[Ql-Users] Off topic- Watch batteries
I bought some watch batteries on Amazon; Renata batteries are available from many suppliers there. I had a dud, and two replacements were dud(low voltage) also (right hand picture below). Three supplied ones as on the left, seemed OK on voltage per Renata's spec. I asked Renata how I could tell the age and was surprised by their response:- Dear Mr. Horstmann, We did receive your fax regarding the fake batteries. It seems that you did buy fake batteries from an unsafe source. The blister pack on the right hand side of your picture is a fake battery, for sure. The blister on the left hand side is looking like our blisters, but you don't know what is inside. We are aware that fake batteries Renata and other brands are offered via internet and trade shop sources in China, Hong Kong and Dubai (and maybe some other places too). Prices are very low because these are alkaline button cells. Each and every genuine Renata battery is marked with a date code on the battery itself. May I strongly recommend that you purchase Renata batteries exclusively from an official Renata distributor. Could you please let us have more information about your company and your business activities (complete address details, homepage etc.) in order to be able to inform you about your nearest official distributor for genuine Renata batteries. Thank you very much in advance and best regards, Daniel Cragnolini Key Account Manager Consumer Batteries Renata SA:- Fake Renata watch batteries ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Off topic- Watch batteries
On 08/06/2011 04:48, Bryan Horstmann wrote: I bought some watch batteries on Amazon; Renata batteries are available from many suppliers there. I had a dud, and two replacements were dud(low voltage) also (right hand picture below). Three supplied ones as on the left, seemed OK on voltage per Renata's spec. I asked Renata how I could tell the age and was surprised by their response:- Dear Mr. Horstmann, We did receive your fax regarding the fake batteries. It seems that you did buy fake batteries from an unsafe source. The blister pack on the right hand side of your picture is a fake battery, for sure. The blister on the left hand side is looking like our blisters, but you don't know what is inside. We are aware that fake batteries Renata and other brands are offered via internet and trade shop sources in China, Hong Kong and Dubai (and maybe some other places too). Prices are very low because these are alkaline button cells. Each and every genuine Renata battery is marked with a date code on the battery itself. May I strongly recommend that you purchase Renata batteries exclusively from an official Renata distributor. Could you please let us have more information about your company and your business activities (complete address details, homepage etc.) in order to be able to inform you about your nearest official distributor for genuine Renata batteries. Thank you very much in advance and best regards, Daniel Cragnolini Key Account Manager Consumer Batteries Renata SA:- Fake Renata watch batteries ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm Oh dear; they stripped out the picture embedded in the text. The left hand was black printing on white and the right hand had an orange on blue Renata logo on the bottom portion. Bryan H ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] QIMI Mice + RasberryPi
In message 81F670BEB1514A118BBD008208172C73@d3hkh9x94, Dilwyn Jones dil...@evans1511.fsnet.co.uk writes Hi, The Raspberry Pi looks an interesting project platform. Watching the video, on the web, the designer/inventor is a 'retro gamer' - having written 'Elite'. So, he has outlined an intention to get young people back to be interested in programming through games. Norman Dunbar wrote: I have also been racking my brains as to what I could do with multiple systems such as these inside the QL black box. Multi-multi-multi-multi-task? Umm, Linux running uQLx running a Spectrum emulator which in turn runs a ZX81 emulator which in turn has a MSDOS emulator??? ;-) Ok, being serious for a bit, it happens occasionally! Having SuperBasic available at switch on is probably possible. You can do it in a number of different ways: * Have init be redirected to run a shell that runs whatever that runs SuperBAsic. Once you quit though, you are out of the system and in a shutdown. (I think!) * Have each user's default shell be set to whatever that runs SuperBasic. That way, when the user logs in, they go direct to SuperBasic (ok, via whatever) and when they exit from SuperBasic, they effectively logout. The system stays running and they can login again. * There are other ways, like a startup script that runs SuperBasic somehow. and so on. It would be interesting to see how cleanly QDOS and SuperBASIC (or equivalent in SMSQ/E) are implemented and how easy or hard it would be to separate them. Or, someone like Laurence or Marcel might have views on how feasible it would be to do a stand-alone BASIC or whether the OS and interpreter are too integrated to separate them. Problem, how do you run Superbasic - written in 6800x assembly - on a system that will not be running a 6800x processor? Well, you could write SuperBasic in C or C++ (If you must!) or some other language that is processor insensitive. When done and tested, make it Open Source and see if the developers of the Raspberry Pi want to offer it as a built in language. If this were to prove possible, it opens up all sorts of possibilities, not just for this computer. We would then be in the realms of something like BBC BASIC all those years ago which was implemented on all sorts of systems 6502, Z80 and 808x for example. Not just BBC micros. Of course, the advantage is that you would be able to recompile the system for other chip types and hopefully have a working system for all platforms that Linux runs on. Could it be done? Probably. I'm not sure about what copyright etc [still] exists for SuperBasic - both the name, the language and the whatevers that go with it. It might be an interesting project though. Given that, and assuming it can be done, it's easy to set up a new project on Sourceforge and open it up to all and sundry to help with, but how many people on this list (or known to this list) have the ability to do such a thing? Of course, it would work just as happily as a Windows project as well, assuming we use decent cross platform tools (wxWindows, QT, Fox, etc). So, those are my ramblings on the matter. Any comments? It's very interesting proposition, if it proves to be technically possible. After all, all sorts of interesting QL-type projects have sprung up outside the mainstream QL areas, e.g. the QL board made using the Propeller robotics chips, the MESS emulator and so on. I look forward also to people's views on this and whether it is a viable project. Dilwyn Jones -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
