Wolf wrote: > Though I don't remember you trying to reach out to me in this respect, > if the question is whether somebody could port SMSQ/E to your machine, I > might be tempted to have a go a it.
Thierry has expressed interest in the Q68, and SMSQ/E will obviously be needed for him. That's why I asked. It was very easy to port QDOS Classic to the Q68, so I suspect that SMSQ/E should not be much harder for someone who knows it. Changing ROM on the Q68 is as easy as writing a binary to SDHC card or download it from serial port. Before you get tempted too much, please consider the SDHC card driver issue. QDOS Classic and Minerva both work on the Q68, but the QL-SD driver clashes with other extensions. Similar effects were seen under Qemulator and UQLX, for which the same native driver minus the hardware specific code exists. Basically, I see three options: 1) Use the same driver for SMSQ/E and likely run into similar problems. You could debug most of the driver without hardware, if you implement the simple BDI interface, used by Qemulator and UQLX, in your own emulator also. See http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/qlsd/bdi_spec.txt for the BDI spec and qlsd-starterpack.zip at the same website for the driver. 2) Use the QLWA driver of SMSQ/E and change the intitialization / block operations for SDHC card. You could look at the QL-SD driver sources or at the sources of my Q68 bootloader (written in C) for that purpose. I think the chance to get a rock-solid driver is better with QLWA, but the SDHC card won't be readable on the black box then - unless you extend the (S)GC version of SMSQ/E also. 3) Wait until someone else has solved the QL-SD driver issues. > Please note the choice of words. There would be no guarantee that I > could ever pull it of, or that I could spend a certain amount of time on > this project. Nor could I give a timeframe... Moreover, my experience > with really programming for a determined machine approaches 0. All we do is without guarantee or timeframe. I have lost track of SMSQ/E completely, so I'm not sure how much help I can be. And like must of us, I suffer from lack of time. The Q68 is sort of a mix between QL and Q60, minus the difficult stuff. A very simple machine from an OS perspective. Peter _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
