From u5a77@uga.keele.ac.uk Fri May 07 20:34:40 1999 Received: from knotty.kis.keele.ac.uk ([160.5.47.1]) by frodo.teach.cs.keele.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 2.02 #13) id 10fqON-0007DV-00 for u5a77@teach.cs.keele.ac.uk; Fri, 7 May 1999 20:34:39 +0100 Received: from u5a77 by knotty.kis.keele.ac.uk with local (Exim 1.70 #4) id 10fqOJ-0002zt-00; Fri, 7 May 1999 20:34:35 +0100 Subject: thing To: u5a77@teach.cs.keele.ac.uk Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 20:34:35 +0100 (BST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 28296 Message-Id: From: A Halliwell Status: O ******************** QL CLUB INTERNATIONAL ******************** ISSUE 120 February 1999 MIKE KENNEALLY E-MAIL MIKEKENNEALLY1@COMPUSERVE.COM MIKEKENNEALLY1@BIGFOOT.COM WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/SILICONVALLEY/VISTA/4807/ ANY AND ALL SOFTWARE SENT TO THE CLUB/NEWSLETTER WILL BE TREATED AS PUBLIC DOMAIN UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. HI ALL, YES I'M LATE AGAIN. I OWE THANKS TO ANDY PRATT FOR THE QL HE SENT,I HAVE NOT YET TRIED IT OUT OWING TO THE FACT THE ONE HE SENT ME HAS A PC INTERFACE ON IT AND IT HAS 5 PINS,BUT ALL THE KEYBOARDS I HAVE HAVE 6 PINS.THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE GETS IN THE WAY! ANYONE GOT A SPARE 5 PIN KEYBOARD THEY ARE NOT USING? MY THANKS ALSO TO TERRY FOR THE MONETARY CONTRIBUTION,IT WILL GO TOWARDS WHAT I OWE ANDY. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF LETTERS THAT I MISSED FROM OTHER ISSUES IN THIS NEWSLETTER,I GET THERE IN THE END! I AM HOPING IN THE FUTURE TO ORGANISE A QL SHOW IN AND AROUND STOCKPORT SOMETIME IN AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER DEPENDING ON AVAILABLE DATES AND WHETHER OR NOT QUANTA WANT TO GET INVOLVED,DILWYN IS HANDLING THAT SIDE OF IT.HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A 2 DAY THING OR 1 AND A HALF AT LEAST,SO QL CLUB MEMBERS CAN HAVE SOME TIME TOGETHER BEFORE THE ACTUAL WORKSHOP.ANYWAY MORE DETAILS AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE. Email: torm1358@aol.com Dear All, I hope you all had good Christmases. I didn't get anything QL related, but did get some book tokens, which have been spent on some expensive books. I did try and contribute to last month's issue, and although Mike acknowledged receiving the letter, it seems to have got lost amongst his computer problems,so I am sending it again with this letter. However, all were to do with my interest in Korea, and not on computers or the QL. I have spent most of the month working on my web page and trying to learn HTML. I have now divided some of the pages in two; though I don't really have enough sections to make the left window scrolling. We have a bargain book shop in Woking, and finally, they a useful book on creating web pages.It seems to include some information on HTML and even JAVA. I am still looking for web addresses, so if anyone knows of any good QL sites, please tell me. I have been thinking about my computer page, and hopefully I will find time to re-order it in a more logical fashion. Any information about the Acorn/Sinclair competition and the history of the British computer industry would be appreciated. I would also like to have a picture of a QL on the site. Does anyone know where I can get a digitised picture of a QL (JPEG format)?? I AM SURE THERE ARE SOME QL PICTURES ON SOME OF THE QL SITES,BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE,BUT I AM SURE SOMEONE CAN TELL YOU.AS FOR GOOD QL PAGES WHAT ABOUT OURS? AND THERE ARE LOADS OF OTHERS OUT THERE. Martin Burke asked, ' I was copying a backup disk with many differently dated files. I do not want to reset the QL clock for each file: there has to be a simpler way.Doesn't there?' I think that the JS rom always creates a new date, but Minerva keeps the original date. The only snag is that TK2 tends to overwrite the Minerva code.Have a word with Tony Firshman about dated files and