The Sinclair QL Forum

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!

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...

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.

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

Chris

Welcome!

Hi,

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

Do you gave the link to github?

drgusman wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 12:41 pm 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.

Derek_Stewart wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 9:21 pm Hi,

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

Do you gave the link to github?

Sure

https://github.com/gusmanb/micropicodrive

Hi

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

Do you mind if I try and make one?

Derek_Stewart wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 9:03 am 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!