New (to me) Q40!

The Thor, Aurora, Q40, Q60 & Q68 etc. are discussed here.
Derek_Stewart
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi Chr$,

The Q40 had only 3 display modes:
512x256 4/8 Colours
512x256 Mode 33, 16 bit colours
1024x512 Mode 33, 16 bit colours

The display is selected by using the DISP_SIZE command, for example:

DISP_SIZE 1024,512

The DISP_TYPE function returns the current display type.

If you use a small BGA monitor, the 1024x512 mode is really small. I used to use a 19" SVGA CRT Monitor for the Q40 or Q60.

There is problems with the limited scan rate of TFT /LED monitors an the Q40, the new chip that Peter produced can solve to a limited extent.

I do not have adapter to programme the Display chip. But if you are willing to wait,.I will get one made over Christmas.

Printers can be connected to the serial or parallel ports.

I think you need to read the manual, I will email the documentation I used send out with all new sales.


Regards,

Derek
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Chr$
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Chr$ »

Derek_Stewart wrote: I do not have adapter to programme the Display chip. But if you are willing to wait,.I will get one made over Christmas.
Yes please!
Derek_Stewart wrote:Printers can be connected to the serial or parallel ports.
Yes, but there was something unsuitable about the Q68 serial port that meant it doesn't work with the really old QL printer. I can't remember what it was.
Derek_Stewart wrote:I think you need to read the manual, I will email the documentation I used send out with all new sales.
I do have the original Q40 printed manual from 2002 and I think I've read all the important stuff, but will no doubt keep referring to it.


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Derek_Stewart
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi Chr$,

The Q68 does not have hardware flow control on the serial port, so you have use software flow control, check the printer manual, there should be configuration switches to alter the flow control for the printer.

The Q40, uses a PC I/O Card, which has full hardware and software flow control.

I used to supply the I/O Card information, I am not sure what was suplied with the Q40.

If you srnd me the I/O Card details, I see if I have some information.


Regards,

Derek
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Peter
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Peter »

Derek_Stewart wrote:The Q40 mainly used SMSQ/E, which used QXL.WIN or QWA container files that are located IDE devices, accessed by the I/O Card(s)
Not container files, QLWA partitions on an Atari format harddisk.


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mk79
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by mk79 »

Peter wrote:Not container files, QLWA partitions on an Atari format harddisk.
To be clear, support for container files on FAT partitions is a very recent addition (SMSQ/E 3.36), but it‘s now there and makes exchanging files very easy.

Marcel


Derek_Stewart
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Peter wrote:
Derek_Stewart wrote:The Q40 mainly used SMSQ/E, which used QXL.WIN or QWA container files that are located IDE devices, accessed by the I/O Card(s)
Not container files, QLWA partitions on an Atari format harddisk.
Hi Peter,

You are correct, its been over 25 years since I thought of this, I am guilty of only remembering the bad press side of things in those days.

The Q40/60 partitions are not QWA container files, but Atari format paritions, which are setup as a QWA partition type.

I usually create the partitions on a Q40/60 with atari-fdisk in Shoestring Linux, by using the Distro CD-ROM disc to boot up the Linux system.

The SMSQ/E Partition programme is not much use, as it has to create 4 primary partitions and does not allow less then 4 partitions to be created. Which means that 3 partitions of say... 512Mb and the 4 partition is the rest of the hard drive. Which could be many Gigabytes in size.

I found atari-disk more flexible allowing any number of partition and varying size of partition. The down side was it was a Linunx application, I could not find the source code to it to try and port it to the Q60.

I even asked for the source code to Shoestring Linux, which seems to unavavilable for lots of reasons, slow internet connection or something like that...

I used to fit a 20Gb hard drive, on Q60 computer sold, so, I created 3 x 512Mb QWA partitions with a Linux boot partition as Partition 4. The setup up Linux with extended partitions on the remaining hard drive.

When I was making more than on Q60 computer, I mirrored the hard drive and restored the hard drive image over a LAN connection with Linux. Which preinstalled any SMSQ/E Packages, which were paid for via a royalty agreement with JMS Software.

