Pr0f wrote:If Dave's design provides some additional gating around the interrupt area, then all things are possible
I just want to clarify that this is not my design. It is Nasta's design. Nasta's logic. Nasta's schematic. We're co-developing the PCB layout and I will be doing the hardware production. Weirdly, I have quite a few retro hardware projects under my belt, but not on the QL.
I think it is important to state this so you know there is a competent mind behind the process. Juuust not mine
There are some features we'd like to see supported in future versions of SMSQ/E. It's a catch-22 situation where the hardware needs to exist for driver development, and without a driver it is hard to know what the driver might look like.
This has happened with the serial card (which is important and brings fast ethernet, wifi and bluetooth capabilities to the QL, plus a LOT of very capable GPIO options including PWM, I2C, SPI, sound including 44.1KHz stereo output, relay control, monitoring, temperature sensing, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
So this has affected me in two ways: firstly, when we have a GREAT project, we don't discuss it publicly until we're confident it will attract timely coder support. It took, I understand, ten years for Aurora drivers to arrive. We simply don't have the time to wait that long for new hardware to gain OS or driver or software support. The QL has been around 35 years, and these boards will easily make it another 35 years and more. Very few of us will be around then to see it.
People like Nasta, Peter Graf and myself, we have the hardest time bringing out new hardware. Beyond the competing demands of users who have their own interests, there's a general divide between hardware and software developers. A couple of people seem to cross that divide quite effortlessly - Marcel Kilgus and Jan Vanderbeek come to mind - but they have neither the time nor inclination to develop the level of new hardware that's needed to keep the QL relevant. So we're nibbling at the edge of what's possible: Peter's QL-SD giving us the only storage option that involves a currently mass manufactured media format, for example.
After two years of asking, just in the last two weeks I have got two interesting offers to develop and test a serial driver. So I am quickly churning out five serial cards to send out to those two people, one to Nasta, plus a couple here for testing. If we get a workable system there will be HUGE benefits to the QL community. I'm hoping after that becomes widely available, my request for coding help with GD2 drivers fir a new and capable video card will be taken more seriously. If anyone wants to get an early heads up, they can email me. It's not vaporware.