I am getting so many requests via my website for advice on transferring QL programs from PC to QL that it's taking too long to answer them all ( should install a premium rate phone line, I'd make a fortune from the QL alone!). The same questions arise all the time...
"I unzipped program x in Windows with Winzip...now all I get is bad parameter errors..." (Windows destroyed QL job headers so program is now useless unless you know how to restore header with SEXEC and know the dataspace value) "how do I unzip QL Info-unzip onto a QL disk to unzip programs with if it's already zipped and you need a copy of itself to unzip itself catch 22..." (follow JRH's self-extract instructions on his website) "is there a program like Discover which runs on a PC to copy files onto a QL disk?" Anyone prepared to write a tutorial on this subject? It is so time consuming to reply to these queries and on the whole people don't understand the explanations to the explanations of the explanations that I am not answering these help requests because some days all I do is answer questions! The QL is so prevalent on the web these days that people download all this QL software from sites like Thierry's, Giorgio's, mine... etc then realise they don't know how to get them to their QLs and think there's a one line answer to it all. There ain't. It needs something decent written to guide people through it, or we'll be in danger of losing some of these people through sheer frustration. I'd suggest it takes the following sort of line (all requests are for Windows users, so forget Linux/Mac/etc for the purposes of this): 1. Any programs running on a PC to copy to QL format disk (QLTools and a few other older programs I can't remember). 2. Why you SHOULDN'T unzip on a PC and why QL programs no longer work when they've been unpacked on a PC. 3. Where to get QL Info-unzip - i.e. Jonathan Hudson or Info-zip organisation. 4. How to get past the catch 22 of needing to unzip the Unzip program on a QL when you haven't got Unzip already. (use the JRH SFX procedure to make Unzip self-extract and how to work around it on the 1% of systems the SFX doesn't work, or order a copy from a PD service on floppy disk) 5. A step by step guide would need to be written I suppose - where to get QL programs, where to get Unzip, where to get QL disk transfer software, special procedures needed (e.g. how to SFX QL unzip, how to get registration codes for Discover, how to install programs, why you need pointer environment/QPC2/why QLay won't read QL disks why IBMdisk won't run...until I realise they tried to run it in Windows, why Multidos won't work, until I realise they didn't read the help file which says it needs pointer environment...) -- Dilwyn Jones -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/279 - Release Date: 10/03/2006 _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
