The Sinclair QL Forum

SMSQ/E has a more sophisticated cursor handling:


The cursor is no longer a simple rectangle, but rather a loadable sprite (i.e. free-form, as long as it''s 6x10)
Because it's a sprite, it can be more than just a simple red blob, but anything within the limits of screen depth (i.e. multi-colour ...

Can an interrupt be too frequent? Even in the fastest system? Is there any case where an interrupt over, say, 8096 Hz is useful?

Of course it can. Interrupt handling is expensive, on a 68k it's 44 cycles, which is roughly 2-3 instructions (not counting the handler and the rte, and this is for ...

Is the information about what it relocates on what platform documented somewhere - which was basically the question I was asking.


For some of the modules, it is obvious (like that the vector table needs to go to $0), for most, the only (and best) documentation is the source code. (Have a look ...

But the boot process for SGC documented by Marcel is for QDOS / Minvera boot - SMSQ is booted from a disk image - I understood it was loaded at £30000, but it seems some updates are made in the lower RAM area?


The load address and run address of an SMSQ/E image is totally unrelated. SMSQ/E ...

In Windows, you can permanently assign drive letters with the Disk Manager (<ALT>+"X", "Disk Management", then right-click on the volume in question and "Change Drive Letter and Paths", then "Change" and select the drive letter). Then Target this drive letter in QPC.

At the moment I use only QLib programs which already have a built-in in runtime The solution is actually quite simple: simply load "QLib_run" in the boot program, then everything will work....

:D :D :D


A solution is only necessary if you think there is a problem. I have no problems with ...

Concentrate on the quick wins. Only if you really finish something you gain motivation to continue with something else.

That chapter talks about "Loading Toolkits" - And yes, you're loading toolkits into SBASIC very much the same way as you load them into multiple Minerva BASICs - via LBYTES and CALL or LRESPR. I can't see what's wrong with that.

Thanks tofro :)


Peripherals don't "call an IRQ" - They simply set the IPL lines. All 68k CPUs start with an IPL of 7 in supervisor mode, thus everything but the NMI (which can only be triggered by the IPC in a standard QL and would lead to a crash anyways) is ignored during initialization ...

To be sure about the priorities for the system before to go ahead...
When the system turns on, the CPU try to read addr 0h (ROM), and all the other ICs (ULAs) keep how? "awaiting/sleeping" mode?
Could They try to call a CPU IRQ at any time even when the CPU didn't started?

Peripherals don't ...