Hello from Tunbridge Wells

[Adrian]

Hello QL Forum,

Just before Christmas, I had an attack of nostalgia while browsing on ebay, and decided to buy some QL artefacts. I'd never owned a Sinclair QL in the past, but did own a ZX-81 when I was about 13 years old. A friend at college had owned a QL, so I think I'd always had a lingering inclination to own one. Who knew that it'd take 30 years for this to all bubble to the surface?

Anyay, the result of this flurry of bidding was that I became the proud owner of a pair of QL computers, an RGB to SCART connector, a 512K expandaram, a Micro Peripherals disk controller and a bunch of microdrives (15 or so, I think).

None of the purchases were listed as working, so I didn't hold out much hope of success when I unpacked them and prepared for the initial turn on, so I was actually pretty surprised when one of the QLs sprang into life with the TV/Monitor select menu. The keyboard was DOA, but I'd prepared myself for this when I read about the fragility of the keyboard membrane. The other machine presented a video signal (or at least, my telly thought so), but the only output was a blank screen.

I took both machines apart to have a quick look inside, and the keyboard membrane on both machines crumbled away at the connectors as I opened the machines, so that was clearly an obvious problem. On the least working machine, I noticed that the reset button was jammed on, so popped that out (it looks pretty crusty) and tried the machine again. This time, more success! The TV/Monitor select menu appeared.

To test my own ability to wield a screwdriver, I only ordered a single keyboard membrane (from RWAP) on the basis that I'd either order another one when I convinced myself it was straightforward, or send the computer to someone who could do it properly.

The membrane arrived today and whilst the rest of my family were at the theatre, I managed to fit the new membrane. It genuinely was surprisingly easy to fit. The notes included by RWAP were very easy to follow and included good advice regarding possible pitfalls. It all worked perfectly first time. Brilliant!

My next step was to take a look at the peripherals I'd bought at the same time. Both the 512K expandaram and the floppy disk interface seemed to work as well. Excellent. To be honest, I'd assumed that everything I'd bought would be unworking out of the box, since it had been listed as not-tested on ebay. Who knew such old equipment would be so durable? Is this always the case?

So, my next steps are to join an old 3.5 inch floppy to the QL. I've dug up an old floppy drive, a power supply (with an incompatible power adaptor) and 34 pin cable. A molex to mini-spox connector is on its way (hopefully that'd the right combination of connectors).

When that's up and running, I might be a bit stuck as to what to do, so I'd be up for advice (hence the posting). I'm a computer programmer by trade, but I haven't done any assembler coding for years, so I quite fancied doing some experimentation. I'm tempted to actually code on the QL, but I suspect that this might become frustrating, so I'd guess that the best option is to work via an emulator. Is this what most people do? Or is a cross-compiler/assembler a better choice?

Adrian

p.s.
Apologies for the length of post, I didn't think I had so much on my mind when I started writing!

[tofro]

Adrian,

welcome and congrats to your apparently lucky purchase!

...., so I'd guess that the best option is to work via an emulator. Is this what most people do? Or is a cross-compiler/assembler a better choice?

I really don't know what most people do, but I normally do QL development using QPC2. While there is a number of editors available that were quite feature-rich by the time, the editors available on 2015's PCs are definitely a slight bit better
Most Emulators can easily access the PC native file system, so it's easy to edit on the PC side of things and compile/assemble from the emulated QL without the need to copy files around. So bothering with a cross-compiler isn't actually needed. Also, stuff like SVN or Git is helpful and nice to use from the PC side for QL development work.

With regards to tooling, have a look at Dilwyn Jones' site, you can find all the decent compilers and assemblers there.
I'd thoroughly recommend the GST Assembler and Linker plus C68 if you want to dive into C programming on the QL - This also provides make and other unixoid tooling.
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk

You would also want to look into a floppy drive for your PC in order to be able to move stuff back and forth between the PC and the QL. QL-SD (SD-Card interface for the QL) might also be worth a look.

Have fun!
Tobias

[vanpeebles]

A warm welcome to the forum. Sounds like you have a good setup already

[Adrian]

welcome and congrats to your apparently lucky purchase!

Thanks! It's good to find such an active forum for such an old computer.

I really don't know what most people do, but I normally do QL development using QPC2. While there is a number of editors available that were quite feature-rich by the time, the editors available on 2015's PCs are definitely a slight bit better
Most Emulators can easily access the PC native file system, so it's easy to edit on the PC side of things and compile/assemble from the emulated QL without the need to copy files around. So bothering with a cross-compiler isn't actually needed. Also, stuff like SVN or Git is helpful and nice to use from the PC side for QL development work.

I've just installed QPC2, looks a little forbidding, so I guess I've got a bit of reading/experimenting to do...

With regards to tooling, have a look at Dilwyn Jones' site, you can find all the decent compilers and assemblers there.
I'd thoroughly recommend the GST Assembler and Linker plus C68 if you want to dive into C programming on the QL - This also provides make and other unixoid tooling.
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk

Good stuff, it's probably been about 10 years since I did any C programming, but I'm sure it'll all come flooding back. Make, et al would be a definite bonus!

You would also want to look into a floppy drive for your PC in order to be able to move stuff back and forth between the PC and the QL. QL-SD (SD-Card interface for the QL) might also be worth a look.

Another good point. That hadn't even occurred to me. Looks like another trip to ebay for a USB floppy. Does the emulator handle the formatting of the floppy? i.e. I guess floppies should be blank and then formatted via the emulated QL. Is that correct?