see what he says. There is some QL news I think. The Q40 seems ready for launch. The specs make interesting reading. This will be the fastest QL board to date and can run SVGA monitors and hard disks. Although speed has been increased, it will still be much slower than PC's or Apples, but that has not been a problem because the QL rom is so efficient it doesn't need hugely fast processors that other operating systems need to require. It should also make ProWes nicer to use. The Q40 also seems to remove memory limits for the foreseeable future.The Q40 comes with a standard, patched(sic), JS(?) rom (now renamed a 'QL ClassicROM'), BUT Tony Tebby is working on hi-res and colour drivers for the new board. This, hopefully, will also benefit Aurora users as well. The only downsize is that the QL hardware community has again been split into two. Aurora is not needed, but I think the Goldfire board is still under development so Aurora users, like me, might hang on until that board arrives on the scene. That said, I hope the Q40 sells well and keeps the remaining users interested in the QL. SO DO I MATE,THERE SEEMS TO BE TO MANY SLOWLY DISSAPEARING JUST LATELY. Well, that's about it for now. I did consider rabbiting on about Apple and iMacs, but I think I will leave that for another day. Best Wishes, Andrew Email dilwyn.jones@dj.softnet.co.uk GEAR: Black P100 PC with QPC, Canon BJ10sx printer; Toshiba T2400CS laptop PC with QPC, HP Deskjet 320 printer; MinisQL with Super Gold Card+Qubide; QL+Gold Card+RomDisq Darren Branagh and I went to the Hove Quanta Workshop end of February. This was a lovely little weekend out though it ended badly with Darren missing his ferry back. Still, you got an extra day in Wales out of it didn't you Darren? I promise I won't mention the sheep... SHEEP WOULD MAKE A NICE CHANGE FROM CHASING LEPRECHAUNS,BESIDES I BET HE ENJOYED THE EXTRA DAY. Tony Firshman brought a sample Q40 along with him. This is a cute little board with a 68040 on it, 2 almost complete operating systems (QDOS Classic by Mark Swift and SMSQ/E for Q40 by Tony Tebby) and a complete implementation of Linux (by Richard Zidlicky). The Q40 is the first new native QL hardware since the Aurora, and those present seemed to be drooling over it! Roy Wood and Tony Firshman gave a sometimes amusing talk about it (e.g. Roy described one of the operating systems progress as 'stable - it doesn't work at all'). THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT FOR QL HARDWARE IN DEVELOPMENT. In all, QBranch, TF Services, Miracle Systems, Q-Celt Software, Geoff Wicks,Bill Richardson, Enrico Tedeschi (author of Sinclair Archaelogy and owner of Hove Books), Quanta, RWAP Software, Qubbesoft P/D, Jochen Merz and several well known software authors were all present. There was a day-long programme of talks and the workshop was quite well attended - the venue was the Excelsior Hotel on Hove seafront. IT WOULD BE NICE TO GET ALL THIS LOT TO THE ONE I AM ORGANISING. Software tidbits at the show: Jonathan Hudson was completing a utility to allow transfer of files between QL and a Palm Pilot handheld PDA (I think that stands for Personal Digital Assistant? Anyone know?). Ron Dunnett had a Beta of a Phil Borman utility for decoding GIF files. Rich Mellor had a route map of Ireland for his Q-Route program and also had the latest set of updates for his SuperBASIC/SBASIC Reference Guide. That's all I've got to say this time, you'll be glad to hear. Dilwyn Jones Andrew Halliwell Gear: SuperGold card QL with Minerva 1.97, QubIDE, Star 24 pin printer + lots of nice free software (Fileinfo, etc). And now... A 486sx running Linux. (It's a PC that *ISN'T* a Potential Catastrophy... :) NOW WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE? Well.... I didn't manage to write in last month, and this month, I might be too late. Work, holidays, laziness, etc... Well... New things... I will admit not having messed with the ol' faithful for a few weeks.John