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QLUB ISSUE 4

1. E J Sargeant Long Eaton Nottingham To be consistent with the original Sinclair advertising documentation of the QL showing the user manual with sections written in Latin I suggest Quod Libet as a humourous alternative to Quantum Leap Gerard M Delaney London W11 QL Quick Loading PG Mallett Scarborough N Yorks QL stands for Qompter Lure Quarry Lust Quite Lucky if you didn t get a dongled version or Quite Late David Johnson Balsall Common West Midlands AQL computer from Cambridge Had a program packed with Quark language Quite quick with his quips Clive soon got to grips Qeverly converting Quarks to Qlives QLanguage E J Davey Hereford AQL computer from Cambridge Wentsouth to play Chess in Weybridge Tt just isn t fair The Knight is Sinclair And so decided to play Bridge Name not given South East London College Lewisham Way London AQL computer from Cambridge Bit a byte from a Fawlty programme Which so dingled his dongle He burst into songle Thus inventing a Qsical longuoge G R Adams Grindleford Sheffield Thanks for your issue No 3 which I have read every word even those on page 15 which I did not understand I could not help rising to your limerick challenge A QL computer from Cambridge Worked while one munched on a sandwich Wefearattheend It was no longer a friend Buta crumb crunching quondam a damn f
2. a m IF INKEY 1 m THEN yourself l ELSE yourself 0 REPeat loop ki up 50tacrosa 16 inc 0 CLS STAVE DRAW_CLEF FOR note 1 TO 18 PICK_NOTE yourself DISPLAY_NOTE pitch note p across across 8 END FOR note PLAY TUNE pi CLSZO PRINT2O Another tune y n again INKEY 1 IF again n THEN EXIT loop END REPeat loop STOP DEFine PROCedure PICK NOTE yourself IF yourself REPeat check CLS 0 INPUT 0 Note number 1 to 9 choice ELSE choice RND 1 TO 9 END IF SELect ON choice lip 24 inc 0 2sp 22zinc 1 5 3 p 19 ine 3 4 p 15 ines4 5 Stp 1l2tinc 6 6 p ll inc 7 5 7 p 9 rinc 9 8 p 7 tine 10 5 9 p 6 sinc 12 REMAINDER END REPeat check END SELect END DEFine DEFine PROCedure DISPLAY NOTE FILL 1 CIRCLE across uptine 1 5 FILL 0 IF p lt 12 LINE across 1 5 uptine TO across l 5 up inc 8 ELSE LINE across 1 5 uptinc TO acrosst1 5 uptinct8 END IF BEEP 1 p PAUSE 10 BEEP END DEFine DEFine PROCedure STAVE INK 7 FOR ledger 0 TO 12 STEP 3 LINE 2 up ledger TO 165 uptledger END FOR ledger INK 0 END DEFine DEFine PROCedure DRAW_CLEF LINE 8 uptl 5 ARC R TO 0 4 5 PI ARC_R TO 0 6 PI TO 3 7 3 PI 4 LINE R TO 5 7 ARC R TO 2 0 PI LINE R TO 0 18 FILL 1 CIRCLE R 1 0 1 FILL 0 END DEFine DEFine PROCedure PLAY TUNE CLSEO PRINTZO Press any key to play PAUSE x 161y 48 FOR note 1 TO 18 BLIP x y BEEP 1 pitch note PAUSE 20 BLIP x y x note 8 16 BEEP END FOR note CLSEO PRINTZO Play again
3. News for the QL user CARTRIDGE PRICES CUT THE age of the 1 99 Microdrive cartridge is here As Sinclair Research s Nigel Searle has promised the cartridge prices were slashed when production reached large enough volumes to meet the demand for a better priced cartridge THE price cut was announced in early February and promises to stimulate even further development of software for the QL and should bring down the prices of the software that is produced The news of the price cut follows a series of recent events which have boosted use of the Microdrive storage technology in the UK Both ICL and British Telecom have announced that they will use Microdrive and QL technology in their desktop business computer systems while sales of the Sinclair Spectrum and Spectrum both of which can use Microdrives with the Interface 1 expansion unit hit new levels at Christmas time And while Microdrive prices were coming down new Microdrive versions of the QL Psion software were being shipped to QLUB members By the time you read this all QLUB members who wanted them should have received the software updates of QL Quill Abacus Archive and Easel that their membership provides Details of the Version 2 software can be found in the special software pull out section in this edition of OLUB News QLUB extended to allowners ALL QL owners are being offered a year s free QLUB membership EXISTING QLUB members will
4. ing your QLUB membership number if you know it your name and address The address to write to is QLUB Special Offer Subscriptions Department Personal Computer News VNU Business Publica tions 53 55 Frith St London W1A 2HG GST Computer Systems is offering its acclaimed 68K OS Operating System for the QL at an attractive discount For details write to GST Computer Systems Ltd 8 Green St Willingham Cambridge CB4 5JA or phone 0954 81991 and ask for Jane Pateman Have your membership number and address to hand A 20 per cent discount on Sinclair Research Software sold through QLUB This includes QL Chess QLUB Price 14 95 QL Assembler QLUB Price 31 95 QL Toolkit QLUB Price 19 95 QL Cash Trader QLUB Price 54 95 Send your order or any inquiries about the full list of discounted software to Sinclair Research Stanhope Road Cam berley Surrey or phone on 0276 685311 A discount is available for a year s subscription to EMAP S QL User Magazine A full year s subscription including de livery would normally cost 15 However if you subscribe through QLUB the magazine will be delivered for an all in postage included price of 11 50 To receive your 12 issues send a cheque or money order for 11 50 to PROL Subscrip tion Department QL User Priory Court 30 32 Farringdon Lane London CI QL TOOLKIT UNLOCKED THE long awaited Tony Tebby Toolkit for the QL is now available
5. y n IF INKEY l y PLAY TUNE END DEFine DEFine PROCedure BLIP x y INK 4 OVER 1 CURSOR x y 0 0 PRINT OVER 0 END DEFine A 2 QLUB News Your chance to win one of 3 new Sinclair pocket TVs THE QLUB News competitions desk is awash with entries from the first two competitions and you ll see below the details and pictures of the winners of the first competition receiving their QL Vision colour monitors at the awards ceremony on January 16th in London We ll print the names of the second competition winners next issue although we will be sending out their prizes long before then THIS competition gives you a chance ata prize which will be of more use to you than to your QL a revolutionary new Sinclair flat screen pocket TV We re offer ing three TVs and all you have to do to get your chance at winning one of them is answer all the questions below correctly The first three correct entries we draw will win Entries must be in by no later than April 15 1985 to qualify Winners names will be published in the July August edition of QLUB News and prizes will be awarded in May Here are the questions 1 How many silicon chips are used in the Sinclair flat screen pocket TV 2 When was the first primitive colour television transmission demonstrated a 1925 b 1929 c 1940 d 1955 3 Which British inventor is often credited with inventing the first mechanical system oftelevision When you thi
6. bearing in mind the Sinclair promises of delivery dates and their relation to reality When are we to get these updated versions of the Utilities so that I no longer have two or three hang ups and restarts per A4 page on Quill I am Chairman of Queens Crescent Computer Club and am beginning to get tired of the jibes receive from Beeb and Amstrad owners William Jackson London NW1 CONTRARY to what you might think we work on the same calendar as you There were some problems caused by the redesign of this journal which delayed the release of QLUB News Issue 2 As anyone who ever worked in the printing industry will attest things always take a good deal longer than you expect And trying to arrive at the improved design of the Newsletter which I hope you ll agree was worth the wait caused QLUB News the inside copy to date somewhat from when it was originally written We offer our regrets to you and all QLUB members for the delays and have revamped the production schedules to ensure that these problems dont occur again Adose of QLUB concern I AM writing to express my concerns at the way in which OLUB News appears to be developing and hope you will find a momentin which to consider them First the continued optimism over timing The first issue was received on 3rd August 1984 and predicted completion of the ROM refit by the end of August 1984 My voucher was received on 12th October 1984 The second issue
7. copy of the QL Touch n Go typing tutor program for the funniest story in 250 words or less about you and your Q
8. dated October 1984 was received on 16th November 1984 but still contains the statement We ll let you know more in November Will you Second news continuity What happened to the software developers guide referred to in the first issue If it is not going to be generally available soon extracts from it might make future machine code articles more generally understandable Third attitude Do phrases such as Details can t be released yet but that would spoil all the fun anyway imply that someone on the editorial staff views the readership as immature school children rather than a group keen to learn more about their computer and how to make more effective use of it I hope that you will be able to develop the QLUB News into the valuable and reliable news sheet that I m sure you intend it to be W D Brunt Crowthorne Berks WHILE I cant comment on the delays you personally suffered with ROM refits I can direct you to a similar letter about QLUB News delays and my answer to it above As to news continuity and machine code articles I suggest you turn to Page 15 where the Machine Code and More column provides guidance and programs in machine code each issue The Software Developers Guide has been renamed the QL Technical Guide further details can be found on Page 15 And lastly we DO NOT view readers as immature school children but rather as mature individuals with a sense of humour who can appr
9. the cell and at the bottom left of the screen Now change to two places of decimal Notice that the 2 005 has changed to 2 01 but 2 005 is still displayed in the bottom left of the screen QL ABACUS uses the true values in calculations in this case it will use 2 005 22 QLUB News Machine Code and More In every pursuit there are people who seek out information at a level not generally pursued by others specialists who work hard to be as enthusiastic and well informed as possible This page Machine code and more is for just those people While other sections of QLUB News will deal with SuperBASIC programming and questions of more general interest this page will be reserved for those with a keen eye for and an interest in machine code programming The QL will indeed be a challenge for you but by sharing information we can help you meet WHEN the QL communicates with the outside world it does so by passing information down streams through channels which are connected to devices When you type a statement like OPEN 3 mdv1_afile you are connecting the device mdv1_afile to channel number 3 As Microdrives are media with directories you could split the device definition further into the physical device mdvi and the file afile When you print things on the screen or read from the keyboard we are still using channels and devices There are two devices for screen communication the SCREEN device and the CONSOL
10. will be not complete To demonstrate window handling and the use of some of these routines we ll write a short program to copy a named file to the screen We ll write it in such a way thatit will run as an independant job or multi tasking program It uses a lot of the vectored utilities and TRAP 3 routines we ve discussed here The code starting at the BEGIN label opens a console device as previously described and saves the channel ID on the stack It then uses UT MTEXT to print a message saying Filename to this console window and collects a line of input from the keyboard using the very useful IO FLINE trap routine This collects bytes from the specified channel until either more bytes than expected are collec ted or a newline character is met The maximum number of characters to read is specified in D2 and each character is put into the buffer pointed to by Al This routine is particularly useful as it allows the user to edit the line being entered in the normal QL way When the routine returns register D1 holds the number of characters read including the terminating 4 A program to copy a named file to a screen device for QLUS by Adan Denning 30th January 985 SHE 100 Equates constants and so on these would noraally be in a header file NT FROOB 10 0PEN 10 CLOSE 10 FBYTE TO FLINE 10 SBYTE Eau Eu Eau EQU Eau EW Use DATA for Sinclair Aasenbler t 100 bytes is en
