QLAY Sinclair QL emulator for Windows95, DOS and Linux > QLAY2 Port of QLAY for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Version 0.90, 19990130 1. Copyrights This program is freeware. You may do with it whatever you want for personal use. Copyright Jan Venema. Permission is granted to redistribute this program free of charge, provided it is distributed in the full archive with unmodified contents. No profit beyond the price of the media on which it is distributed is made. There are no warranties of any kind for this program. If you use this program, you do so at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any damages that might result from using this program. The QL ROMs and PSION programs are (C) Amstrad Plc. Distribution and use on a non-commercial basis is allowed. > Code adding to port of QLAY is released as a GPL licensed <http://www.fsf.org/> 2. Overview QLAY exists in three versions: Windows95, MS-DOS and Linux. In a general sense, they have the same features, options and use. Specific exceptions are noted where applicable. > And now 4 version QLAY2 which has some limitations due of NT Kernel Architecture. > Such as sound that he cannot be emulated now. The idea behind QLAY is to fully support the Sinclair QL hardware. All original I/O is emulated. There is no focus on adding emulation for hardware extensions like floppy or hard drives, video cards etc. One exception is made: Native File Access allows access to the files of the applicable OS: Windows95, DOS or Linux. With these hardware components emulated, all original QL/QDOS software can be executed on QLAY. Newer OSes like SMS are thus supported as long as they run fine on the original QL hardware. QLAY emulates the hardware of a Sinclair QL with 128, 640k or upto 8 Mbyte of memory. It works with all known boot ROMs and ToolkitII ROMs. In this version the following is emulated: - Microdrives as basic file I/O. Up to 8 can be used. - NFA. Access to MS-DOS/Linux file system as WIN1_ till WIN8_. - Various screen sizes are supported to display in QL mode 256 and mode 512. Emulates: bank screen and 2nd screen bank (Alt Tab). - Keyboard via IPC. - International keyboards emulated: US, UK, GE, FR, IT. - Mouse via memory mapped I/O. - Emulation speed control and delay. - IPC Beep sound emulation. > Retired from QLAY2 - - Large memory: up to 8 Mbyte. - Full MC68000 emulation, including *all* exceptions and trace. - Place ROM cartridge files anywhere in memory. 3. Using QLAY 3.1 Requirements - 386 CPU > Pentium CPU - 4MB of memory. > 9MB of memory - 4MB of harddrive space for program and additional swap space depending on emulated memory size. Swap file is called C:\cwsdpmi.swp (DOS). With 8MB or more memory no harddrive swapping needed with default emulation memory size. - supported operating systems: * MS-DOS version, any of: DOS, Windows3.x, Windows95, OS/2, DOSEMU (linux) * Linux version: Linux with svgalib. * Windows95 version: Microsoft Windows-95[TM]. QLAY emulates comfortably and faster than the original QL on a 486/DX2-66MHz system with 16Mbyte memory. 3.2 Installation and use Unzip the QLAY???.ZIP archive into a suitable directory. To start use: QLAY -rJS.ROM After initializations the familiar Sinclair logo should appear. Press F1 or F2 and off you go! QLAY -h Gives short help on other options. (Not on Windows95 version). If you downloaded the PSION package: QLAY -1quill.mdv -rJS.ROM After initializations the QUILL text editor that came with the original QL appears. Similar for abacus, easel and archive. See section 3.3 for more options. Special key combinations: <CTRL> <ALT> <SHIFT> <X> End QL emulation. (Not on Windows95 version). <CTRL> <ALT> <SHIFT> <L> Refresh screen (when switching between Windows or OS/2 and QLAY DOS box). <CTRL> <ALT> <SHIFT> <R> RESET, like pushbutton on right hand side of QL The microdrive file format is based on what is created during a FORMAT command. It support 254 sectors of 512 bytes: almost 128kbytes. The native OS MDV files have to be exactly 174930 bytes long. 3.2.1 MS-DOS QLAY can be used from within a DOS box in Windows3.x, Windows95, OS/2 or dosemu of Linux. Via a 'PIF' or 'Shortlink' it can be started directly from the graphical interface. A sample 'dosemu.conf' file for Linux is included. In addition, QLAY can be run from DOS, when the PC is booted in DOS. QLAY requires a DPMI server. Windows has that support built in. Under DOS it requires the 'CWSDPMI.EXE' included in the zip archive. 3.2.2 Linux QLAY must be started with 'root' privilege from a console window. 'svgalib' must be installed. 