The Q68 QL Net will hapily connect with any QLNet compatible machine, such as the QXL.
I think I mentioned elsewhere that my QXL2 required a few adjustments to the timing constants (easily done from my basic Boot file), but in principal it shouldn't be necessary and will just work.
As for an Ethernet connection - whilst the Q68's Eth works nicely with Martin Head's excellent driver, the QXL doesn't have direct access to it's host PC's Ethernet port as far as I'm aware.
martyn_hill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 08, 2023 8:07 pm
As for an Ethernet connection - whilst the Q68's Eth works nicely with Martin Head's excellent driver, the QXL doesn't have direct access to it's host PC's Ethernet port as far as I'm aware.
No, in fact it doesn''t. There were multiple attempts to convince Tony Tebby to extend the transfer protocol between the QXL and its host to allow for access to more peripherals than just keyboard, video, floppy, mouse, serial and hard drive partitions, but they all failed.
I normally supply the Q68 with a 4Gb SD Card, with this partition scheme:
Partition 1 : FAT32 : 3.25Gb - for staorage of QWA and QUB container files
Partition 2: FAT : 255Mb - for data exchange of files in 8+3 format
Which leaves space for 2 additional FAT partitions to a maximum size of 255Mb a limitation on the Q68 FAT device driver.
If a 16 Gb or 32Gb SD Card was used, what would be the best partition scheme, one large FAT32 partition with 3 FAT16 Partition taking the rest of the space?
Last edited by Derek_Stewart on Thu Mar 07, 2024 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Can Windows read the FAT16 partitions? I've tried XP, 7, 8.1, and 10. And they just ignore the FAT16 partitions. The only thing I have that reads them is a Linux box.
How do you make FAT16 partitions on an SD card in Windows 10? I've tried some things I found online that said they worked in Windows, but they just don't seem to work for me. Is this just because Windows does not support FAT16 at all?
I just tend to use your 4Gb image file written to a 16 or 32Gb SD card to get a FAT16 partition. But this wastes lots of the space on the SD card.
Could we have an idiots guide to creating FAT partitions on SD cards. If it can only be done in Linux, then it would have to be a total idiots guide for me.
I mostly use Windows 10 and have no problem reading FAT partitions on the SD card. Have you already tried Disk Management (which is the Windows 10 partition utility)?
Martin_Head wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2023 11:24 am
While on the subject of SD cards.
Can Windows read the FAT16 partitions? I've tried XP, 7, 8.1, and 10. And they just ignore the FAT16 partitions. The only thing I have that reads them is a Linux box.
How do you make FAT16 partitions on an SD card in Windows 10? I've tried some things I found online that said they worked in Windows, but they just don't seem to work for me. Is this just because Windows does not support FAT16 at all?
I just tend to use your 4Gb image file written to a 16 or 32Gb SD card to get a FAT16 partition. But this wastes lots of the space on the SD card.
Could we have an idiots guide to creating FAT partitions on SD cards. If it can only be done in Linux, then it would have to be a total idiots guide for me.
This can actually be a result of your formatting. Windows knows about two types of disk media: Local disks and removable disks. Local disks are handled like your hard drive, removable disks are handled like a floppy drive (and can't have multiple partitions). Depending on where your card was formatted, a bit in the drive descriptor byte ("RMB = removable media bit" determines how Windows looks at your card. If that bit is set on your card, Windows will ignore any but the first partition.
However: Windows 10 was the first Windows version to allow partitioning removable media. On a (recent) Windows 10 system, addtional partitions should actually be visible (not the case on Win 7 and before)
Thanks for the suggestions. It was a little while ago that I last tried. And I can't remember off hand exactly what I had and had not tried. But I'm sure I had been in disk management. I have also been in a disk management from the DOS prompt, following some instructions I found online on how to partition and format FAT16 partitions. I think I got so far, then Windows would not accept the the command in the instructions I was given. But maybe the instructions were for a hard disk?
This is what was making me think that Windows does not support FAT16 at all.
The only FAT16 example I have is Derek's Q68 image file written to a 16/32Gb SD card. Which Linux can see fine, But Windows ignores completely.
How do I find/change this "RMB = removable media bit"?
I also tried two or three SD card formatting tools. They just seem to want to format the whole card in one go, with no mention of FAT16.