In those days, SMSQ/E was not as developed as it is now, there was no FAT container file access, but writing a QWA container file, as raw data to a CD-ROM disc allowed access to the data on the CD disc, with the SMSQ/E application: QXLWIN by Wolfgang Lenerz.

QXLWIN also allowed opening of QWA container files located in a SMSQ/E files systems.

Now 25 + years on, with SMSQ/E v3.35, QWA container files can be mounted in FAT file systems making the Q40/60 a more flexible computer.


Regards,

Derek
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Peter
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Peter »

Derek_Stewart wrote:I found atari-disk more flexible allowing any number of partition and varying size of partition. The down side was it was a Linunx application, I could not find the source code to it to try and port it to the Q60.
The exact name of the software is atari-fdisk, just in case someone actually searches.
Qubide was also possible on the Q40/Q60, but occupied the whole harddisk originally.
After TT left and and the QLWA filesystem remained unavailable outside the still commercial/prorietary SMSQ/E, Richard also wrote a new Qubide driver which implemented Qubide as a partition of an Atari format harddisk. With that one, QLWA, Qubide and the various Linux filesystems could coexist on the same IDE harddisk.


Derek_Stewart
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Peter wrote:
Derek_Stewart wrote:I found atari-disk more flexible allowing any number of partition and varying size of partition. The down side was it was a Linunx application, I could not find the source code to it to try and port it to the Q60.
The exact name of the software is atari-fdisk, just in case someone actually searches.
Qubide was also possible on the Q40/Q60, but occupied the whole harddisk originally.
After TT left and and the QLWA filesystem remained unavailable outside the still commercial/prorietary SMSQ/E, Richard also wrote a new Qubide driver which implemented Qubide as a partition of an Atari format harddisk. With that one, QLWA, Qubide and the various Linux filesystems could coexist on the same IDE harddisk.
Hi Peter,

My apologies for the typo, I did mean "atari-fdisk", which is a more flexible partionjng system than the TT version.

My partitioning setup was:
Partition 1: WIN1 : 512Mb
Partition 2: WIN2 : 512Mb
Partition 3: WIN3 : 512Mb
Partition 4: Linux boot

I defined extended Linux partitions to accomodate the other Linux operating system partitions.

This was a sample setup of what could done, not something that was cast in stone, as bgodd good QL magazines assumed.

Richard always promised the Shoetring Linux source code, but dud make available, I guess too late now.

With regards to QDOS Classic on the Q60, I only had 1 request for Qubide system, everyone wanted SMSQ/E and Linux.

The reason for Linux was the ability to acces the internet via modem or Ethernet.

Another out shoot of Q60, was I got Phil Borman to release QubIDE v2 source code, under a GPL Licence.

I supplied the Qubide v2 source to Mark Swift, who did an implementation of QDOS Classic with QubIDE v2. Which worked well on LS120 Superdisk drive and Zip Drives with QubIDE v2 partitioning.

Looks my interest in Q60 is being rekindled.


Regards,

Derek
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RalfR
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by RalfR »

I have used TT's partition scheme, when I first used my Atari MegaST4 with a Megafile 30. Unfortunately, I have had several crashes. The ST Partitions were ok but the QDOS Partitions not, So I have lost a lot of my files.

I always found QLWA on the ST a bit insufficient, it worked better with a later installed Rodime and an adapter.


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Peter
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Re: New (to me) Q40!

Post by Peter »

RalfR wrote:I have used TT's partition scheme, when I first used my Atari MegaST4 with a Megafile 30. Unfortunately, I have had several crashes.
I think Tony Tebby simply wanted to re-use the partition scheme and QLWA filesystem from Atari on the Q40.
But there is a difference inasmuch the Megafile 30 used an RLL harddisk, while the Q40 had an IDE interface, so the low level is different.
I provided working and intensely tested IDE driver routines to Tony Tebby, maybe that also has helped reliability in comparison to the Atari.


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