QL Tinkering

[dilwyn]

It was meant to be in all ROMs according to the original documentation. Just that on Sinclair ROMs 4 parameters were allowed, not 5. You could enter the 5 parameter version into a program, the command would stop with "Bad Parameter" when the program was run and tried to execute the command.

According to Simon Goodwin's ROM bugs articles, the 5 parameter version only started working properly on MG ROMs. It seems to work in Minerva too (I tried in Minerva 1.97 in QemuLator). But does not on AH, JM and JS ROMs.

So, on JS and earlier:

CURSOR 1,2,3,4 works fine (it defaults to channel #1)

CURSOR #0,1,2,3,4 gives a 'bad parameter' error.

[Cristian]

QBTiles_v2BBQL should now run OK.

Yes it runs fine! Thank you very much, and keep going with your great programs!

[qbits]

Hi all,

The lazy days of Summer have hit us with an unexpected heatwave. I have over the last few months continued Tinkering and hope to be uploading a complete suite of my S/SuperBASIC Progs for the QPC11. Be back soon...

QBITS

[qbits]

Hi All,
A busy time of year trying to wrap up all those loose ends and with Christmas gatherings again under scrutiny with COVID throwing us yet another curved ball.

Sometime back I think it was Christian who suggested I create a collection of the QBITS Progs and to that end I had made some tentative progress. However, the passing of Sir Clive Sinclair this September brought a new focus and in a way the result is my tribute to the Man and others who over the years have supported the Sinclair products and especially the QL.

I have given the Progs a bit of a makeover while configuring them for the QPC11 Emulator. Attached is a short version of the usual accompanying pdf, the full version exceeding the size limits for upload to the QLForum site. Hopefully a link for download will be available soon. For backwards compatibility I have kept the Progs within a 512x256 Screen setting. That should enable with a little bit of tinkering most of them to run on a BBQL with expanded memory although performance might be an issue.

So Merry Christmas to you all… and welcome to QBITS 2021 Black Friday Contribution Special!

QBITS

[vanpeebles]

Superb!

[bwinkel67]

I have given the Progs a bit of a makeover while configuring them for the QPC11 Emulator. Attached is a short version of the usual accompanying pdf, the full version exceeding the size limits for upload to the QLForum site. Hopefully a link for download will be available soon. For backwards compatibility I have kept the Progs within a 512x256 Screen setting. That should enable with a little bit of tinkering most of them to run on a BBQL with expanded memory although performance might be an issue.

QBITS

I modified your QL Sound program to work with NTSC screens and then compiled it so it would run reasonably well on a BBQL. Here is a video of your software (I still had a bug with scaling in it that I ended up fixing in the attached zip). Really enjoyed using that program.

YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/aBdqAv9oPmI

Fixed, scaled QBQLSounds program:

QBQLSoundsv5.zip

(22.43 KiB) Downloaded 161 times

[qbits]

Hi,
Thanks, vanpeebles and a Merry Christmas hope the New Year will not be another lockdown!

Bwinkel67 seasons greetings. Thanks for your interest in the QL Sounds Prog, your video was both interesting and enjoyable. It is gratifying to find the reason for my postings is being fulfilled namely to promote the Exploring and Tinkering with S/SupperBASIC. Unfortunately, I am unable to replicate your set up or even access my BBQLs and nowdays my Progs are pretty much tied with QPC11 or occasionally checked with QL2K.

Complied with Supercharge the execution timings appear gratifying and good to know. As to the screen displays where the last notes on the stave disappear off screen. Your comment on the bug fixed in modified code is this reference to the screen display or are you still looking to fix this. As to a hardware addon or Emulators providing more scaleable and tuneable sounds that would be an interesting challenge. One quick mod would be to extend the single pin output to four to provide a ramped volume, maybe using the BEEPP Random Attribute to scale the volume output. Who knows what someone will come up with?

QBITS

[bwinkel67]

Your comment on the bug fixed in modified code is this reference to the screen display or are you still looking to fix this.

I was able to fix that. Some of the replaced calls needed the hs=0.84 to be applied to both the x and the y coordinate...that fixed it. The v5 version I posted has that fix, it was just done after I had already recorded the video.

[qbits]

Bwinkel67
Thanks I did look at your code additions and thought that might be the case, but checking just in case I could help.

QBITS

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I was wondering whether the QL Sound programme could be modified to use the Q-Sound extensions built into QPC2 v5.02

I was gonna have look into this myself.