Hello from Spain

[drgusman]

Hi!

After many years wanting to have a QL, a couple months ago I stumbled upon one unit at a retro store. I have been a speccy guy since I was 7 and got mine, but the QL was always something that I wanted to have, so I bought it. The poor thing was in an atrocious state, it was left for dead since the 80's, with a broken membrane, no md drives, dead transistors, ram and even the color modulator oscillator broken...

Fast forward, I repaired it, the QL was running perfectly but I had no md to test it, checked the available options and... didn't liked any, so I have created my own microdrive replacement, it even uses "cartridges"





I will post all the details at the hardware forum this afternoon as I have uploaded everything to GitHub.

Anyways, I want to pimp up the machine so I have ordered the components to build a 512Kb RAM expansion and I'm looking on upgrading the ROM to Minerva but I have doubts that will ask on the hardware forum.

So, any recommendation on things to add is really welcome, (especially things that I could build myself or that I could redesign if they're unobtainable ), I'm totally a newby to the QL world and I'm really lost xD

Cheers!

[martyn_hill]

Welcome to the party, Dr Gusman!

That is an intriguing solution you have designed for the MDVs - looking forward to reading more about it

As far as recommended options, this is my personal list:
a) Expanded memory
b) Minerva v1.98
c) 'Super' Toolkit 2 - v2.32 ('TK2' - on EPROM/ROM ideally)

I personally wouldn't use my QLs without Minerva & TK2 as a bare minimum, but others here may well have their own recommendations!

Enjoy...

[dilwyn]

Welcome, and nice work on fixing that QL. I enjoyed looking at the pictures.
I look forward to reading more about it.
Like most QL users, I'd say that adding memory and a mass storage solution is the most essential upgrade.
Please don't hesitate to ask questions - we try to be a friendly gang here.

[Chris_68]

A new member myself but welcome. Really impressive page on Github, will read more about your MDV.

Chris

[vanpeebles]

Welcome!

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

Welcome the QL Forum, your Pico Microdrive emukator looks great.

Do you gave the link to github?

[Chr$]

I'm totally a newby to the QL world and I'm really lost xD

*designs and makes a complete replacement mdv system*

That's impressive.

[drgusman]

Hi,

Welcome the QL Forum, your Pico Microdrive emukator looks great.

Do you gave the link to github?

Sure

https://github.com/gusmanb/micropicodrive

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi

Thanks for the link to Github, as Chr$ mentioned very impressive.

Do you mind if I try and make one?

[drgusman]

Hi

Thanks for the link to Github, as Chr$ mentioned very impressive.

Do you mind if I try and make one?

I will be more than glad if anyone wants to build its own!

This afternoon I will send you the full BOM with links to where I bought the components and the details of the corrections that I need to add to the PCB to perfectly match the microdrive slots and instructions about how the device is used.
Also, keep in mind that I haven't tested it with Minerva, I'm on the process of updating my QL to test it. I have read that minerva does a special check on microdrives while formatting and if there aren't a bunch of damaged sectors it rejects the md, right now the firmware creates "perfect" microdrives so I need to verify that this is true and "kill" some sectors when a format is detected (it should work with pre-existing images).

Cheers!