ISSUE1 £1.20 l !'. .tl ' T' n~ ., / ·u' W '' EDITORIAL & NEWS 2 THOR SCENE 3 QRAM REVIE\-1 4...,.7 MAKING A QL MONSTEK 8..,..14 BITS AND PIECES 14&23 .~. ~OOLKIT II REVIEW 15-,.16 MACHINE CODE TUTORIAL {PART 1) 17..,.23 IDIS DISASSEMBLER REVIEW 24...,.25 REPAIRS FOR THE QL? 26 CP/M 68K ON THE QL '27-30 LIGHTNING AND SPEEDSCREEN REVIEW 31.:.32 SUBSCRI~TIONS £5.00 FOR 4 ISSUES FROM.C.G.H. SERVICES, CWH GWEN HALL, PENCADER, DYFED, CYMRU. SA 39 9HA •.,.· .. EDITED BY RICHARD ALEXANDER PUBLISHED BY C.G.H. SERVICES. Not a lot to'report here that I have first It has taken a lot longer than I expected hand experience of. Obviously Miracle and to get this issue of QL Technical Review Rebel Electronics' hard disk systems will out. Let's hope it doesn't take another appeal to those wanting to store large year to do the next issue. This magazine amounts of data. Probably this will make grew out of QL Adventurers' Forum and the it possible to at last run bulletin boards work several of us had been doing on CGH on the QL and also more PC software. Maybe Services' products. We reckoned that the people will take the leap from mdvs to experience we had gained and the hard disks and miss out floppies comparative value of the products we use altogether? If you have a hard disk then may be of interest to other QL users. If let us know how you're getting on with it. nothing else it opens up another channel of communication for QL Users. QUANTA ~ to which I hope you all belong ~ have recently been doing some excellent Although some of the contributors are bargain deals for members,· including Jan programmers, most of our readers we expect Jones definitive work on SuperBasic and to be users and hobbyists and it is mainly the Tandata modem stacks. In the light of to them that this magazine is addressed. which I'd like to propose a Comms column Having said which, please don't . think for QLTR. In particular let's nominate a we're excluding anyone. This magazine is board where we can all congregate.(QLSUB?) open to any~ne who uses their QL. On the Ms~nos Emulation front, I We have already been promised several understand that the ANT Computing one articles for Issue 2 of this mag,. probably still isn't up to scratch, whereas The people were waiting to see if Issue 1 ever Solution does at least work with a lot of materialised! So expect reviews of Text87, the softw~re ~even if it is at a snail's QLiberator (latest edition), and a short pace. I'll-write a review of The Solution item or two on networking, Rich Mellor's for. next issue (assuming I can find a few second episode on machine code programming spare evenings)~ _and I'd like to hear and so forth. (Forth?) Whether your other people's opinions as well. The Schon speciality is hardware modifications, hardware emulator sounds fun ~ but if the languages and programming, using device is too expensive it'll ce cheaper specialist software or if you're just to get second~hand PC. plain curious about what you can get a QL to do then write in and let other people Strong Computers of Carmarthen are no know. longer handling the ST QL emulator. By the sound of a recent article in QUANTA this We'd also like to ope rate a Help line is fast, running ·QL software at 2 or 3 service in this mag. I have· to confess to times QL speed. Jochen Merz Software of knowing eve~ less about the technical side Duisberg in Germany are now selling of QL's than adventures and games but that emulator boards at £180. If you have an ST again is where you, our readers come in. and need to run QL software as well then If you can help please write in and share it's a useful purchase. (Transfering files your knowledge. between the computers is now very simple using the ST~QL 'file transfer utility in Due to the gestation time of this journal, the Public Domain from Germany and our some of the articles may seem a little home~grown (courtesy of Alan Pemberton and dated. For example there. is now a new Rich Mellor) ST~QL screen transfer prog. special edition of Lightning which is, I presume, much better than the old one and Also on the ST front (damned versatile so even m~ch more better than Speedscreen. computers) Tony Tebby has been demonstrating his new QL compatible Any way, enough rabbiting for this issue ~ operating system for the ST. (How many time for you lot to get reading and people know that under the GEM interface shortly, I hope, to get writing too. Let's lies CP/M 68K on the ST? Well that's what set the deadline for Issue 2 at November one of the books about the ST says!) 1st ~ it'll give us all something to aim Finally the Minerva QDOS replacement is on at. sale. Apparently it speeds things up and fixes many QDOS bugs. Richard 2 Malcolm Smith has sent the following CST have also started to produce their own letter to enlighten us on current software. I have bought off them their developments. Please note that all ARCturus editor and I must admit I find it opinions are Malcolm's. I don't have a superior to DP's Special Edition Editor. I THOR XVI (and am unlikely to be able to find it faster to use (the text handling afford one) so am unable to verify any of certainly is faster!) and it multi tasks Malcolm's statements. Which 'is not to within itself. In other words, one ARC'ed doubt him in any way as he has been nnre job can have a number of editors running than helpful in testing CGH Services under it, so if one wishes to use nn re products over'the past year. If DP or CST than one editor one needn't call up the care to comment on this article we 'shall editor again and use more memory as in be pleased to print their.response. DP's case. One simply .calls up another editing job. Another neat feature is that "Well CST seem to be doing more than pipes are able t.o be· created between these alright. They appear to be selling all jobs and so one can nnve/copy blocks of they make and because the Danish market data between jobs. An excellent idea. currently demands. such machines they are concentrating on that for the time being. I find CST and Digital Precision both However, they do expect to start on the helpful and understanding. Now that U.K. market pretty soon and that's when we communication seems to. have improved ought to see English manuals and a few between these two companies things ought reviews in the U.K. press. to look brighter on the THOR XVI front. Employees of both companies have been Only recently have they been in real extremely helpful with my queries. I am contact with the Software Houses in the getting more and more confident in the U.K. I know for a fact that Digital THOR XVI scene here in Europe. Precision now have a THOR XVI and they,are trying out their programs on it. However, All I wish now is for a new ROM (or Turbo the' latest ROM version of the Argus Toolkit) to appear which will make all my Operating System (v6.40) seems to have a compatiblity problems disappear and then few bugs in it. This means that a pile of I'll be the happiest computer user in DP software (including EDITOR) won't run. Norway. Will the THOR XVI · ever be a DP have reverted to the 6.39 version and serious challenge to the IBM PC? I would they seem quite happy with that. like to think so, but it would need a faster emulator than SOLUTION to make it I have the 6.40 ROM in the machine as I so. Oh yes, SOLUTION does work, but it's write and it copes well with Text87 rather slow and it can't really compete software. As an indication of the with the AT's that hang around the office helpfulness of CST they went out of their for speed. And worse! I can't seem to get way to recommend this package. ·My only ELITE to run ·under it!" regret is that I didn't find it earlier. I had a copy of the 6.39 ROM but I swapped it for the 6.40, but somewhere in my desk Malcolm Smith would be very interested to I have a copy of 6.37. I can understand hear from any THOR XVI owners out there that there are a few bugs in this version (and earlier THOR's as well ~ they tend to as the "feel" of Argus is different. For get even nnre neglected!) so write to him example, we no longer have the spotty at: Statsrad Ihlensvei 66b, N~2010 screen on boot~up as the RAM is checked. Strommen, Norway. (Also any Scandinavian Instead there is a very pleasant yellow QL owners ~pass the message on.) screen. There are also a few nnre commands available, for example SAVE 0 is now Also QLTR will be very pleased to hear implemented, which wasn't on -6.39.