11. 7 AT 19 17 PRINT DATE 8 PAUSE 60 9NEXTi 10 END fori 11 END REPeat time 12 END DEFine cl After having entered exact date and time with SDATE the command cl will run a digital calendar clock at the bottom right ofthe current screen Some further remarks Outside the United Kingdom line 8 should read PAUSE 50 Line 5 allows the colour of background and screen to be changed and also the size of lettering and numbers in which the calendar clock will be printed on the screen If CSIZE is changed also AT 19 17 in line 7 should be changed to accom modate the larger lettering or e g to print them in the centre of the screen C212E 3 1 and AT 15 10 will give maximum size lettering in the centre of the screen TV I trust that other QL users will find this very simple PROCedure useful P Vernoort Prootebroek Holland Hint 2 THANK you for the first full edition of QLUB News A most enjoyable and in formative edition The machine code clock program works well and shows how wrong some of the pundits have been when they said that QL s with ROM version AH would not multi task So much for their opinions I think it s a great machine However you do seem to have made the error of using the data from the QL manual for the RS232 connections These are incorrect in one respect The signal DTR is shown as being on pin 4 In fact on the Sinclair leads there is no wire on pin 4 The signal DTR being on pin 20 A fact that c
12. Its a programmer toolkit consisting of about 60 programs on Microdrive cartridge the majority of which can be linked into SuperBASIC from the beginning and then can be used as command exten sions or within a program Among these SuperBASIC enhance ments are printer spooling to allow you to print a file while you run a SuperBASIC program file access offer ing full random input output commands job control allowing management of multi tasking programs including the ability to display alter priorities and delete multi tasking jobs from SuperBASIC an enhanced user interface provides a full screen editor defaulted drive names the amount of free memory displayed and an extra SuperBASIC command display fitters and pipe a unix like redirectable file input output system which can gener ally be accessed through SuperBASIC and a general set of utilities including user defined graphics and on screen real time clock and format conversions The toolkit sells for 24 95 19 95 to QLUB members and should have a wide range of applications for a variety of QLUB members Next Issue Acontinuing look at sound Our much delayed feature on monitors promise Books from Collins More on Disk Drives And the usual crop of letters features stories and jokes QLUB News PROGRAMMER S FORUM WELCOME to the QLUB programming forum where we answer your programming questions and you so
13. UT ERR A2 MOVEL 47 A0 ISR 82 BRA S GETNANE GOTFILE MOVE L A0 A7 bad medium has occured To find out which we compare the value of DO against that of the end of file error If this was the error condition we end the program but ifanother error has occurred we reportit to the console beforehand The closing sequence simply uses IO CLOSE to close the two channels and MT FRJOB to kill the job At this point it is worth noting that no code needs to follow the TRAP 1 instruction there as that call will remove the job from memory the 680085 program counter will not point to this location again until a new job is loaded Some authors in some magazines have been putting entirely redundant and semantically meaningless RIS in structions here With the host of routines available within Qdos it is a very simple matter for even novice machine code programmers to play around with window and screen handling In later issues we ll be looking at methods of implementing high resolu tion graphics from machine code We assuae no errors froe 0 FLINE call get address of buffer in AO erase terainating line feed store string length at start of string get ready ta open file device for this job with shared read access now da it any errors branch if not print GD0S error aessage to our conscie channel and then try 1t all over again save the file channel 19 vector address for console ope
14. in place of the keyboard Now because of the way these ports are configured inside the QL hitting either one of the keys or moving the joystick in the designated direction will cause the desired effect to be created So if we re using INKEYS in a Basic program waiting for space to be hit REPeat waitspace IF INKEY EXIT waitspace then pressing the spacebar or fire on the joystick in CTL1 will exit the loop This is advantageous as it means that a program written for the keyboard will run without alteration with a joystick Likewise the KEYROW function can be used to see if a key is being pressed or if the joystick is in a particular position REPeat waitfire IF KEYROW 0 amp amp 32 EXIT waitfire This loop will terminate when either F5 or the fire button on joystick two is pressed The listing at left is an example of how to use these commands with the joysticks and moves a character around the screen under the user s control Notice how it uses the INKEY function with a timeout of 1 to read the keyboard or joystick followed by SELect to determine the action to be taken The INKEY timeout specifies the number of 20ms intervals that the function will wait before returning an answer By using 1 instead of a positive value here we re saying wait for ever THE QLAN local area network built into the QL is a fast means of communication between two or more QLs connected via v
15. in this article we will try to provide some useful information for all you bud ding musicians All sound on the QL is controlled at least in SuperBASIC by the BEEP com mand and careful readers of the OL User Guide will know that BEEP is followed by eight parameters i e duration pitch_i pitch_2 grad_x grad_y wraps fuzzy and random Rather understandably the guide neatly avoids detailed explanation and states that the BEEP command is best used experimentally rather than syntac tically Fortunately where music is con cerned only duration and pitch_1 are of interest A single musical note will have a pitch duration and timbre The timbre 1s the quality of the note that makes a continuous note of a certain pitch on a trumpet sound gery different from the same pitch on a violin To be more specific it is the characteristic mixture of the fundamental note and its overtones or harmonics On the QL any simple attempt to introduce harmonics with the BEEP command is very difficult so for the rest of this article we will assume simple QL timbre The pitch is rather more amenable to control using BEEP and at Fig 1 is a conversion between musical notes and the pitch_1 parameter of the BEEP com mand It has to be admitted that par ticularly in the higher notes the conversion is sometimes inexact but unless you are blessed with perfect pitch the notes can be used to make quite acceptable music The conversions listed assum
16. is supplied on the QL Quill and QL Abacus cartridges to convert Version 1 0 install_DAT files so that they are readable by the version 2 0 installa tion program Put a cartridge containing a copy of convert_BAS in Microdrive 1 and a cart ridge containing your Version 1 0 install_DAT file in Microdrive 2 Run the program by typing LRUNMDV1_CONVERT_BAS The program pauses to allow you to change the cartridge in Microdrive 1 if you want Press ENTER when you are ready to continue It then reads the install DAT file in Microdrive 2 and writes the new version to Microdrive 1 Note that the new version will replace any install_DAT file on this cartridge You can then if necessary copy the new install_DAT file to another cartridge print the document out or just save it There also a good deal less accessing of Microdrive 1 to get command and help file information in this version of the soft ware In the same way as QL Quill 2 sets up room for a RAM file it also sets aside some room for keeping the commonly used commands in memory instead of having to pull them off Microdrive This makes the new version of QL Quill much faster all round both in giving com Software special JARE IS OUT NOW mands and in entering text The device independent nature of QL Quill has also been enhanced in the second edition of this software Not only can you now easily load doc files from Microdrive but commands for disk driv
17. not have to pay for their membership to be extended through to February 1986 and therefore will be offered QLUB discounts Psion software support and the OLUB News newsletters for a full year from now And all new OL owners who fill out their guarantee registration cards will automatically qualify for a years QLUB membership excluding future software updates from the time they send in those cards The offer is being made to further improve QLUB by allowing the widest possible group of QL users to contribute to and benefit from the newsletter and to receive the benefits of the Psion software support and QLUB special discounts All QLUB members are entitled to a 20 per cent discount on software sold through QLUB including QL Chess QLUB price 14 95 QL Tool kit QLUB price 19 95 and QL Cash Trader with a QLUB price of 54 95 ISSUENo 4 MARCH APRIL 1985 9 Software special Software developers news ingon Project planniny swith Sage anddecisioni don2Psionsoftware QL Toolkit SOFTWARE SPECIAL TO celebrate the OLs first birthday we present a special eight page pull out soft ware supplement detailing the latest in software releases for the machine and giving detailed information on how pack ages work what the prices are and where you can get them Information is included on pro gramming tools such as QL Toolkit accounting software such as Sagesoft s OL Integrated Accounts and cash manage ment programs su
18. of books written on the QL to help you keep track of what available As to an index for the User Guide the guide was designed to be added to and updated making it difficult for any permanent index to remain current The Quest for QL disk drives I AM pleased with the layout and informa tion in Issue 2 and look forward to the next issues advice on Sinclair Research peripherals No doubt you are aware of the very comprehensive range brought out by Quest International Computer Equipment Ltd From previous reading in QL advertis ing material I would have hoped for Sinclair equipment appearing through QLUB affording cheaper prices and dis counts The Quest equipment for Sinclair seems to be fully priced when comp with hardware already on the market for Apple and Commodore users On Page 2 top article you invite requests The most pressing needs to my way of thinking are the promised account ing packages not just the Cash Trader one referred to on Page 3 but a full package that includes the same facilities as Tally I and II in the Quest catalogue but at less cost than 174 50 I cannot decide whether to go for floppy discs or the Winchester managing published on this page and the one opposite as well as Pages 17 and 24 So thank you all again and happy anniversary THIS is the first of six newsletters that you will receive over the next twelve months Psion Software Support Limited also supply a comprehe
19. of the Psion applications software for the QL will now have been sent to all OLUB members who signed up for it This comprises updated versions of QL Quill Archive Abacus and Easel on Microdrive For those of you who have only just started receiving QLUB News or who havent delved deeply into your new versions of the software yet it might be helpful to go through each of the packages and discuss the additional features or changes in design We ll be taking that in depth look over the next couple of issues To begin with we take a detailed look at the new version of QL Quill QL Quill the QL s word processor has probably benefited the most from the software updating Not only does the program load a good deal faster but it also has a ram file buffering facility which means that for short documents anything under about 1000 words QL Quill doesn t even touch Microdrive 2 until you actually take the action of naming or saving the document What QL Quill 2 actually does is to set up a temporary file in the QLs RAM memory When that file is filled up at about the 1000 word mark the program asks you whether you want to save the information to Microdrive and continue THE CONVERT UTILITY VERSION 2 0 of the install_BAS program has been modified to offer a wide range of printer options This means that it is not compatible with install_DAT files created with version 1 0 A conversion program convert_BAS
