The Sinclair QL Forum

I made a serial cable - actually, I made this before I had a QL to use with the zx spectrum, but never even tested the cable. Happily the QL and spectrum seem to have the same requirements... Anyway, it worked!

Well, for this basic test. I'm wondering about using serial to send software to the QL. I do this with the z88, which works really well.

Wondering if the best thing to do is use QPC2 to unzip files and send them to the real QL?

Anyway, just pleased I got it working and didn't blow up my QL

Where did you get the BT plugs?
I need some to develop some external devices for QL

The UK-style serial and joystick connectors (Type 630W for joysticks, 631W for serial ports – these are the keyed connectors which look a little bit like British Telecom phone connectors) try Betterbox.co.uk at https://www.betterbox.co.uk/products/bt ... t6310.html and https://www.betterbox.co.uk/products/bt-630w.html

dilwyn wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2024 3:46 pm The UK-style serial and joystick connectors (Type 630W for joysticks, 631W for serial ports – these are the keyed connectors which look a little bit like British Telecom phone connectors) try Betterbox.co.uk at https://www.betterbox.co.uk/products/bt ... t6310.html and https://www.betterbox.co.uk/products/bt-630w.html

BT631W plugs.jpg

Nice, a need a couple to develop an interface for the QL Serial port.
Thank you

Popopo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2024 12:46 pm Where did you get the BT plugs?
I need some to develop some external devices for QL

eBay has them, listed for QL

But be careful to get the 631W variant. The commonly available 631A (UK telephone) types have a different polarisation.

The Sinclair QL joystick ports accept a 630W plug
The Sinclair QL serial ports accept a 631W plug
The ZX Spectrum serial port accepts a 631W plug
The ZX spectrum keypad/aux port accepts a 631W plug

Some info on the different
https://zxnet.co.uk/spectrum/btconnectors/

and an article on my blog:
https://dilwyn2.wordpress.com/2020/09/0 ... ick-plugs/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173908642935 ... media=COPY

Here is the eBay link too.

Thanks both!

My SD card reader was broken for a while last year so I had to rely on microdrives. Had to rebuild some carts through serial link from my PC and it worked pretty well. Basically used the copy command from the serial port to a file (i.e. I didn't need to write a BASIC program but just used QDOS commands directly). I also used a small archiver (arc_exe) program to compress executables in an emulator on the PC side so I could uncompress them on the QL side. Small size archiver was important because I had to first use JOB2BAS to turn the arc_exe into BASIC, copy it over the serial link, and then create the arc_exe executable on the QL side so I could then uncompress the others.

All documented in this 25 minutes video below...but yes, the serial link between QL and PC worked really well. Oh, and I'm in the US so I have DB9 connectors on my QL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5x8FcVpydU

bwinkel67 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 9:33 pm All documented in this 25 minutes video below...but yes, the serial link between QL and PC worked really well. Oh, and I'm in the US so I have DB9 connectors on my QL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5x8FcVpydU

Beautiful!
Thanks for sharing the link. I love this channel.
I advice you to check out MDPs. if you like mSD units.