QL Emulators CD
QL Emulators CD |
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Updated:21/9/06
This
CD-ROM contains a number of emulators of the Sinclair QL computer, along
with a number of sample program files. The CD-ROM may be freely copied for
all interested in the QL as long as you don't make a profit out of it -
the intention is to promote and further the QL. Some of the software on
this CD-ROM may place certain restrictions on use or distribution, some
may be subject to GNU public license for example, so please read the
individual text files where relevant to make yourself aware of any such
restrictions. In particular, please note that the Sinclair QL ROM images
supplied are NOT licensed for use in North America. The rights to the
Sinclair ROM images for the USA and Canada are jointly held by Frank Davis
and Paul Holmgren and applications to use these ROM images should be
directed to them at: Frank Davis: fwdavis@hotmail.com Paul Holmgren:
paulholm@indy.net A QL-compatible ROM image called Minerva (version 1.89)
is supplied for cases of difficulty, which may be used worldwide. Minerva
is a QDOS compatible ROM replacement for the QL, published by TF Services
in Britain. Further information from Tony Firshman:
tony@firshman.demon.co.uk
A collection of hundreds of free QL programs is included on this CD for use with the emulators, but not all of the programs might work with all of the emulators, especially the older programs. All of those programs are believed to be freeware, public domain, charityware, cardware or shareware and hopefully no copyrighted material which cannot be freely copied has been included. If you discover any material which should not be on this CD, please let me know as soon as possible so that the offending software may be removed. My email address is shown below.
In cases where you cannot get a program working, it best to try to contact the author of the programs concerned first to see if they can suggest a solution. Due to the sheer number of programs on this CD I have not even tried running many of them and would usually have no knowledge of the programs concerned to try to help. In the case of older software especially, it is usually best to run the emulator in a QL-screen compatible 512x256 4 or 8 colour mode with as few other programs or extensions as possible to reduce the risk of clashes or incompatibilities. A few older programs will only run on a 128K memory system.
CD-ROM FORMAT The CD-ROM is in ISO-9660 format (Joliet extensions), which I decided to use as a 'lowest common denominator' format readable by the maximum number of platforms I guess. This places restrictions on length of filenames I could use and on directory nesting depth in some cases, but at least most of you will be able to read it in some form. QemuLator for example requires that directory structure be maintained as per the original archive, so I could not reliably shorten the directory and filenames in all cases. Most of the QL software is placed in a QXL.WIN file which most of the emulators available (QXL, QPC, recent PC versions of QemuLator and uQLx should be able to read). For those cases where QXL.WIN access is not possible, I have made archived copies (e.g. ZIP or LHA files) available outside the QXL.WIN, so that as a last resort you can copy the QL programs as zip files onto floppy disk and unzip them on the target computer. Executable QL programs stored outside the QXL.WIN container file cannot be executed directly from the CD, as the executable file headers cannot be stored directly on non-QDOS formatted media. However, a system called QH (QDOS Headers) has been devised to help work around this limitation. See the CREATE_QH_bas, RESTORE_QH_bas and QH_txt files on this CD for how to operate this system as a last resort if you cannot use the main methods of access to the files on this CD. Alternatively, try software like Discover or QCDEZE available elsewhere on this site to help you read the CD on Qubide or Q60 systems, for example.
The original archives of each emulator have been stored in a directory called 'archives' on the CD. Expanded versions where relevant are contained within their own directories, but if your system has problems accessing the expanded versions from the CD, you can always resort to copying the archives from the CD to your hard drive and expand them from there on your system using your system's normal archive expansion software (e.g. LHA on Amiga, StuffIt on Apple Macs and ZIP on PCs).
QLay is a set of QDOS QL emulators for DOS, Windows and Linux by Jan Venema of The Netherlands. This is a freely distributable emulator with no restrictions. You can download the most recent versions from Jan's Web site: http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/A.Jaw.Venema
QLAY2 is a development of QLay to run on Windows 2000/Windows XP systems (also seems to work on Windows 98 SE). The update is by Jimmy Montesinos. The support website for QLAY2 is at http://www.jadiam.org/QL/QLay2/
QPC1 is a QL emulator using SMSQ/E running in DOS. This version has a few limitations as described in the documentation files in its folder. Support etc from Marcel Kilgus and Jochen Merz Software, both of whose internet addresses are listed under QPC2 below.
QPC2 is a QL emulator using SMSQ/E running on Windows 95/98/NT machines. This is a demo version of a commercial product written by Marcel Kilgus, available from Jochen Merz Software in Germany. It needs a minimum of a 486 processor. There are some restrictions on this version - see the documentation (mostly that you cannot save files to floppy or hard disk). QPC2v3 is a demo version of the 'colour drivers' version of QPC2, supporting 16-bit colour on suitably-equipped PC systems. The proper name for the so-called colour-drivers is Graphics Driver 2 or GD2 for short. There are some restrictions in this demo version, most notably that you cannot save files to floppy or hard disk. A sample QXL.WIN file system is supplied in the directories holding both versions of this emulator. Support, availability and price details available from the following Web sites: AUTHOR: http://www.kilgus.net PUBLISHER: http://www.j-m-s.com/smsq.htm
QemuLator Lite for Apple Macintosh is written by Daniele Terdina and is Shareware. There are versions for 68K Macs and for PowerMacs. Further details from the author's Web site at: http://users.infoconex.com/daniele/macql.html
QemuLator for Windows is also written by Daniele Terdina and is Shareware. Further details from the author's Web site at: http://users.infoconex.com/daniele/winql.html
QDOS4Amiga is a QDOS emulator for the Commodore Amiga, by Rainer Kowallik and Mark Swift. It is freeware. Up to date copies may be obtained from most Ami-Net sites: http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/info/www/dirs/aminet/misc/emu/QDOS4amiga1.readme
QDOS Classic for Amiga is a QL emulator for the Commodore Amiga by Mark Swift. QDOS Classic for Amiga is closely related to QDOS Classic for Q40 by the same author. Freeware. Support from: http://pages.unisonfree.net/mswift/files/QZ/index.html
QeM is an emulator for certain Atari ST machines, by Johan Klockars. Freeware. Details from: http://rand.thn.htu.se/
uQLx is a derivative of the emulation engine used in QemuLator. uQLx is produced by Richard Zidlicky to run on Linux/Unix platforms. Further details from: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2602/
win-uQLx is a port of uQLx to Windows systems by Peter Graf and Phoebus R. Dokos. Further details and updates from http://www.dokos-gr.net/ql/uqlx.html
uQLx for Mac OS X is a port by James Weatherley of uQLx to run on the Apple Mac OS X operating system. Further details from http://www.dokos-gr.net/ql/uqlxmac.html
The emulators are placed in the following directories. Any additional software or individual versions may be in sub-directories within these.