20. room to print them all However we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who written into QLUB News and invite you to continue doing so Our first competition alone generated more than 3 000 entries and hundreds of letters have poured into the QLUB News office The competition results are pub lished on Page 20 and the letters are Q LETTERS QL Super BASIC in Education I WOULD first like to say how much I appreciate the jmproved format of the QLUB News I would ask you not to forget the various educational functions of the QL I am not only using the QL as a word processor but I am finding it a very useful machine on which to write educational games SuperBASIC gives great oppor tunities for writing good educational programmes You may be interested to know that I am writing this letter with the QL and a Dyneer Daisy DW20 I think that this makes a good combination for the small business David G Burnett Missionary Orientation Centre Gerrards Cross Machine code book bind I HAVE been trying to find a book with the Hex machine code for the 68008 without success Do you think that a chart or list could be included in the next QLUB News also possibly an index for the QL Guide not for Psion Packages D T Bardell Maidstone You ll find information on 68008 machine code books as well as other QL books in next issue s QLibrary section You ll also see that we have an on going chart or list
21. t be used as you can use it as a general purpose filing system which allows you to use a common set of peripherals between a group of QLs You can for example have a printer CST disc drives and soon on one E and let other QLs use these peripherals if you write control program to inform the master OL of what you want to do The two programs here together form a very basic control program for the network allowing up to 63 QLs to use the Microdrives and printer connected to a further QL This master QL is given station number 1 and runs the program in listing 1 permanently This examines the network waiting for certain characters and then it acts upon those characters The NPRINT procedure in listing 2 should be resident in each machine which wants to use the master OL Whenever a station wants to printa file type NPRINT P lt filename gt and that file will be sent to the master QL which will print it If a station wants to read a file from the master s Microdrives then type NPRINT R lt filename gt and you will be asked for the device to read it at the station end To save a file onto the master s drives type NPRINT S lt filename gt and the specified file will be saved Notice that you use PEEK 163895 on line 120 of the second program This address is the SV NETNR system variable and it contains the station number of thatQL Theres a great deal of scope for improvement i
22. AN a Ni TAS that the price of Microdrive cartridges has come down which will mean that not only can more of you write and develop your own specialised software on Micro drive but also that software houses which had been holding off release of new programs for the QL until the Microdrive cartridge price dropped can now enter the market with new vigour If you like the pull out idea and enjoy this one write and let us know If you want more supplements like this one then well print them after all its your QLUB To make sure your comments get to the Supplements Editor write to QLUB Supplements The Editor QLUB News Sinclair Research Ltd 25 Willis Road Cambridge CB1 2AQ CONTENTS High Finance for small business 10 Trying to get the books straight and hoping the QL will lend a hand Look to our report on QL Cash Trader Take anumber please 11 Sagesoft s accounting package for the QL sends the cost of professional business accounting software tumbling Something Old Something New 12 13 A word or two on the new version of QL Quill as well as notes on how to convert files from Version 1 QL Decision Maker QL Project These two packages will assist both forward project planning and the rational decision making process Developments and Dreams News on new development software for the QL along with details on where to getit Toolkit tales An examination of this new ming d
23. E device A screen device is opened using the ser device name asin OPEN 3 scr_512x244aOx12 and you can only send output to it you can t read input from it The console device on the other hand is capable of both input and output because it adopts the screen for output and the keyboard for input As you can often see what youre inputting the console is often also des cribed as interactive The name used by Qdos to signify a console device is con so you can Open a channel to a console device OPEN 3con_512x20a0x0_12B When you open a console or screen device you specify the size and position of the window on the screen which the device will use In our screen example above we declared that the window would be 512 pixels wide 244 pixels high and at position 0 12 Whenever textual output is directed to a screen window it is placed at the current position of the cursor Normally yon can only see the cursor on channel 0 the command chan nel but by resorting to machine code you can switch the cursor of each channel on and offat will When a cursor attached to a console device awaiting input is on or enabled you can switch between that channel and others awaiting input by pressing CTRL and C simultaneously As it is fairly usual for independant multi tasking programs to have no more than one channel awaiting input at a time you ll find this facility useful for changing jobs By selecting a particular cu
24. It asks if you would like it to make some music auto or wish to enter some yourself manual and then draws a musical stave complete with treble clef The notes appear and are sounded in shortened form as they are selected after eighteen notes you may play the resulting tune complete with a marker for those who cannot read music Because the duration of the notes is controlled by a PAUSE command the notes may be cut short by hitting the any key you may therefore impose your own rhythm on the tune by judiciously tapping a key The program is not a serious attempt to turn the OL into a musical instrument more a bit of fun but it has been written in a very structured way no GOTOs and it would be quite easy to add user inputs for duration as well as pitch store more notes over a wider range and include simple editing facilities Have fun 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400 410 420 430 440 450 460 470 480 490 500 510 520 530 540 550 560 570 580 590 600 610 620 630 640 650 660 670 680 690 700 710 720 730 740 750 760 770 780 790 800 810 820 830 840 850 860 870 880 890 900 910 920 930 940 950 960 970 980 990 QLUB News DIM pitch 18 MODE 4 WINDOW 448 200 32 16 WINDOW 0 448 20 32 216 PAPER 4 PAPERZO 7 INKE0 0 CLS 0 PRINT O Auto or manual
25. QL The guide can be obtained by sending 14 95 including VAT to Sinclair Research Stan hope Road Camberley Surrey GU15 3PS The SuperBASIC production kit is available to writers of commercial pro grams in SuperBASIC It takes the form of a set of machine code routines which extend the facilities of SuperBASIC and which under licence from Sinclair can be incorporated into commercial Super BASIC programs It allows fast image loading of basic programs fixed decimal point conversion error trapped input output random file access and copy protection The package is loaded from Microdrive cartridge and remains accessible to SuperBASIC pro grams until the machine is reset The SuperBASIC production kit is available direct from The Software Dept Sinclair Research Ltd 25 Willis Rd Cambridge CB1 2AQ and costs 100 Written enquiries only please Software special Interesting developments The Sinclair Relocatable Object File format S ROFF a standard format for relocatable modules has also been specified All relocatable compilers and assemblers available through Sinclair will support this format In order to support the S ROFF standard and help software houses improve compatibility between compilers Sinclair Research has commis sioned QL Linker from GST Computer Systems This important new package enables programs written in compiled languages and M68000 assembler to be linked together at execution t
26. REFeat aain 290 DEFine PROCedure left 300 cichr QLUB News INTERFACE INQUEST QLCTLI CTL2 COMMON signal ground acts like left arrow acts like right arrow acts like down key acts like up key acts like the fire button make up your own joystick lead and get programming As each joystick movement simulates a keypress we mustensure that any device we plug into these sockets is of the switching rather than the potentiometer type used by some micro manufacturers Luckily most of the joysticks around are of this type so it shouldn t be too difficult to find a 310 x x 151F x2 1 x 71 320 END DEFine 350 DEFine PROCedure right 340 clchr 350 x x is IF 4572 2 0 340 END DEFine 370 DEFine PROCedure up 380 cichr 390 yay 1 iF y 4 y516 400 END DEFine 410 DEFine PROCedure down 420 clehr 430 vay 1 IF ysi7 y 0 440 END DEFine 450 DEFine PROCedure elchr 460 AT yyxsPRINT 5 470 END DEFine 480 DEFine PROCedure change 496 LOCal a 500 a CODE char asatisJF a 50 a 48 510 char CHR a 520 END DEFine i suitable one MALE D TYPE SOCKET FOR JOYSTICK t SOME JOYSTICKS MAY REQUIRE THIS UNK signal ground acts like function key 1 acts like function key 3 acts like function key 2 acts like function key 4 acts like function key 5 Fig 2 _ Figures 1 and 2 show the aprons connections which apply to both sockets to allow a normal 9 pin D socketed joystick to be used
27. al package for easy learning Software special QUINTEGRATED ACCOUNTS by Sagesoft The integration involved in QL accounts follows a growing trend among software developers to free up data so that it can be used to as much of a program is possible This even extends to the new versions of the Psion Software which allows you to more easily import and export data between the various packages QL Quill Abacus Archive and Easel so that for example information from an Abacus Spreadsheet can be used to provide data for an Easel ae Aside from the lack of friendliness and the lack of integration in many other accounting packages there is also usually a problem with the documentation or manuals which tend to be both tortuous and complex This is often the result of having unfriendly programs to begin with although the scientific tone adopted by many manuals make the subject more dreary than it need be QL Integrated Accounts looks to get round the problems of simple and clear documentation for a complex product b providing a tutorial which runs ati most of the basic accountancy disciplines involved in using integrated accounts and then allows the user to practice them So with the clear instructions and tremendous power in this integrated pack age you should be able to put your accounts in order without exceeding your budget HM Inspector of Taxes 12 VERSION 2 SOFTV VERSION 2
28. an AQL computer from Cambridge Below we present some of the more entertaining and printable responses to the challenges The young Dalai Lama Used to live in Tibet But the Chinese invaded Now his house is to let From the roof of the world And the rarefied air He wandered the earth Til he met Clive Sinclair How QL thy fate Aba cuss aba bun Ifyou settle with me I will make you Psion With the QL adopted The software ea sel Ar chive he would murmur Quill death us do quell C R Adams Grindleford Derbyshire Ignoring those alternatives which have already been published ie Quantum Lope Quite Late Quantity Limited etc How about QuiteLudicrous Thewaythemachine and its bundled software are sometimes criticised when being compared to systems costing several times as much Quirkishly Luscious Quirky Lusciousness Never mind industry standards this ll sell on looks alone Normally scanning 80 column displays and centronics interfaces have got nothing on black Scandinavian ergonomically designed keyboards Joking and cynicism aside it has to be said that the QL is Quaintly Lovely and Quite Laudable Tony Rawcliffe Leyland Lancs QL stands for Quintessential Linchpin M Gibson The Sands Durham QL Queer Leads D Willey Scarborough QLUB News QL Quarks QL Quarks My AI program gives the following selection of names for the machine
