Graham Evans reports that the Solent Quanta sub-group has now changed its meeting dates.

They now meet on the second Saturday of the month, at Botley Market Hall.

I've added an update to my Zip Manager program to the Archivers page on my website.

Version 1.06 of this program fixes a bug in the Delete command, which sometimes got confused between '.' and '_' filename extension separators.

It's available to download free from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/arch/index.html

The Zip Manager program

For anyone who acquires a Miracle MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interface for the QL without the software disk (a program called Tracker by Dan Gaffey), it can now be downloaded from the Misc Software page on my website. Note that the software can only be used with the Miracle MIDI interface, it cannot be used with any other interface. I am grateful to Derek Stewart for locating a copy of the software for me.

The Miracle Systems MIDI interface for the QL

http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/misc/index.html

A more general purpose free MIDI software package for a QL is of course Al Boehm's Midi Player 2 package, available from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/sound/index.html and if you'd like to learn some more about MIDI on the QL, go back to QL World's October 86 (page 12 - article by Mark Jenkins) and November 86 (page 18 - article by Robert Penfold on building a QL MIDI interface). A review of this very rare MIDI interface and its software was published in QL World February 1989 on page 26.

Lear PCB Cad - the latest version is v6.67, which further improves compatibility with older QDOS systems, in common with many of the changes in recent versions.

Malcolm Lear's program is available from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/graphics/index.html

Here's a list of changes in recent versions, taken from the revisions.txt file included with the package.

• Version 6.65. :
  Layer names can now be changed. Dark white which was displayed as mid grey now changed to light grey and dark black which displayed as black now changed to dark grey. File access tests using DEVICE_STATUS changed to be compatible with older QL systems.
• Version 6.66. :
  G90 and G70 commands added to Gerber files. Gerber output variables Xo and Yo set to run OK on early QL systems. Changes made to cope with odd QDOS behaviour when deallocating memory. GerberX export now works with early QL's.
• Version 6.67. :
  Layer and element export select menu updated. Load file screen limits fixed for low resolution QL. This has been a problem since version 6.63 caused by the extended filename length.

Urs König has updated his web pages for this event, taking place in Lucerne, Switzerland on Saturday and Sunday 31st October and 1st November 2009, at the Verkehrshaus Swiss Transport Museum.

Urs has lined up a number of presentations for the event, with some guest speakers, an exhibition, traders' area and an official 25th anniversary dinner event on the Saturday night.

As far as we know, apart from Quanta's "QL Is 25" event earlier this year, this is the only major event to celebrate 25 years of QLing.

Further information can be found on Urs's website (in English) at http://www.qlvsjaguar.homepage.bluewin.ch/QL_and_Mac_are_25_international_event.html which also includes links to local websites such as those of the Transport Museum itself, Lucerne tourism websites (including finding a place to stay) and some videos you can watch.

The Verkehrshaus Swiss Transport Museum

Quanta is proud to be a sponsor of this event, and will be represented there by Dilwyn Jones.

Rich Mellor writes:

We have been busy this summer trying to save as many commercial QL titles as possible to ensure the continued future of the QL.

We have managed to get most of the software from microdrive onto a PC in a format for use with Q-emuLator in the main, although it does help us to make fresh working copies on microdrives and disks. The idea behind this, is to ensure those users who have an original copy, but cannot get it to load anymore, will be able to purchase a working copy on disk or microdrive, or for use with Q-emuLator from our website (provided that they can prove ownership of the original program).

As part of this work, we are also updating the QL Wiki to include more information on the software, hardware, books and traders that have been around since 1984. We would welcome more input into the traders and personalities section in particular if anyone knows the history of any of the software and development houses (however short lived!).

The QL Wiki appears at: http://www.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki

Lots of work to do in updating the software details, but we hope that this will address one of the main issues when people talk about the Sinclair QL - namely they are uncertain what software was produced for it!!

QL Wiki

Due to popular demand, and with the consent of Jochen Merz, we are pleased to announce that we have re-released an old QL arcade game, Pengi, which was written by Jochen Merz and previously released on the Gigasoft label. In this colourful game, you control a small Penguin (Pengi) as he tries to survive the antarctic climate. Faced with deadly snobees all around, the only way to survive is by pushing ice blocks onto the snobees and squashing them, before they touch Pengi. You can also collect diamonds to gain additional points. Now available to buy once again, this increases the range of arcade games still available commercially from RWAP Software

http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/games.html

A screen from QL Pengi

Further to the new Eddicon GD2 Sprite Editor package by Duncan Neithercut announced in the last issue of Quanta magazine, the author has now released a second and complementary package.

The Sprite Library package is a program to concatenate a list of sprites into a single library file that can be loaded by LRESPR or linked into a Qliberated program using the REMark $$asmb directive.

The addresses of the sprites in the library may be accessed through a single keyword that is part of the library file. This makes it straightforward to add multiple high colour sprites to Qliberated programs.

Eddicon uses this system for its mode64 icons although the sprite library maker program will work with sprites of any mode and a mixture of modes in a single file.

Both packages may be downloaded from my website at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/sprites/index.html

Following on from the free release of Digital C SE announced in the last issue, the author Gerry Jackson has now also released the sources for anyone interested in studying them or re-compiling the C package.

The source files for the Digital C SE compiler system are now available from the Languages page on my website.

