The Sinclair QL Forum

This is the demo program from Mega Toolbox v1.21 toolkit by Francesco Balena.
It's a nice demo, written fully in Basic, not compiled, and it doesn't seems slow at all.
The video shows the demo running on QEmulator with Minerva ROM and 4Mb RAM, TK II installed, at QL speed.
At minute 6:00 the screen is a bit garbled because the demo tries to show the split screen mode (Mode 4 and Mode 8 at the same time on the screen) which doesn't work on QEmulator. I'll run the demo on a real QL and a CRT monitor and see if/how it works.
https://youtu.be/jDfJjVx8Wow

Yes - it is a nice toolkit this one. He also wrote QL Expert.

I wonder whatever happened to Francesca Balena - it would be good to get these released into the public domain.

Francesco Balena... in English "Francis Whale"
Anyway, nice demo!

RWAP wrote: Sun Sep 04, 2022 4:53 pm Yes - it is a nice toolkit this one. He also wrote QL Expert.

I wonder whatever happened to Francesca Balena - it would be good to get these released into the public domain.

Consider this (Mega Toolbox) and QL Expert now in the public domain! I found Francesco and he has granted permission... On QL Expert:

"Yes, I will be happy to have my software included in your collection and made it available to other QL enthusiasts. Of course, the permission includes the documentation and any example that was included with the original program."

And on Mega Toolbox: "I wrote another program for Compware. I don't remember its name in this moment, it was a library that extended SuperBasic with tons of functions. The library was written in hand-optimized assembly. I don't have the original Microdrive or any disk backup, but maybe you can find it through other channels. If you do, I will give the permission to distribute it as well, if it works on emulators (for sure, some extensions won't, because they rely on specific features of the video card)."

Andrew wrote: Thu Sep 01, 2022 3:42 pm This is the demo program from Mega Toolbox v1.21 toolkit by Francesco Balena.
It's a nice demo, written fully in Basic, not compiled, and it doesn't seems slow at all.
The video shows the demo running on QEmulator with Minerva ROM and 4Mb RAM, TK II installed, at QL speed.
At minute 6:00 the screen is a bit garbled because the demo tries to show the split screen mode (Mode 4 and Mode 8 at the same time on the screen) which doesn't work on QEmulator. I'll run the demo on a real QL and a CRT monitor and see if/how it works.
https://youtu.be/jDfJjVx8Wow

Andrew, can you send me Mega Toolbox (or post it here) as Francesco would like to see it again and try it out.

Chr$ wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2023 12:03 pm Andrew, can you send me Mega Toolbox (or post it here) as Francesco would like to see it again and try it out.

I just posted it on your other post. I am adding it here also.
A video demo of Mega Toolbox: https://youtu.be/jDfJjVx8Wow?si=kCj0k-384y7zotk9

Hi Andrew!

Thanks for sharing the toolbox and the demo clip link

Hi Andrew, 21 09 2023
Watched the demo clip and downloaded the QLMegaToolbox.
Thanks for posting will take a look over the weekend.

QBITS

Thanks Andrew, already donwloaded from your previous post. Any chance for a manual?
Marco

Tesla wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 5:07 pm Thanks Andrew, already donwloaded from your previous post. Any chance for a manual?
Marco

Look in the zip there is a file called, manual.doc, which is Quill file.

Hi Andrew ,
Checking out Megatoolkit download appears to be an mdv image. Although I can see some of the sectors are SuperBASIC codes and some compiled sectors possibly even the Quill docs you mention. I have no simple way of unravelling the contents, it would be better if you or someone could post the contents as individual files.

Thanks QBITS