QL Stuff for Sale

QLs, QL books, memory expansions including Supergold cards, ROMs, magazines and all sorts of QL bits and pieces are for sale at the moment. Once there was a single page of second hand QL items on ebay, now there are 3 pages there and from the King of second hand QL items RWAP software there are 5 pages of a mega amount of stuff on the Sell My Retro site here. Browsing through this stuff QL Heaven spotted a QL User magazine that did not seem to be in the QL Heaven Library. There needs to be a check as QL Heaven has so many old QL magazines that sometimes the fading brain cells forget what is there. QL heaven has been kown to accidentally buy 2 copies of the same second hand magazine and then have to put the spare out on ebay. Anyway, back to the point does anyone have an interest in collecting these dust old magazines and if so for what? 

Quanta

QL Heaven has just been completing its re-subscription to Quanta for 2012. It is that time of year. If you are a member of Quanta you have to resubscribe. If you are not a member of Quanta and are interested in the QL why are you not a member of Quanta? Quanta despite all the mud slung at it in the last 10 years has as the latest magazine cover states been supporting the QL since 1984. It is the only remaining organisation (club) that has been there for QLers since the QL was launched. Its strength is its members. Now that is  a statement that flies in the face of conventional wisdom on the QL-users list (by the way that has gone really quiet for the past few weeks). Its members, both past and present are its strength because of the software written for the library, because of a willingness to write for the magazine, because its members have as individuals been responsible for many of the hardware and software developments in the last 20 years, because its members support QLToday the only "commercial" QL magazine, because its members blog, because its members run software repositories and help sites on the internet, because its members subscribe to the QL-users list, because its members help other QL users regardless of whether they subscribe to Quanta or not and most importantly because its current members are not quitters by instinct. While at present membership is down from thousands to a few hundred, with the internet and a rebasing of the subscription to ensure financial viability there is no reason why Quanta cannot continue until the last few QLers expire.

On another point the emag version of the Quanta magazine has markedly improved in quality which begs the question of why in this era of cheap broadband should anyone want the paper version any more. Anyway Quanta has finally bit the bullet and made the emag subscription cheaper than the paper magazine - about time too and well done for the decision and quality.

In case anyone is wondering QLHeaven does not own Quanta and is not a member of the Quanta committee so has completely impartial views with respect to Quanta. One final thought for Quanta - what about an ebay presence to sell subscription to recruit new members?

3D Noughts and Crosses from QLWorld July 1986

The listing has finally been completely typed in. But as ever there are bugs. Some are typing errors that need to be tracked down and fixed. Some are possibly down to the fact that smsq/e is somewhat different from QDOS. At some point the black box original QL in QL Heavens possession will need to be reassembled, fired up and used to test the program.

Ultimately the intention is to update the program and publish it in updated form on this blog. Here are some pictures to show that it is partly running.

ebay and the QL market place and QL books

The QL part of ebay remains buoyant with 4 pages of items. There is a QL offered as a buy it now for £70 including p&p. But before anyone rushes to a bargain it is described as "don't know if it is working". So £70 for spares is expensive.

More usefully there is a batch of books for sale including Andy Pennell's guide to the QL operating system. Titled "The Sinclair QDOS Companion". This is one of the 3 essential books that QL Heaven has used over the years to achieve programming results. The insights into the QDOS/SMSQE OS given in this book are essential if any understanding of the secrets of the OS is needed to achieve programming results. It does not matter that this book was originally published in 1985. The info in it is  still relevant especially as a rump of Quanta membership still adhere to original black box QLs running QDOS and SuperBasic so any current program that intends to be backwards compatible needs to understand and obey the OS rules described therein. In addition for more modern systems like QPC2 smsq/e is more backwards compatible than Windows has been up to Windows 7 so the book is still more than useful.