The Sinclair QL Forum

This is not a brag shot (honestly!) I only wanted to let those of you who dont already know that RaspberryPi 4B with SMSQmulator is a near-acceptable high-end QL solution. (Its that little grey box between the monitor and keyboard) Its not super-fast, at about 1/4 of the speed of a similar setup on my relatively recent i5 Windoze laptop. (And for Linux fans, you then have this whole other modern environment for browsing, emails, word processing, videos, music, etc.)

There are a few painful compromises, such as keys trapped, or not mapped, by Linux which means that some standard QL keypresses and key combinations wont work, so you have to get used to other ways of doing things. For a Windows user, there are other issues too, not least dealing with the whole convoluted Linux environment, but hey, nothing is purr-fect!

In the background of the picture, under the monitor to the left is a Q68. It too is great, although it also has its limitations. To me its seems a little slower than SMSQmulator on Raspi B4.

All 3 computers (ie including the desktop PC) are connected to the same monitor. The Q68 is additionally powered off the PC and outputs its sound through the PC's sound system. Sadly, 2 sets of keyboards and mice are still needed, and thus a lot of cables and mess everywhere. Possibly the Pi could work with the Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, but clearly not at the same time as the PC, so I use a PS2 to USB converter and share the mouse and keyboard with the Q68, which Im unlikely to need at the same time..

The next step is to get them all networked together..

Nice setup - what memory pi4 is that - 2, 4 or 8Gb version?

Pr0f wrote:Nice setup - what memory pi4 is that - 2, 4 or 8Gb version?

4Gb

Hi,

This is nearly the setup, I use with Lenovo M92z All in one PC running Linux Mint 20, with a 2Tb shared network drive.

The keyboard and mouse is PS/2 goes to a PS/2 to USB converter, this is fed into a USB & VGA switchbox.

The USB Switchbox switches between the M92z PC, PI400, Q68. The Q68 needscan additional USB-PS/2 converter.

The PI400 uses the switched PS/2 keyboard and mouse, by a USB cable from the switchbox.

The video is fed into the switchbox from the M92z external Disport input, which needs a DisplayPort to HDMI converter, into the switchbox.

All seems to wotk ncely.

Though I thinkmthe Pi is slow Linux computer. But I usually use RISCOS on it.

Derek_Stewart wrote: The Q68 needscan additional USB-PS/2 converter.

What type/brand of USB-PS/2 converter do you use?
All I could find was bloody expensive.

Andrew wrote:

Derek_Stewart wrote: The Q68 needscan additional USB-PS/2 converter.

What type/brand of USB-PS/2 converter do you use?
All I could find was bloody expensive.

It is:

USB Type A Male to 2 x PS/2 PS2 Keyboard and Mouse Adaptor Converter Adapter

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154495112915

Andrew wrote: What type/brand of USB-PS/2 converter do you use?
All I could find was bloody expensive.

Yup, both Black Box and Trip Lite ones run about $100 - $200. But, if you are patient and keep looking (esp on eBay) sometimes you can find them for a good price. I found a collection of about a dozen a couple of years ago of the Black Box brand that cost about $6 each (maybe $8 with shipping) and they ended up being grabbed up for people with Q68's...they were a bit buggy and needed a firmware upgrade on the Q68 so didn't work with mine (lost key strokes). I did find a Trip Lite later on for $30 that I'm using now and it worked with any Q68 version. Just scanning Google, the best price now I could find is $80.

Unfortunately there just isn't enough demand out in the retro scene to make it worthwhile for someone to create an open source project. I would think the best bet would be with the Spectrum Next, since there are a few thousand floating units floating about but it doesn't seem to interest anyone.

Well, it pity, as I was using a PS/2 keyboard/mouse to USB connection to a computer.

The Black adapters I have work with the Q68, with an update to the Q68 FPGA code, also there are none of the adapters available from the manufacturer

I am only using the Perixx PS/2 keyboard and mouse, because I have them, otherwise, USB would of been used.

I got the PS/2 keyboard and mouse (as shown in the photo above) specially for the Q68.
They are Perixx PERIBOARD-409P Mini Wired Keyboard - PS2 Interface and Perixx
PERIMICE-201PII B, Wired PS2 Optical Mouse - 3 Button - 1000dpi Resolution - 1.8m Cable
- Black. Compact and good quality, I think. About £20 in total in 2019. The dual PS/2 to
single PS/2 adapter I got from Derek with the Q68. The dual PS/2 to USB adapter to plug
the Perixxes into the Pi was about £4. It too was totally Plug and Play except one or two
important keys were not mapped. Its early days yet (I only set up the Pi this morning) so I
hope to be able to fix that.

Derek_Stewart wrote:<>
Though I thinkmthe Pi is slow Linux computer. But I usually use RISCOS on it.

Well thats the thing, Derek. I had an earlier version of PI, 3B, I think, and that was excruciatingly slow. But the 4B is different. It loads complex web pages reasonably fast, and best of all, runs something like SMSQmulator at an acceptable speed. Eg moving windows with transparency around the screen is painless. I remember back in the day running standard office PCs with W95 that could only move the window outline. If you tried moving the window with contents the hard disk would go into hysterics..