3.2.3 Windows95 QLAYW is a true Windows95 implementation of QLAY. The QL emulation window executes with a GUI on the Windows desktop. Installation: - Unzip the archive. - Move 'rsxnt.dll' in your windows\system directory. - Place 'qlayw.exe' in your qlay directory. 3.2.4 Window95 Configuration Dialog Every time qlayw is started, a configuration dialog is shown. All options of qlayw can be modified and/or saved. The program can be started from the Windows95 desktop via a shortlink, without any knowlegde about command line options or configuration files. Push [OK] to start, using the changes made to the configuration. Push [CANCEL] to start, ignoring any changes made in the dialog. Push [SAVE] to save new configuration, and then start with new configuration. All configuration information is stored in file 'qlay.rc'. 3.3 Command line options > Command line options are NOT handle in QLAY2 use QLAY2.INI file to set > some settings. All command line options can be placed in a configuration file: 'qlay.rc'. Simply place each command line option on a separate line. QLAY will use these settings at emulation start. All program options are the same for Windows95, DOS and LINUX versions. -d num Various screen sizes are supported. Mode 1 gives best aspect ratio, but is slower than other modes. Modes 6 and 7 emulate correct aspect ration via a high resolution screen on high-performance PCs. -o Use the 'old' graphics driver. QLAY082 and up have new, faster drivers, but not tested on different graphics cards. Old driver may be more stable. -m num Memory size can be chosen: 128k, 640k, or 1M up to 8 Mbyte. Default is 640k. num=0: 128k, num=1: 1M, ..., num=8: 8M. (QLAY082: option -s is not supported any longer) -r file Use 'file' as BOOTROM. Always loaded at address 0. As default QLAY will use file 'JS.ROM'. -l win1@directory1\qlay.dir -l win2@directory7\qlay.dir until -l win8@directory8\qlay.dir -l mdv1@directorya\file1.mdv -l mdv2@directoryb\file2.mdv until -l mdv8@directoryh\file8.mdv These will tell qlay which directory or file to use for emulation of a WIN#_ or MDV#_ device. After the '@' any drive, directory and file can be specified. WIN: The file must be called 'qlay.dir'. It contains the ql directory. Use the QLAYT support program to include files in 'qlay.dir'. NFA.ROM (087 version) is needed to support WIN1_ till WIN8_. MDV: The mdvfile must be in the specific QLAY MDV image file format. Use the QLAYT support program to convert files to MDV format. An 'R' directly after the '@' makes the mdvfile readonly. Examples: QLAY -l mdv1@d:\qlay\mdv\quill.mdv -rJS.ROM All mdv1_ operations will be made to the native DOS file. QLAY -l win2@d:\qlay\win2\qlay.dir -rJS.ROM Files in directory d:\qlay\win2\ are accessed via WIN2_. -c address@file Expansion ROM files, like cartridges and I/O expansions, can be placed flexibly in memory. For each ROM a separate '-c ...' is needed. The file will be loaded, starting at specified (hex) address. E.g.: toolkit and nfa: QLAY -r js.rom -c c000@toolkit.rom -c c0000@nfa.rom ROMs are write protected. QDOS limititions apply to address range. On a real QL the ROM cartridge port is mapped at c000. -f speed Emulation speed control. This controls after how many instructions the QLAY internal 1msec 'tick' should occur. With this 'tick' QLAY emulates all timing sensitive functions: 50Hz interrupt, mouse sensitivity, BEEP sound generation, MDV and some internal housekeeping. The default value is '-f 400'. This emulates the 50Hz interrupt rate about right on a 486/DX2 66MHz machine. On faster machines a larger value should be used. The effect is easily seen: watch the cursor flash rate and compare that to a real QL. The SuperBasic program 'ft_bas' helps finding the proper value for -f. This option does not change the emulation speed, only the interrupt rate is controlled. NOTE: date and time are not affected. QLAY uses the PC's clock for those. -w delay Emulation delay. Makes QLAY emulate slower for e.g. a game that plays too fast. The emulation gets slower with higher values of the -w option. The default value is '-w 0' for undelayed emulation speed. -M Disable mouse emulation. -A Disable ALT key support (Windows95 only). -L xx xx = US, UK, GE, FR, or IT. Emulates keyboard differences for the different languages. Supports special character entry, for example accented letters, and symbols. Not much tested yet. (old style options, still supported, deprecated) -1 mdvfile -2 mdvfile until -8 mdvfile Emulate a microdrive cartridge. Up to 8 are supported. The option number refers to the drive number. An 'R' directly after