29. ar but there s no need to blind beginners with colour and graphics before they really know what it s all about Then after youve spent a chapter looking at data structures and another on a simple case study you actually get down to using your newly acquired skills to produce some graphics Chapter Six s graphics programs give you tips on using colour drawing ellipses and making the best of turtle graphics commands Without going into too many details on the rest of the chapters you get tips on mathematical operators file handling windows and advanced control structures The book is a bit dry but it s thorough and will give anyone a well rounded intro duction to programming in SuperBASIC on the QL The Longman QL books including Gopd Programming with OL SuperBASIC can be ordered from the Longman Group Limited Longman House Burnt Mill Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England GOOD PROGRAMMING SUPERBASIC ROY ATHERTON y OFF THE SHELF IN response to many requests from readers we have compiled a list of books and book series about the QL We will continue to add more books as they are published If you know of anv worthwhile QL books notincluded on this list or which we have not featured let us know and well try to include them in future issues The books or series marked with an asterisk have been featured in QLUB News The Sinclair OL Series five books in all Introducing the Sinc
30. ardware Update will offer a detailed product report on devices Sinclair considers worthy of the QL We start this new feature off with a spotlight on CSTs Computamate disk interface and disk drive system for the QL Product CST Computamate Q Disk interface Price 149 including VAT Description General purpose disk inter face and operating system extension for the QL Distributor CST Scotia Road Burslem Stoke on Trent ST6 4DX Phone 0782 811711 The CST interface unlocks the door to a wide variety of supplementary storage devices for the QL from low cost 200K 3 5 inch floppy disk drives right up to 5 25 inch ma floppy drives offering 1 5 Megabytes of storage in a single unit The interface is designed to work with all industry standard disk drives and thus allows you maximum flexibility in choos ing a storage medium to supplement the Microdrives built into the QL The interface is a long rectangular circuit board which easily plugs into the left hand side of the QL When fitted it sticks out about 2 inches from the end of the machine but uses the same matt black plastic casing and thus fits in with the overall look and design of the machine The interface provides a multi pin QLUB News HARDWARE UPDATE CST spins awinner standard disk drive socket at the left hand side of the machine You can plug a variety of drives into the socket including all drives provided they include their own power supply
31. articularly in the eyes of an editor Only you can prevent this dreaded disease from striking the letters column of Sinclair QLUB News If we say or do something you disagree with are surprised by or just want to sound off about put pen to paper or hands to keyboard and let us know Like it says at the top of this column this is your page and it s up to you to make the most of it It isn t the only place in this magazine for your comments there s the Programmer s Forum for your programming tips and queries the QL Case Study to air your applications hints and the QL uarks column to hear QL quips but the letters page is the first place most people look for letters Write to The Editor QLUB News Sinclair Research 25 Willis Road Cambridge CB1 2AQ THIS issue s hardware update sees a change in format for the page Until now weve tried to feature a large number of new hardware products in order to quickly give you news of the widest possible choice of new QL compatible equipment THE flood of new hardware developments for the QL has now reached the point where it would be impossible to list them all and wouldn t provide you with much more information than you get in ads for the product So Hardware Update is now shifting its focus in recognition of the need to not only tell you about new equipment and devices but also to take a more in depth look at some of the better ones In future issues H
32. built for the BBC Micro In our evaluation we tried both the dual floppy switchable 40 80 track drive system sold by CST for use with the interface and a standard BBC disk unit Both worked faultlessly and provided a massive 1 5 Megabytes of storage CST own disk drive prices start at 299 including VAT for a single 200K drive Included in that price is the interface itself which as we said before costs 149 if purchased by itself and a power supply for the disk drive The model we tested with interface 1 5 Megabyte dual double sided 80 track 5 25 inch floppies would cost only 574 Perhaps even nicer than the pricing is the way the disk system is integrated with the QLs epe an system Youll be used to typing DIR MDV1_ to get a directory of Microdrive 1 so you should have no trouble with the DIR FLP1_ command needed to get a directory of floppy disk number 1 CST also provides a number of utilities with the disk drive which allow you to transfer existing QL software and data files to disk without having to go through any complicated program modi fication procedures We successfully transferred QL Quill Version 2 onto floppy disk with no troubles atall Once loaded onto the disk everything loaded and ran from the disk drives in the same way it used to run from the Microdrives With two peppy disks we were able to keep floppy disk 2 FLP2_ for data and floppy disk 1 FLP1_ for programs j
33. c Alternatively allow space in your screen design to superimpose the field by using PRINT AT from inside a procedure proc p print at 6 0 lines endproc Or use more than one field to hold the text ie line1 line2 and keep insertion to the fields to the length of space available in your screen design AUTHORS auth1 auth2 TITLE title1 title2 SOURCE sourcel source2 PROBLEM QL Archive appears to allow only 160 characters per field QL ARCHIVE will allow 160 characters to be added to a field using INSERT or ALTER If larger fields are required up to the maximum of 255 characters then additional characters can be added to the field For example LET comment comment B will add the contents of B to comment Be careful to check that comment will not exceed 255 before adding B LEN Use PRINT AT in your procedure to position comment on the screen An easy way to handle text in QL ARCHIVE and the method used for this letter is to use a field for each line of text QLUB News The Psion problem page PROBLEM Using EPSON FX80 compatible printers with QL EASEL THE printer driver for the EPSON FX80 is set to a baud rate of 9600 If your printer is set to a different baud rate and you cannot change it then you can modify the BOOT program instead To do this type in the following with a cartridge containing QL EASEL in MDV1 LOAD MDV1_BOOT 10 BAUD baud rate type in the ba
34. ch as Accountancy Software s QL Cash Trader INSIDE QLUB NEWS QOLetters E E rea CST disk interface Sounding off Machine code windows siniclainm QLUB News Welcome to new QLUB Members AS you ve probably noticed this issue marks the first anniversary of both the release of the QL and the start up of QLUB It s also an exciting time for us at QLUB News AND as you ll have seen from the news story on the front page OLUB membership has been extended to all QL purchasers who fill out their warranty cards while existing OLUB members have had their memberships extended until 1st February 1986 This means that the base of QLUB members is now much larger That larger reader base means more people can contribute to make QLUB News the best QL newsletter or magazine you can find And to celebrate both the new larger readership of QLUB and the first anniver sary of the machine were presenting our biggest issue yet 24 pages packed with information news programs and product previews Included in that 24 pages is a special eight page pull out spotlighting new software for the QL including business packages and programming aids We re also highly encouraged by all the letters you ve sent in to our Programmer s Forum QL Quarks and OLetters pages Response to the competitions have also been overwhelming Unfortunately we are unable to answer the letters individu ally as we don t have sufficient
35. channel 1D must be passed to regis ter A0 There are another couple of vectored routines which allow us to print messages numbers and errors to a specified channel These are UT MTEXT UT MINT and UT ERR respectively They are called in much the same way as UT SCR and UT CON out obviously need different parameters UT MTEXT needs the address of the string to be printed in register Al This string must be in normal Qdos format which means that the characters of the string must be preceded by a word containing the length of the string and A1 must point to this OT MINT requires the integer a whole number between 32768 and 32767 to be printed in register D1 while UT ERR needs the Qdos error code 1 to 21 in register DO Naturally they all need the relevant channel ID in register AO All the screen kanding routines which are invoked by TRAP 3 follow a fairly standard format in which register AO holds the channel ID D3 holds the time out and registers D1 D2 and A1 hold any parameters which are required Register DO is used to tell Qdos which particular routine is being accessed The timeout is a number between 1 and 32767 which determines the number of 50ms intervals for which the routine will wait until its desired effect is achieved In the case of a timeout of 1 it will wait forever All routines return with either O or an error code in DO and if the routine cannot finish within the timeout period the error
36. ck DC B 0C B DC B 20 8 DCN DC Be De end of file error yep else get console channel ID and print error aessage LASTCOPY CHPI W BED S MOVE L MOVE ki ISR HERR EF DO KILLIT AAT AO UT ERR A2 1A2 MOVE L tan a0 MOVED 10 CLOSE DO TRAP 62 HOVEL 1A714 A0 MOVED BID CLOSE D0 TRAP n WNT FRIOB 00 HOVE 1 D1 MOVED 00 03 Re n De 10 oC Filenane Egu e END get file channel 1D and close it Yes the program starts here XIULIT Dpen the defined window as a console device she assume NO errors nou save channel ID BEGIN LEAL MOVE W JSR MOVE L PBLOLK Al UT COM A2 a2 AO 87 get console channel 1D and close it now force kill this job with no return error if EXEC_W invoked the end GETNAME LEALL OVER MOVE ASR FILEWESS AS UT WTEXT A2 2 print the FILEKESS prompt LEAL FILENESS proapt message BUFFER At 1 93 MOVED S10 FLIWE Do MOVEG 40 07 TRAP sa put buffer 42 address in Ai Signal infinite tieeout raad a string into the buffer of up to 80 characters do it BUFFER the job s data area starts here THE response to both our QL Quark challenges was so overwhelming we ve only just picked the staff of QLUB News off the floor from all the mirth and laughter they caused You ll recall that we set two challenges first to come up with an alternative to what QL stands for and the second to complete the limerick which beg