Thanks again,

[Adrian]

A warm welcome to the forum. Sounds like you have a good setup already

Thanks for the welcome. With regards the current setup, we'll see: I'll say it's a good setup when I've compiled and run my first program for the QL!

Adrian

[RWAP]

Welcome to the forums, and thanks for the feedback.

I have just been helping another user who found some keys didn't work after replacing the membrane - but that was actually down to one of the pins inside a molex connector being slightly bent and not touching the membrane! That's a first for me.

The PC emulators should be able to format a floppy disk for the QL, but it can be a bit hit and miss unless you are using Windows XP (or earlier) or Linux, and even worse if you have a USB floppy disk drive.
One trick is to force Windows to format a floppy disk as a DD disk first -

go to DOS and use:

FORMAT A: \t:80 \n:9

DD disks are supposedly not supported in Windows 7 and beyond, but this works for me (but not for Dilwyn)...

QPC2 should then be able to reformat the disk for the QL.

Q-emulator can reformat it more easily than QPC2 (and in a couple of seconds rather than 30+ seconds taken by QPC2). Plus q-emulator should be able to then format any number of QL disks from scratch without too much difficulty (in my experience) until you turn off the PC.

That said, formatting directly on the QL is both faster and more reliable - especially if someone else needs to read the disks!

From the QL side of things, the main issue you will find is that most floppy disks are set up to work as DS1 (slave) or flp2_ on the QL and most floppy cables are pre-twisted.

You need a straigh cable and at least one drive to be set up to be recognised as DS0 (flp1_ ), which can be achieved by

a) Setting a jumper on the PCB on the disk drive (very few drives have these - mostly pre 1990 drives)
b) Changing a solder pad on the PCB which sets DS0, DS1, SEL - normally soldered across as DS1 - break that solder and change it to DS0
c) Change the straight cable by swapping 2 lines - I can't remember which ones there are off the top of my head - it is on the forums somewhere (pin 18 and 20 ??)

[dilwyn]

Welcome, Adrian. It's nice to see people acquiring QLs and getting them to work.

If you need manuals, have a look at my site where you can get all sorts of replacement manuals for the QL itself, various interfaces and eBooks to do with the QL:
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/manuals/index.html - replacement manuals
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/ebooks/index.html - eBooks, QL manual and online QL manual
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/index.html - all sorts of articles about QL

As for programming, most people program the QL in BASIC/Compiled BASIC (using Turbo or QLiberator compilers), C68 compiler and either George Gwilt's GWASS or GWASL assemblers or Q-Mac assembler.

Turbo BASIC compiler is freeware these days and available from my site at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/turbo/index.html. QLiberator is still a commercial product, but a bit hard to find these days.

C68 is a freeware C compiler from Dave Walker. Get it from http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/c/index.html

Assemblers - a few available at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/asm/index.html.

As for learning 68000 assembler, if you need guides there are a few articles on my site, or my personal preference is Andy Pennell's "Assembly Language Programming-QL". Out of print, but copies do turn up second hand. A scan of it is available at http://sinclairql.speccy.org/archivo/do ... alpsql.pdf

Finally, links to all sorts of QL-related sites at http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/gen/qlnet/qlnet.html

[vanpeebles]

Ooo - also check out this free ebook that came out at Christmas, it's excellent

http://qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1147

[belg4rion67]

Hi and welcome;
for floppy cable read this: http://qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2& ... able#p8466
Cheers
Paolo

[Adrian]

Welcome to the forums, and thanks for the feedback.

Thank you, and no problem for the feedback, it's a good product.

The PC emulators should be able to format a floppy disk for the QL, but it can be a bit hit and miss unless you are using Windows XP (or earlier) or Linux, and even worse if you have a USB floppy disk drive.
One trick is to force Windows to format a floppy disk as a DD disk first -

go to DOS and use:

FORMAT A: \t:80 \n:9

DD disks are supposedly not supported in Windows 7 and beyond, but this works for me (but not for Dilwyn)...

QPC2 should then be able to reformat the disk for the QL.

Q-emulator can reformat it more easily than QPC2 (and in a couple of seconds rather than 30+ seconds taken by QPC2). Plus q-emulator should be able to then format any number of QL disks from scratch without too much difficulty (in my experience) until you turn off the PC.

That said, formatting directly on the QL is both faster and more reliable - especially if someone else needs to read the disks!

Thanks for the advice, I'd forgotten about the move from DD -> HD 3.5 floppies over the years. I just had a quick look on ebay and 720K floppies are still available fingers crossed. By the sounds of it, I might need to resurrect and old computer to move data around between the internet and the QL. We'll see.

From the QL side of things, the main issue you will find is that most floppy disks are set up to work as DS1 (slave) or flp2_ on the QL and most floppy cables are pre-twisted.

You need a straigh cable and at least one drive to be set up to be recognised as DS0 (flp1_ ), which can be achieved by

a) Setting a jumper on the PCB on the disk drive (very few drives have these - mostly pre 1990 drives)
b) Changing a solder pad on the PCB which sets DS0, DS1, SEL - normally soldered across as DS1 - break that solder and change it to DS0
c) Change the straight cable by swapping 2 lines - I can't remember which ones there are off the top of my head - it is on the forums somewhere (pin 18 and 20 ??)

Saturday evening when I read this, this sounded absolutely nerve racking advice to someone of my technical ability! In the calm of Sunday, I've had a look at the manual for my FDD (a Samsung SFD-321B) and what you said about DS0/DS1 makes sense + the soldering doesn't look too nasty. Maybe I'll try the cable swap first though: more reversible.

Adrian