The Sinclair QL Forum

Seen from a programmer's view, the main difference between QL-based HW and "other" is the video hardware which needs to be treated differently. Q40/Q60/Q68 all have the original video modes, so they don't need to be treated differently. Just if you use additional features. The fact that s...

Oh, I thought USB was more difficult to support that's why I was asking about PS2. If the implementation is supposed to be on the native side, USB host support is indeed much more difficult. Even to the degree of being impossible for a non-accelerated machine. While PS/2 is doable, and was already ...

bwinkel67 wrote:It sounds odd to me to say BBQL w/Gold Card as you might as well say QL w/Gold Card (i.e. no longer just the good old BBQL).

Fully agreed. The GoldCard even takes the very core of a computer away from the QL motherboard, which is CPU and main RAM.

Chr$ wrote:Here's my Q68 case, knocked up from an old mdv cart box, red rubber band a sharp knife and a few minutes.

Ingenious idea! I wonder if it could be improved by solid panels at the sides, so top & bottom become fully planar.

ql_freak wrote:What is a BBQL?

This acronym is especially problematic when hungry. The first three letters always make me think of spareribs and steaks.

The bootloader ROM coming up at power-up is write protected, but not the OS that was loaded. Like you, I assumed for a long time that some programs might need a write protection, and the Q40/Q60 therefore had a hardware feature to write-protect RAM at $0. This assumption turned out a fairytale, nobo...

Thanks. Not sure if manually soldering BGA deserves congratulations or commiserations. It was absolutely painful.

Pr0f wrote: I spot a micro SD card and what looks to be 2 RAM devices.

Well spotted The two SDRAMs are fully independent, allowing either dual CPU cores or video memory separate from main RAM.
The bottom side also holds a QL-SD style MicroMatch connector.

Your Qzero is a great idea. I counted 66 potential I/O pins. What does your current configuration support. How difficult would it be to create UARTS, PWMs ADCs, DACs etc. Support for RS485 would be great. I Know that no drivers exist for such I/O but I am sure they would be written if the hardware ...

Now my Q68 acts "unattended" as a server and gateway with QPC2 <-> BBQL . Everything is OK!! Good to hear that it works for you now. By the way, I designed a piece of hardware which seems ideal for this purpose. I did not plan to talk about it yet, as I may not spend the time for a public...