S.Usher@ucl-cs.UUCP (02/22/89)
From: S.Usher@uk.ac.ucl.cs
Thank-you for the great numbers of letters sent to me about the ST QL
emulator and other such things. I have compiled a set of answers to the
many questions posed below:-
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Date: Fri, 17 Feb 89 17:42:04 +0100
From: Klamer Schutte <n62@nl.hep.nikhefh>
To: S.Usher@uk.ac.ucl.cs
Subject: Re: Bob Currier's letter to me.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
In-Reply-To: <163@ucl-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Nikhef-H, Amsterdam (the Netherlands).
Cc:
Hi,
I am owner of both a QL and a ST. Since there are some programs on the QL
i wish iwould have on the ST, i would like to have a emulator for the QL.
could you give me an adress / pointer to it?
Also i would like to know about the MS-DOS emulator. Could you tell me some
more about it ?
Klamer.
--
________________________________________________________________________________
Klamer Schutte mcvax!nikhefh!n62 n62@nikhefh.hep.nl
End of included text ---------------------------
ST QL Emulator
--------------
Supplier:-
Strong Computer Systems
Bryn Cottage
Peniel
Carmarthen
Dyfed
Wales
U.K.
SA32 7DJ Tel: (U.K.) (0267)231246
Required:-
QL with at least one 3.5" disc
Any ST
Price:-
About $200 ($= pounds stirling)
What it does:-
The emulator fully emulates the QL with the exception of Mode
8 screen and Microdrive access. And it does it at about
doublethe speed of a QL!
Configurable so that either SER1 or SER2 points to the
printer port.
Once running, the emulator will happily read and write to
QL formatted discs!
All the multi-tasking works great!
What it is:-
It consists of two discs, one in QL format and one in ST
format, and a board which displaces the Shifter chip, which
moves onto this board. On the board is a QL video chip,
some other logic and a spcket for the Shifter.
The QL format disc contains a program which patches a copy
of the QL ROM so that it will work on the ST. The ROM image
has to be supplied by you (so as not to infringe copyright).
The ST format disc is the boot disc which starts up the QL
emulation.
All the QL software which doesn't need Mode 8 screen will work
happily on the Emulator, so as long as it is on disc, you can use it. There
is another advantage... you can use SuperBASIC and compile it with TURBO..
Who needs GFA basic or Hisoft basic etc....
QL PC Emulator
--------------
Supplier:-
Digital Precision
222 The Avenue
London
England
E4 PSE Tel: U.K. 01-527 5493
The emulator is called "The Solution" and comes in two forms, one
with and one without MS-DOS Vers. 4.0. It is a full IBM PC emulator which
can handle CGA graphics. Even on the QL the programs run faster than
PC-Ditto on the ST, so just think how fast it would go on an ST emulating
a QL. This is acheived by pipelining and look-ahead allowing highly
optimised conversion of the code.
The program has been tried with much "naughty" software such as
Flight Simulator and it works fine. It also multi-tasks MS-DOS programs with
other MS-DOS programs and QDOS (QL) programs at the same time!
Cost:-
Vanilla, the basic version without MS-DOS $79.95+10% p&p
Chocolate, the full version with MS-DOS $129.95+10% p&p
Note:- $ represents pounds stirling! NOT US Dollars!
---------------------------------------
I also recieved the question, "What is QL?".
The Sinclair QL was the first cheap 68000 family based home computer.
It came originally with 128K of RAM and two loop-tape drives called
microdrives. These were primarily designed to replace cassette players as
a method of inputting data, sort of a stop-gap between tapes and discs.
The machine used a 68008 processor, a 68000 with only an 8 bit data
bus, and was fully multi-tasking and came complete with built in networking
hardware and firmware. The Basic supplied on the machine is still the best
I have found on any micro. The compiler developed for this language, called
Supercharge, was converted to the ST and extended and called Hisoft Basic.
There has since been a new more develpoed version called Turbo which runs
Basic at about 95% the speed of hand-writen machine code.
(By the way, you can now pick up "new" QLs in Britain for about 90 pounds)
The production of the QL was stopped in 1986 when Amstrad bought
out the computer side of Sinclair Research Ltd, but there has been massive
third-party support for the machine. So much so that Cambridge Systems
Technology (CST) have developed a machine using a compatable operating
system and hardware using a full 68000 processor. It has been chosen to
be the USSRs state micro (something Atari failed to do because they wouldn't
allow their machines to be manufactured in the USSR) and is available from
a German supplier (I haven't the address at the moment).
Here are the specs. for the Thor XVI:-
68000 processor
twin RS232 ports with independent input and output baud rates
Built in LAN ports
up to 9 Mb RAM
Full multitasking
Machines on the LAN can access other machines as if their resources
were their own, eg one machine can open a window and draw
graphics on another machines screen.
Price:- About 700 pounds for a disc-less 512K workstation
About 780 pounds for a single disc system
Speed:- 98% of the ST's speed (because of the Multi-tasking
overheads)
Also available.... 68020 version with maths co-processor!
I hope this has answered all your questions....
Stephen Usher
Addresses:-
S.Usher@uk.ac.ucl.cs or UCACMSU@uk.ac.ucl.euclid
---------------------- Cut ----------- Here --------------------------peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (02/26/89)
In article <171@ucl-cs.UUCP>, S.Usher@ucl-cs.UUCP writes: > Full multitasking Note that the operating system on the QL is Tripos, which is what Commodore uses as the DOS on the Amiga. The Amiga Exec is different, so I wouldn't expect that you could share programs between the two machines, but porting should be fairly simple. Could someone out there with experience on the two machines care to comment? > Speed:- 98% of the ST's speed (because of the Multi-tasking > overheads) And with no coprocessors to help it out... -- Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva `-_-' Hackercorp. ...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.uu.net 'U`
n62@nikhefh.hep.nl (Klamer Schutte) (02/27/89)
In article <3528@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <171@ucl-cs.UUCP>, S.Usher@ucl-cs.UUCP writes: >> Full multitasking > >Note that the operating system on the QL is Tripos, which is what Commodore The operating system of the QL is QDOS, not Tripos. To return to the article: I think porting software from a QL to an Amiga ( or vice versa ) is about as difficult as porting software from UNIX to a QL : Not to simple. The problem is that QDOS is a quite odd operating system; it has calls which can do the job but with different calls then you should expect. e.g. a stty() call on a window is not existent; one should use another call to read in "raw" and "cooked" mode ( no cbreak; signals doesn't exist on a QL ). Another major problem is the lack of any environment variables on the QL. -- ________________________________________________________________________________ Klamer Schutte mcvax!nikhefh!n62 n62@nikhefh.hep.nl