kindly gave me an old 486, which I promptly did what I always said I'd do, and formatted the harddrive and installed Linux. I've been playing with that a lot since. Installing, uninstalling and recompiling it. AND YOU THINK IT WON'T CRASH! Anyone thinking of moving over to linux in favour of M$ rubbish? I strongly recommend the SuSE distribution. It contains several programs that make it extremely easy to install and configure Linux. Oh.... If you DO want to try Linux, but don't want to get rid of all your M$ Winblows software, it is possible (and infact, quite easy) to set it up to give you alternative OSs at startup, using a program called LILO. (LInux LOader). A new version of MicroEmacs has been put up on Thierrys page, as has another further debugged version of Paragraph (The wordprocessor for Prowess). It's not stable yet, but seems to be improving (Not that I have Prowess to try it with). I HAVE THE OLD MICROEMACS,CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT IT DOES AND HOW ITS USED? And now...On with the show.... Only one little thing to say on QL116.... (Yes,yes, I know I'm being pedantic... It's a hobby, OK?) Martin Wheatly said a couple of months ago.... "Possibly as a consequence of this turning down of permission Tony Firshman has made the 1.89 version of Aurora freely downloadable" If only... :) I wish I could download a hardware addon like Aurora, but StarTrek transporter technology is very primative at the moment. You did,of course,mean Minerva.... On to QL117 Dilwyn said about Frank Davies... "As to Frank Davies, he and I have managed to tread on each other's toes once or twice too. Frank is a busy guy, he and his wife sell products for 3 or 4 different computers and in my experience he's reasonable if asked politely (that WASN'T a dig at you BTW)." Unfortunately, that wasn't how he came across on the list. He basically blew his top. (All I did was ask "Why just not release the ROMs for emulator use instead of insisting people ask?") and he replied by accusing me of being rude, said it was none of my business, and then went into a long rant which implied that I condoned software piracy. Not exactly polite, that, is it? All he had to say was that he'd paid for it. (Although that was pretty obvious from the outset). I tried to point out that it is quite possible to sell the ROMS *AND* release the code, but to no avail. Anyway. That argument ended a couple of months ago, so that's the last I'll say on it. LIKE EVERYONE ELSE SPIKE,HE HAS TO MAKE A LIVING WHEN ALL SAID AND DONE.PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE. Hmmmmm... Unfortunately, apart from saying "Ooops" to my comment on Q-Emulator being Freeware when it's actually Shareware, there's not much more to add this month... Still... It beat Mr Wheatleys post for length...:) Happy New Year. Thanks for the latest edition Mike, much appreciated, not taken it all in yet but no doubt will over the weekend, that is if I don't get dragged out as the weather is so nice here today [Saturday] hopefully you are getting the same. What is the trouble you keep having your end, is it just the pc playing up, as keep seeing comments made by others about you and your computer, perhaps those who are moaning should treat you to a new model!!!!! NICE THOUGHT MATE,ANY TAKERS? Regards, Tony@Borehamwood. Terry Williams 27/02//99 WTCWilliam@aol.com GEAR: 2 JS QLs, 1JM QL,SGC,GC,TRUMPCARD,TWIN ED DRIVES,TWIN HD DRIVES,TWIN DD DRIVES,14", QMIMI MOUSE, GOLD STAR COLOUR MONITOR , 9"SONY TRITRON MONITOR, 12" FERGUSON GREEN MONITOR, SPECTRUM 48K WITH TELETEXT ADAPTOR, Fountain PC,CD Drive, HD Drive, modem, sound card etc QL 120? Hi! Mike and Friends Mike: I have not received my QL119? (last months disk) back as yet. Are you in trouble with PC again?. I will add my last months contribution once more on this disk as well as this one (QL120?) and you can use it or delete it as you like. SORRY TERRY,MY FAULT I FOUND YOUR DISC UNDER A LOAD OF STUFF