Today I Received...

[Chr$]

Today I received... this industrial ISA 486 Single Board Computer. I took a chance as the previous owner couldn't get it to display anything but fortunately was able to get it working very easily (by changing the RTC module and fiddling with the RAM socket connectors). I had it running a 486 DX4 100 with 32mb of RAM. It has its socketed chips/RAM stripped off in the pic as I'd just washed it. Interestingly it also has a socket for a Disk on Chip module, but I can't see that being any more convenient that a CF/SD adapter.

The only QL use-case I can think of is quite an interesting project: use it on a 3 slot back-plane powered by a Pico PSU with a VGA card and a QXLII. With solid state storage for the PC stuff and the qxl.win file it would be a pretty compact dual QL/PC system. I don't think those Pico PSU's have enough oomph for a floppy drive, but that wouldn't really matter with a convenient CF card or similar as HDD.

[tofro]

Today I received... this industrial ISA 486 Single Board Computer. I took a chance as the previous owner couldn't get it to display anything but fortunately was able to get it working very easily (by changing the RTC module and fiddling with the RAM socket connectors). I had it running a 486 DX4 100 with 32mb of RAM. It has its socketed chips/RAM stripped off in the pic as I'd just washed it. Interestingly it also has a socket for a Disk on Chip module, but I can't see that being any more convenient that a CF/SD adapter.

The only QL use-case I can think of is quite an interesting project: use it on a 3 slot back-plane powered by a Pico PSU with a VGA card and a QXLII. With solid state storage for the PC stuff and the qxl.win file it would be a pretty compact dual QL/PC system. I don't think those Pico PSU's have enough oomph for a floppy drive, but that wouldn't really matter with a convenient CF card or similar as HDD.
20240320_203348.jpg

I have a very similar slot-CPU-board in my Dolch luggable computer (although with a Pentium-II). This is a really ideal platform for a QXL card. Because the QXL supports the QL network out of the box, you can easily build a file server environment for your QL landscape around it, which also makes floppy support somewhat obsolete.

(Even if I sometimes really wonder if the COU in there is really a 25MHz 68040 - QXL can feel awfully slow in places)

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

The QXL 1 has a 50Mhz Clock, which the 68040 CPU reduces the clock speed by 50% to 25Mhz.

Maybe if a 68060 with an adapter board was instered into the QXL 68040 CPU socket, the QXL may run at 50Mhz. This seems to work with Amiga 68040 boards.

Whether this works on a QXL is debatable, I have a couple of kits to make up to test on a QXL2.

[t0nyt]

Received this today (was only expecting the manual)

But the MDV snapped while backing it up, so that's a write off (thankfully have it already on other media)