The Sinclair QL Forum

Yes, I know, it's never that simple :-( Mark And here's one of the examples why: Noisy low-level address signal at 1.2V during ROMOE active-high. (Scope has persistance on, address signal on top.) To deal with this kind of noise, the adress line is sampled at ROMOE rising edge, where there is less ...

This picture shows the ROMOE signal on my SuperGoldCard QL, which is used as an imput to QL-SD. The horizontal dotted line is the maximum allowed low level TTL voltage of 0.8V. The measured signal illegally goes up to 1.5V where logic level is low. The oscilloscope has a bandwidth of 60 MHz only, so...

This was about a Super Gold Card remake: You can always get a newer model and just port the logic code to the newer chip. On the VHDL level, it's a day's work tops and Altera will have guides (if not porting tools too) to tell you how. Firstly, complex ancient logic code can be hard to port to newer...

Wow Dilwyn! Cool!

Where did you take the picture of the QL-SD mounted inside the QL? Obviously not my desk.

By the way, I think I said "good chance", not "very good chance". After Adrian gave up, lets not be over-optimistic

Over-simplified answer: If you have only 128 KB RAM or don't want to open the QL, it is the microdrive emulation. If you want speed or dislike boards protruding from the QL, it is the QL-SD. ;) Except for 3 or 4 persons, it's only theoretical, as both devices are not for sale yet. I made a little pr...

For Info: The QL-SD is an internal solution with two boards. One of them plugs into one of the internal ROM sockets, similar to Minerva, and the other one can replace one of the internal microdrives, so the SDHC card can be inserted just like a cartridge. However, the QL-SD does not required to repl...

Thank you Tobias.

You are right about mass storage for the original QL, but I worry that lack of screen support will also bring it down. You would need a video card for the original QL - a project which could end up even bigger than doing the remaining Q68 work.

I was not aware of Petri Pellinen's device and did not mean to call it's success "unlikely".
My remark was related to the QL signal quality problems encountered during QL-SD development.
Good luck to you Petri!

Just having native TCP/IP support would not provide an original QL with reasonable internet connectivity, as the QL has only the serial port. One would want ethernet, and at the moment, only Q40 and Q60 have a hardware solution for that. Unfortunately, as programmable logic chips become faster and l...

Is there a person who... A) has spare time? (most important) B) wants to build the QL-SD and learn the software/hardware issues? C) owns a QL and is willing to use it for testing the QL-SD? D) can solder TQFP and components with similarly small pads? E) can deal with ROM binaries and has equipment t...