Coding partner sought...

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mk79
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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by mk79 »

Dave wrote:The logical thing is to ascertain the status of the code. If Peter doesn't consider it "open" then I don't want to bother you.
So you want to know if I can be "forced" to open my changes through the license before just asking me. This is of course the logical step to do if you really want to annoy me.
The changes will be published, I've never said anything otherwise.


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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by Dave »

Force?

No.

If you took it that way I apologise and am sorry that I hurt your your feelings.

Peter wrote and invented QL-SD, so I was asking Peter the wider question of what the status of QL-SD was. He has said before that I could make some QL-SD, even in a different format. However, I want to include it on something much more complex and involved - an entire motherboard. That being the case, it's my responsibility to make sure he is ok with that use, and to check if he has any patches/changes of implementation he'd recommend for this use case. That's why I asked him. Maybe I should have asked privately. In this case, I just asked on here because he was here and engaged in the thread, and because my question was in line with his previous public statements.

You have written an important patch that repaired a critical and hard to trace bug in QL-SD. Of course I would ask you for permission to incorporate it. But to do so before finding out if I can even use QL-SD the way I'd like to would be out of sequence... I also completely accept that it is your right to say no. I have no intent at all to create any kind of force or pressure on you to say yes.

The reason for asking about it in terms of open source licensing is because I'll be releasing all the elements of the board (schematic, GAL code, timing diagrams, etc.) under an open source license. It would be nice to include the QL-SD in that. I'm not even sure I'd want to use something, no matter how great, if it is closed. I don't want to be in a situation of saying, "All this is open, but this subsystem here is closed." We're at a point in the Sinclair QL community where there's very few developers left. There are four people who develop actual hardware, including yourself, and a few more programmers. If I don't provide documentation, the resources either don't exist or are too thinly stretched for the average user to reverse engineer what I have done.

I'm not sat here thinking up new ways to offend you. I'm more worried about making sure the relative positioning of the 8302 socket to the 8049 socket is exactly correct so a board I never heard of before yesterday will still fit. I love this machine, as do you. I also really enjoy the people in this community, the characters and their contributions. The differing views on what the QL is and what it could be in the future.

So, to be clear: I don't steal. I don't take what's not mine. I don't force, arm-twist anyone ever. Informed consent is a core value of mine, and I apply that to others as much as to myself.

I don't go around trying to offend people. If I do, I apologise. Life is way too short to go round upsetting people.

Once I am sure of my footing with QL-SD, I would love to incorporate your SGC timing fix. I really want this board to work well with Super Gold Cards (which I do) but also because it's the last true "QL" with the same general layout, memory map, etc. It's been a long road. For about 5-6 years now I have been working hard with Nasta to come up with some great designs for you all. I've been working with a very small budget, health problems, my own limitations as a programmer, and the wider problem that we're such a small community there are only one or two people left to ask for help with any problem or task.

Marcel, you're blessed. You have an ability to design and produce hardware, and you're also an incredible programmer. Irritating you off only hurts me. Can we please put this misunderstanding behind us?


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Peter
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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by Peter »

Dave wrote:You sort-of released the QL-SD. I saw that Marcel Kilgus made some changes that allowed it to work reliably with SGCs. Has this patch been rolled into the main distribution? (ie: can we treat this like GPL open source software, where improvements and fixes are shared?)
The QL-SD hardware and logic are actually released under the GPL. My intention is that everybody has the freedom to use, reproduce, change, improve and sell QL-SD.

The only thing I ask for, is to respect the free license. So if someone who bought Marcels QL-SD derivative asks for schematics or logic sources, Marcel has to provide them. And allow the same freedoms. However, I decided to put no time pressure on Marcel.

Peter


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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by Dave »

Absolutely. It's good to know what license it's under. I would like to incorporate it natively onto a board.

It wasn't my intention to put any pressure on Marcel either. I'm sorry he saw it that way.


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Peter
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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by Peter »

Dave wrote:Peter wrote and invented QL-SD, so I was asking Peter the wider question of what the status of QL-SD was.
Thanks for seeing QL-SD as an invention. Although large designs like the Q60 were more work, the QL-SD combination of plugging into the internal ROM socket, using the microdrive slots with an ordinary PCB, and establishing an easy connection between them with correct HF behaviour, was more innovative.
Dave wrote:However, I want to include it on something much more complex and involved - an entire motherboard. That being the case, it's my responsibility to make sure he is ok with that use, and to check if he has any patches/changes of implementation he'd recommend for this use case.
The GPL already gives you the freedom, but thanks for asking. I'm more than okay with that - I wish you the best of luck and would buy your motherboard.

QL-SD is using a ROM socket in order not to occupy the QL extension slot, and therefore has no R/W signal. This is not ideal, because there is some overhead to "fake" a write access by doing a read access with the write data coded into the address bits. So if your logic includes a R/W signal, I'd recommend to get rid of this extra overhead. However, in a first step you could stick to the "ROM method" so the drivers run without any change.
Dave wrote:The reason for asking about it in terms of open source licensing is because I'll be releasing all the elements of the board (schematic, GAL code, timing diagrams, etc.) under an open source license. It would be nice to include the QL-SD in that.
You have all freedom to do so.

Peter


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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by mk79 »

Dave wrote:Marcel, you're blessed. You have an ability to design and produce hardware, and you're also an incredible programmer. Irritating you off only hurts me. Can we please put this misunderstanding behind us?
All right, we'll do.

But actually I'm neither a good hardware designer nor an experienced CPLD/FPGA developer. That's just stuff that I picked up on the side and that sometimes seems to work (the QL-SD board was reviewed by a colleague of mine who actually does this stuff for a living just to be sure). And building the boards is fun for the first 10 boards and a chore for the rest. So generally I'm actually open for collaboration, but I must feel that it leads to something. In this case, no offense intended but just telling what I think, I see that the 4MB card that was "100% finished" 10 months ago, and maybe I've just missed it, but then was never heard from again. What happened to it? I wish you all the best in your endeavors, god knows we need people that do stuff, but instead of starting yet another project it really would help if one actually gets finished once in while.


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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by Dave »

mk79 wrote:
Dave wrote:Marcel, you're blessed. You have an ability to design and produce hardware, and you're also an incredible programmer. Irritating you off only hurts me. Can we please put this misunderstanding behind us?
All right, we'll do.

But actually I'm neither a good hardware designer nor an experienced CPLD/FPGA developer. That's just stuff that I picked up on the side and that sometimes seems to work (the QL-SD board was reviewed by a colleague of mine who actually does this stuff for a living just to be sure). And building the boards is fun for the first 10 boards and a chore for the rest. So generally I'm actually open for collaboration, but I must feel that it leads to something. In this case, no offense intended but just telling what I think, I see that the 4MB card that was "100% finished" 10 months ago, and maybe I've just missed it, but then was never heard from again. What happened to it? I wish you all the best in your endeavors, god knows we need people that do stuff, but instead of starting yet another project it really would help if one actually gets finished once in while.
The 4M card is finished. I have assembled some, and they are just waiting on their final logic. I'm sending one to Nasta so he can do in person testing of the timing and refresh. Here are some boards I'll assemble as soon as I get the nod from Nasta:
IMG_2054.jpg


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Re: Coding partner sought...

Post by Dave »

And here's today's component deliveries for the QL board:
74HCT257s and the single gate 04 inverters for /ROMOE
74HCT257s and the single gate 04 inverters for /ROMOE
74HCT245s and the CR123A battery holders for battery backed clock
74HCT245s and the CR123A battery holders for battery backed clock
I am making progress.


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