Unusual QDOS hardware

[Mark Swift]

Here's QDOS Classic on my Android phone - via the UAE4arm App.
More unusual that usable as my eyes aren't what they were.

QDOS-on-android.gif (1.88 MiB) Viewed 5868 times

I wonder what other interesting or unusual hardware out there can run QDOS...

[napsternds]

Here's QDOS Classic on my Android phone - via the UAE4arm App.
More unusual that usable as my eyes aren't what they were.

Really cool

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I had QPC1 in Dosbox, running on a Samsung 10.1" Tablet over 5 years ago.
viewtopic.php?p=13917#p13917


Runs Extended Environment in 4 colour mode, at 800x600 screen resolution.

I will look at QDOS Classic, maybe better.

[Mark Swift]

Hi Derek,

I had QPC1 in Dosbox, running on a Samsung 10.1" Tablet over 5 years ago.
viewtopic.php?p=13917#p13917

I just read that post. Nice.

My ideal would be to get QDOS on an e-ink tablet, so I could code outside when summer comes around.
I wonder how practical that would be... I think I would probably want some kind of keyboard.

[XorA]

Hi Derek,

I had QPC1 in Dosbox, running on a Samsung 10.1" Tablet over 5 years ago.
viewtopic.php?p=13917#p13917

I just read that post. Nice.

My ideal would be to get QDOS on an e-ink tablet, so I could code outside when summer comes around.
I wonder how practical that would be... I think I would probably want some kind of keyboard.

Lots of eInk tablet run Android, Android has an SDL2 port. sQLux uses SDL2, just need someone who like developing for Android to join the dots

[Mark Swift]

I was curious to see QDOS running on an e-ink device so I bought a 7.8 inch Meebook E-Reader P78 Pro.
It runs Android 11 and if other e-ink devices are anything to go by, I assume it will never get any updates.

Intending to run QDOS Classic on top of an Amiga emulator I had two choices, UAE4arm or RetroArch.
Both versions on the Google Play store are very old, so I decided to download the APK files in order to side load.

The Android version of UAE4arm was last updated in 2021 whereas RetroArch is actively being maintained.
I downloaded the RetroArch APK from Github but found that it failed to install on the E-Reader - citing a "Parse error".
None of the online suggestions for fixing APK installation issues worked.
Wondering if the APK had been compiled with some unsupported options I looked for an Android tool that would let me inspect the APK.

Most of the APK inspectors I tried were hard to use on an e-ink device as they included animated Adverts.
The Ad video just left the screen full of artefacts with no clue as to where to click to continue.
I finally found a tool with no Ads called "Apk Analyzer"
Opening the RetroArch APK into Apk Analyzer showed no obvious build issues but did give the option to install the APK via the App.
Surprisingly, this allowed me to install the APK without throwing up any errors.

Having finally installed RetroArch I found that it was a little bit more difficult to setup than other emulators.
Fortunately online guides indicated that the RetroArch Amiga Core would accept a standard UAE config file if it was named "puae_libretro_global.uae" and placed in the "saves" directory

I copied a QDOS classic kickstart ROM, a QubIDE hard disk image, a QL floppy image and a modified UAE config into the "saves" directory and successfully booted into QDOS classic. Emulation however was very slow.
I had expected the 1.8GHZ quad core processor to be able to handle the emulation fine, but discovered that it was dropping interrupts making the whole thing unusable.

Eventually in order to get a reasonable setup, I had to settle with these UAE options:

gfx_framerate=4
cpu_speed=real
cpu_throttle=-150

This limits the screen refresh to one in 4 (12.5 fps) and slows processor emulation down by 150%

With this config, GCCdhrystone reports these figures:
Microsecs for one dhrystone: 129.6
Dhrystones per second: 7716.0
VAX MIP rating : 4.392

The RetroArch onscreen keyboard is of limited use in emulation as it covers the screen while active.
To address the keyboard requirements and in order to protect the device from damage, I bought a universal case/bluetooth keyboard.
This gives me a QL compatible that is about A5 in size that I can use in bright sunlight (which was my main aim).

When typing on any keyboard there is a perceptible delay between hitting a character and that character showing onscreen.
I assume that this is due to the e-ink refresh, but it is quite off-putting as it gives the impression that the system is struggling to keep up with your typing.

The keyboard I chose works well but has two issues that make it hard to use in QDOS.
It has no function Keys. Since these are used extensively in QL programs that's quite a problem.
When viewing the keyboard online I had assumed that the Fn Key would allow F1-F5 etc but it turns out that this key is for Android and IOS functions.
Also, it ignores CTRL-Space so you can't break out of a SuperBASIC loop. In fact every keyboard I tried on Android ignores CTRL-Space.

So at the moment I am looking at the QDOS Classic KBD driver debating how best to simulate CTRL-SPACE and the function keys.
Possibilities might be something like SHIFT-ALT-Space and SHIFT-ALT-1 to 5 but I don't know if those combinations would conflict with any existing QL program.

All in all it's been a mixture of fun and frustration.

[pjw]

If your E-Reader supports java you could try SMSQmulator..