This issue is the second issue to take 3 months to come out. I had not planned on a quarterly schedule, but it has come out that way. There are two primary reasons for this delay: 1) My daughter is now crawling and requires more supervision and this means I have to do my share. 2) I’ve hit a writer’s block as far as programming. I have all sorts of ideas, but most are longer programs. With the time that I have to sit at the computer, I really can only work on short (but interesting) programs, and I’ve had a lack of ideas for these type of programs. If anyone has any ideas, please send them my way.
In the article below on Maus.sys.ql, there is some discussion of putting QL executables on to FTP servers (Unix boxes). I’ve done some testing and have verified that when a file is transfered to MS-DOS or Unix, the header information is lost. This means that all executables will no longer execute.
Some people have taken this to mean that only source code and text files be put on FTP servers. I don’t agree with that. I’ve looked at a couple of QL data archivers (HAR, Lhx, and ZOO) and find that only HAR will restore the file header information with the file. This means that executable can be archived with HAR, put on an FTP server, unarchived later, unarchived, and run.
To test this, I took the archived YACC file, transfered it to MS-DOS, and back from MS-DOS. I then unarchived the YACC file (using HAR) and made sure the Yacc executable would execute. In fact, in the HAR documentation it mentions that it does retain all of the QL header information. HAR is Public Domain (but really Freeware).
Using HAR as a compressor/archiver, I have uploaded QED, EFORTH, YACC, and FLEX, to the QL FTP Server garbo.uwasa.fi. The files were uploaded to /ql/incoming.
As this issue is going to press, I have just received a copy of C68 3.0. I have heard that it is a little on the buggy side. I will give it a try. I have also heard that Bob Dyl of the “International QL Report” has received C68 3.02, which is supposed to fix all the bugs of 3.0. I am sending disks to Bob to get version 3.02 and hope to have a review for the next issue. In the same package that I received 3.0, received a copy of the Spectrum emulator for the QL. I have not had a chance to even look at the disk, so I will have more to say on it next issue.