Once you have downloaded it, please read the README.HTML file it contains.

http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/language/index.html

George Gwilt writes:
I have put on my site:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/george.gwilt/

Amended versions of NET_PEEK and GWDISS.

The amendments correct the disassembly by GWDISS of some ColdFire instructions and add the disassembly of all ColdFire instructions to NET_PEEK.

Without this change the previous version, 3.39, of NET_PEEK could crash while disassembling.

Personal Computer World magazine

You will recall that some months ago (issue cover dated April 2009) Personal Computer World magazine ran a feature on the QL, including an article where QL hardware designer David Karlin spoke about his time at Sinclair developing the QL.

Sad news followed that the magazine was in fact closing down at the end of August. Urs König announced in the ql-users mailing list:

Sad news for connoisseurs of UK's computing press. After 31 years Personal Computer World (PCW) magazine had to close this summer. The last issue was August 2009. The last words from the editor, Kelvyn Taylor: "'m sorry to report that PCW has recently been closed down after 31 years of continuous publication, due to economic difficulties. All PCW staff have been made redundant - Guy Kewney was freelance, but will continue his blogs & other work. I will join the ranks of freelance for the time being."

QL users on the mailing list recalled the early days of PCW in particular, such as this email from Norman Dunbar:

In a word, sad. PCW taught me Basic programming long before I ever had a computer to actually type it into. When I got my ZX-81 I had to start all over again as it was a different dialect of Basic! Them were the days.

While Malcolm Cadman felt it might be a sign of the times for the PC magazines:

It is a sign of the times that PC based magazines too are starting to close down. Some of it will be due to the web based information that is now available, no doubt.

While Bill Loguidice expressed the opinion that:

I prefer a good quality print mag myself, but it's impossible to beat the timeliness of the Web, which is why magazines in general are dying except for the usual stalwarts or those that are backed by big names. It goes without saying we have access to more essentially free information than ever, so why go to the bother and expense of paying for a print mag, particularly one that will likely be tossed once you're done with it? Sad, really, but it's hard to argue for in this day and age.

While we wouldn't for a moment want to associate sad news like this with the QL community, readers of QL Today's most recent issue at the time of writing may have been forgiven for thinking the economic situation was having an influence there too, albeit with a much more positive outcome.

A slimmer 32 page magazine with lighter than usual green paper cover with the editorial comment stating that the magazine was "much thinner and lighter than previously".

In fact, as the editor went on to explain, "the economics of current magazine production faced us with a choice of either putting up the price or of producing a smaller magazine at a lower price. We opted for the latter." The lighter magazine allowed postal savings.

In fact, QL Today also opted for a slightly smaller typeface, allowing more editorial content to be included in the fewer pages, so well done QL Today for facing up to the economic challenge and taking a sound and positive decision to ensure the magazine's future.

"I said I would never do it, but apparently never is about 25 years." (Tony Tebby)

After David Karlin's account of QL history in Personal Computer World earlier this year, Tony Tebby has set about writing a series of articles about the background to, build up to and launch of the QL. In an absorbing series of articles in QL Today magazine, he presents his side of the story of the QL, with plenty of little known facts thrown in and correcting some of the long-held misconceptions often heard.

Tony says that while there are "well-researched histories" such as that by Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy at http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/ql/ql_sst.html he sets out to "...condense the story a bit, partly because these stories skirt over some grey areas that I can fill in..."

If you are at all interested in the history of the QL, this series will make great reading. The cover of the issue witht he first part of the series says "Once you start reading, you can't stop." From what I've seen of the series so far, that's quite true!

Further details of QL Today magazine at www.qltoday.com

As part of the Electric Revolution season, BBC 4 broadcast a program on the 8th of October about the race for supremacy in the 1980s between Sinclair and Acorn. Called Micro Men, it featured Alexander Armstrong as Sir Clive Sinclair and Martin Freeman as Chris Curry of Acorn.

It charts the company through the latter period under the National Enterprise Board and on to the home computer revolution of the early 1980s. It shows the difficult relationships Sinclair had with Chris Curry when they worked together, and moves through the period when Chris Curry moved on and joined forces with Hermann Hauser after trying to persuade Clive Sinclair to enter the then fledgling home computer market.

Curry and Hauser went on to form Acorn Computers, who later were to go on to win the lucrative contract to produce the BBC micro to go with the new TV series of computer programmes, and other people like Nigel Searle joined Sinclair's inner circles as they moved on to form a new computer division headed by Nigel Searle following the modest success of the MK14 system, and as Sinclair began to realise that the computers at the time were expensive and limited, and set out to produce a low cost computer which anyone could have and use, the ZX80.

The program was introduced thus:
"Paint a picture of success, people with characters, who have imagination, confidence in themselves, faith in the future and a very positive attitude to life, which means simply that they never take no for an answer."

Micro Men was shown on BBC 4 on Thursday 8th October, and available for a while do view using the BBC iPlayer

Version 1.08 of UCONFIG, which produces config blocks for S*BASIC, C and assembler programs, has a much improved method of altering existing config blocks. Previously only the S*BASIC block could be altered and only then if it did not change in size. Now, with the S*BASIC block as starting point new blocks for S*BASIC, C and assembler can be produced. The only limitation is that the existing number of items cannot be decreased.

The latest version is available for download from George Gwilt's website at http://web.ukonline.co.uk/george.gwilt/