The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi all. Well its been a very long time, I do not believe any of my QL hardware has been turned on in about 2 decades! Still have a lot of it though.

I was not always absent however as I did read the original QL mailing list almost daily for some years, just did not post very often.

Already caught up with Derek, we used to converse quite a lot when I ran one of the Sinclair based BBS Systems (On a QL)

Wayne...

A warm welcome to the forum

A warm welcome - it would be interesting to know what hardware / software you have.

We are still missing photos and information of quite a bit of hardware on the QL Wiki

Well, I was telling Derek earlier that I definitely have a Quest Disk Interface. Not very reliable if I recall and needed a microdrive to load the driver (fdv) from.

I have some SMS2 related stuff also, as I was involved in a very subtle way. Also quite a bit of prototype hardware developed by myself and some by others.

We were trying to think of the name of the alternative QL PCB available for self build at one time. Kerry Board maybe? Or maybe something completely different!

Wayne..

That rectangular one? The guy who designed it tried to sell me one. But it was big, and wouldn't fit in my QL case!

If we get you hooked up with Minerva and a modern storage system that uses SD cards, would you pull them out and use them again? You might also need a keyboard membrane.

I'm one of the three active hardware makers. If you have anything interesting that I could produce, I'm always listening.

wayne weedon wrote:Well, I was telling Derek earlier that I definitely have a Quest Disk Interface. Not very reliable if I recall and needed a microdrive to load the driver (fdv) from.

I have some SMS2 related stuff also, as I was involved in a very subtle way. Also quite a bit of prototype hardware developed by myself and some by others.

We were trying to think of the name of the alternative QL PCB available for self build at one time. Kerry Board maybe? Or maybe something completely different!

Wayne..

Certainly we lack pictures of the Quest stuff (and dumps of EPROMs) - it was expensive back in the day, so probably not much still around. SMS2 would also be interesting - although Tony Tebby would have to be asked before it is was uploaded anywhere (he is still around luckily). Prototype hardware is also always interesting.

I don't remember an alternative QL PCB but then I can't remember everything I read about the QL in the past 34 years...

He approached me at a ZX Microfair in London. I *think* it was the 21st Microfair, which means the date was 13th December 1986.

Young guy, a bit older than me?

He was just trying to sell PCBs to people who were hanging around the QL stalls, but wasn't a vendor himself.

The Quest disk i/f has no ROM. The SMS2 stuff will remain confidential here, I have it on EPROM and Atmel PEROM (Flash) for the ST. I have a machine to run it on Mega ST I think.

All I remember about the alternative PCB was that it was quite nicely made and someone in the Solent Subgroup was building one. I seem to recall the keyboard was mapped through a PROM.

Hello Wayne!

Long time no see... I remember you visiting Holland back in 1990 at a HCC Sinclair user fair. Also you were one of my first registered QBOX customers . I've been away from the QL scene for about ten years (well actually longer as I haven't done much with it since 1995) but returned in 2015. Most of my software projects have been preserved and even published on GitHub. I still have the source of QBOX (my biggest project ever) so this could be put on GitHub too but I doubt if it would be useful these days... Oh well I could adapt it for use over TCP/IP just for fun

regards, Jan.

Jan,

If it worked with an AT Hayes modem, boy do I have a treat for you