37. copy of SCRCON_BAS in Microdrive 1 and a cartridge containing your Version 1 0 screen layout file s in Microdrive 2 Run the program by typing LRUN MDVI SCRCON BAS Type in the name of a screen layout file the program assumes an extension of _SCN and press ENTER when you are ready to continue It then pauses to allow you to change the cartridge in Microdrive 1 if you want Press ENTER when you are ready to continue It then reads the old version of the file from Microdrive 2 and writes the new version with the same name to Microdrive 1 Note that the new version will replace any file with the same name on this cartridge You can then if necessary run the program again to con vert another file Planning and P Names QL Decision Maker QL Project Planner RSP Price 39 95 each Available from Sinclair Research due for imminent release Financial decisions and project planning are activities often difficult to conduct in the rational calculated manner that they should be carried out Figuring the odds in business and attempting to produce reasonable schedules for projects is made much easier by the development of two new packages for the QL QL Decision Maker and QL Project Planner The first package allows you to quantify how important various options are in a decision making process and arrive at a logical conclusion based on percentages and values you assign to each possible outcome while the second lets y
38. e simulation program in Pharmacokinetics to the QL The program is in Fortran and we have been running it generally on the main frame computers of the University of London It provides a very good basis for undergraduate course work in Pharmacokinetics I have decided to trim the program down and to rewrite itin SuperBASIC and so far everything has gone well The program involves a lot of numerical inte gration which seems to go quite rapidly on the QL The only disadvantage is that the output for the user is in the form of tables of numbers and I have not been able to set up nice looking tables Is it possible to set up tables in QL SuperBASIC similar to those in Fortran If so I would like to know how to do it I enclose an entry for QL Quark challenger of the month QL Quintessential Lorimer Apologies It may need the Concise Oxford Dictionary to translate it Leonard Saunders Loudwater Bucks ANSWER Any FORTRAN buffs out there who can help QLUB News Music micro please THE QL sound facilities are best suited to making beeps buzzes and growls to be used in programs serving some useful purpose such as a whooshing sound when saving Superman from the red Krypton or sounding an alarm tone for you next appointment However if you ave bought a QL for its numerous other hardware advantages it seems a shame to miss out on music entirely The subject is lightly treated in most available text books and
39. e that the duration parameter specified to the BEEP command is non zero a zero value has a distorting effect try this program to see 10 REPeat loop 20 BEEP 0 10 30 PAUSE 20 40 BEEP 1 10 50 PAUSE 20 60 END REPeat loop If you get a continuous tone you have no problems otherwise watch out for duration zero Having decided that most musical notes over a range of about two octaves can be reproduced the remaining problem is duration At first sight there are two MUSICAL NOTATION a a b c ch d d e f f g g a a bY c c d d e f f H g g BEEP VALUE 41 38 3633 31 28 26 242220 19 17 15 14 12 11 10 9 8 7654 8 FIG 1 PITCH AMPLITUDE 8 STACCATO PLAYING FIG 2 SOUND ENVELOPES SIMPLIFIED kwa 3 BREVE SEMIBREVE MINIM CROTCHET QUAVER SEMI DEMI HEMI QUAVER SEMI DEMI QUAVER SEMI QUAVER loll o J J TIME VALUE Ye the ways of controlling the length of the note The first is to use the duration parameter within the BEEP command but this is rather curious in action unless you con sider how the 68008 chip communicates with the slave processor in that durations allegedly in units of 72 microseconds go up to 32767 and then start again at 32768 Furthermore once the main processor has instructed the slave 8049 to make the noise it will itself carry on with the program which is quite likely to contain another BEEP command This will also be passed to the s
40. eciate the sometimes light hearted tone adopted by this publication and take it in the spirit in which its intended Technical writing can become dry and boring if you dont adopt a lighter style in the writing But we would never want to do so at the expense of alienating readers with patronising copy Miraculous modem mix up I AM interested in acquiring a modem for my QL and am slightly disconcerted by the apparent scarcity ofa suitable device It was hinted at in the last QLUB newsletter that Miracle Technology were producing just exactly what I had in mind but of course it isn t quite QL compatible at all baud rates like 300 and the auto answer extension won t work and it isn t quite ready yet anyway Please could you let me know where I could get what I m looking for And where could I get a list of all the available wide area networks and bulletin boards Jim Timmis Twickenham THE Minor Miracle modem WILL work with the QL if you run it off the RS 232 interface provided by OELS QCON communications interface OEL also offers its own Prestel modem which we would highly recommend for use with the communications interface More details on both devices were in Issue 3 As to bulletin board phone numbers look in magazines such as Personal Computer World and Telelink which publish phone numbers and operating hours for boards in every issue Thisis your page White space is not a pretty sight p
41. ery simple two wire network leads The network is treated by Qdos and therefore by SuperBASIC as another input and output device identical as far as it s concerned to Microdrives printers and soon l On the face ofit then the OLAN seems to be very similar to the RS 232 ports but there is one major difference As the network only use two wires the hand shaking protocols which ensure that data is not lost must be dealt with in software rather than the RS 232 s hardwired system This results in the network dealing with data in 256 byte blocks rather than individual characters If youre transferring large amounts of data such as complete QLUB News COMMUNICATIONS CORNER Are you a fan of QLAN files then this can be an advantage butit s not recommended if you want to send small amounts of data The only way of ensuring that a quantity of information less than 256 bytes long is transferred across the net is closing the channel to the network as soon as the data is transmitted This is done implicitly by operating system commands such as COPY SAVE and so on but not if you ve explicitly opened the channel using OPEN Unfortunately OPEN is really the only means you have to transfer data from programs so you d need little routines like OPEN 3 neto_2 PRINT 3 lt our_data gt CLOSE 3 DLAN Control program Listing 1 100 MODE 0 110 PRINT QLAN Control prograa 120 pr seric sREWark t
42. es FLPI or FLP2_ the serial ports SERI or SER2 and exported files EXP are also fully implemented and files can either be loaded from or printed t any of those devices Change margin vit Change paragraph vith f or keys I Right ndent 7 Baldock Street MH ia QL Quill can also now handle very large documents we tried one of about 4500 words and found that it still could be saved as a QL Quill file although this is not recommended as it makes the file somewhat unwieldy to work with All around the new version of QL Quill is well worth having as it enhances and builds on the strengths of the Version I software and adds in some useful new features enclose a cheque for 136 45 for searched have carried out on Wis property I note is Owned by Mi Ihabour Estates would be otelul if you could approach i default doc THE SCREEN CONVERT UTILITY VERSION 2 0 of QL Archive allows you to choose the ink colour for the value of a variable shown in a screen layout It sets the colour to the ink colour that is current at the time the space for the variable is reserved In Version 1 0 the colour could not be selected This means that screen layout files created with Sere 1 0 cannot be loaded by Version 2 0 A conversion program SCRCON BAS is supplied on the QL Archive cart ridge to convert Version 1 0 screen layout files so they are readable by Version 2 0 Put a cartridge containing a
43. evelopment aid for SuperBASIC and machine code programmers Name QL Integrated Accounts Price 89 95 including VAT Publisher Sagesoft Available from Sinclair Research due for imminent release ONE of the most taxing if you ll excuse the pun business applications any com puter can take on is accounting work It often ja complex calculations and the handling of large amounts of data from sales invoices to bank receipts and in the past has often meant that pro grammers skimped on ease of use in order to prowde all the features necessary to provide a powerful program Sages QL Integrated Accounts takes accounting software one step further Not only does it provide all the facilities you get in Sage Software on the IBM PC and Apricot versions but the QL window ing and multi tasking facilities encourage a much more friendly and easier to use approach for only 89 95 Let s take a quick tour of the package s facilities Because of the totally integrated nature of the software entries made to sales and purchase ledgers automatically up date the general or nominal ledger and all other appropriate ledgers This means your books are always up to date and in balance It also means you can quickly and easily produce a trial balance and management accounts profit and loss statement and current balance sheet ON EY ch ne A RE Ton map Lt e o OL Integrated Accounts comes with a complete tutori
44. hecking for mistakes and telling you when youve done something wrong And we hope to do similar things for assembly code and for Pascal The superb graphics facilities on the QL should be used to the full so were hoping that our plan for networked lecture notes can include self running programs which generate illustrations for the text The university is also likely to use the QL Lisp implementation for research on expert systems databases of informa tion which the computer presents in a helpful and interactive way comparable to that of a sympathetic human expert and is contemplating the use of CST s IEEE interface in robotics work QLs are also to be found at the nearby research centre for work on Artificial Intelligence th Turing Institute which is affiliated to the university The Institute s Assistant Director of Advanced Studies Judith Richards explained that the QL was being used to run an expert system demonstrator But of course the QL will be capable of handling much more than just a small demo shell and because it s inexpensive will form a good basis for people who want experience in expert systems without making a large investment Provided you don t need a really huge database the applications possible on the QL will be fairly varied Mr Kingsley explained how the Turing Institute s demonstrator works on the QL Tn lots of systems when you type HELP oure given onl
45. his is the printer device 130 NET 1 140 REPeat loop 150 OPEN S neti_ REMark this is general listen 160 opS NKEYS 3 1 s thatnet CODE INKEYS 3 1 170 IF op R OR op S INPUT 3 8 180 CLOSE 3 190 PRINT Operation op from station thatnet 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 op CODE ops SELect ON op CODE P COPY N neti_ amp thatnet ors CODE R COPY N neto amp thatnet CODE S 270 COPY_N neti_ amp thatnet fs 280 END SELect 290 END REPeat loop aode BLAN peripheral contro procedure Listing 2 00 DEFine PROCedure NPRINT op file 10 LOCal thisnet a 20 thisnet PEEK 163895 130 IF opas P OR op S OR apss A 140 OPEN 3 neto_1 150 PRINT4S op CHAS thisnet 160 ELSE 170 PRINT Illegal Operation 180 RETurn a 90 END IF 200 a CODEtop sSELect ON a 210 CODE R 220 INPUT40 Read into PRINT 3 file CLOSE 3 COPY_N neti 1 68 LODE S PRINTES file CLOSE43 COPY N file neto t CODE P 310 CLOSES3 320 COPY N file neto 330 END SELect 340 END DEFine each time you wanted to send some information This is not ideal and means that you can t have a viable two way communication system using the net as you Yon rarely speak in sentences of exactly 256 characters Ifyou wanted to implement this sort of system you would need to use the serial ports This doesn t mean that the network can