[Ql-Users] LaunchPad
Hmmn, Dilwyn contact your legal team, Apple in their new op system LION have a new feature with that same name (out next month) Now I like Dilwyn's Launchpad But I also like Apple's Launchpad So which is better...Fggtt For your information, digestion and enjoyment where possible, thankyou Lee -Back to the QL- http://backtotheql.blogspot.com/ http://backtotheql.blogspot.com/ https://sites.google.com/site/iwant2learn2/ https://sites.google.com/site/iwant2learn2/ https://sites.google.com/site/theqlimagerepository/ https://sites.google.com/site/theqlimagerepository/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] LaunchPad
Lee Privett wrote: Hmmn, Dilwyn contact your legal team, Apple in their new op system LION have a new feature with that same name (out next month) Now I like Dilwyn's Launchpad But I also like Apple's Launchpad So which is better...Fggtt He he...I suspect mine would work better on QDOS or SMSQ...theirs better on the fruitier machines ;-) Mine's been out so long it's high time I rewrote it and called it something else anyway (QL-Launchpad???). Might sell a few more then! Since there is proof of how long I used the name, I guess I can rely on you to send them a kind email telling them they have 48 hours to rename or remove every instance of their Launchpad worldwide ;-) (actually, I'd rather you didn't...) Seriously though, it's a common name for a program or task launcher anyway, I know of at least 2 freeware PC programs of that name. If they really feel concerned about the use of my name on a hundred or so 1984 machines they are welcome to waste their money sending me a polite email or letter and I will send them an equally nice email or letter saying OK... You can guess I don't really care...... BTW, your video upscalar for QL, what is latest on that? You said you'd sent them a QL to play with, that was the last I heard. AND, glad to see you are getting committee emails at last! My moaning email seems to have done the trick. Now what we need is prompting to get the website finished so we can all login to the CMS and start improving it. You chould check a CMS login has been set up for you. I assume you know what a Content Management System is, in fact you most probably have 10 times (at least) the experience of them I do. :o) Dilwyn ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] LaunchPad
Dilwyn Jones wrote: Lee Privett wrote: Hmmn, Dilwyn contact your legal team, Apple in their new op system LION have a new feature with that same name (out next month) Now I like Dilwyn's Launchpad But I also like Apple's Launchpad So which is better...Fggtt He he...I suspect mine would work better on QDOS or SMSQ...theirs better on the fruitier machines ;-) Mine's been out so long it's high time I rewrote it and called it something else anyway (QL-Launchpad???). Might sell a few more then! Since there is proof of how long I used the name, I guess I can rely on you to send them a kind email telling them they have 48 hours to rename or remove every instance of their Launchpad worldwide ;-) (actually, I'd rather you didn't...) Seriously though, it's a common name for a program or task launcher anyway, I know of at least 2 freeware PC programs of that name. If they really feel concerned about the use of my name on a hundred or so 1984 machines they are welcome to waste their money sending me a polite email or letter and I will send them an equally nice email or letter saying OK... You can guess I don't really care...... BTW, your video upscalar for QL, what is latest on that? You said you'd sent them a QL to play with, that was the last I heard. AND, glad to see you are getting committee emails at last! My moaning email seems to have done the trick. Now what we need is prompting to get the website finished so we can all login to the CMS and start improving it. You chould check a CMS login has been set up for you. I assume you know what a Content Management System is, in fact you most probably have 10 times (at least) the experience of them I do. o) Dilwyn In hindsight, that was probably an unwise jokey reply, but light-heartedness apart (silly mood tonight for some reason) you get the idea of how I feel about this - if Apple were to tell me to stop using the name I would, as my Launchpad is quite an old product. I'd simply find a new name. Although somehow I don't think Apple would be too worried by an old program running on a 1984 computer. The references to the Quanta website refer of course to the fact that Lee is the new Editor of Quanta magazine. Sarah Gilpin is editing the issue currently in preparation and hopefully Lee will be in a position to take over from the following issue. I hope you'll all agree that his return to the QL scene and his high level of activity and ideas will be a real benefit to both Quanta and the QL scene in general. There, hopefully I've embarrassed him enough for now ;-) Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Samsung QL serial ports
I don't think I have the pinouts for Samsung Ctl (joystick) ports. Same as Atari, or Kempston on Sinclair ZX Spectrum I'll add the note about the serial ports being sockets though. Same as Sinclair ZX Interface 1. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