ON MY DINING ROOM TABLE AFTER I HAD FINISHED THE LAST ISSUE. I am happy to report that my problems with logging on to the NET are now over!!. After contacting BT and receiving the report that my line was OK I received a further call from them at 18.20 on the following Saturday and the engineer said he had just 'tweeked it a bit', and since then I have only failed a couple of times to log on even though I have all the family gear connected including an extra phone in the modem socket!! Amazing!! I have visited the QL International page on the WWW and wonder what I must do to make a copy of it to my hard disk and how long this would take (ie cost?). I have printed out some pages on line, of various items, but this takes an age before the printer even wakes up after the menu "PRINTING TO SPOOLER" comes on so I dread to think how long it would take to print out all the QL INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE. YOU COULD ALWAYS DO WHAT I DO AND DOWNLOAD TO DISC AND THEN PRINT OUT OFF LINE,SPIKE IS THE ONE WHO SET THE PAGE UP SO HE IS THE ONE TO GIVE INFO ON HOW TO USE IT.HE CAN WRITE IN AND TELL US ALL,CAN'T YOU SPIKE? TTFN Terry FRANK MERRISON, 26-2-1999 GEAR includes 3 x JM QL's: Gold Card: DMP: Epson Stylus 800 printer: 2 x HD disc drives. 486 DX33 & Knee deep in paper & problems! Mike I have just spent some time tidying up some of my discs. This led me to going through some back issues where I noticed that there have been an occasional question asked by a member. At the time I was so certain that someone would jump at the chance of explaining the problem that I did nothing about it myself. YOU KNOW SOMETHING FRANK,I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK EXACTLY THE SAME AS YOU. As an example; in QL118 Colin asked about the method of changing fonts and their size using the ESC P2 drivers. In a fit of energy I sorted out my manual and looked up the codes to use. My first reaction was one of slight horror because there was little in the way of explanation as to how these were used. I thought of taking the easy way out and sending Colin a photo-copy and letting him see if he could follow just what to do. Lo! and behold! (and other old fashioned rude words) another member gave all this info in the next issue - QL119_doc. In the previous issue - QL118 - you (Mike) wrote that you had four u/s QLs. What do you mean by ..."2 with no keyboards"?.... Do you mean that they have "Taken up their beds and walked" or they don't work? How on earth did you break the pins off the interface plug? Thats a nice little job soldering in a new one. I HAVE 2 QL'S WITH NO KEYBOARDS,ie NO TOPS.PEOPLE HAVE BORROWED THEM OVER TIME AND NEVER RETURNED THEM.I HAVE ONE WITH A SCHON INTERFACE THAT HAS COME APART AND YOU KNOW ME,I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PUT IT BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.AND THE FINAL ONE I LENT TO MY NEPHEW FOR HIS COLLEGE WORK AND HE BROKE ONE OF THE PINS IN THE EXPANSION SLOT.THEREFORE 4 QL'S IN BITS. If the keyboards are still around and they don't work it is sometimes possible to cut about a 1/4" off the ends of the membrane where it usually cracks when it gets bent on fitting it into the slots. Even fitting a new membrane is simple if you go carefully. Regarding the other usual faults I have found two main reasons for failure both easily cured. No1 is dirty pins on the removeable chips. Don't take them right out of the sockets as they can be damaged trying to align the pins when refitting. Just ease them up in their holders and press them home again. Do this a couple of times and the corrosion is cleaned off. No2 is a damaged chip due to the reason given last month - switching on or off a printer or monitor with the QL on line. You need a working QL in which you test ALL the removeable chips from your non-working machines. Throw away the dud ones and you should have enough good spares to get at least a couple of your machines "on the