Sinclair QL-SD, Руководство пользователя

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QL-SD User Manual 13
more write accesses to come because it does not want to constantly update the map on the card
and thus wear the card’s Flash memory more than necessary). You might have noticed, that after
about one second after the last write access the drive LED is switched on for a short period of time.
Do not switch off the QL before this has completed! Failing to do so will most probably result in
loss of the last writes or worse. If you want to do something extra for your data safety, you can
issue a UMOUNT 1 command and then remove the card before actually switching off.
5.
Data Exchange with your PC
Nowadays, when most of the software for your QL comes from the Internet, you might probably be
wondering how you can transfer files from your Internet-connected PC to your QL. For a „normal“
PC without additional software, it is not possible to access the contents of a QL_BDI.BIN file and
thus read and write files in the QL file system contained therein.
5.1. Transfer Using Disk Drives
The least complicated way would be: Use floppy disks, if you have. QL software is typically that
small that a lot of software can be pushed onto a single (even DD) floppy disk. You can also
transfer zip files in compressed form, and you get even more software onto the disk. If you have
owned that disk drive for a while, you might already know how to best transfer from a DOS- or
Windows-based computer to a QL disk (There are some programs out there that facilitate FAT- to
QL disk transfers. Search your favourite QL software archive)
5.2. Transfer Using a BDI Driver
Disk drives and disk interfaces are becoming a scarce resource nowadays and are heavily sought
after - If you watch the prices for used devices on popular auction platforms, they are often even
higher than what the equipment used to cost new decades ago. So there must be an alternative to
using disks - and there is:
Some QL Emulators for PCs might have a BDI driver that is able to access the contents of your QL
disk images. By the time of writing this document, there are preliminary versions of such drivers
available for
Q-Emulator and uqlx . Other drivers might become developed for other QL Emulators.
Please refer to the documentation that came with the BDI driver for your Emulator on how to
transfer files between the systems.
6. QL-SD Usage Recommendations
For a lot of users that are used to be using only floppy disks (or even microdrives), the huge capa-
city of storage that you can have with QL-SD might be some sort of „Culture Clash“. This chapter
gives some general recommendations on how to adapt your organisation of data and ways of work-
ing with this huge amount of storage. While we are trying to give some hints, this is obviously not
the place to explain all of the possible QL mass storage extensions.
6.1. No more Reboots
From now on, the days of „Insert Disk and re-boot“ will probably be gone for you. You can go on
working like that, but you will be losing a lot of potential of your new set-up. Instead, invest a bit of
time to develop a proper BOOT program that sets you up for rather longer sessions. There are a
number of good examples for such BOOT files around - Check your favourite QL software
repository or discuss the issue in one of the QL fora.
6.2. Make Directories your Friends
Large disk space will become largely unmanageable if you don’t organise your files into directories
(It is not the slightest bit of fun to „CTRL-F5“ yourself through screens and screens of file names