QL Commercial Software Preservation

[RWAP]

He may not wish to detract from his Atari software I guess - I don't know his rationale.

I have asked if he would be interested in it being made commercially available again.

He is the first person who has responded and refused permission. But quite a few people just do not respond, or if they do, it is to say they don't know who has the rights any more....

[RWAP]

We need some more help on the preservation side of things - there must have been more software published in Europe and the USA than we are aware of ....

[Ralf R.]

I have an Adventure game named "Starplod", formerly sold by Ultrasoft - Martin Berndt. I have permission from Martin to release all kind of stuff he ever wrote as freeware (as long as I got it), so maybe this is one thing for you .

Cheers...Ralf

[RWAP]

Ralf - yes please - did not realise that there was another Starplod - Alan Pemberton released one (already on the Sinclair QL Homepage) which was an icon controlled adventure - point and click as they say nowadays

[RWAP]

Not too much achieved this week - we need more help tracking down and speaking to various copyright authors all over the world (who may not have English or Welsh as their first language)!

We have managed to get the go ahead to release TurboQuill (and TurboQuill+) as freeware - these have not yet been added to the Sinclair QL Homepage.

Starplod which Ralf sent, was actually the same as the version sold by CGH Services - so nothing new there unfortunately - it is one of the adventures penned by Alan Pemberton and now available on the Sinclair QL Homepage - http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/games/index.html

On the plus side, we have managed to find some more international versions of the Psion software (Quill, Archive, Easel, Abacus and Xchange) - although still more to be found out there....

[XorA]

Do you need a QCODE Terminal manual scanning?

[Ralf R.]

Not too much achieved this week - we need more help tracking down and speaking to various copyright authors all over the world (who may not have English or Welsh as their first language)!

Makes me wonder, why QL.Cavern is there but not the rest of Janko's games? I have tried a lot to get in touch with him with several working email addresses, but got no answer.

[RWAP]

Yes, so have I over the years - he just doesn't seem to be bothered to respond - such a shame!

[RWAP]

Do you need a QCODE Terminal manual scanning?

Yes please

[Ralf R.]

Ok, so I had to do it the hard way....using an USB diskdrive with QPC2. I do not know, whether it is WinXP or QPC2 or the drive or my damned Dell (I think it is Billyboy...he could be blamed for everything), the drive is responding very slow, I remind a good SQB.

From Ultrasoft (Martin Berndt) I can supply:

• QLone+, fast MDV copy program, incl. copying protected MDVs
  QKick (maybe not compatible with PE, works as a task, disabling interrupts but can access nearly every FLP or MDV, even if corrupt)
  DiskTool (PE program)
  Perfect Pointer Tools (PE programs á la QPac 2)
  Card (written by Harald Wilhelm, a card file database program, released as "QFlick" from DP)
  Toolkit 3

The main problem: Although Martin has given permission to me to release the programs as freeware (to be honest: "Do what you ever want with it" ), a few of them were sold to Digital Precision (except QLone+ and QKick)

So it would be wise, to get in touch with Freddy to get permission to release these programs.

I also have Expresso Coppee, a fast MDV copy program (which opens a window covering #0 on a standard QL, so looks as if it works like SuperBASIC) and Sidewinder Deluxe from Steve Jones' Zitasoft, last version not officially sold (was special for me ). And of course a lot of other things.

The (elsewhere) mentioned "TurboXChange" was also done by Martin. He reversed the protection for a Thor and added a special fast screen driver, so the program runs a lot faster on a standard QL. Well done in these days. OK, SD_EXTOP should have been a must, but...

And if someone needs a copy of the original disk "SuperMouse 1.0", supplied wth the SQB with mouse, I have it. No Ptr_gen, as this was on the EPROM of the SQB.

OK, enough for the moment.