46. his issue s special software pull out It includes details of the Sagesoft accounting package which sells for under 100 and includes additional features over disk versions of the same software costing 300 500 And finally on the question of monitors the idea behind providing both switches is to give you the optimum screen mode for the display youre using While you can use the QL in monitor mode on a TV it isn t as easy to read asin TV mode Onusing abigger QL Quill I READ with interest a letter in the QL User s magazine saying that OL Quill was not usable with documents of longer than 1 000 words I have used it with a docu ment of 3 500 words but found that at least 40 free sectors per 1 000 words is required on the Microdrive cartridge in the U K and feel that this information may be useful to other QL users J M Macdonaly Rossendale Lancs The Sindlair QL calendar ISN T it about time that you managed to synchronise the Sinclair calendar with thatused by us mortals Issue 2 QLUB News was dated October but arrived in late November Most maga zines are released some time during the month previous to their publishing date Why the exception for Sinclair Getting an October magazine in November we were promised We ll let you know more in November Which November You also promise details on new Soft mann for Christmas QL Christmas wish ist Which Christmas are we talking about
47. icks to be plugged into the QL and be read by all sorts of software even Basic programs The sockets are the ones marked CTLI and CTL2 and they share the same British Telecom style sockets They are wired up in such a way that they appear to be in parallel with certain keys on the keyboard CTL conforms to the four arrow cursor keys and the space bar and CTL2 corresponds to the five function keys This means that if we wrote a piece of software which used one or both of these groups of keys to control it then exactly the same effect could be obtained by plugging a joystick into the corresponding socket and using that instead The wiring diagram of each socket has so far not been published But we have rectified that with the diagrams shown in Fig 1 Using these designations you can 100 KODE 0 110 WINDOW 440 180 36 20 BORDER 1 7 PAPER 0 120 OPENES scr_440x12a36x200 130 PAPERES 2 INKA3 7sBORDERES 1 7 440 PRINTASV Use cursor keys or joystick 1 to aove space fire to change character 150 PANH3 2 160 char 0 170 x 382y 10 180 REPeat main 190 AT y xiPRINT chard 200 keyin CODE INKEY 1 210 SELect ON keyin 220 2192sleftsREMark left cursor key joystick 1 230 200 right REMark right cursor key joystick 1 240 20BsupsREMark up cursor key joystick 1 250 216 downsREMark down cursor key joystick 1 260 32ichange REMark space bar fire button 270 END SELect 280 END
48. igin The routines return with either the channel ID in register AO and the zero flag set oran error code in DO and the zero flag reset Errors can range from Out ofrange which means that the window parameters were a bit silly to Out of memory which means that there isn t enough space inside the machine to open a new channel The channel ID is a long word 32 bits which must be preserved for as long as a channel needs to be used as it uniquely identifies that channel to Qdos If you were to look at the channel ID closely you would see that it is in two parts a word 16 bits which is used to index into the channel table which Qdos at challenge maintains and a further word which is called the tag which is used to separate a channel from a no longer existent one which occupied the same slot in the channel table Neither bears any relation to the channel numbers used in SuperBASIC and the channel ID as a whole is only valid while the channel is open Once we have a screen or console channel s ID and assuming that the chan nel has not subsequently been closed you can use any of the routines inside Qdos to send information to it read information from it and perform miscellaneous opera tions such as panning scrolling and recolouring Most of these are done using one of the 68008 s trap exceptions TRAP 3 to be precise In all these routines and every other which deals with channels the
49. ime provided they support S ROFF The S ROFF specification is available from The Software Dept Sinclair Research Ltd 25 Willis Rd Cambridge CB1 2AQ the linker from GST Computer Systems The QL Technical Guide Ltd 8 Green St Willingham Cambridge CB4 5JA Finally a full screen editor written by Metacomco has been chosen by Sinclair to provide a common user interface It will be included with any compiler or assembler published by Sinclair and can be purchased as a separate product or directly from Metacomco Commenting on this initiative Alison Maguire our Software Manager says we want to encourage manufacturers of soft ware and peripherals to make use of the facilities for the QL Everything which is produced for the QL should be designed for compatibility something we were not able to achieve with the ZX Spectrum We are determined to make life as easy as possible for QL users Software special SPECIAL OFFER OFFICE THE Special Offer Office keeps track of all deals and discounts for QLUB members which includes anybody who is being sent this Newsletter Listed here are the deals offered to QLUB Members Personal Computer News a leading weekly national computer magazine offers 5 off the 20 regular price of a years subscription to PCN To get in on this deal write to the PCN Subscriptions Department at the address below enclosing your 15 cheque or money order and a note detail
50. inters Psion is presently writing printer drivers for some of the more popular printers used by QLUB members The first colour printer driver to be produced to work for QL EASEL will be the INTEGREX CANNON INK JET and a JX80 There will also be a printer driver for a pen plotter As a QLUB member you will be notified of any developments in this field as they occur PROBLEM QL QUILL only suppo ts BOLD UNDERLINE SUBSCRIPT SUPERSCRIPT OL QUILL will only support the typefaces that you can display on the screen i e Bold Underline Subscript Superscript If you wish to print in a different type face you must either use the preamble postamble options in INSTALL_BAS to set up the printer in a particular typeface or use one of the existing typeface selections to send your required printer control codes lf for example your printer will not print subscripts then you could use INSTALL BAS to place in the subscript line the codes needed to change to a condensed typeface The Translate options in INSTALL BAS can also be used to convert characters in your document to control codes which select different typefaces PROBLEM Using the QL ABACUS UNIT command and its effect on the displayed numbers USING UNITs to change the way that numbers are shown on the screen does not convert any numbers For example use UNITs to shen defaults to decimal with 3 decimal places Enter 2 005 into a cell and you will see 2 005 displayed in
51. ithout The reason behind this is that your printer usually only NEEDS to take information in and not send any back out So if as your wiring description suggests there s only one data line it s got to be for receiving data from the QL If it doesn t work with the white wire either hooked or unhooked to Pin 2 then consider hooking up the QL s blue wire the DTR signal on Pin 20 to it That should work Once you actually start getting some thing out of your Tandy printer you ll also have to be careful about line feeds and carriage returns in your documents Most Tandy printers ASSUME that the computer supplying data to them will NOT be supplying line feeds So if you don t configure your printer driver in QL Quill Abacus Archive or Easel to generate onl a YCR then you may end up with constant double spaced text and figures Hint 1 IN QLUB News No 2 you published a machine code and SuperBASIC routine for a digital clock calendar Somewhat simpler although maybe not serving exactly the same purpose I am using the following PROCedure to produce a digital calendar clock for showing the time and date anywhere in a programme or smpn to use my screen as a digital calendar cloc when I am not using my QL for any other purpose The PROCedure runs as follows 1 REMark CLOCK CLOCK cl 2 DEFine PROCedure cl time 3 LOCAL time 4 REPeat time 5 PAPER 1 INK 6 OVER 0 CSIZE 0 0 CLS 6FORi 1 to 365 24 602 32
52. lack banner in top left hand corner of each book designating it as part of the Working with the Sinclair QU series The first book in this series to make its way to our desk was Roy Atherton s Good cig es with QL SuperBASIC The book is in a beginners start here style which opens with details on how to format Microdrives what each of the keys on the keyboard is supposed to do and how the QL s various screens are laid out The structure of the book is very logical and assumes little forehand know ledge of programming concepts or methodology Program listings which are printed from a daisywheel printer and Include an indication that the ENTER key has to be pressed after each line in the earlier part of the book are clear and often accompanied by structure diagrams or flow charts Chapter Two begins by introducing you to essential programming principles and acquaints you with commands such as PRINT RND LET and REMARK The program examples are mostly of the order of how to simulate the roll of a dice or how to get the computer to print your name on screen pretty standard stuff but they give you the general idea You are then introduced to control structures in Chapter Three things such as FOR END FOR FOR NEXT and REPeat and given several program examples in both listing and flow diagram form These program examples won t cause any major geological disturbances or do anything spectacul
53. lair QL Introduction to SuperBASIC on the QL Advanced Programming on the QL Desk top Computing with the Sinclair QL Word Processing on the Sinclair QL Available from TBS 38 Hockerill Street Bishop s Stortford Hertfordshire for 6 95 each Featured in Issue 2 The Blueprint QL series five books one covering each of the four software applications which come with the machine and one discussing how to exchange information between them Available from Century Communications Ltd Portland House 12 13 Greek Street London W1V 5LE and selling for between 6 95 and 7 95 Featured in Issue 3 The Working Sinclair QU A pro gramming guide written by David Lawrence and sold as part of a QL series by Sunshine books Available through Sunshine book distributors for 6 95 Quantum Theory A Guide to the Sinclair QL This Century book is written by three people Jeremy San Fouad Katan and Simon Rockman and claims to be one of the first books written using a production OL It s available from Century Books at 5 95 A QL Compendium A good old games listings book by Martin Gandoff and Robin Kinge Its published by Addison Wesley and sells for 7 95 Joystick Jottings WITH the current craze for joystick controlled software it s good to know that the QL can join in the fun Two of the sockets at the back of the machine are the key to all this as they allow joyst
54. lave and will replace the previous note in the 80495 ions probably long before the sound had finished A better method of specifying duration for music is to BEEP a long duration say 1 to PAUSE a certain number of fiftieths of a second and then to BEEP again using no parameters thus stopping the sound That accounts for the two methods mentioned although there is a third which is to BEEP the required pitch PAUSE the desired time and then to continue with the program which will presumably have another BEEP com mand The new pitch will be introduced with no break in the sound or in musical terms the notes will be slurred together astyle of playing known as legato Another styleis staccato and staccatissimo where successive notes are separated by the full time value but are only sounded for a proportion of the time This can be arranged by PAUSing say one tenth of the total time value sounding the note for eight tenths and then PAUSing a further tenth See Fig 2 The final problem we have with dura tion is to decide how long each note of a given musical value is to last Beethoven often helped out with a metronome mark which would indicate the number of crotchet beats to the minute say 160 Fig 3 gives the musical representation of the various notes and their time values related to a crotchet Enough theory The program listing is guaranteed to annoy the rest of the famil and send the cat skulking to a corner
