The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi All,
Have been an avid Sinclair Fan since 1982 when I got my first real computer, the ZX Spectrum.
Never really new much about the ZX80/81 prior to this, and looked with Envy at the QL adverts in 1984, but as a kid back then, was never a viable option for me.
Now in my older years, I have had the fortune of purchasing a QL for myself.
Infact I have two. I couldnt justify the price tags originally so kept my eyes out for bargains on ebay. My first purchase was for a QL only, (no power pack/boxes etc) sold as untested/faulty. I figured I would sit on this until I could find an appropriate power pack. They turned out to be rarer than hens teeth, and my research at the time couldnt point me into any viable alternative power packs, so been sitting on the QL since christmas unable to use it.
My birthday came round in may,and I managed to acquire myself another QL off ebay. This time sold as working. However during my testing, it became apparant that the keyboard membrane was faulty - I have just purchased a new one and fitted that, and all seems to work well, but the screen bleed over UHF is awful, so am now contemplating a Composite mod on the UHF output, or purchasing the RGB to Scart adapater - still undecided. Have tried many cartridges that came with my second purchase, but many of them fail, and noted that they suffer from the foam pad crumbling issue so need to attempt repair on them.

With a power pack now available I tested out the other QL. Seems to be in exactly the same condition - broken keyboard membrane, but with a bit of detective work, I was able to find where the break was, trim the plastic back and cut just past the problem area, then scrubbed down the oxodised tracks with a fibre glass pencil to get them shiny, and reconnect the keyboard fully working! This QL also suffers from screen bleed, so at this point I assume this is normal and that the Composite Mod/RGB Cable is a defo requirement for enhanced picture.

Now I have a QL, one of my tasks will be to try and recover information from my old Sinclair Microdrives from my ZX Spectrum days. I gather from some forums that the old Microdrives from the IF1 are compatible with the QL and I am hoping that the QL can read a ZX Spectrum formatted microdrive. My Spectrum setup unfortunately has a faulty IF1, so I can not use that. I then need to invetigate how to transfer between QL and other formats (ie SD/Floppy/Serial to PC etc).

I feel a lot of interesting learning ahead of me!

Jason

Welcome to the forum.

The Isle of Man is a beautiful place and one of my favourite places. Did you enjoy the TT?

Yes thanks!
It was indeed one of the best TT fortnights in quite a number of years due to the whether.
I think there was only 1 day with delayed starts.
However, I didnt see much of it myself due to work and such like

Do you get the day off for the senior tt? I had to follow it online via Manx Radio TT.

I use one of these http://qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12 to connect my QLs to a VGA monitor. That way you can use the QL hi res monitor mode too.

Hi buddy

I'm new here myself

I was fortunate that my QL came with a floppy drive. Like you I discovered the microdrives havent stood well against the test of time. If you find that your getting in to the QL, there is a chap in Russia who sells a memory expansion board which has a floppy drive connector. As I'm sure you'll find, like many things on the QL its not cheap. But floppy disk storage is probably THE only way to use one of these wee beasties, oh and having a good emulator setup is also recommended. Thats how I've been transferring software over to floppy, so I can run it on my QL.

Dilwyn's website is the first place I would recommend visiting, that is if you havent already His site is really useful, full of info and best of all it has a lot of freeware software, so you have something to run on your machine! If like me your QL came with a buggered set of Psion cassettes, Quill, archieve, Abacus. Dilwyns site has them availible for download, in either microdrive or floppy format.

The QL is definitely a unique system, unlike the good old Spectrum in many ways as I'm sure your going to find.

Welcome. My first computer was also a Spectrum , and I too looked on the QL with envy

I'm not sure that you can read Spectrum cartridges in the QL, but more experienced heads than mine might be better placed to answer that.

I tend to do my QLing on an emulator these days, but nothing quite beats the feel (and look) of those QL keys I'm sure you'll enjoy it

I'm pretty sure I read in my QL manual that ZX Spectrum micro tapes, will not work in the QL as the format is different. The QL and the ZX Spectrum use different operating systems, if you can call what the Speccy has an OS. Plus they both have different processors.

I hope this helps

Gents,

unfortunately, the QL cannot read and write Microdrives that have been written or formatted by a ZX Spectrum. There are only some very slight differences in format (some places use words instead of bytes), but that is enough to be entirely incompatible.

Regards,
Tobias

tofro wrote:Gents,

unfortunately, the QL cannot read and write Microdrives that have been written or formatted by a ZX Spectrum.

I have a source of a machine code program, which seems to allows this (to read ZX Spectrum formatted microdrives on the QL).
Unfortunately it is only printed on paper, no digital form is available.

Thanks for all the responses guys. Dex, it sounds interesting what you have. Any chance you can scan or photograph the pages? Or even advise what magazine it was in(and year and month) as there may already be a scan of the magazine available for download.