A seat in the lifeboat

[Peter]

Hi,

since the turn of the century, I invested a lot of time into some QL
hardware and software projects. Except the Q60 Graphics Card, all of
them actually worked, and have been shown to a few friends.

I didn't have the motivation to finish them. For a long time, the reason
was that I saw the requirement for a free QL operating system first. I
spent time on that area, trying to help others who had a similar goal.
But we did noch achieve a breakthrough, and my other projects suffered.

Life has changed, time has become even shorter nowadays. It is
absolutely unrealistic that all my projects can be released someday. But
maybe I can rescue at least *one* of them, before all work is lost forever.

Everything related to my Coldfire based Q60 successor makes no sense
anymore. The point was high speed, but today's PCs are so fast that
emulation beats it. Here are those projects which might still
have relevance:

* QLwIP: QL native TCP/IP support, and some applications for it like
email, webserver, browser etc.

* QLPUI: A modern GUI for QDOS, with themes and proportional fonts. Runs
on native hardware and on emulators. A simple demo can be found at
http://terdina.net/ql/software.html

* Q60 Graphics Card: Flatscreen monitor support and other improvements
for the Q60

* QLMMC: An SD/MMC card adaptor for the parallel port of Q60 and
SuperGoldCard, easy to plug in, but speed only similar to floppy

* QLSD: Internal SDHC card "harddisk" for the original QL, using the
microdrive slots

* Q68: Native QL computer on a 8x10 cm board, flatscreen support, SDHC
cards, sound, SER, ethernet. CPU is within an FPGA chip. Runs both QDOS
Classic and Minerva. The operating systems themselves seem to work
allright by now, also Basic and some programs. Other programs might
never work, I suspect further bugs in the CPU.

Which project deserves a seat in the lifeboat? Which one would *you*
prefer to see finished - even if it comes with limitations?

All the best
Peter

[Simon_Carr]

Im new to the QL, but I would say that an SD card based mass storage (external or internal) is the one thing that the QL needs most of all. Microdrives are unreliable, disk drives are defunct technology, but solid state card storage would make the QL have a new lease of life.

I wish I had the skills and knowledge to contribute or help, but I have neither, just the enthusiasm to support it!

[vanpeebles]

QL SD(would benefit the most users, Q60 is like rocking horse poop) for me or maybe the network ip project? Would be pretty cool to setup an online QL site specifically for use on the actual QL

[Peter]

Just having native TCP/IP support would not provide an original QL with reasonable internet connectivity, as the QL has only the serial port.

One would want ethernet, and at the moment, only Q40 and Q60 have a hardware solution for that.

Unfortunately, as programmable logic chips become faster and lower voltage, it has become increasingly difficult to deal with the QL's terrible electrical signal quality. A functional ethernet add-on for the original QL seems even more unlikely than it was in the past. Sorry to have to say.

[vanpeebles]

QL SD it is then

[dilwyn]

Just having native TCP/IP support would not provide an original QL with reasonable internet connectivity, as the QL has only the serial port.

One would want ethernet, and at the moment, only Q40 and Q60 have a hardware solution for that.

Unfortunately, as programmable logic chips become faster and lower voltage, it has become increasingly difficult to deal with the QL's terrible electrical signal quality. A functional ethernet add-on for the original QL seems even more unlikely than it was in the past. Sorry to have to say.

The closest we get was Petri Pellinen's prototype Ethernet card for QL a year or two ago. Hope Petri is still here - any news or progress report on how far you got Petri?

[Peter]

I was not aware of Petri Pellinen's device and did not mean to call it's success "unlikely".
My remark was related to the QL signal quality problems encountered during QL-SD development.
Good luck to you Petri!

[1024MAK]

I believe the most useful and likely to be the most popular project for a QL would be a SD card interface. Even better would be if a SD card slot, a Ethernet port and a large flash EEPROM could all be mounted on the same PCB. Maybe a large SRAM to expand the memory as well. Okay, maybe put the SD card slot PCB on it's own PCB so that if people want, it can replace a Microdrive.

Okay, so we need to watch out for project creep

Is the QL really electrically bad in terms of noise? Is it really worse than the ZX Spectrum? Only the Spectrum can have either a CF card or a SD card interface hanging off it's edge-connector expansion port and work (subject to no err, wobble).

In the Spectrum and to a certain extent other retro communities, it is recommended to replace the old electrolytic capacitors. But I don't remember seeing this discussed in the QL community. Having a low noise power supply and good decoupling should help (maybe include a 220uF capacitor across the +5V and 0V lines on any new PCB?).

Mark

[ppe]

The closest we get was Petri Pellinen's prototype Ethernet card for QL a year or two ago. Hope Petri is still here - any news or progress report on how far you got Petri?

Hello, yes I'm still occasionally here but unfortunately I have had no time available to keep working on the prototype. Essentially the status of the prototype is:
1) A board that happens to work on my QL (512k memory expansion + a disk interface + the TCP/IP card)
2) A couple of prototype applications that use the TCP/IP stack on the adapter for DNS name resolution and NTP time synchronization of QL's clock.

The board works as it is but there's still quite a bit of work to be done, the main ones being:
- a proper PCB design for the adapter, the current one is hand-wired on a prototype board
- also, power supply side of things on the board would probably need a proper design
- a proper TCP/IP library on the QL that would provide a proper API to the underlying hardware implementation. It would probably make sense if the library was compatible with http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/manuals/socket.html#SEC1

Best regards,
Petri

[thorsinclair]

Hi Peter,

1) Q68 (if possible with improved graphics)
2) QLwIP

I would support both projects financially.

Best,

TH