55. lve those of other QLUB members Question 1 I HAVE a QL computer and would be grateful for some assistance in connecting a printer to the machine The printer I have is a Tandy Model DMP 120 which has a serial input with 4 pin DIN plug which should be connected as follows Pin No Signal Not used Busy Gnd Data I have a Sinclair serial printer lead which has 6 wires coloured orange red blue green white and black Could you please advise me as to which wires to connect to the DIN plug pnd also whether SER1 or SER2 should be used E T Allan Colchester ANSWER In order to answer your question I d need to get clearer details on the serial input port than you ve given me Every serial interface consists of a mini mum of three lines of information data in data out and ground I gather from your letter that the grounding line is on Pin 3 but that still doesn t tell me where the transmitting and receiving data goes However a little deduction might take us a long way in this case The QLS grounding wire is black Pin 7 on the 25 pin Sinclair D plug If youre using serial port 1 SERI then the input line is white and the output is green So for starters you can hook up the black wire to Pin 3 of your plug and PROBABLY the green wire to your Pin 4 or data line Whether or not you then go ahead and hook up the white wire the data input line INTO the QL to Pin 2 is a moot point Try if first w
56. mputers as a teaching aid turn the university into a very impersonal place Not so according to Professor James Alty head of Strathclyde s Computer Science Department and a Director of the Turing Institute Almost the opposite could be argued The introduction of machines will liberate staff and students from purely routine work so that the number of tutorials and seminars could actually be increased If you have any unique application idea for your QL which you d like to share on these pages write to Quantum Leaps The QL Case Study The Editor QLUB NEWS Sinclair Research 25 Willis Road Cambridge CB1 2AQ Software special fo e Cashing in with QL e Software Cash Trader developer s news e Accounting on e Project planning your QL with Sage and decision making e Version 2 Psion software QL Toolkit WELCOME to the first OLUB news special pull out In it we ll focus on the best of the flood of new software recently released for the QL in a more in depth manner than was previously possible in our one page software update This special pull out includes features on accounting software project planning programs development tools and more The articles contained in this section don t constitute reviews but merely factual descriptions of the products However you can be assured that the products wouldn t be featured unless we felt they were worthy of your attention At the top of each article you ll fi
57. n in a clear and easily understood form Using QL Cash Trader you can use a single screen to enter a wide range of unrelated transactions from credit sales and purchase to business expenses and cash movements Using the ors unique windowing facility QL Cash Trader is able continuously to display updated bal ance sheet as well as profit and loss figures while new transactions are being entered into the system The program comes on three Micro drive cartridges QL Cash Trader Boot and QL Cash Trader Program A large chunk of QL Cash Trader is loaded into the QL s memory using Boot and then the program prompts you to insert Program which loads in the rest from Microdrive as it s needed An on screen prompt also warns you when data or program information is being loaded so you can feel confident that newcomers to the QL will be able to use the program withouta a deal ofspecial training QL Cash Trader provides a tutorial and a series of examples with the package which step you through the basic opera tions of the software and ensures that operators understand the program before they start using it A 200 page manual written in simple and non technical language includes sample set up instructions for eight dif ferent businesses As we mentioned at the beginning of this feature QL Cash Trader is available to QLUE members at a specially discotlnted price of 54 95 regular price 469 95 PR
58. n these two pro s but they should give you the basic idea of how to use the network QLUB News Quantum Leaps The QL Case Study THE QL is used by many different people for many different things They either tailor existing software or write their own programs to accomplish specific tasks with the machine Each of these adaptations is in its own way a quantum leap This column is devoted to highlighting such uses of the QL OVER the next two years Sinclair Research is giving several hundred QLs to students at Strathclyde University in an extended experiment Meanwhile Strathclyde s importance as a centre for research on artificial intelligence AT as well as its close links with the nearby Turing Institute itself opened late last year as a government supported centre for work on AI seems destined to involve the QL in some of the most high level computer research in the world At the moment we ve got 100 QLs says Andrew McGettrick head of Strath clyde s Computer Science Department They re being given to MSc students on an Information Technology course The students will use the Psion spread sheet and database programs provided with the QL but an important part of their responsibility in this first year of the scheme is to produce a report for Sinclair A network extending over large parts of the campus will give individual students the chance to access a store of lecture notes assessments a
59. n utility vector address for error printing utility vector address for sessage print utility D3 key for 10 0PEW shared read access error code tor end of tile UT CON UILERR VTMTEXT DPEN_INS ERREF Ew EOU EOU EQU 0u MOVED 6 1 D3 siynal infinite timeout D5 is preserved by both I0 FBYTE and 10 SBYTE below Now transfer the file byte by byte to the screen By using I0 FSTRG and I0 SSTRG instead of 10 FBYTE and IG SBYTE we could make the transfer more efficient but we won t COPYFILE MOVE L 1A7 A0 MOVED 10 FBYTE DO TRAP 3 TST L 50 BNE S LASTCOPY The beginning of the code put file channel ID an A0 prepare to read a byte from it doit any errors yes so branch START BRA S BEGIN DCL 0 DC 4AFB L 4 OC DLUB juep to start of program standard format identification program name length first a then the actual characters Byte read is nou in Di 5 MOVEL 4 A7 40 MOVED HO SBYTE 06 TRAP LA BRA S COPYFILE There was an error during 0 FBYTE If this error was end of file then it s OK and aeans we ve finished Otherwise we d better print an error message first put console channel ID in AQ prepare to send a byte to it doit assume np errors and continue A window definition block for UT CON border colour white border width paper colour radi ink colour white window width 512 pixels windo height 100 pixels window origin at 0 0 pola
60. nd a box giving you ordering details prices and discounts to QLUB members the name of the company QL Cash Trader opens Software special SOFTWARE SELECTIONS responsible for the software and the equip ment you ll need to run it in most cases this will simply be astandard QL however in instances where a printer or dedicated monitor may significantly enhance your use of the program well point this out You ll note that we re not only featuring new software in this section but also news of updates to the existing Psion software which should by now have been sent to all QLUB members who signed up to get them last year Also included in the section on the Version 2 Psion software are a few notes on convert ing old QL Quill Abacus Archive and Easel files to run under the Version 2 software Perhaps the best software news ofall is for business Name QL Cash Trader Price 69 95 including VAT 54 95 to QLUB members Author Accounting Software Ltd Publisher Sinclair Research Ltd Ordering Address Write to Sinclair Research Stanhope Road Camberley or telephone 0276 685311 QL CASH Trader is an easy to use cash based accounting program from Account ing Software a subsidiary of Quest Inter national OL Cash Trader requires little accountancy skill to operate and keep a record of all transactions instantly updates the profit loss statement and uses the QLs graphics capabilities to present informa tio
61. nd study material all contained on the university s main computer At the same time the university will be setting up a central database of course related information to which each QL can be linked For access from the halls of residence students will need some form of modem but most of the work will be local access perhaps from a laboratory and no kind of interface will be necessary students will be able to bring their QLs plug them into the network and upload and down load the material via the RS232 port Andrew is hoping that all this will be ready for next summer when Sinclair Research will be giving the university another 425 QLs to be handed out to students of computer science These students will be doing all their studying including Pascal programming on the OL We hope that by the end of the decade every undergraduate will have a QL that he can take home hook up to the network and use as his own says the university 5 Mr Richard Kingsley The QL is a very powerful computer in a very small box so students can carry around tremendous computing power in their briefcases That obviously gives us all sorts of ideas for teaching packages for instance we want students to be able to follow programs dynamically on screen using the QLs windowing facilities We ve nearly finished a self teach Basic package which runs programs for you and monitors what they do while they re running c
62. nk you ve got the answers write them on a piece of paper along with your QLUB membership number just write new member if youve haven t been assigned a number yet and send the entry to QLUB Competition The Editor QLUB News Sinclair Research Ltd 25 Willis Road Cambridge CBi 2AQ PICTURED above Sinclair Research s Nigel Searle holding up his end of the prize giving as he hands over QL Vision colour monitors to competition winners Mr J Mounsey of Nottingham Mr P Brown of East Barnet and Mr J Wikinson of Chesterfield at the January 16th ceremony in London A slap up meal was awarded to the editor and prize winners after the presentation The editor was said to be appro priately grateful and keen for more competitions PROBLEM What to do when you find QL ARCHIVE fields have scrambled text numbers ALTHOUGH you can have fields up to 255 characters in length when you display them on the screen you must either string slice the fields or take care to keep your insertions to the right length so that they fit into the space you have allocated for them Data fields will not be corrupted by this occurrence ie if lines is a text field of over 80 characters then LET partl line to 80 LET pari2 line 81 to 160 will slice line into parts which can be incorporated in your SEDIT screen design This should be done inside a simple procedure proc p LET partl line io 80 LET part line 81 to 160 endpro
63. nsive support service on QL Abacus Archive Easel amp Quill Qdos SuperBASIC and any related peri pherals eg Printers or memory expan sion boards Psion may be contacted by telephone on 01 723 0553 or by writing to Psion Software Support 22 Dorset Square LONDON NW1 meanwhile with the Microdrive cartridge Please advise An Expansion Console such as is shown in the Quest catalogue is also a An early must but 139 seems steep inally I would like clarification con cerning the use of the F2 switch for the TV If the Monitor switch FI is used my TV s show the two windows and seem to work on listing with a simple three or four lined program If TV s can work with admit tedly not so clear a picture why the need for two switches Norman Smith Reepham Norfolk AS you suggested we are aware of the Quest system As to discounts QLUB works to get cheaper prices on all worthy QL equipment for its members We havent yet however concluded such an agreement with Quest You might consider however the CST disk system as a viable alternative featured in this issues Hardware Update It allows you to use any standard disk drives available for the BBC Micro and can be used with the QL own Qdos operating system rather than CP M 68K The CST disk interface costs 149 and you can either buy disk drives from CST or get your own As to your request for cheaper accounting software I invite you to look at t
