The Sinclair QL Forum

I would love to see the Q68 in a real QL casing.

I do, however, think that a "swapkit" is not something that you need to bother with. Provided that the board does come with some free GPIO pins or I2c (or whatever) interface, Keyboard and other peripherals (can't think of any atm anyhow) can be added later, and the work spread across a number of shoulders.

My proposal is to leave it as it is, concentrate efforts on trying and making it available, and leaving the rest to the tinkerers.

Tobias

Peter wrote:

Derek_Stewart wrote:I would vote for a stand alone machine, a cases are easy to make, either composite or 3D printed.

The Q68 directly fits a nice black case which even looks QL-style. Just the cutoffs from the front-/back-panel need to be defined.

However, some may want it within the original QL case.

Hi Peter,

Maybe both could be provided as options. But looking from a production point of view, a single option is always better than multiple options.

If the Q68 was produced as standalone then could it be fitted into a standard QL case. You mention a I²C or via the SPI connection, can this be added later on?

Derek_Stewart wrote:If the Q68 was produced as standalone then could it be fitted into a standard QL case. You mention a I²C or via the SPI connection, can this be added later on?

I²C already has a separate connector on the Q68, so no add-on should be needed. On QL side, this method would need Minerva Mk 2 or the likes, and some software to transfer the keycodes from QL to Q68. (Except for reading the battery buffered realtime clock on startup, the Q68 does not use its I²C bus.)

SPI could also be done, using the signals on one of the two Q68 SDHC Card ports, and the QLROMEXT board of QL-SD inside the QL.

I²C allows more simple wiring, so I'm in favour of that.

I'd go for a stand alone board to be put into the original case (if possible) or into a new, sinclair style, case.

I'm for the Q68 as standalone computer.

Preferably in black case with separate keyboard, but something like Rick Dickinson's new QL design will be nice, too.

I vote for a standalone system with VGA connector and USB port for Keyb &Mouse. Case is not important . I am ready to pay a reasonable amount of money for it.
But , only and only if , SMSQ/E run on it, "Mist" already exist but at end it is limited as "retro" computing, having the possibility to run only Minerva on it.

Ciao, Fabrizio

bixio60 wrote:I vote for a standalone system with VGA connector and USB port for Keyb &Mouse. Case is not important . I am ready to pay a reasonable amount of money for it.
But , only and only if , SMSQ/E run on it, "Mist" already exist but at end it is limited as "retro" computing, having the possibility to run only Minerva on it.
Ciao, Fabrizio

If the Q68 is made available, it will definitely have SMSQ/E with at least Q40/Q60 highcolor modes.

VGA connector suitable for flatscreen is there. But I'm afraid keyboard will be PS/2. Thats what the native drivers support.

This is my prototype of the redesigned Q68 board.

Q68 inside QL case (yet unconnected)

Looks good!

If you wanted to use the QL original keyboard, perhaps the QL USB keyboard mod by Tynemouth Software could be used?
http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/201 ... board.html