Survey: the Italian average QL user

Stefano Guida

In order to understand and define the Italian QL community I decided to start a survey and publish the answers in a few days.
The questions were are as follows:     

  1. How many QLs do you have or did you have?    
  2. Which emulator do you utilize?
  3. In case you have a QL, which expansions did you purchase?
  4. How many times do you turn on your QL and/or your emulator usually?
  5. Can you program in Superbasic?
  6. The Black Phoenix project:

with the respective reply options:    

  1. None, 1, 2, more than 2
  2. QPC, Qemulator, SMSqmulator, Qlay, Uqxl, other    
  3. None – Minerva ROM – additional RAM – Kempston floppy – Mircoperipherial floppy – floppy (other manufacturers) – Trump Card – Gold Card – Super Gold Card – Qbide – Hermes – Super Hermes – Toolkit – Aurora – Other    
  4. Never – almost every day – sometimes a week – sometimes a month – sometimes a year    
  5. Yes, I currently program – Yes, I programmed in the past – No    
  6. It’s interesting and I use it as an alternative for personal data – it’s interesting but I don’t use it because it cannot replace my PC – I don’t care.

By analyzing the answers we deduce that the “average Italian QL user” has been available (and still has) more than 2 QLs and only one-third of the sample had a single QL. As preferred emulator, QPC and Qemulator are head-to-head, with little more than 10% using Qlay. Other emulators are just unused.
As for the additional devices, no QL user has ever maintained his computer in its basic version. Therefore, the “average configuration” is as follows: QL with Minerva ROM, Qbide, Gold Card and Trump Card.
Also interesting is to note that the QL or its emulator are mainly used almost daily or monthly, and users programmed in Superbasic in the past even if there is more than a third of them who still works on the code today. Finally Black Phoenix is considered an interesting system, but it’s not used by the most because it does not replace a normal PC. A third of users utilize it as an alternative to PCs for personal data while another third is not interested in the project.