| Home | Contents | KwikPik |
| QL NEWS | |||||
UPGRADE YOUR QLFor those who want the complete story so far on the QL, there's a sister publication to Your Spectrum called QL User: The Complete Dossier now available and priced at £1.95.Its 64 pages provide exacting tests of the hardware, evaluations of the four Psion software packages, the latest on the modestly entitled SuperBasic, plus programs and news. Tapping the major computing journalistic talent in the UK, QL User: The Complete Dossier takes a unique look at an innovative product. You'll find the magazine available in the shops now, or you can get it from us by simply sending a cheque/postal order for £1.95 to QL User: The Complete Dossier, 14 Rathbone Place, London W1P 1DE for each copy you want.
PUBLISH - AND BE DAMNEDPitman Publishing Ltd and Boris Allan have definitely hit the line first with The Sinclair QL Companion.Not only is this the first of many QL orientated books to reach the public, it's also managed to sell out in record time. Unfortunately, there's often a price to pay |
for such 'fleet of foot'
publishing action - quality
can become directly
proportional to the time
taken to write it; and in this
case, quite a few people
believe that Boris has blown
it! In trying to get this particular title to the shops first, it's a fair guess that he relied heavily on preliminary documentation (now considerably changed) and the experience gained directly from other projects. For instance, a chapter on turtle graphics seems to have been lifted straight from a previous book (his Logo one) and although the program examples have been changed to reflect the capabilities of SuperBasic, the whole thing is now redundant. Why? Because SuperBasic now contains all the keywords and functions necessary for performing turtle graphics. And there's a section on the Intel 8049 processor (for keyboard and other associated processes) which is useful, but only five pages in length. That's hardly a good enough reason for spending £6.95. Nigel Cross
KLUDGELESS AT LASTQuicker than expected Sinclair Research has shifted the errant 16K of hardware back to where it |
should have been in the first
place, inside the case. Normally it takes several months to 'burn' a new ROM and bring quantity supply up to a reasonable level. Sinclair, however, has taken a quicker route and, for the time being, has kept the whole thing on EPROM, the new 16K being piggy- backed onto the existing 32K. These days, the normal retail price for a 16K EPROM is around the £9 mark; but the cost of the 32K version is something else altogether and enquiries among the cognisenti reveal a retail price of up to £80! However, Sinclair Research claims to have 'done a good deal'. Anyway, with the Kludge out of the way, at least the company is less likely to be mauled by adverse publicity. With Uncle Sir Clive strongly touting his new wares in the direction of the BBC, it could be argued that satisfaction is now the name of the game; in addition, of course, the move releases the cartridge port for programs on ROM - all that's needed now is for the software houses to play ball. The code for the latest version of SuperBasic is 'AH'. To check whether that's what you have, Print VER$. Those who've been blessed with the latest edition say many of the previous problems really have been erased; it's now, for instance, nothing like so easy to crash the machine. | |||
| SINCLAIRWATCH | BY GUTTERSNIPE | |
|
Now the QL has been around
in its various forms for quite a
while, the infamous Sinclair
Research 'returns' service is
beginning to reveal its QL
tactics. Those with problems
of a Psion package nature -
regular crashing, perhaps -
find that contacting Sinclair
Research seldom proves
fruitful. As soon as you
mention the word 'Psion', the
reply is "it's nothing to do with
us", and that you should
contact Psion itself for an
upgrade. However, if you
haven't paid your £35 to be a
QLUB member - too bad -
you'll just have to pay for a
replacement. I've even heard vile and nasty rumours that some, so sick of crashes and non- functioning of a program, physically damage the tape in the cartridge in some way - from subtly leaving it in the drive while repeatedly connecting and disconnecting the power, to the earthy process of wiping dirty hands on the tape itself! Once the tape is corrupted so that it won't load, Sinclair Research are legally bound to replace it under guarantee - and the theory is you'll get the latest version. Despicable I call it. |
There could well be a large
potential market for EPROM
copiers on the QL at the
moment - so that users can
upgrade their machines
themselves. All you need is
quick access to a QL with the
ROM (or EPROM) version you
desire, then just plug the
copier into the back of it
together with some blank
EPROMs, and copy your
mate's firmware straight on to
them. Then unplug it, take
your new EPROMs home and
plug them in. One recent example of the strange attitude of Sinclair Research to software compatibility is the implementation of the AT command. This is used to position the text cursor on the screen, and was originally intended to be followed by first the y position and then the x position. However, the first version of SuperBasic went out to customers with the opposite syntax, namely x first followed by y. Someone noted this discrepancy and, instead of including a note on the ever-growing Addenda sheet to the 'official' manual, decided to change the subsequent Basic; the end result is that the AT command |
works rather differently on
each version of the QL. Now
the latest Psion programs test
to see which Basic is installed,
so they know which way round
to put the parameters. One
hopes that other misprints in
the manual - of which there
are many - will not be
corrected by changing
SuperBasic to suit! On a lighter note to end this month, hands up those who'd like a good laugh. First grab your QL manuals - provisional or otherwise - and turn to page 30 of the Concepts chapter. As part of the 'general care' section you are told 'NEVER touch the cartridge while the drive is in operation'. Good advice you may say, until you check out the warning at the bottom of the page ... 'If you attempt to write to a cartridge which is write protected then the QL will will repeatedly attempt to write the data. Remove the cartridge to stop the QL'. What!!! Of course, you may have the edited version of the manual like our Troubleshootin' Pete - he's just had the relevant page ripped out; it's good to know that Sinclair Research has its finger on the pulse. |
| Home | Contents | KwikPik |