road" again. Tony will sell you replacements for the duds. Have you taken the u/s QLs to your local workshop? This type of repair is going on at most London meetings. THE ONLY PERSON I HAVE SEEN REPAIRING QL'S AT MANCHESTER IS JOHN SOUTHERN,MAYBE IF I GET ON MY KNEES AND PLEAD WITH HIM,HE MAY JUST....... You also said that one of your machines had a Schoen interface "in bits" Does this refer to the QL or the Interface? Is the interface the QL or the actual keyboard not working? Have fun!!!! Frank Merrison. Terry Williams 27/01//99 WTCWilliam@aol.com QL 119? Hi! Mike and Friends I think I had better throw my hat in!!. I have missed the last two months due to being busy taking Marian back and fore to the doctor, hospital, dentist, and chiropodist, not to mention the Xmas school holidays with Sam, my grandson, ordering me about. Marian is now on insulin injections so we have to keep regular meal times, and do blood tests at various times. Things have calmed down a bit now. I'M GLAD SHE'S FEELING BETTER MATE,HOPE YOU PUT IN YOUR BILL FOR ALL THE TAXI RIDES! It's been a mad on the computer front as well!. Barrie, my son-in-law is taking an open university course and has just upgraded to a PC with all the bells and whistles and a 17inch monitor. He has bequeathed his Windows 3.1 machine to me! It is complete with cd drive and modem so I am now on the net! and learning to surf!!. It is quite an old machine, all of 5 years!!! Only an 80 meg Pentium. I am now on AOL and sending Email etc to the family, but am finding it a pain to log on, it only works first time occasionally,the message 'No carrier found trying second number' and it ploughs on and dials the same numbers again!! mostly to no avail. It sometimes takes 15 or even more tries before getting AOL!! TRY CHANGING YOUR SERVER TO ONE OF THE FREE ONES,ie FREESERVE AND THE LIKE. Barrie tells me that he had no trouble. In desperation I put the whole box of tricks in the car on Sunday and took it over to my daughters place in Amondsbury, tried it there. Success!! it worked faultlessly!!. Brought it back home and it took 12 attempts to log on. Rang BT and told them the sorry tale, they tested my line and said it was OK!!! but they would get their expert in another dept to scratch his head!!. Still waiting. It does not seem to make any difference whether it is the only Item plugged in, or several phones and an answer machine, it can sometime work first time or take umpteen tries. If anyone has any ideas I will be grateful to hear them!! MIKE: I have been meaningto ask for some time, "Is OK to send you HD disks instead or in preference of DD disks?" I suspect that as you use a PC, you now have only one HD drive. NO PROBLEM MATE,IT READS BOTH HD AND DD OR YOU COULD EVEN E-MAIL IT TO ME NOW! Must run to the post or I will miss the 28 th once more!! TTFN Terry ------------------------------- #! Martin Burke, 0973 144940 (mobile) 20th February, 1999. Dear Mike and Friends, JM version + Trump 768 + HermesLite + twin HD & ED 3.5" drives, JS + Gold Card, Philips CM8833 colour monitor (under repair) and its Tandy twin, 8056 printer, Epson RX80 F/T, and Brother HR10 daisy-wheel printer; PSION3a, Z88. I still agree with Frank: how do we QUANTIfy the concepts, uses and usage of QPACII? I have rarely used it since being able to: it has a number of features - especially the listing/ordering of directories - that it is wonderful to have immediate access to. But being able to use those facilities without meeting complications is unusual. Most of the complications may not matter much of the time. But it would be helpful if in the manual they were clearly indicated. I was a little surprised that each time I did a directory of flp1_ I got a new "button/frame" for it at the top of the screen each time. If this meant that each directory was now available without the disk, that has uses. But it did not seem to work like that. I do not want to re-read the manual each time something like this