the drive number makes the mdvfile readonly. The mdvfile must be in the specific QLAY MDV image file format. Use the QLAYT support program to convert files to MDV format. Examples: QLAY -1quill.mdv -rJS.ROM All mdv1_ operations will be made to the native DOS file. QLAY -1Rquill.mdv -2emptydsk.mdv -rJS.ROM mdv1_ is write protected, mdv2_ can be written to. 3.4 NFA support Native File Access is supported via a small ROMable piece of QL code in file nfa.rom. Start emulation with: QLAY -r js.rom -c c000@nfa.rom [options] The boot screen shows that NFA is now available. Type 'dir win1_' to find MS-DOS/Linux files available via NFA. Option '-l win...' allows access to upto 8 WIN_, see above. When using a toolkit ROM or another ROM: QLAY -r js.rom -c c000@toolkit.rom -c c0000@nfa.rom For NFA to work properly a 'qlay.dir' file must be present. It must contain a 64-byte QDOS file header for each MS-DOS/Linux file that needs to be accessed in QLAY. The 'qlay.dir' file can be created and updated with the 'qlayt' file conversion tool. See section 5. The free/good sectors numbers refer to the directory file only. Per 8 files one sector is used. In QLAY each WIN#_ only supports files in that same directory. Upto 159 files. Error checking to be improved. NFA supports one extra SuperBasic command: win_use. To replace all FLP1_ or MDV1_ accesses with WIN1_ in existing programs: 'win_use flp', or 'win_use mdv'. To get the WIN1_ device back : 'win_use'. 3.5 Mouse QLAY can emulate a mouse for use with Pointer Environment. The mouse driver must be present before emulation starts. If no mouse driver is found mouse support is skipped. This should normally be no issue at all when starting from Windows or OS/2. The mouse is supported via memory mapped I/O. Win95: press F12 to suppress the double mouse pointer, press F12 again to get the Windows mouse pointer back. 4.1 Development QLAY was developed using DJGPP, RSXNTDJ, Cygwin and Linux. All sources available starting with release 0.90. Other OSs should be easily to port to. Not supported yet: NET_,FLP_. Minimal tested support for: SER1_,SER2_ and PAR_. You're encoraged to enhance QLAY and improve compatibility with the original QL hardware. > QLAY2 need a full Visual Studio Development environment and he > doesn't need any runtime library. > 4.2 QLAY, how does it work? QLAY consists of 3 parts: 68000 emulation, QL hardware emulation and interfaces to the native operation system (Windows95, DOS or Linux). After initialization and command line option evaluation the 68000 emulation starts. It will read one instruction, decode and execute it. Part of execution can be a read or write access to memory. If it is an access to the QL I/O area starting at 0x18000, QLAY will execute the necessary QL hardware emulation directly. E.g.: read a bit from the IPC (8049). If that implies e.g: reading a keyrow, QLAY will execute a keyboard request in the Windows95/DOS/Linux interfaces part. After each executed 68000 instruction, QLAY will check whether there is internal housekeeping to be done. This is when exceptions, interrupts, and timing events like the 1msec tick are handled. QLAY will then proceed with the next instruction according current value in program counter. QLAY does not patch any ROMs and does not access any of the QDOS system variables directly. This way any program, PROM or even a complete QDOS replacement (SMS?) can be executed by QLAY. As long as it assumes the hardware, I/O and memory map of the original Sinclair QL. 4.3 QLAY, how fast is it? Emulation speed depends on many factors. CPU performance has the biggest impact, but also what QDOS needs: memory access to the emulated screen is slower than normal memory access. Short loops in the 68000 code are executed much faster than large code segments; this due to the level 1 and level 2 caches that the CPU of the PC has. A simple SuperBasic benchmark (qsbb_bas) shows how many print, function and string manipulation loops can be executed within 20 seconds. Higher number is faster. Native 68k System/CPU print function string Configuration/Emulator QL original 980 840 1100 128k, JS-ROM SandyQL 1080 1040 1360 512k, Floppy, Par. Port GoldCard 2580 4280 5680 Super GoldCard 5680 10260 13820 Amiga 68040/25 9480 16540 23000 AmigaQDOS (JS/3.24) QXL-20 14300 27900 70640 Amiga 68060/50 10480 48750 73880 AmigaQdos 3.24 Beta (Blitter) Emulated 68k System/CPU print function string Configuration/Emulator 486/DX2-66 660 980 1300 QLAY081 -d2 (DOS) 486/DX2-66 1080 1360 1820 QLAY082 -d2 (DOS) 486/DX2-66 920 1440 1840 QLAY083 -d2 (Linux) Amiga A1200 2500 1800 2000 QL emulator, with 68060/50MHz Pentium/150 2360 3680 4960 QLAY082 PentiumPro/200 6000 8000 11000 QLAY082 -f2900 Pentium/200 5260 9340 12660 QLAYW087 size 1, 16k colors Pentium/150 7120 10840 28120 QPC 5. Tools and manual QLAY is supported by the QLAYT and QL-TOOLS-Q tools for file conversion. 