QL2 was to be a replacement QL mainboard. It was based around a full 68020 @ 33.33MHz. It was going to be laid out on a standard PCI card template, giving a connector of 120 pins (22+98) but in a manner not signal compatible with PCI. I dubbed it QLI. The connectors are solid, cheap, available.
The QL2-BASE backplane was a simple "part-ATX" board with four passively connected PCI sockets, ATX powered. The board could be fitted behind the expansion port area of any miniATX, microATX case that could take four full-height cards. A PCI connector has 120 pins (22+98). The base had jumper connectors for sound+/-, ATX momentary switch, drive LED, power LED, reset button
The pin-out of the bus brought out all needed control lines, D0:31 and A0:31. It could support a 4GB address range and work with *any* 68k CPU from 68008 to 68060. There were ground pins to both sides of the PCB every 2cm, and access to 5V @ 2A and 12V @ 1A per slot. The board was 4-layer, well grounded and very clean, signal-wise. It could sustain everything up to theoretical ~500MHz operation.
QL-BASE could have been expanded later to SEVEN connectors while retaining signal integrity.
The QL2-IO card implemented the main functions of the original QL, including video, ROM, serial, joystick, keyboard, sound but not microdrives. Sound +/-, /RST drive activity LED signals are also carried on the bus. It is required by the QL chipset that all components using DA0:7 be on a single card for obvious reasons.
The QL2-CPU card implemented the CPU and optional expansion RAM.
The QL2-EXP card would have implemented ethernet and USB - the part I am trying to bring to fruition this year and which let me to dig this up.
Any card could be upgraded independently without having to replace everything.
The backplane would have been around $40. QL2-IO around $60, QL2-CPU around $60 (1MB) $80 (8MB) $100 (16MB). Others could have produced up to 4GB versions. It could have supported an Aurora re-implemented on a new PCB. It left wide open the option of creating new independent video hardware and ignoring the 8301 video function. Removing video handling from the 8301 so simplifies it that it could have been replaced by an aftermarket CPLD with 'relatively little work.'
The AMP 5145154-1 pin out was:
Code: Select all
ROWA ROWB
1 GND GND
2 12V 12V
3 D30 D31
4 D28 D29
5 D26 D27
6 D24 D25
7 D22 D23
8 GND NC
9 D20 D21
10 D18 D19
11 D16 D17
=== ===
12 D14 D15
13 D12 D13
14 GND NC
15 D10 D11
16 D8 D9
17 D6 D7
18 D4 D5
19 D2 D3
20 D0 D1
21 GND NC
22 SP0 SP1
23 SP2 SP3
24 FC0 FC1
25 FC2 /RST
26 GND NC
27 ASL RSVD
28 /NTRQ /WTRQ
29 DLED RSVD
30 SND- SND+
31 GND NC
32 /RFSH POLL
33 RSVD /FTACK
34 RSVD /DSMC
35 /IPL0 /IPL1
36 SIZ0 SIZ1
37 GND GND
38 +5 +5
39 +5 +5
40 +12 +12
41 GND GND
42 A0 A1
43 A2 A3
44 A4 A5
45 A6 A7
46 A8 A9
47 A10 A11
48 GND NC
49 A12 A13
50 A14 A15
51 A16 A17
52 A18 A19
53 A20 A21
54 GND NC
55 A22 A23
56 A24 A25
57 A26 A27
58 A28 A29
59 A30 A31
60 GND GND