The Sinclair QL Forum

I was an SMS2 enthusiast but knowing that its roots lie in the demise of the QL, and as a homage to the Sinclair design, I decided to amuse myself by printing a Quasi QL.. The QQL consists of a micro pc and wired USB keyboard running SMSQE at a display resolution of 1920*1200.

The user interface is taken from my SMS2 startup file and its associated applications.
Most SMS2 applications run in SMSQE, but QL applications that bypass QDOS, and BASIC programs written to be interpreted, do not run in SMS2 and are thus not used in my QQL setup.

The goal was to make a machine that had the look of a QL but cost less than buying a real one.QQL cost me less than 200 CHF (£182) to make.

3D printing is not without its problems, even for someone experienced with 3 axis machine tools. The results of the success and failures can be seen in the pictures.
On an associated venture I was given an HP detachable notepad that had become unable to run its embedded and bloated version of Windows 10. I thought it would make a great machine in which to run QPC1 and the same SMS2 interface that I use on the QQL. The goal was to have a system booting QPC1 from a USB key by default.

Unable to format the "hard disk" or doing a factory reset I took the pad to an HP specialist with instructions to return it OS free and booting from USB.
A have prepared two keys, one with Puppy Linux and one with QPC1, that bootup correctly on a Lenovo Thinkpad but are not even recognised by the HP pad.

The problem lies, I think, with the fact that the pad can only boot from a UEFI compatible configuration. I used Rufus to create the bootable files.

Does anyone know how to boot DOS on an UEFI enabled PC?

Hi

According the information on the Internet, DOS can does to know about UEFI, only MBR, so you will have to configure the BIOS to Boot Legacy mode. But there is a chance that you could use Syslinux load the DOS module.

You will likely have to boot into a dedicated boot manager (like PBM6, for example) that supports (U)EFI boot, and then boot Dos from there. This can be automated to work without interaction.

You've probably seen this already - but it may give some insights:

https://superuser.com/questions/450642/ ... et-to-uefi

Like the case though

I wondered if anyone had any design files for that Rick Dickinson remodel that I've seen pictures of:

https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/an-inter ... ea60537338

hello
forget about DOS running on newer machines !
get yourself a decent Linux Distro ( Debian based )
ask Xora about a update for sq68ux or about running SMSQE on sQLux Greetings from Switzerland
Markus

desin wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 7:47 pm ask Xora about a update for sq68ux or about running SMSQE on sQLux
sq68ux.png

Hmmm... sq68ux screenshot without highcolour?

So it's much quicker

Thank you all for your replies.
The HP tablet has no legacy mode, the people who formatted the "hard disk" suggested that this was because it was a cheap model !!

I looked at PMB6 and superuser.com but found, without trying very hard, that I couldn't understand them. I will have another go at some point.

The Rick Dickinson article was interesting but his curved design would be quite a challenge to make, partly because a curved keyboard would be hard to find. Still, I like a challenge and it might be possible with a flattened top.

Marcus; your screenshot is impressive. I had no idea that sq68ux could display at high resolutions. I am not sure how I ask Xora about an update or how to run SMSQE on sQLux. I assume that stuff concerning this is not on Dilwyn's website. Greetings, by the way, from Genf.

Use dosbox to run qpc1 on your tablet on any os you feel like.

sq68ux has suffered from real life itus at the moment. Ive changed jobs twice in the last 6 months.

sQLux will NEVER run smsq/e unless someone else writes that code. I am not interested in doing that!

Hi,

sQ68ux, is a wonderful piece of software, but due to the limited software development has problem,s with higher resolutions.

I cloned the sQ68ux Git repository and compiled the source code easily, since I have my Linux Mint 21.2 computer setup to compile sQLux,

There is also qlay3 in the sQ68ux repository, which work well.

The Q68 is a 40Mhz 68000 QL, which out performs a 68020 Supergold card.

The Q68 display I like are:
DISP_MODE 0 : 256x256 Mode 8
DISP_MODE 1 : 512x256 Mode 4
DISP_MODE 2 : 512x384 Mode 33
DISP_MODE 4 : 1024x768 Mode 4

Personally, I think the Q68 High Colour display modes were a mistake, as the effort to display 1024x768 16bit colour is too much, I use 1024x768 Mode 4, which is good enough for most QL programming and older QL software.

I do not need Black Phoenix or QL/E., they are supplied with the Q68 to show how to mount QWA files from a SD Card.

Back on topic.

I would remove Windows 10 and use a Linux Distro, so QPC2 under Wine, QPC1 under DOSBOX, SMSQmulator under Java, sQLux running natively on Linux, and probably run faster than Windows, with better security and free Linux applications.