The Sinclair QL Forum

I have to say I was initially sceptical about this - believing it to be 'window dressing' - but on watching the youtube - it does give you that reassurance that the vdrive is being accessed - as you sometimes miss looking at the LED if you are distracted elsewhere...

It definitely gives a better audible feedback than the default beeps and it's far less jarring.

Here's a video of the completed unit. The Microdrive case does act as a sound box so it's loud enough, about the same as a proper Microdrive actually.:

https://youtu.be/f0xifD8hyko

Hi Stephen,

Nice video, have given it the thumbs up and subscribed to your channel.

Great addon to the vDriveQL.

Will you be making this available?

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi Stephen,

Nice video, have given it the thumbs up and subscribed to your channel.

Great addon to the vDriveQL.

Will you be making this available?

I've put all the KiCAD, Gerber and ATTiny85 files, along with an installation guide up on Github: https://github.com/stephen-usher/vDrive-Sound-Board

It's Creative Commons licensed.

If anyone would like to get a number of boards made and sell them that's fine by me. I'll be giving away some empty PCBs at the Retro Computer Festival in Cambridge this weekend if people want them. I could also put some by for members of this forum so I can post them next week if people reply quickly. I'm unlikely to have access to here after about 2pm though.

P.S. I've just seen your comment on YouTube. I'll keep one of the PCBs spare for you.

stephen_usher wrote:Here's a video of the completed unit.

I wasn't aware, that "Scrabble" took so long to load

stephen_usher wrote:

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi Stephen,

Nice video, have given it the thumbs up and subscribed to your channel.

Great addon to the vDriveQL.

Will you be making this available?

I've put all the KiCAD, Gerber and ATTiny85 files, along with an installation guide up on Github: https://github.com/stephen-usher/vDrive-Sound-Board

It's Creative Commons licensed.

If anyone would like to get a number of boards made and sell them that's fine by me. I'll be giving away some empty PCBs at the Retro Computer Festival in Cambridge this weekend if people want them. I could also put some by for members of this forum so I can post them next week if people reply quickly. I'm unlikely to have access to here after about 2pm though.

P.S. I've just seen your comment on YouTube. I'll keep one of the PCBs spare for you.

Hi Stephen,

I can get PCBs made from the Gerber files.

I would like to get to Cambridge, but I have other commitments.

Hi Stephen,

I saw your original post with the veroboard protype. I thought wow ! Now I've seen this follow up thread, it's more than wow. I noticed on the original thread that you included a link to the C source code, but the link is broken. Could you post the C source code again ? Or maybe include it on the github, as I can't find it on there (unless I'm looking in the wrong place).

It'd be nice to try to tweak the sound generation to include the (sometimes almost imperceptible) "shuk" sound made (around every 7 seconds) as the tape loop joint passes out off the spool, across the head between the pulleys and back into the spool... (don't want much do I, LOL )

I'm looking at getting a vdrive, as I don't have one yet, but I'm so impressed with your project and its superb reproduction of the drive sound... I'd love to fit it to the vdrive as soon as I get it.

Are there any more boards available, or if not, do you plan on another run at all ?


Ayway, excellent work on this.

The source is there in the ATTiny85 directory in the Github repository. It's a .ino file (Arduino.cc build environment) called mdvsnd-v1.ino

As for the boards, if you PM me your address I'll find one and put it in the post.