Тһе QL was the first affordable computer to allow multitasking. It’s one of the many features that still sets it apart from the herd, and yet, is one of the most difficult to control satisfactorily on a standard machine. It is also one of the areas that most interests “Tinkerers’ like myself. | Sinclair QL |
| TOOLKIT II Tutorial Part 1 | TOOLKIT II is most likely, the widest held product ever developed for the QL. It can be found on disk interfaces, on ROM, and a configurable version on disk. It surely is a “must have” product, as it makes life a whole lot easier. As with most good things, there is something lacking, in this | Sinclair QL |
| TOOLKIT II Tutorial Part 2 | TKII improves file maintenance procedures in two ways. First, the existing commands COPY, DELETE, and DIR now use the default directories and secondly,the addition of wild card and overwrite operations significantly ease file handling. | Sinclair QL |
| Tower Cased Super QL | Qlympic Computer Systems of Germany, and COWO Electronics of Switzerland, have announced a SuperQL. The machine will consist of a standard QL motherboard, switching power supply, Gold Card, and Disk Drives, all packaged in a custom Tower Case. The production run is limited to 50 units world-wide, at a price of 900 Pounds Sterling. | Sinclair QL |
| Translation of SuperBASIC into Fortran 77 | In the last issue we looked at implementing some of the SuperBASIC maths functions and the majority of the memory manipulation routines, that are missing from FORTRAN 77 ie the PEEK and POKE functions and procedures. I also gave some insight as to what would be tackled next, namely the loop primitives, functions and procedures. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Translation Of SUPERBASIC To FORTRAN 77 | As a gentle introduction, let me tell you how I came to write this article/note/letter, call it what you will! Earlier this year I received a phone call from, as he explained, Bob Dyl the publisher of IQLR concerning the QLEA ROM switch. Having got over the surprise of receiving a call from the U.S.A., | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Turbo 3 (Untold Stories) | This column is intended to bring together new and/or changing developments within the QDOS community. The information contained here has been reported by individuals and suppliers who desire to keep you informed as to their recent activities. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Update - Everex Modems | In previous issues we discussed the inexpensive Everex 2400 baud modems. I’d like to thank the many people who have let me know that they have been successfully using this modem with their QLs. | Sinclair QL |
| Using Pointers And Structures In The C-Programming Language | This article is intended to emphasize the importance of pointers and structures in order to gain a better understanding of the C Programming Language. It is important to have a through understanding of this topic since many of the operations in C use these facilities. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Vaporware? | In the first issue of IQLR, eighteen months ago, we encouraged QL users to support a new group being organized by Dr. Sohail S. Bhatti, to be known as the QL Advancement Working Group (QLAW). The stated goal of this group was to create a SuperQL by pooling resources. Included with the announcement was a | Sinclair QL |
| What is a RAM Disk? | I’m often asked how to make a backup copy of a program when the user only has one disk drive. The simplest answer is to make a copy on a microdrive cartridge, then copy it back to the disk drive, onto another diskette. But what happens when the files are to large to fit on | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| What Use Is The QL In Education | For over a year now I have had three QLs set up in my classroom at Chapel Hill High School where I teach introductory Spanish and am the speech and debate team coach. The QLs are expanded to at least 640K of RAM, have three and a half inch disk drives, and RGB monitors (2 | Sinclair QL |
| When It All Started | A co-worker dropped a copy of an old PC World on my desk a few weeks ago, asking me if its date was about when the Sinclair QL was first introduced. The year on the magazine, 1984. Thumbing through the magazine, I found it interesting to compare where computer technology stood when the QL was | Sinclair QL |
| Why Minerva? | This question is asked over and over again. The simple answer would be in the form of another question. DO YOU WANT AN ENHANCED QL OPERATING SYSTEM??? If you answered in the affirmative, but require more, then read on. The Minerva ROM is available in two versions, the standard model is designated the MK I, | Sinclair QL |
| Winback 2.20 | This is IQLR’s second look at this valuable program. The first time it was reviewed, the hard disk being used was Miracle Systems. In this review, the hard disk is the JFC interface with Omti controller (versions of the JFC interface prior to 3.07 are not known to run with Winback). | Sinclair QL |
| Winback Version 2.20 | If you happen to own a Miracle hard drive or the new ED (3.2 meg) drives you’re going to eventually be looking at making backups of the files you’ve configured and use. As anyone who has used a computer knows….there always comes a time when something goes wrong. This may be as simple as a | Sinclair QL |
| Windex | WINDEX is a collection of public domain programs to create a “word index” of any text file. | Sinclair QL, Type-in program |
| Windows Icon's and the QXL | Those of you who have a PC with Windows installed may have noticed that switching between Windows programs and DOS programs can cause the PC to crash. This could hardly be called normal but is quite common. Part of the QXL software runs as a DOS program and so can suffer from this. The fix | Sinclair QL |
| Working with LineDesign Images Tip | Transfer of MSDOS/Lotus data to QDOS/ Abacus files is a multi step procedure. It involves going through the MSDOS DBase (or similiar) database program. | Sinclair QL |
| Writing Reviews: A Commentary | I enjoy reading reviews of new software in IQLR and other periodicals, but I have a very large gripe I’d like to share with those of you who are writing some of these articles. | |
| XChange | Following on from the rather successful launch of XCHANGE onto the public domain by this group our own Simon Goodwin has had some feedback concerning problems and modifications, he has shown me some additions and alterations which have made some improvements! I won’t at the moment go into what the changes are, because I want | Sinclair QL |
| XChange Boot | In correspondence with Ruth Fegley a member of the CATS group and IQLR subscriber, I stated that I would like to permanently change the default DATA drive from flp1_ to fip2_. Recently I received a note with a two line addition to the Xchange Boot program. Ruth stated that a member of CATS provided the | Sinclair QL |
| Xtricator - A Review | Xtricator is a ZX81 emulator for the QL, In other words it allows the QL to emulate or act like its older brother, the ZX81 (TS1000 in the US). You may be wondering why someone would want to emulate the old ZX or how do you get a 68000 series CPU to run Z80 CPU | Sinclair QL |
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