ROM to RAM ToolKit Conversion

[tcat]

Silvester,

I may take the opportunity to ask, about DISA origins, the author, software house, and year of release.
As it seems there are quite a few tools available, and DISA among them may not have been preserved. We may then help Rich with contacting the author.

Many thanks
Thomas

[RWAP]

DISA was written by Albin Hessler - I wonder what happened to him?

[smsq4ever]

In fact, the QL C (Metacomco C) ROM is easily convertible into a LRESPRable file: I did it 28 (or so) years ago, to free the EPROM slot of my QL and use other toolkits together with QL C.

IIRC, beside an added initialization routine similar to the one already posted in this thread, I simply used a small SuperBASIC program to replace all occurrences of JMP/JSR 0x000[C|D]XXX (the ROM is only 8Kb big) with their (relative addressing) BRA/BSR counterparts. Since there are no table using absolute addresses in this ROM, this trick is sufficient to convert it successfully.

If the QL C ROM is now public domain, I could post the patched ("RAMable") ROM code here...

[tcat]

Hi,

This sounds interesting, but how about p1 and p2 binaries, they may also have absolute addresses referencing ROM? It may also depend on the actual QLC Rom version.

Meanwhile, I have discovered a similar solution to yours, copyrighted as IECsoft 1988, a Spanish software house? It loads ROM as is into RAM, marks its origin, and with this origin relocates all references in p1 and p2. It is designed for version 3.02.

Tom

[smsq4ever]

Hi,

This sounds interesting, but how about p1 and p2 binaries, they may also have absolute addresses referencing ROM?

I don't think so (LC1 and LC2 ROM SBASIC PROCedures were used to launch the passes, so they probably took care of that...)... Or, more exactly, I don't remember all the gloomy details (hey, it's been almost 30 years ago ! ), but when looking at the boot file on the floppy disk holding the patched QL C, there is no mechanism to pass the LRESPRed patched ROM address to P1 and P2 (if such a mechanism was indeed needed, perhaps some code was added to P1/P2 to scan the RAM...): anyway, all I can say is that it worked beautifully for a few years (till C68 came into play, at which point QL C became redundant/useless): I even wrote a "C_Manager" program (sort of a generic, menu-driven "make" utility) to handle all the command line parameters for QL C passes and linker...

It may also depend on the actual QLC Rom version.

v3.02, here....

[RWAP]

If the QL C ROM is now public domain, I could post the patched ("RAMable") ROM code here...

Unfortunately, I have been unable to get a response from the former Metacomco directors, so their software remains protected by copyright.

Maybe someone else needs to get involved trying to get responses out of Metacomco and Eidersoft.... as it might just be they don't like dealing with me (or more particularly a current QL dealer!)

[BSJR]

DISA was written by Albin Hessler - I wonder what happened to him?

I don't know how many DISAs there are but mine is DISA3 and was written by Jochen Hassler and was in the JMS catalogue.
From Marcel Kilgus's blog on EasyPTR I understood that Albin and Jochen know each other well and are two separate persons.

BSJR

[Ralf R.]

DISA was written by Albin Hessler - I wonder what happened to him?

I don't know how many DISAs there are but mine is DISA3 and was written by Jochen Hassler and was in the JMS catalogue.
From Marcel Kilgus's blog on EasyPTR I understood that Albin and Jochen know each other well and are two separate persons.

BSJR

Yes, that also seemed so mysterious to me....DISA and Albin Hessler.

[RWAP]

Ah - you are right it was written by Jochen Hassler (the Sinclair QL Homepage wrongly lists it as by Albin Hessler)

[dilwyn]

Ah - you are right it was written by Jochen Hassler (the Sinclair QL Homepage wrongly lists it as by Albin Hessler)

Back in DJC days I used to sell DISA and got it from Albin along with Easyptr, Sermouse software etc., hence the mistake. I think the reference is with the demo version on the Demo Programs page, I'll check and correct that when I get home. (Mobile signal in most of north Wales is such c**p I can barely get online with tethered phone and there's no wifi here to help out so I don't want to try updating the website from here).