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The QL and the 16 bit revolution.

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:12 pm
by stephen_usher
It's well known that the QL played quite a big role in the development of the Commodore Amiga's operating system as Metacomco was contracted to create AmigaDOS 1.0 and did so on QLs using their BCPL compiler. (It was a recreation of Tripos, an OS written in BCPL which originated in Cambridge.)

However, it's come to my attention recently that Metacomco also had a part to play in the Atari ST line of computers, doing a lot of the work on the pre-release version of TOS (but not the porting of GEM). Given that in 1984/5 Metacomco used QLs in their development, could it be that the QL helped the ST to be born also?

If this is indeed the case then the QL effectively jump started the whole 16 home computer revolution in the 1980s. (Well, except the Macintosh, which was announced the week after the QL was.)

Re: The QL and the 16 bit revolution.

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:03 pm
by FrancoisLanciault
Don't forget the Hewlett-Packard line of 68000 computers. The first one, the 9826A, was released long before the QL in 1981.

The HP Basic that was included with these computers was very fast and much more complete than anything available for QLs, Amigas and Ataris. As an example, a HP9816 with a 68000 running at 8 mhz is twice as fast as a QL with Gold Card at 16Mhz running Minerva basic.

Of course, these computers were "very" expensive. The intended customers were scientists and engineers, The 9826A was $9000 in 1983... The color 9836C was $17000.

Nice machines, I have a few of them.

François