QL Games Cartridge

[dilwyn]

The original QL Games Cartridge supplied with the QL has been available from the Games page on my website for a while now. It includes the games Pirate, Zfred, Gun, Breakout and Hunt (Treasure Hunt).

Sadly, it turns out it was partly broken all along. If you downloaded this before today (27/03/14) you may find it does not work due to a missing file called 'mc' which caused the Breakout game to fail, so you should download the amended version uploaded there today.

The problem areas have been rectified and/or improved by Rich Mellor, many thanks Rich. This now needs Toolkit II to get the Zfred game to work on more than a standard 128K RAM QL. Rich has also added a MODE 8 command at the start of the Treasure Hunt game to improve the look of the display when it is first run and supplied the ‘mc’ file which was missing from the earlier version.

I’ve also added a scanned PDF of the original 2-page instructions letter sent out by Sinclair with the QL Games Cartridge.

Download both from the Games page on my website:

http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/games/index.html

[vanpeebles]

Coo, I'll have to check it out

[Dave]

I didn't get a games cartridge with my new QL. Who do I complain to?

[Mr_Navigator]

Coo, I'll have to check it out

I did check it out, some good ol' games there, I still couldn't get everything working under Q-emulator though.

My favourite is the Shark attack one, but Breakout is a good example too

[RWAP]

Everything worked here for me on q-emulator - which programs gave you problems?

[Mr_Navigator]

Everything worked here for me on q-emulator - which programs gave you problems?

Just the one, zFRED

zfred.png (4.16 KiB) Viewed 4500 times

[RWAP]

Oops - so it does - I have rejigged the code around some more - new file (main) is attached which forms the SuperBASIC for ZFred.

[Mr_Navigator]

Oops - so it does - I have rejigged the code around some more - new file (main) is attached which forms the SuperBASIC for ZFred.

Putting this back in to the original pack and all is hunky dory.

I don't like the game though, also when looking at the code, there are some poor programming practices like Define Proc with no End Def

• 9000 DEFine PROCedure NEXTLEVEL
  9005 CLS:AT 10,10:PRINT "NEXT LEVEL":PAUSE 100
  9006 CLS
  9010 LI=LI+1
  9015 L=L+1
  9020 GO TO 350
  11000 DEFine PROCedure FINISH
  11005 CLS
  11006 INK 0:PAPER 7:CLS

and also code between procedures, still I shouldn't complain too much, I suppose it was early days then for some programmers, there by the grace of god so to speak.

[XorA]

Oops - so it does - I have rejigged the code around some more - new file (main) is attached which forms the SuperBASIC for ZFred.

Putting this back in to the original pack and all is hunky dory.

I don't like the game though, also when looking at the code, there are some poor programming practices like Define Proc with no End Def

• 9000 DEFine PROCedure NEXTLEVEL
  9005 CLS:AT 10,10:PRINT "NEXT LEVEL":PAUSE 100
  9006 CLS
  9010 LI=LI+1
  9015 L=L+1
  9020 GO TO 350
  11000 DEFine PROCedure FINISH
  11005 CLS
  11006 INK 0:PAPER 7:CLS

and also code between procedures, still I shouldn't complain too much, I suppose it was early days then for some programmers, there by the grace of god so to speak.

Heh, that looks like much "optimisation" I see in programming

[dilwyn]

I don't like the game though, also when looking at the code, there are some poor programming practices like Define Proc with no End Def

• 9000 DEFine PROCedure NEXTLEVEL
  9005 CLS:AT 10,10:PRINT "NEXT LEVEL":PAUSE 100
  9006 CLS
  9010 LI=LI+1
  9015 L=L+1
  9020 GO TO 350
  11000 DEFine PROCedure FINISH
  11005 CLS
  11006 INK 0:PAPER 7:CLS

and also code between procedures, still I shouldn't complain too much, I suppose it was early days then for some programmers, there by the grace of god so to speak.

The sorts of things which might make it work on QDOS but possibly not on SMSQ/E, due to the more rigorous syntax checking in SBASIC on SMSQ/E.

As an example, try this, which works on QDOS, but gives a misplaced end define error on SBASIC:

100 def proc test:Print 123
110 end define

I think SBASIC makes out that line 100 is a single line procedure definition and so 110 is either superfluous, or not in the right place for a non-existent second procedure somewhere. QDOS (SuperBASIC) merely skips the End define without error message.

Still, makes it fun trying to update old PD BASIC programs to work on SBASIC!