Hello

[Derek_Stewart]

Just popped in to see the QL Forum, looks very nice.

I started programming on ZX81, went on the the Spectrum. Which I thought was OK, I liked the Z80 CPU and found it easy to program. I had a brief mess around with other Z80 machines, but went back the Spectrum, when floppy disks started appearing. Then.... The QL came on the scene and first opertunity to program a 68000 CPU, with multitasking capabilities.

I ran a BBS up in Newcastle Upon Tyne, which linked in Fidonet, running on a Super Gold Card QL with Mircale Hard Disk, the BBS Software: Qbox was the QL defacto BBS software, but Phil Borman stated to write Pbox, with alot of prompting from me, Pbox ended a very good free BBS system.

I have often thought abount implementing a web based Pbox system, but all in my head at present.

I have owned every QL piece of hardware from Trump Card to Atari QL Emulator, I really like QL operating system and in 2002 wanted a fast QL, better than the Super Gold Card. This being the Q40 with its full blown 68040 and 128Mb ram. All very nice, I was one of the first in the UK to get a Q40. I contacted the designer of the Q40 to see if the 68060 version was available and could he makle one for me.

The reply was why not build on yourself. This is what I did and produced a Q60 running 66Mhz 68060 with 128Mb ram. A friend who lives local to me, suggested that we could build the Q60 for other people.

D&D Systems, was my company that build PC systems, repaired operating systems in customers homes, rather like compamy do now.

The Q60 was hand built to order in the form of a cased machine in an AT PC Mini Tower Case, but some people have the necessary skills to build the Q60 into a case themselves. So we sold just the Q60 motherboards with matched ram and I/O Cards.

The Q60 was a great success, much to the dismay of the established vendors supplying the Q40, who had hailed the Q40 as a flop...

This was not the case, the flop was the bad construction mehtods of the Q40 production.

Every Q60 board that was built was sold no problems. I did buiy back one Q60 board from someone who was unhappy and went Munich to rescue another.

These days, I am programming on QPC2 on a Quad Core Laptop, still thinking of a Q60 laptop...

Derek

[vanpeebles]

Hello and a warm welcome. I can only dream about the hardware you mention!