5.1 QLAYT QLAYT provides a set of tools and general support functions for the QL emulator QLAY. The tools are needed because the QL and it's operating system QDOS have some pecularities that do not match well with most other Operating Systems. Most obvious difference is that QDOS files consist of two parts: a header block and the actual data file. To allow transparent access from the emulator program to the native file system it's needed that the file header is stored separately. The QLAYT program takes care of inserting or extracting files into/from a directory file. It knows about datasize fields. And will import and export files from other QDOS compatible systems and QLAY's MDV file format. Read more about QLAYT in the manual file 'qlayt.man' in 'qlayt.zip'. 5.2 QL-TOOLS-Q From other sources 'qltools' is available to convert files to/from floppy format. 'qltoolsq' is a modified version of 'qltools' that allows to copy all files from a QL floppy in a PC directory. The files can then be used in QLAY directly. Read more about QLTOOLS in the manual files in the 'qltoolsq.zip'. 5.3 QDOS introduction An introduction in QDOS and SuperBasic can be found in file 'qdos.man'. This file was take from the AMIGA QDOS emulator. It may be incomplete and contains errors. Has anyone better information? 6. Credits The QLAY M68000 emulation code is derived from UAE, an AMIGA emulator done by Bernd Schmidt and many others. QLTOOLSQ is derived from qltools, done by Giuseppe Zanetti and many others. 7. Revisions 7.1 Bugs If QLAY fails, crashes or worse, there may be a hint in the 'qlay.log' file. Some known bugs, or not yet implemented: - win3_ .. win8_, mdv3_ .. mdv8_ not via Windows95 configuration dialog. - Linux version not much tested yet. - Linux qlay -d2 and -d3 is the same: 640x480. - FLASH (mode 8) is not supported. - MDV access may give 'bad medium'. Experiment with '-f' option. - In some screen resolutions (-d) the power, mdv and win LED are invisible. - Serial and parallel ports, unstable/untested (0.90) Undocumented/untested/unstable development options: -F100 : fake F1 during boot -D : 68k debug mode Key combinations Control/Alt/Shift: C/A/S B : no screen refresh toggle C/A/S D : dump memory to file 'qlay.dmp' C/A/S R : RESET 7.2 History 090 Win95: F12 suppresses double mouse pointer Free source code available Italian keyboard: Alt Gr+ supports # and @. 089 Never released 088 International keyboard emulation: US, UK, GE, FR and IT. 087 Support WIN1_ till WIN8_ (via NFA.ROM 087) WIN1_BOOT file recognized at start (via NFA.ROM 087) Windows95 configuration setup dialog RESET QL (C/A/S R or via menu in Windows95) ALT key support for Windows95, optional 086 More Windows95 improvements Basic mouse support in Windows95. Dump all messages and errors to 'qlay.log' Support SDATE/ADATE, repaired timezone bugs, Windows95 memory leaks Support FLP_ access via qltoolsq 2.7q external program 085 Windows95 and Dos updates Fixed emulation bug that made Archive 'edit' hang Windows95: support any screen size and display mode 084 Windows95 alpha version 083 Linux version of QLAY and QLAYT Linux: -d6 speed improvement Linux: 2 new options in QLAYT 082 Improved 68k emulation: exceptions, speed New grapics code Rename added in NFA More emulation memory, ROM file support New tool: QLAYT to support all file conversions Command line options in configuration file Remove clock bug: QLAY now uses the local PC time of day 081 Repaired QL mode 4 on 16-color screens Improved error messaging in 'qlay.log' 080 NFA Mouse BEEP New key combinations for 'exit' and 'refresh' F6-F10 emulate shift F1-F5, PgUp/Dn: alt enter, End: ctl space Improved interrupt emulation Emulation speed control Better IPC emulation 077 Dual screen support ROM write protection New screen code. Mode 4 is wrong on 16 color screens now Minerva ROM support Scroll Lock key 076 Improved STOP instruction 075 Bug fixes to support tools More screen modes on QLAY 070 First release 7.3 Current versions qlayw 0.90c 19990130 Windows95 qlay 0.90c 19990130 MS-DOS nfa.rom 0.90c 19990130 QLAY qlayt 0.90c 19990130 MS-DOS qltoolsq 2.7q 19980519 MS-DOS qlay 0.83a 19970904 Linux qlayt 0.83a 19970904 Linux 8. Info and updates http://www.inter.nl.net/hcc/A.Jaw.Venema A.Jaw.Venema@net.hcc.nl Jan Venema > Jimmy Montesinos.