happens. It might not be too bad if there was a full and complete index leading to sections where all the ramifications could be identified. But it does not seem to work like that. WHEN DOES ANYTHING WORK AS YOU REALLY WANT IT TO.I THINK THE BIGGEST PROBLEM I HAVE WITH IT IS WHEN YOU ACCESS WIN1,OR FLP1 AND IT LEAVES YOU WITH A BOX ON THE SCREEN.OK,ITS HANDY HAVING IT THERE TO RE-OPEN THE FILES BUT SOMETIMES I THINK IT LOOKS PRETTY CLUTTERED.BEFORE ANYONE SAYS IT,I KNOW YOU CAN GO INTO RJOB AND REMOVE IT. QPACII almost certainly has advantages for the "technician" but those same facilities can obscure its usefulness to others. I - like many others - do not want to "learn about QPACII", I merely want to use some of its facilities. That certainly involves some learning but diversion is not wanted. I want to know how to use QPACII to do the things I want: I do not want to learn about facilities I have no use for and I do not want to plough through verbiage, trying and failing to make sense of it. TRY ASKING A QUESTION ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT IT TO DO AND MAYHAP SOMEONE WILL ANSWER IT. It worries me that Mike has found so many people combining arrogance and stupidity. People who drive motor vehicles are not reequired to understand the third law of thermodynamics. The vehicle is a means of transportation. For me the QL is rarley a plaything and while I have some interests in the mechanics of it, for me the importance is getting the mundane work done. I THINK THIS IS TRUE OF MOST USERS OF ANY COMPUTER MARTIN,AS FOR THERMODYNAMICS,YOU'D BE BUGGERED WITHOUT THE SPARK PLUGS! Yours, Martin Burke. #! P. McPHERSON, 22nd FEBRUARY 1999. Fraternal Greetings Everybody, Current equipment: JM QL with Gold Card, Cumana disk drives and an Amstrad DMP3160 printer. I received my copy of issue 119 as per usual, attenpted to load it and once again into Xchange and Quill only to come up with an "i/o incomplete" message, Perfection would not load QLCI-119 either. This is something that has happened several times of late, a problem that never used to occur, and ia one that does not happen with any other files old, or new. When I have looked at the discs themselves, very few sectors seem to have been used in saving the issues of QLCI and I occasionally get the first few lines of the document which indicates a saving problem to me, but as you all know I am no expert. Could this problem be the result of Mikes upgrading? I WOULDN'T HAVE THOUGHT SO MATE,AS YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT SEEMS TO BE HAVING THE PROBLEM.I CAN READ YOUR DISCS,I CAN SAVE TO YOUR DISCS AND RELOAD FROM YOUR DISCS.HAS ANYONE GOT ANY IDEAS AS TO WHAT MIGHT BE CAUSING THIS? DOES HIS DRIVE NEED CLEANING,RE-ALIGNING OR WHAT? All I know for sure is that the problem is extremely frustrating and leaves me a couple of months behind everybody else when it comes to the latest QL news, views and scandal! Can anybody suggest a cure before I end up completely bald, whimpering in the corner of my living room and foaming at the mouth! Anyway, Mike I have enclosed a couple of formatted discs, can you let me have issue 119 on one and issue 120 on the other? Thanks in anticipation. I MEAN,WHEN YOU SEND ME ANOTHER DISC FOR BOTH ISSUES,THEY MUST BOTH LOAD OR YOU WOULD KEEP SENDING ME DISCS FOR THE SAME ISSUES OVER AND OVER AGAIN. BEST WISHES PAUL !#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!# J.C.Marcus I KNOW THAT YOU LIKE ME TO PUT THIS ON YOUR RETURN ADDRESS,BUT OUR POSTMAN HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE THAT IN REALITY ITS NORTHERN SPAIN! 