The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi All,

I found this forum because I was watching a retro YouTube channel and someone in the comments mentioned CP/M-68K and a thought occurred to me along the lines of "Did it really ever escape from Quest and into the wild on the QL?"

I worked for Quest back in 83-84 and wrote the BIOS I/O for CP/M-68K on the QL. It was very much a rush job though. I think I/we did it in 6 weeks from receiving our first QL and the ONLY CP/M-68K disks in the UK from DR.

From google I found a thread here that has been dead since 2015 but thought it would be interesting to try to follow it up by joining (or I couldn't post anything) so now I'm all joined up I'll post something on that thread about what I can remember about what was needed back then to get it going. But, I seriously doubt that the necessary hardware has been retained by anyone. Unless you know different...

I'm also really interested in the Retro museum idea in France... I have A LOT of retro machines including possibly 50 various Sinclairs in states from almost pristine & boxed down to chewed by mice!

So once again Hi! it would be really something to see work I did 34 years ago spring into life on a real QL or possibly it would be easier to get it going on a emulator - the down side is that I really don't know/remember if I retained the assembler source code.

Timbo.

Hello Timbo!

You'll see a lot of the big names from the 80s here.

Welcome!

Hi,

Some of the old Quest hardware is still around - but I have only ever personally seen the memory expansion boards (which were huge).

If you have any old contacts from Quest, or can add to the QL Wiki (http://qlwiki.qlforum.co.uk/doku.php?id ... mation_ltd) that would be helpful.

I always wondered about the laser disk system which got a mention in QL User.

A warm welcome to the forum!

Hi again,

Here is what I remember....

http://qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1323&start=40

Ironic that my user level is "ROM Dongle" LOL

@RWAP: I could add something to that - the CP/M-68K initial BIOS author was me! I worked from the Fleet (Hants) office which is not mentioned.

I do still have some contact with a couple of the guys from back then although I have not spoken to them for a couple of years. Unfortunately the guy who designed the QL Interfaces (and many other things for Quest back then) is no longer with us.

The laser disk setup (quietly) - yes we did a presentation and I did go to it(A London hotel/conference centre?), no we didn't actually have access to one to even think about interfacing it, unless that part happened after I left but I doubt it.

To be honest I expect the QL adventure is something that they all want to forget about (and possibly have).

Timbo

Bring them on the forum! Maybe they can finally all look back in fondness, after all these years