The Sinclair QL Forum

wayne weedon wrote: 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..

The name of the QL board, was the Mike Lilley Board. Which featured 4 floppy disk drives.

There are articles in Quanta about the development if the QL board.

Dave wrote:Jan,

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

It definitely does. All communication is done via a driver which interfaces between the QBOX application and the serial port/modem. This was designed so that non-Hayes compatible modems could be used (or even dumb or null modems). In the end when everything was Hayes-compatible this became a standard configurable Hayes modem driver. But it's still possible to write a modem driver that directly uses the TCP/IP stack. However as it looks now it's probably easier to use your WiFi-dongle when it's released

Jan.

Yeah. That's in the middle of some small changes, though I could happily send you a prototype.

It presents as a Hayes modem and accepts incoming connections. I don't know how the QL knows which connection is which, since it probably was just used to one connection at a time. You could have multiple serial ports, and it could be configured to have multiple UARTs....

janbredenbeek wrote: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

regards, Jan.

Jan, I remember it well also! I really did enjoy those days, the event at Houten was excellent, I am still in contact with Jack Raats on occasion mainly through Facebook. I believe I ran the QL based BBS for about 10 years, although it did end up running Maximus on a PC. I seem to recall I built your SER3 design at one time.

Wayne

Derek_Stewart wrote:
The name of the QL board, was the Mike Lilley Board. Which featured 4 floppy disk drives.

There are articles in Quanta about the development if the QL board.

That's the one, I knew it ended in a "y" thats all! I thought it was a neat design for the time. I wonder how many are around, nice to document it somewhere as it's another part of the story.

janbredenbeek wrote:[
It definitely does. All communication is done via a driver which interfaces between the QBOX application and the serial port/modem. This was designed so that non-Hayes compatible modems could be used (or even dumb or null modems). In the end when everything was Hayes-compatible this became a standard configurable Hayes modem driver. But it's still possible to write a modem driver that directly uses the TCP/IP stack. However as it looks now it's probably easier to use your WiFi-dongle when it's released

Jan as a novice back then at 68k assembler I was pretty proud that I managed to create a working driver for my setup with QBOX. I forget what you called your driver, but it was my first attempt at 68k, quite different to the Z80 assembler I was used to.

Wayne..

wayne weedon wrote:
Jan, I remember it well also! I really did enjoy those days, the event at Houten was excellent, I am still in contact with Jack Raats on occasion mainly through Facebook. I believe I ran the QL based BBS for about 10 years, although it did end up running Maximus on a PC. I seem to recall I built your SER3 design at one time.

Yes I remember more visitors from the UK in Houten, like (I believe) Richard Alexander who even brought his family along and his kids playing with Jack's girls. I'm also in contact with Jack on Facebook though he doesn't seem to be active in Sinclair computing anymore.
My BBS ran on a QL from 1987 to 1990 when I sadly had to switch to PC hardware because of FidoNet duties as a Hub and later Host. The BBS closed down in 2003 but as a FidoNet node I continued until 2014.
The SER3 design was a nice solution to drive modems in the pre-Hermes days, I still have the schematics and even my first QL which had the PCB built-in to keep the expansion connector free (click here for the pictures!).

regards, Jan.

wayne weedon wrote: Jan as a novice back then at 68k assembler I was pretty proud that I managed to create a working driver for my setup with QBOX. I forget what you called your driver, but it was my first attempt at 68k, quite different to the Z80 assembler I was used to.

The name was QSPIL (QBOX Serial Port Interface Layer, I mostly stole it from FOSSIL ).

Jan.

Jan, wait.... You wrote Speedscreen?

janbredenbeek wrote: The name was QSPIL (QBOX Serial Port Interface Layer, I mostly stole it from FOSSIL ).

Yes I remember that now you remind me. I wrote a version for one modem which I now cannot remember. I also used a version written for me by Jonathan Hudson which drove the Tandata QConnect i/f. His QTPI terminal emulator was first released on my BBS whilst he was away working in Oman. I used to get floppies in the post with the latest versions on quite a regular basis.

Wayne..