apple: QemuLator v3.0.3 for Mac OS (68k Macs and PowerPC based Macs)
atari: QeM for Atari ST
uqlx: uQLx for Linux/Unix platforms
qdos4amiga: Amiga QDOS
qdosclassic: QDOS Classic for Amiga
QemuLator: QemuLator v2 for Windows
qlay: QLay emulator for DOS, Windows and Linux
qlay2: QLay updated for Windows 2000/XP systems.
qpc1: The original version 1 of QPC, suitable for most DOS computers.
qpc2v3: QPC2v3 (16-bit colour QPC2 version) for Windows 9x/NT/Me/2000 systems.
uqlx: uQLx for Linux/Unix. Note: at the suggestion of the author, this emulator is only supplied as uqlx.tar.bz2 (bzippied) file on this CD, not ready de-archived like the others.
uqlxmac: uQLx for Apple Mac OS X systems, ported by James Weatherley. Supplied in zipped format, not ready de-archived like other emulators.
winuqlx: A version of the uQLx emulator ported for use on Windows systems by Peter Graf and Phoebus R. Dokos.
archives: Contains archived copies of the various emulators.
archiver: Various dearchiving programs such as zip for various computers. This directory is split into separate subdirectories for the various platforms: amiga, apple, atari, dos, linux and windows. Some of the programs are as 'self extracting' files for you to install on the intended system, please read the notes which accompany the programs. Some are freeware, some are shareware, see the documentation. Supplied in good faith, but as I am not an expert on any non-QDOS/SMS platform, I can't be sure these will work or advise how to prepare and install or use them.
qlmanual: A copy of the QL manual, split into manageable sections, is contained as plain text in the directory called 'qlmanual'. This manual was OCRed and so is subject to the usual typos and scanning errors although I have done my best to check for these. This directory also contains copies of manuals for Toolkit 2 (a highly desirable add-on for most QLers) and for Miracle Systems QL add-ons such as Trump Card, Gold Card, Super Gold Card, and QXL. These have been included with permission from Stuart Honeyball of Miracle Systems and will prove useful background reading even if you do not have these products, or may be useful as replacement manuals. The "qlmanual" directory contains a text file called readme.txt - as the name implies, please read this file as it contains a list of the files in this section (in fact, there are readme.txt files scattered throughout this CD-ROM, watch out for them!)
roms: QL ROM images are held in the 'roms' directory. Images of the JM and JS ROMs from Sinclair are included (note: not for use in USA/Canada without permission see above) along with version 1.89 of Minerva (for use worldwide).
epson: A useful reference document set (in Adobe Acrobat .PDF file format) for the Epson ESC/P2 printer command set. Included at the suggestion of Bruce Nicholls.
zips: The QL software supplied within the QXL.WIN file system may not be accessible to all of the emulators, so where possible I have put zipped copies of the files in this directory to make the programs available to users of systems unable to access a QXL.WIN file.
There are some useful programs mainly for Windows or DOS users - QLFLOPPY (by Jack Mitchell), QXLWINExplorer (by Frederick van Der Plancke) and QXLtool, QLtools and wxqt2 (by Jonathan Hudson). bmp2pic: A Windows program (Windows 95 or later) to convert Windows BMP files to QL screen pictures. See the readme.txt file for instructions. qlfloppy: A DOS command line program to allow you to read QL floppy disks from DOS. qltools: A program to aid with the transfer of files to and from QDOS formatted floppy disks. Go to the DOCS subdirectory to read the various documentation files. There are versions for DOS, Windows NT, OS2, Unix and VMS. qxltool: A command line driven program, with versions for DOS, Windows NT and even QDOS, to allow reading and writing from and to the QXL.WIN file container system. qxlwinex: QXLWINExplorer is a Windows program allowing you to read files from a QXL.WIN container and transfer them to a PC's hard disk. There is a pair of manuals, one in English and one in French. To start this program, double click on the file QxlWin.exe in the qxlwinex directory, or use RUN to start \qxlwinex\QxlWin.exe wxqt2: This program is a graphical front end to the QLtools and QXLtool programs, allowing transfer of files between QXL.WIN file systems, QDOS formatted floppy disk media and either Unix or Windows 95 (or later) formatted media. QLtools.exe, QXLtool.exe and wxqt2.exe should all be placed in the same directory, along with the wx22_0.dll library file (unusually, the .dll file is placed in the same directory as wxqt2.exe rather than in the Windows system directory.
FINALLY... Please help spread the QL gospel...you are encouraged to copy this CD for someone else!