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My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 11:18 am
by vanpeebles
I just thought I'd post some pics and thoughts on one of the more empty parts of the forum detailing my recent Pandora/Aurora acquisition. I already had the super gold card. The Pandora came with the Aurora plus a Q plane and a Super Hermes. It needed assembling and all the ports fitting etc.

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The Q plane is not really suited for the Pandora case so I made a card support from some lego to take the weight of the super gold. I also made up a 5v lead for the super gold.

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At the moment the only storage is two 2.88 floppy drives (which I didn't know about, so an added bonus). The second drive is very noisy though and doesn't work well, is it possible to add a third standard PC 1.44 drive to the second floppy drive on the SGC? So I'd have flp3_?

The next stage is to track down some proper storage, the qubide clone is not keen on working with it (and not designed too which is fair enough :) ) I also have a nice enermax ATX psu so maybe fit that with an AT to ATX adapter? Although it's not really needed at the moment.

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Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 2:19 pm
by 1024MAK
vanpeebles wrote:The Q plane is not really suited for the Pandora case so I made a card support from some lego to take the weight of the super gold.
Nice, but I cannot see the Lego :(

Mark

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 2:56 pm
by vanpeebles
The black stuff with holes on the middle photo. Not the best picture/lighting sadly :(

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 3:28 pm
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,

Looks great, the Pandora case gives a great level of portability. Will you bring to a QL Show?

The Qplane does give alot of noise, I have one built into a Black PC Case, just need to get one of my Super Gold Cards or Gold working to make a nice system.

The Mplane is better, but it went to the USA for manufacture, pity, as I could built them as with the Romdisq.

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 7:27 pm
by 1024MAK
Ahh, now I know where to look, I can now kinda see (still needs my imagination to help out though) :P

Have you ever thought about working in the military, if you can pull off the same trick by hiding a main battle tank, you would make millions :lol:

Mark

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 7:28 pm
by vanpeebles
It would be nice to take it to some shows :) I'll keep an eye out for a different backplane an d an original qubide too :)

Hehehe I'll see if I can take some better pics.

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:34 pm
by vanpeebles
Does anyone know if it's possible to set the screen resolution using qdos or do you need to be running smsq? :?

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:24 pm
by dilwyn
vanpeebles wrote:Does anyone know if it's possible to set the screen resolution using qdos or do you need to be running smsq? :?
You need to be running SMSQ/E.

QDOS does not support either the higher resolution or higher colour modes (unless you write your own code for QDOS!)

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:28 pm
by tofro
Peter,

I don't (unfortunately) have an Aurora, so don't know from own experience, but

with one of the later PEs you should be able to use GD2.

Tobias

Re: My Pandora Aurora Super QL Project

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:52 pm
by vanpeebles
I've managed to get it working using smsq, although with a small window top left. Which from reading the manual, I need to adjust some window# values. The confusion was due to a misunderstanding in thinking that smsq wasn't keen on the hxc drive. :D

I'm currently locked in battle trying to get smsq working on a newly acquired hxc floppy drive emulator thingy. Lots of head scratching, much cursing but slow progress! :lol:

Will the Aurora only boot from flp1_ or should I be ok with the hxc as flp3_?