The Sinclair QL Forum

Great - could you please email me Viewpoint for the preservation project - I have a copy preserved, but it's on the unsorted pile, so I don't know whether my copy works properly!

Scanned copies of the manual would also be great as would the Concept 3D manual, as swensonT has not been able to find his manual for Concept 3D yet

RWAP wrote :
Great - could you please email me Viewpoint for the preservation project - I have a copy preserved, but it's on the unsorted pile, so I don't know whether my copy works properly!

Dilwyn wrote :
This program is listed as a commercial program on Rich Mellor's website (£10+£2.50 P&P) and on QL Wiki.

The copy of Viewpoint I have is an adapted version of my original. Like Concept 3D I have removed the need for the master copy in MDV. Like Concept 3D, I am more than happy to share this modified program with everybody else now it is freeware, and take the time to produce electronic copies of the documentation, but not if it is just a vehicle for somebody elses renumeration (its vintage software! by todays freeware standards at least, if not only in years, >25). I have no qualms with paying for reasonably recent software, otherwise I would just simply ignore it (plenty of superior freeware now, running on free OS). Apologies for the flame if the info I have been given is wrong.

Dilwyn wrote :
For Concept 3D, most certainly, this would be VERY welcome as it is not easy to use without the manual.

Agreed, it is a very good manual as well. I will attempt some OCR'ing first, otherwise it'll be quite a big scanned file (many pages).

Silvester wrote: The copy of Viewpoint I have is an adapted version of my original. Like Concept 3D I have removed the need for the master copy in MDV. Like Concept 3D, I am more than happy to share this modified program with everybody else now it is freeware, and take the time to produce electronic copies of the documentation, but not if it is just a vehicle for somebody elses renumeration (its vintage software! by todays freeware standards at least, if not only in years, >25). I have no qualms with paying for reasonably recent software, otherwise I would just simply ignore it (plenty of superior freeware now, running on free OS). Apologies for the flame if the info I have been given is wrong.

Unfortunately, Viewpoint is not freeware. However, we have now got a working copy with the copy protection removed - we are however missing a scanned manual for the preservation project.

If anyone knows how to contact Rubicon Software, or who used to run it, then we can approach the copyright holders to ask them if they will release Viewpoint (and Dragonhold) as freeware. Even if we manage to find them - they may of course say no, or may just not respond. That is up to them.

As for it being 'a vehicle for somebody elses remuneration' - who do you think is going to make any money out of it ?

I have now been able to provide a manual and Quick Reference Guide for Concept 3D. There's also two separate versions of the program, one for MDV systems, the other for FLP systems. The MDV version will work fine on a 128K QL. The FLP version will just about work in a 128K system with floppy disk interface as long as there's no Toolkit 2 (otherwise you may get out of memory errors - in which case try it without the Toolkit 2 EPROM plugged into the EPROM port).

Should work fine on expanded memory systems.

It is important that the device you run it from is not write-protected, even for loading the demo.

Many thanks to everyone who helped me make this program available as freeware.

Do you still need a Viewpoint manual, I have just come into posession of one, it also has an old address for Rubicon.

The viewpoint manual would be a help if you could scan it in please.