ql software

[thecaver99]

having just fixed a ql andnow having a micro p floppy drive, hoocked up.
i have been searching the net and there is nothing around for download apart from PD,
so where do people get the utils/games from are these still sold after 40 years or am i missing somewthing as i cant ever find qill, abacus etc,
i know they wold be in a sort of mdr format.
i dont see the point of the emulators if the software is no where to be found, unless its just me not finding it.
even things listed on WOS are not downloadable.


I am new to the QL

[Sparrowhawk]

At the top of this forum is a link called QL Homepage - click that and it takes you to a cached copy of Dilwyn's web site that has all the software you will need to get going. The Psion suite is on there.

Other than that, sellmyretro and ebay are your best bets for rare/still in copyright stuff.

[thecaver99]

At the top of this forum is a link called QL Homepage - click that and it takes you to a cached copy of Dilwyn's web site that has all the software you will need to get going. The Psion suite is on there.

Other than that, sellmyretro and ebay are your best bets for rare/still in copyright stuff.

thanks, i have found the software on Dilwyn's site, i was meaning things like backups of the system software for the QL and other 80s commercial software that was out, such as utilities and games.

[Wicksy]

RWAP on Sellmyretro, as mentioned sell 2nd hand disks / mdvs of utilities / applications. There's several game and adventure compilations sold as new floppies or digital downloads that are still commercial (I've got them all). Otherwise hope for Ebay sales, but they are getting rarer.

[Sparrowhawk]

i have been searching the net and there is nothing around for download apart from PD,
so where do people get the utils/games from are these still sold after 40 years or am i missing somewthing as i cant ever find qill, abacus etc

The Psion suite (Quill, Abacus, Archive, Easel) is on that site: https://dilwyn.theqlforum.com/psions/index.html

Or were you after something else?

Also in the downloads you will find a fair amount of formerly commercial software. eg Computer One Pascal, Forth and Monitor, some Terminal software, games, The Editor, (Master)Spy, etc that were all commercial.

If you are willing to pay, contact Rich (aka rwap) on these forums or at sellmyretro.com, as he has by far the largest collection of commercial QL software for sale.

A lot of QL software in still under copyright but Rich and others have been unable to get hold of the authors to get permission to release it either as PD, Open Source or commercial under license. For example a lot of the Digital Precision titles (I may be wrong re DP, but I believe this is correct - some are available though).

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

All available free software is available on the QL Hompage (see links at top of page), anything else as stated see RWAP.

The Digital Precision software aka DP Package is still copyright, it seems thd copyright holder could be Dave Batty (Sector Software), who also could hold the copyright of the QL World Microdrive Exchange.

I tried to contact Dave, who always said he was busy travelling. Sounds like a feeble excuse, similiar to the copyright release request for the QL Advanced Manual, with Adrian Dickens, who seems also to be busy with important business...

I was going type all the programmes in QL World as detailed in the Microdrive Exchange listing. But not all software featured in the Exchange was not published.

[bwinkel67]

thanks, i have found the software on Dilwyn's site, i was meaning things like backups of the system software for the QL and other 80s commercial software that was out, such as utilities and games.

Just to reiterate what everyone has already said. On the QL Homepage link (Dilwyn's site) there is a vast collection of both public domain and former commercial software. My sense is there is a lot of commercial software on that page. Other commercial software is sold by SellMyRetro for pretty low prices.

It is true, though, that some software is lost (ok, not lost, but privately owned by members here). For instance, some in the Digital Precision catalog, like the MS-DOS emulators (Solution and Conqueror), cannot be found anywhere for download or purchase. There is no easy solution for this. Like many other retro communities (though not all), the QL community refrains from posting non-released software, even if the original entity is no longer around. Copyright for software belongs to the original authors until they release it and if they cannot be found it's difficult to figure out what to do without breaking legal barriers.

That said, I think there is more commercial software attainable than there is not...

[Sparrowhawk]

You could also look at the following for a ton of free QL stuff, some ex-commercial:

Black Phoenix: https://www.hunggartorino.it/ql/black-phoenix-en/
QL Today distro: https://sinclairql.net/repository.html#TheDistribution
QUANTA (free to join) has a great software library: https://quanta.org.uk/

I think between those, the "QL Website", and sellmyretro, you should have enough to keep you busy for a while

[Wicksy]

I do wish more of these "idiots" would give the nod for PD or accept a royalty and let someone sell these titles. Am never going to get what I would like as they just don't exist out there any more.

Applications and utilities are a little healthier.

[Derek_Stewart]

I do wish more of these "idiots" would give the nod for PD or accept a royalty and let someone sell these titles. Am never going to get what I would like as they just don't exist out there any more.

Applications and utilities are a little healthier.

What sort of software are you after?