Thank you for the clarification. This aligns a bit more with where I thought it was timewise.tofro wrote: Sat Sep 20, 2025 7:45 am Digging a bit in memory and old paperwork:
Its first incarnation came with QRAM, and that should have been 1987 or 1988 - So, not quite 40 years old. But to establish itself from a GUI toolkit that drove QJump programs to the publicly accepted WIMP for the QL took another, like 3-5 years. I can't just now find the first release date of the QPTR toolkit that provided the API to third-party developers.
TK2 is a different story - that entered the market as early as 1985, one year after the launch.
The BEST QL Editor
Re: The BEST QL Editor
Re: The BEST QL Editor
It has sort of that early X-Windows feel...right in line with that UNIX feel of QDOS (for me at least).Derek_Stewart wrote: Sat Sep 20, 2025 7:28 am If I want to use a GUI system on the QL, there is only one option - The Pointer System and QPAC2, QD, QMENU, QBASIC...
Not to start a back and forth thread here on GUI comparisons, but the early Amiga did pretty well in that small amount of memory with it's GUI.Derek_Stewart wrote: Sat Sep 20, 2025 7:28 am ...which makes the QL a nice GUI based system in less than 512K or ram, no other system can do this.
Personally, if the QL had stuck around past 1986 it would have been interesting to see how ICE could have grown as well. With only 16K in size, that is pretty efficient for any GUI. Grant it, it's just an app launcher in that form. I still haven't tried its toolkit to see what sort of help it gives in writing your own apps, though Choice also worked pretty well as a task manager.
QED is my favorite one for the QL as well.Derek_Stewart wrote: Sat Sep 20, 2025 7:28 am The best non GUI editor in my opinion is QED, and maybe TheEDitorSE a close second. GUI Editors, QD, I can not think of any other