QL Expert

An expert system shell - A computerised system that once fed with data, will emulate the decision making of a human. A type of early AI. The author Francesco Balena recalls:

"I wrote QL Expert while graduating in Computer Science, sometime in mid-80s…. its user interface is patterned after the four PSION applications that came with the QL, which were start-of-the-art in those days. When the program was ready I submitted the application to PSION and they showed interest in publishing it. Unluckily – for me and the whole QL community – while we were on speaking terms Sinclair terminated the QL and PSION decided to abandon the QL market as well. Some time later, Compware agreed to market QL Expert. We sold very few licenses, though, because few people were interested in that marvellous computer.

After some time I gave the QL away and rewrote QL Expert for PCs, using the QuickBasic language, under the EXPERTO name. It was distributed together with my very first book, by an Italian publisher. To my (and the publisher's) surprise, the book sold around 4-5,000 copies, which was A LOT for a book about artificial intelligence and for the Italian market. I am pretty sure that – had the original QL Expert been published by PSION – it would have been quite successful."

Title: QL Expert
Language: Unknown
Author: Francesco Balena
Publisher: Compware
Year of Publication: 1987
Price as at December 1987: Unknown
Reviews:
Platforms Suitable for: The original Sinclair QL and probably some emulators
Commercial Status: Public Domain
Sources Available from:
Latest Version available from: QL Forum QL Expert topic