SOLVED !! smsq/e on rom

[techy]

Is it possible ( or already done ) to put smsq/e on a rom ?

any info welcome

[tofro]

Is it possible ( or already done ) to put smsq/e on a rom ?

any info welcome

Yes. Both Q40 and Q60 have SMSQ/E in ROM, the ATARI ST could also have it there.
But that was probably not your question. What hardware platform are you talking about?

[techy]

sinclair ql

[tofro]

That's definitely not so easy.

The QL's memory map has room for max. 64k ROM (including the ROM slot area) in the lower address space. That's not enough for SMSQ/E (which wants between 250 and 300k, maybe less if you exclude some features, but not significantly less).
Without a significant hardware change that won't work.

[Peter]

Let alone the fact that SMSQ/E for the QL never existed.
Even if it existed, it would require a few KB RAM overlay at $0, which the QL does not have.

[Nasta]

It could work in theory with Aurora, a feature for that sort of thing was built-in from the start.
In any case it requires a Gold or Supergoldcard, to run SMSQ/E in the first case. The reason is that GC and SGC replace the actual ROM with a ROM image in RAM at the same addresses, and SMSQ/E actually needs to replace the ROM image with it's own code, so a RAM emulating 'ROM' is required.
Aurora has a feature that makes it possible to use up to 512k of EPROM on the board, where the first 32k is bank-switched (16 banks), so any 32k segment of an up to 512k EPROM can be switched in, read as needed, including putting it into the RAM as a ROM image (16x32k=512k). An appropriate piece of loader code has to be written to do this, which would start instead of the actual OS ROM code and load SMSQ/E. On the SGC this can even be done after an OS ROM is already copied and the system is up and running from it. Unlike the GC, the SGC makes the original ROM chip contents still available for reading at $400000 if I remember right. Unfortunately the SGC will not generate writes to that piece of the address map so if a flash chip like an 29F040 is used instead of an EPROM it can still be read, but not programmed in-circuit

[Wicksy]

Would SMS2 work natively on the QL? With no basic interpreter it must be smaller, but am guessing it only works with some software for this reason.

[techy]

Thank all posters for your replies ,

as a conclusion smsq/e on a ql is not possible wothout severe work to the poor ql .

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I thought about this in about 1992, but the current SMSQ/E configurations only SMSQ/E Gold would run on a QL, but needs a Gold Card.

The only Eprom based version of SMSQ/E is compiled for Q40/60.

I think that a new version of SMSQ/E could be made for the QL, but some removal SMSQ/E features would be required to fit it into a 32K Eprom but it could be compressed and use the second screen are, moving the System Variables up the memory. Probably a bit of programming to get a QL.romable version of SMSQ/E.

SMS2 only runs on an Atari ST series.

[tofro]

Would SMSQ/E Gold (with a GoldCard) loaded from Tony Firshman's ROMDISQ count? Then we already have (had) it.