15-2-99 GEAR: Aurora + SGC, Minerva 1.97/SMSQ/E, Hermes, Qubide/100M ZIP DRIVE, 2xHD, CUB 653, Epson LQ500; JS QL with GC and 2xDD Hello Again All, Well, some interesting letters in QL118 & 119. I found the one about the "Y2K bug" very informative, but possibly a bit too optimistic (and obviously USA-centric). I know that very few companies down here have even started looking into this problem, never mind all the countries of the developing world etc. From what I can understand, it is not necessarily just a matter of sorting out your system, but also making sure that the guy next door, who happens to be supplying your company, also does the same. Since most of our raw materials come from "poorer" countries, that may not have the resources to throw at this problem, who knows? I guess we'll find out soon enough. Also, no mention was made of the mobile phone network, which according to some, might also fail- or is/will this just be used by the telecommunication companies to get us to upgrade to newer systems? Cynical? Well, one has to be.... WHY NOT?,THEY DID IT WITH COMPUTERS! Frank Merrison:- It seems that the PE/QPAC2 has definitely become the number one contentious issue of the moment. As far as multitasking is concerned, every computer in fact has to multitask - i.e. carry out various tasks in the background - e.g. RAM refreshes, updating screen, polling i/o etc., etc. It is really us, the USERS that have the problem multitasking! I really don't think that we were designed to do more than one thing (properly) at a time! Even so, if you have a large screen (Aurora, QXL etc.), or want to run programs in the background (e.g. comms, spoolers, number-crunching), or want to keep several often-used programs available in the background, or as "Buttons", the PE/QPAC2 definitely does help you control your "personal computer" (in small letters) environment. However, if you are happy with your present set-up, and it serves you well, there is really no need to change - except of course that we are a curious lot, and if we see someone doing something a little differently, we generally want to know why! The main problem with the PE/QPAC2, of course, is sorting out your "boot" program - what to include and HOW to achieve the optimum set up for yourself. There are some example boot programs on the QPAC2 disc, and the PD program "QPACer" (Qubbesoft PD and Quanta library, I believe) helps set up a boot for the PE/QPAC1/2. The QPACer documentation is worth looking at in any case, as it has some simple explanations of the PE keywords etc. (as far as I can remember!) The best way of getting to grips with the PE, really, is to use a simple boot at first, and then add to it as you go on/get to see the light (do I sound like some sort of religious nut - if so I'll stop here). NO MATE,YOU CARRY ON.I WAS JUST BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND IT.JUST REMEMBER CLUBQL HAD QPACER FIRST! Paul McPherson mentions software licences (among other things). What I've been told is that these are often "non-transferable", which makes buying and selling some 2nd-hand software "illegal", or have I got the wrong end of the stick here. I wonder if anyone has any comments on the subject. Mike:- your list of QL bits and pieces has given me an idea (for which I MOST definitely retain the Copyright - never mind what anyone says!) You should stick it all on a board (painted BLACK, of course) and sell the resulting "Work Of Art" to the nearest gallery for a couple of K (at least). That way you might be able to afford to buy a decent computer for once and all...... HA BLOODY HA!,BUT THERE AGAIN NOT A BAD IDEA.I HAVE JUST READ IN THE PAPER TODAY OF A 21 YEAR OLD GIRL/WOMAN IN THE TOWN NEXT TO ME,GOING INTO PHOTO BOOTHS IN SHOPS.STRIPPING OFF WHILE PHOTOS ARE TAKEN,ENLARGING THEM AND SELLING THEM TO CRAZY AMERICANS FOR `2000 APIECE AS WORKS OF ART,SO THE IDEA ISN'T SO DAFT AFTER ALL.A QL HAS TO LOOK BETTER THAN MY BODY! Bye for now, JC !#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!# -- |u5a77@teach.cs.keele.ac.uk| | | Andrew Halliwell | "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't | | Finallist in:- | suck is probably the day they start making | | Computer science | vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ | |5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |