The Sinclair QL Forum

Up to now I thought that the only German language versions of the Psion software were the ones supplied with new German QL's - always version 2.25, but the other week I ended up with some German carts and after re-felting and checking them I have found and recovered a German language 2.45 version of Abacus... unfortunately none of the other Psion titles were present.

This Abacus version 2.45, although found on a non original mdv cart, has all of it's default paths (loading, saving etc) set to flp1_ and I have also noticed that it doesn't hog all of the QL RAM, so it's certainly of the later improved type.

I find this interesting as the recently preserved Greek language versions claim to be v2.43 and at first I thought that can't be right - the version number is much higher than the last English versions (2.36/2.38). This German version offers some supporting evidence that the Greek 2.43 probably is correct and official.

Attached is a QDOS zip, zipped in a windows zip and an mdv image also zipped in windows.

It doesn't seem to like having more than 1mb RAM. It works with JS ROM (and no doubt MGG too). n.b. the original 2.25 German Abacus only works with 128k RAM.

Dilwyn, if you see this, feel free to add it to your Psion page.

Chr$ wrote:This Abacus version 2.45, although found on a non original mdv cart, has all of it's default paths (loading, saving etc) set to flp1_ and I have also noticed that it doesn't hog all of the QL RAM, so it's certainly of the later improved type.
...
It doesn't seem to like having more than 1mb RAM. It works with JS ROM (and no doubt MGG too).

Hmm, perhaps it is a patched version? There were tools around to do this (esp. for the memory and changing mdv to flp is more easier...).

And the program itself states in the code that it just runs on a GERMAN QL, so how does it work under JS? (If this was ever true to run only on MGG)

Are there advantages in the greek version compared to the last english ones?

Thanks chr$, I have added them to my site. http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/psions/index.html

If anyone has further information on these versions (I note Ralf's comments), please let us know.

RalfR wrote:

Chr$ wrote:This Abacus version 2.45, although found on a non original mdv cart, has all of it's default paths (loading, saving etc) set to flp1_ and I have also noticed that it doesn't hog all of the QL RAM, so it's certainly of the later improved type.
...
It doesn't seem to like having more than 1mb RAM. It works with JS ROM (and no doubt MGG too).

Hmm, perhaps it is a patched version? There were tools around to do this (esp. for the memory and changing mdv to flp is more easier...).

And the program itself states in the code that it just runs on a GERMAN QL, so how does it work under JS? (If this was ever true to run only on MGG)

Are there advantages in the greek version compared to the last english ones?

I suppose it could be patched, but whoever patched it was very thorough and did it with the boot file text, too - who knows. Size-wise the Abacus exe is only 12 bytes larger than the 2.25 version.

And I find that even the original 2.25 German versions also work fine on JS (with 128k for Abacus). I have occasionally managed to get Psion to throw up an error telling me that it will only run on a German QL, but I can't remember how, or if it was for Abacus and not one of the others!

Thanks Dilwyn. I don't mind it being 'Chris Perkins' instead of Chr$ . Fame at last. It may be a bit confusing as the zip is a windows zip of the QDOS ABA245_zip. Perhaps change that content file to ABA245.zip as that would then be a QDOS zip to match all the others. And just offer the content of the other one as an .mdv to download. I would have provided them like that but the nature of the forum is that you can only attach things with a .zip extension.

Hi,

How hard would it be to disassemble Abacus, to try and reverse engineer a possible solution?

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

How hard would it be to disassemble Abacus, to try and reverse engineer a possible solution?

I'm afraid it wouldn't make not much sense :-( AFAIK the Psion programs were developed before the QL even existed on a Mainframe (or UNIX) system with a C cross compiler, which has been (is) able to produce reentrant code. And why do want to do it, Text87 (and most probably Perferction) is much better (if you want to write new documents on the QL). Old documents can always be read with the existing version or the much improved XChange.

p.s.: Unfortunately (my holiday is over), I have currently no time to work on EJC. Whole next week I'm going on a hard training course of my company. I'm afraid I have to do a lot post processing in the evening :-/

Hi,

Too late, had a quick look with Disa, it seems that Psion assumed the screen is always fixed.

But I am not sure about more work, as there is already a QL Spreadsheet available with commented source code.

I do not like Text87, in fact I gave it away in the 1990s, therd are much better QL software available.

I do not like Text87,

What Derek said. A great bit of coding, don't get me wrong, but an awful program to use.

Cheers,
Norm.

Just to add something on the theme of German Psion software.

I wasn't 100% sure before but have now checked in more detail and I can confirm that the German versions of the Psion suite are also restricted to only work on a German QL (i.e. with MGG ROM) just like the French versions are restricted for use on a French QL.

It isn't obvious from the offset and appears to work fine, but when you try to do certain things in all 4 of the titles, if you are not using a German QL you will at some point be presented with: (This program can only be used with a GERMAN QL)

And it locks up and all you can do is reset.

My newly discovered 2.45 version does the same.

Chr$ wrote:Just to add something on the theme of German Psion software.

I wasn't 100% sure before but have now checked in more detail and I can confirm that the German versions of the Psion suite are also restricted to only work on a German QL (i.e. with MGG ROM) just like the French versions are restricted for use on a French QL.

It isn't obvious from the offset and appears to work fine, but when you try to do certain things in all 4 of the titles, if you are not using a German QL you will at some point be presented with:
Germanwarning.png
(This program can only be used with a GERMAN QL)

And it locks up and all you can do is reset.

My newly discovered 2.45 version does the same.

I recently discovered that the Spanish version does the same ("Este programa solo es para el QL español").

D.