64. ou see what happens to various stages of work in meeting a deadline when the time for one or other of the jobs in the project changes QL Decision Maker introduces you to the concept of Decision Trees which operate by taking a given decision as a starting point and then growing various branches representing the various pos sible outcomes of that decision You also have to give each possible outcome given a possible negative or positive numeric value 8 being the least desirable out come and 8 being the most desirable outcome and then a decimal number or a letter representing that decimal number representing the percentage likelihood of that outcome happening The program will then develop a list of Software by amp Triptych Publishing Ltd Software special z d potential payoffs for each of the possible outcomes and assist you in arriving at the right decision QL Project Planner helps you break down each activity in a given project into its constituent parts so it can be analysed and rationalised These projects usuall start by having a particular goal whic must be accomplished and a deadline to accomplish it QL Project Planner helps you put all those thoughts together by first getting you to specify in detail each of the jobs involved in achieving a given task QL Project Planner a yecting the duration of those tasks and the pre requisites to accompli
65. ough for the buffer and ki the job s A7 stack trap 1 key for force job remove trap 2 key for general channel open trap 2 key for channel close trap 3 key far single byte read trap J tey for LF terainatet line read trap 3 key far single byte write QLUB News newline By subtracting 1 from D1 we are left with the number of real characters read in Putting this in the word l preceding the first character gives us a Qdos format string which we pass to the IO OPEN routine This decodes the string as if it were a device name and then attempts to open a channel connected to that device We specify how that channel should be opened by the value of D3 If as in this case it contains 1 the channel is opened in such a way thatitcan only be read If this channel is opened successfully you save the ID on the stack and proceed If not you must print out an error message to the console and try the whole process all over again You use the UT ERR utility to do this When you have finally opened your file you enter a loop in which a byte is read from the file using IO FBYTE and then transferred to the console using IO SBYTE If an error condition occurs during the IO FBYTE call then it either means that you have reached the end of the file or some unexpected error such as LEA L SUBO W MOVE ki HOVER BUFFER MO 45 01 Dt 80 010 OPEN DO HOVE f DI MOVED NOPEN_INS D3 TRAP AZ IS 0 BERS GOTFILE MOVE M
66. ould cause some handshaking difri culties with printers and the like as it did with my Kara KP810 which will now run at 9600 Baud with the DTR taken to pin 4 Now a few notes that are not in the book that may be of use to the hackers out there like myself 1 To find the version of ROM use PRINT VERS 2 Line numbers may be changed under edit to duplicate program lines 3 Use the Auto command to do a mass edit Having amended the line do not press the enter key Use either the up or down arrow keys This will take you to the next line and so works like a full screen editor 4 To run a program directly from power up name it BOOT 5 Control F5 acts as a toggle switch to pause listings etc 6 Please please do not use I s and 0 s as variables in programs It only causes a great deal of confusion when it is printed and there is really no need for it with a computer like the QL Sinclair please take note i 7 I have found that a little drop of silicon WD40 on the 5 shafts really makes the keyboard like silk 8 The QL is a great and very powerful machine Don t let the knockers put you off Most of them don t know what they re on about and are just knocking for the sake of it A C Haddock Nuneaton Hint 3 I AM unable to write this letter in QL Quill because my QL is away on a ROM refit In the latest QLUB bulletin you ask us what we want to use the QL for I have started on a project to transfer a larg
67. ridge A poor thing no doubt but might help fill the corner Stanley Craig Vicarage Lane London E6 A QL computer from Cambridge Was used by Sir Clive in a game which With Easel and Quill As Psiontists will He won all the Qdos and became rich Derek Fairburn Kenilworth Warwickshire ALTHOUGH long hours were spent pondering over these entries and the many we didn t have room to print again thanks to everyone who entered the editor just couldn t stop laughing over the letter below and awarded its author M Kingston of Cheshire the limerick prize of a QL Toolkit program Here the winning letter AQL computer from Cambridge Was sold to a family called Fainbridge But they were such nits They bashed it to bits And used the parts to modernise their old fridge M Kingston Poynton Cheshire MEANWHILE despite the flood of entertaining replies to an alternative for Quantum Leap as the origin of the QLS initials we managed to pick a winner for the free Microdrive cartridges The winner is W T Cowhig who will receive not two but four Micro drives plus a Microdrive wallet for this outstanding entry I find the keyboard quite agreeable to use after some practice and for this and its other virtues I would describe the machine as Quintessentially Lightfingered W T Cowhig Sale Cheshire That s all we ve got room for in this issue But to keep you busy we ll offer a
68. rsor with CTRL C you select the job owning that cursors channel Apart from specifying the size and position of a window you also decide on its paper ink and strip colours and the size and colour of its border Opening channels and windows is almost as easy from machine codes as it is from Super BASIC as there are two routines inside called UT SCR and UT CON to do it for you These routines take exactly the same parameters but the first opens a screen device while the second opens a console device Below is a typical invocation of one of these routines OPEN WINMOVE W UT SCR A2 LEA L PBLOCK A1 JSR A2 Testofprogram PBLOCK DC W 701 Border width 1 colour 7 white DC W 2 red ink 2 on black paper 0 DC W 512 window wid DC W 244windowheight DC W OwindowX origin DC W 12 window Y origin Both utilities are vectored which means that their addresses are held in a specified memory location By loading this address into an address register and jumping to the subroutine there you ll find it par ticularly simple to invoke each routine UT SCR and UT CON both need register A1 to point to a parameter block which defines the window Ours is at PBLOCK This block is made up in the following way Byte 0 Byte 1 Byte 2 the border colour the border width the paper and strip colour Byte 3 the ink colour Bytes4and5 the width Bytes6and7 the height Bytes 8 and9 the X origin Bytes 10 and 11 the Y or
69. shing them When youve entered all that information QL Project Planner will give you a wall chart to show the life of the project and allow you to see in detail how long each activity will take and where there are overlaps such as in the hiring of staff and buying of materials if youre putting a building together QL Project Planner is a valuable aid in developing project profiles and in its implementation on the QL is very easy to use Software by 2 Triptych Publishing Ltd IN this specia section you will have seen that a large number of software houses and individuals are already writing or releasing products for use on the QL In order to speed that process not only have we cut the prices of Microdrive car tridges but we have also developed many tools for programmers wanting to write for the QL We are now making information and software tools for the QL much more generally available in an attempt to ensure maximum compatibility among new QL software and hardware peripherals The QL Technical Guide is a complete technical guide to the QL which includes the full specification of the Qdos operating system Parts of this specification have been available for some time in the form of photocopied sheets Now the complete specification has been professionally colla ted and expanded to provide the informa tion needed by software developers It will also be useful for anyone developing hardware peripherals for the
70. ud here DELETE MDV1_BOOT SAVE MDVI BOOT If you use a slower baud rate then itis best to RUN the following SuperBASIC program as well This program allows you to alter the timeout the amount of tim QL EASEL will wait before it decides to stop sending data to a printer slow printers will cause QLEASEL to timeout changing the end of line code to carriage return as opposed to carriage return and line feed or change the device to which QL EASEL sends the data 10 LET tout 3000 20 LET a respr 3500 30 LBYTES mdv1_gprint_prt a 35 REM to alter timeout 40 POKE_W a 94 tout 45 REM to output CR only 50 POKE a 109 1 55 REM to change Device type change line 60 to suit 60 device parl 70 delen len device 80 if delem6 then print Device name too long goto 200 90 POKE W a 184 delen 100 FOR i 1 to delen 110 POKE a 185 i CODE deviceS i 120 NEXTi 125 REM Now Save File 200 DELETE mdvi gprint prt 210 SBYTES mdvi gprint prt a 2000 Before you run the program make sure that you have a CLONEd copy of QL EASEL in MDVI Note this is only applicable to QL EASEL version 1 01 Later versions will not need to be changed in this way although the baud rate may still need to be set PROBLEM Printing colour graphics from QL EASEL EARLY versions of QL EASEL only con tained a graphics printer driver for a FX80 However this driver does or with simple modifications work with most EPSON FX80 compatible pr
71. ust as they originally were on the Micro drives Version 2 of the Psion software recognises commands for both the floppy disks and the Microdrives so you can for example load up a file from Microdrive edit it and then save the edited version to disk In summary the disk interface and or disk drives are a marvellous addition to an already powerful machine CST has produced a system which existing QL users will find easy to learn easy to afford and reliable to use Disks won t replace the Microdrives but they certainly will be a great help for any high volume or high speed work you wantto doon theQL QLibrary THERE are now lots of books available on how to make the most of your QL s hardware and software To help those of you who have either bought or are considering buying one QLibrary features interesting QL books from a variety of publishers The information here by no means constitutes book reviews or recommendations by Sinclair Research but rather information were passing on Like a real library we ll show you a large stock of books and it will be up to you to decide for yourself what you really want to read THIS issue s featured work comes from Longman s Working with the Sinclair QU series edited by Roy Atherton who wrote the beginners section of the QL Users Guide and is the Head of Information Technology at the Bulmershe College of Higher Education in Reading The series oes under a silver and b
72. y off the shelf aid The uring demonstrator though gauges how well you re progressing If you prove to be quite adept you ll be given only superficial help but the system will sense if youre floundering and provide more gentle prompts and eventually quite detailed technical help It learns about you as you go along And would commercially available software develop out of the Strathclyde venture Oh undoubtedly says Mr Kingsley Nowadays lots of universities are involved in marketing software and our aim would be to sell the material at the very least to educational establishments and prefer ably to other people too Judith Richards underlines that com mitment to the commercial sector The QL has the capability of producing a great number of business and expert system packages and if the university works on them its likely that there will be at least some competitive packages around for other people to take into commercial exploitation The first fruits of that ambition is likely to be the basic course says Mr Kingsley After that possibly the teaching package for assembly work and perhaps a program for teaching logic diagrams Not surprising then that our own Nigel Searle says that this degree of forward planning and software spin off puts the Strathclyde plan head and shoulders above similar proposals from universities throughout Britain But wouldn t this use of co

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