Back on the QL!
Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:16 am
Hi there, just a quick (maybe) word to introduce myself. I'm Alan Pemberton, who some of you may remember from the late 80's to mid 90's on the QL scene.
My first computer was a UK101 back in 1979 I think it was, which gave me an introduction to BASIC programming (I never could get my head around anything more complex). Later my girlfriend got a Spectrum to play games (we loved The Hobbit) but I kind of took it over after that to try my hand at writing programs, mostly text adventures.
Then I bought a QL when Dixons had them on offer and found it a vast improvement to program with. I had my fun with it, and expanded it with Trump/Gold cards and floppy drives in due course, but after time the enthusiasm waned and I moved on to other things. However, if I ever needed to do some quick and dirty programming to work out stuff that I couldn't easily work out how to do on a spreadsheet, then I reverted to SuperBASIC, running on Q-emulator.
Fast forward to the end of last year, and my 7 year old grandson was showing me how he was coding games on his dad's laptop, using Scratch. He was interested to hear that I also coded games back in the day, so I decided to get a working QL system to demonstrate what things used to be like. Unfortunately my original QL is long since dead, but I am now running the latest version of Q-emulator on an old Windows 7 netbook, giving me the ultimate portable QL that I could only dream of in the old days.
I've been downloading various games and text adventures and will have some retro fun over the coming weeks, as well as re-familiarizing myself with SuperBASIC. I've also been toying with the idea of coding another adventure game, but annoyingly I didn't transfer my copy of Quill adventure writer before my QL died. I might just use the Spectrum version, which is now PD, or use another system.
Anyway, that's all for now...
Cheers,
Alan
My first computer was a UK101 back in 1979 I think it was, which gave me an introduction to BASIC programming (I never could get my head around anything more complex). Later my girlfriend got a Spectrum to play games (we loved The Hobbit) but I kind of took it over after that to try my hand at writing programs, mostly text adventures.
Then I bought a QL when Dixons had them on offer and found it a vast improvement to program with. I had my fun with it, and expanded it with Trump/Gold cards and floppy drives in due course, but after time the enthusiasm waned and I moved on to other things. However, if I ever needed to do some quick and dirty programming to work out stuff that I couldn't easily work out how to do on a spreadsheet, then I reverted to SuperBASIC, running on Q-emulator.
Fast forward to the end of last year, and my 7 year old grandson was showing me how he was coding games on his dad's laptop, using Scratch. He was interested to hear that I also coded games back in the day, so I decided to get a working QL system to demonstrate what things used to be like. Unfortunately my original QL is long since dead, but I am now running the latest version of Q-emulator on an old Windows 7 netbook, giving me the ultimate portable QL that I could only dream of in the old days.
I've been downloading various games and text adventures and will have some retro fun over the coming weeks, as well as re-familiarizing myself with SuperBASIC. I've also been toying with the idea of coding another adventure game, but annoyingly I didn't transfer my copy of Quill adventure writer before my QL died. I might just use the Spectrum version, which is now PD, or use another system.
Anyway, that's all for now...
Cheers,
Alan
