Abandonware

One thing that surprises us here at QL Heaven is the fact that there are still "commercial" programs in the QL World that were written not just one or two years ago but decades ago. For example Text87plus 4 a quirky word processor is still a commercial program at a price of around £80. Who in their right mind would want to pay that premium price for an unsupported program. The author is no longer on the QL scene, does not develop software for the QL any more but will not relinquish the "commerciality" of his program. The last updates to make his program run on modern systems were done by the author of QPC2 and sold as a commercial program although there were bugs in that as well.




Other authors have been more pragmatic. Psion has allowed the free distribution of its seminal office suite both in the standalone formats and as Xchange, yet retains its ownership. I think Psion have also allowed the free copying of other software such as its famous chess program.



I can understand why someone producing new software may expect a financial reward at least initially after it is launched and while support is being provided. Examples of this are Launchpad and QPC2 both of which are currently supported.



The QL scene is littered with examples of abandoned commercial software where authors have declined to provide support yet still expect to be paid for each copy of their software in existence, even if it has to be patched by another authors program to run on existing QL systems.

It seems that new spurious copyright claims are being exploited as a means of gold mining enthusiasts. An example of this is the sale of the SMSQ/E O/S on Quo Vadis Design at £37.20. The O/S has not been significantly updated for 2 years. The previous 5 years of updating has been done by enthusiasts for free, not the original author. The O/S can be obtained for free on the original sources site (http://www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com/smsqe/) with all the necessary tools to compile and run the latest version for any QL system. Under the licence a token payment was required for distributors - this was 10 euros, even at today's exchange rate there is no way that 10 euros equates to £37.20



Authors should be required by law to demonstrate continuing copyright bt the provision of continuing support otherwise programs must be re licenced as abandonware.

Quanta news material

Dilwyn Jones, Quanta news editor is seeking QL news items for the Quanta magazine. Happy to pass on any info.

QL activity on the web

At the moment there are 7 QLs for sale on ebay, on auction with starting prices from 0.99p to £125-00 for buy it now. There seems to be a lot of QL interest although QL users, Quanta and QLToday all now seem quiescent. I recall reading in one of the QL magazines that Jan Jones book was now unobtainable. Have a looks at :

http://www.speccy.org/sinclairql/archivo/docs/docs.htm

Someone has been busy. Legal or not there is Jan Jones book amongst others in .pdf format.

Ql on the internet

Things are quiet on the ql-users list at the moment. Things are hot on ebay with more and more QLs and microdrive based software on sale and some, especially black box QLs in good condition going for good money. If only I had a stash of them.

Quanta Magazine

The latest Quanta magazine dropped through the mail box. Again full of content. The quality seems to have picked up significantly of late. Disappointingly there were two articles from Geoff Wicks, showing off his Janus faced attitude to Quanta. In one he praised black box QL users as he seemed to think a previously published article had been an attack on them because the author suggested that the key future of Quanta sustainability lay on the internet. Why he should think that black box users are internet-lite? Many black box owners use the internet. I have one. I will post a picture later. Geoff should have a closer look at the ebay sinclair QL site. Microdrive programs and black box QLs abound.

The trouble with the "Quanta debate about the future" is that the high profile protagonists positions are entrenched in cliches. That destroys all opportunity for original thinking. Thats what Quanta needs of course, not perpetual niggles.

Amusingly his article was followed by one from a "black box QL user" who uses the internet.

Shrinking Memory

100 a=RESPR(100)
110 POKE_W a,$287C
120 POKE_L a+2,$800000
130 POKE_L a+6,$70254E41
140 POKE_L a+10,$4EF80900
150 CALL a

In the beginning there were a number of memory reducing programs. Some commercial. They were needed to enable older software to run with expanded memory systems. Some can still be down loaded from Dilwyn Jones site. But they dont work on QPC2 or the Q60.

This little bit of SBASIC from Marcel Kilgus does the job. Line 120 sets the amount of memory to remain when the system is rebooted. $8000000 gives 8MB, for 4MB use $4000000 and so on.

Interest in the QL?

Who thinks there is no interest in the 25 year old QL computer. Rich Mellor has sold this week a boxed and working QL system for £155-00 on ebay as sold for £199 by Dixons 20 years ago (plus 4 blank microdrive cartridges) !!





Note the dust, not cleaned for 25 years but someone has parted with £155 hard cash for a working QL.