In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, thegilpins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
It has suddenly become very quiet on the QL-users list - nothing to read for four days now. Has everyone logged off for Christmas? Here's a little something to occupy your minds and time between the season's festivities:
Yes, it is that time of year :-)
Having purchased Launchpad and QWord as well as updated my SMSQ/E and QPac2, my system does not run as well as it used to. The basic principles have remained unchanged since I used two Aurora/SGC/QuBide machines at work and in order to keep all the database files (.dbf) up to date, these two machines were networked across the office - slow but very reliable I found.
The two pieces of software mentioned will make no difference to your system speed as such, as they are programs that run on top of the OS.
Launchpad does take a little time to set itself up, which is to be expected as it is having to do all of the work in software. Once loaded it is then easier and quicker to use than giving several line commands.
I have always started off with the obligatory "boot" file in which I LRESPR just about every toolkit etc imaginable and set up my ALTKEYs etc. I then provide the option of installing SMSQ - the Accounts package 'Cash Trader' would not run under SMSQ - hence the reason for giving the option. At the end of the "boot" programme, I EXed a QLiberated SuperBASIC programme called "GENERAL_MENU_obj" which includes a clock correction prog and then a menu to provide one of five options plus a 'Return to SuperBASIC' from which I could do all the things a basic machine could do, or something specific like 'Family Trees' - Genealogy - or 'Scouting'. Having retired 4 years ago, I have now decided to get rid of all the 'Company System' stuff and substitute all the Quanta stuff I have either inherited or have written during the last couple of years - at present "QUANTA" runs from floppies only. Over the last few years - gosh, how time flies once one has retired! - I have made various half hearted attempts to get all my QL stuff installed on the PC running QPC2 - now have 3V11 installed - only to find that any reference to networking (nfs_use etc) causes an error. So, the whole thing needs sorting out.
Where do I start? (From the beginning! - "boot")?
Yes !
You may wish to take my approach, and split your actual 'boot' into a series of simpler parts.
I have 3 stages, a 'boot' which is a small starter, a 'myboot' which is a bit more personalised, and a 'boot-QPAC2' which is the long one to set up the pointer environment, etc.
On top of this I recently added 'Launchpad' with no problems.
The first 'boot' is only about 10 lines of BASIC and gives me the choice of booting from either 'flp1_' or 'win1_' - which I occasionally need to do. Although 'win1_' is the regular choice, so just detect the 'f' key being pressed and use any other key to continue ( which is to boot from 'win1_' and load 'myboot' ).
The second 'boot' - 'myboot' is again only about 10 lines of BASIC, this formats 'ram1_', sets 'data_use' to 'ram1_' and 'prog_use' to 'win1_'. It then asks if I want to load 'ProWesS' - which I occasionally use. However, SMSQ is the regular choice, so again any key to continue.
The third 'boot' - 'boot_QPAC2' loads all the of pointer environment and any other extensions required :
QPAC2 files ...'ptr_gen', etc ... LRESPR win1_turbo_sms_bin LRESPR win1_FI2-Qlib_run LRESPR win1_env_bin ( Used for MicroEmacs ) Hotkeys set - ERT_HOT_RES ... etc ...
At the end of this I start any other programs, e.g, - 'ex win1_LP_launchpad_obj'
This sequence of 'boot' files all works seamlessly, just giving some options for less regularly used choices.
How do I know which toolkits and extensions are required for which programmes and which programmes load their own extensions? (Could this cause duplicate entries if the same toolkit is loaded twice, or use up unnecessary memory?) Is there any way of uninstalling an extension once loaded?
Since SMSQ causes a complete reset when loaded, should I be loading toolkits after SMSQ or before (in case I want to use QDOS) or both ('cos if it's all lost when SMSQ loads it would only be loaded once anyway)?
You will always load any extensions on top of the OS - whether QDOS or SMSQ - as they add functionality to the system.
You can use 'rjob' to view most of what is loaded.
SMSQ already includes 'TK2' so you don't need to load it.
Extensions overwrite ... so you cannot duplicate them.
You can have as many copies of 'ex' programs as you have memory for ... they will all show up with 'rjobs'.
It may be worth your while just logically thinking through what you now want to set up the QL for :
I want to have the choice of 'booting' into QDOS or SMSQ ... ? I want this extension and that program with QDOS ... ? I want this extension and that program with SMSQ ... ? I want to use Launchpad as the system 'frontend' ... ?
PS - This email was written on PC with Launchpad running in a Windows window under QPC2. The 'fish' screen saver appeared after a while ... :-)
-- Malcolm Cadman
