SOLD Jurgen Falkenberg Keyboard Interfaces

[skagon]

OK - so who is going to reverse engineer and build a Hermes and Minerva for £20 and sell it for £30.

Same question for RAM / disk interfaces....

If you can design them Skagon, and build them, then do so and get them to market!

If not, then find me someone who can !

If you're talking about the boards themselves, yes, I can do it. Easily. Reverse-engineering them, that is.
If you're talking about the SuperHermes code, I have no idea. I don't know what the copyright laws say. If that guy who designed them has the code and is willing to release it to PD, the problem is solved.
Minerva ROMs are out there on the net, so all you need is a ROM programmer.

Unfortunately, I have neither a SuperHermes nor a Minerva, so I can't really reverse-engineer the boards from (bad) photos.

The same goes for RAM boards and disk interfaces. As long as we have the ROM code or GAL code or whatever they used, it's possible. RAM interfaces are all pure glue logic, so it's perfectly doable. Disk interfaces... some have ROMs only, so again, doable. GALs and (especially) FPGAs are a different story, unless they just utilise basic glue logic.

Incidentally, after some preliminary electric tests, I hooked up one of the Jurgen Klinsman keyboard interfaces, it's working happily with the Epson keyboard. Haven't tested the other one yet, but I'm happy so far.

[RWAP]

A quick search of these forums shows at least one design for a replacement Minerva board - with the Eagle CAD file also included - see:

http://www.qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=576

As for RAM and disk interfaces - this is the problem - whilst copies of the EPROM can of course be created easily - no-one appears to have the code for the GALs.

If you want the PIC code for the Hermes / SuperHermes and the designs, you would need to discuss that directly with Tony FIrshman - I have no idea what his response would be?

Even with the GAL code, it is impossible to make replacement (Super) Gold Cards - if you have read the comments on here, you would realise that the code for the ALTERA chips will NOT work on modern Alteras and several people have tried to find the original Alteras, but because you have to guarantee that they were manufactured before Altera made a minor change to them, it is nigh impossible (believe me, several people have tried over the past 10-15 years)....

The other issue with disk interfaces is the cost of WD-1770 and WD-1772 chips which are no longer cheap.

You would be better designing a new interface from scratch....

[RWAP]

By the way Jurgen Klinsman was a footballer as far as I know.

It was Jurgen Falkenberg who designed and made quite a few different bits of hardware for the QL - although much of it was quite poorly designed....

Glad the keyboard interface seems to work - just be careful that it doesn't pop out of the 8049 socket when you move the QL - I complained about this to the trader I bought mine from in the 80s and ended up switching to an external version which had a fly lead to the interface - the other end was a horrible connector which had wire pins which would bend as soon as you looked at them!

[RWAP]

On an untelated subject... I'm getting a premonition. I'm receiving the vibes. If the stars align, I feel we may soon see one (or maybe even two) Minerva boards for sale...
Can you feel it too?

I just wondered what was giving you this feeling? You had my hopes up there for a while...

[skagon]

You may not believe it but I agree with your comments to a large extent. I would love to see a QL-SD project on the market for £50 or less - but who knows if it will happen.

I am very glad to hear that. But read on.

You seem to think that the QL is a closed market where there is just one trader who makes huge profits on everything. Gone are the days of Digital Precision when the owner and software authors could make huge sums of money.

That is so far from the truth that it is laughable.

No, I don't think there is just *one* person. But it *is* a closed market.
What I think is that some people designed *something* a long time ago, and, as we say in my country, "think they grabbed the priest by the balls". Meaning, they think they can keep selling the same product forever for a hundred quid. Sorry dudes, but that's not how it works.
And basically, that's why they have ALL stopped making them and selling them. Yes, when it was brand new and it was 1998 (or whatever), you could sell a SuperHermes for £90. Now, it's a joke.

Unfortunately, there's another side to this: if there's a new designer out there, and he sees that you're selling a Trump card for £120... they WILL think that, hey, I designed an SD/CF/whatever interface... hell, I'll sell it for £120 as well!
...and then, only 3 people buy it, and then he stops making them.
That's how it works.

And hell, I'd do the same thing too! If you can sell something that somebody else made and got in a huge joblot for £100 (pseudorandom number) and sell it for £165 (and again) on its own, why shouldn't I make 200% profit on something that *I* designed?

[skagon]

I have this feeling that the issues with the Gold card FPGA are rather exaggerated. Just my feeling. But I'll take your word for it.
As for the 1770/1772, there's a guy who sells boards for the BBC that include the 1772, for £25 or so, and that includes controller board and ROM and some other 74LS chips necessary. If he can do it and make a profit...

About the Jurgen ... whatever interface, I too think its board design is not good. Nowadays, you could design the same thing using SMD components and better routing and make it smaller and more sturdy. Also, it's using a dual DIL socket construction which is rather flimsy. It can be very easily re-done with a proper DIL socket and a male-to-male DIL adaptor, so you wouldn't have those problems. The lead would also be far better connected through a 4-pin socket rather than being soldered on-board.
And I wonder if those 8 74LS chips could be replaced by something simpler... but I'll have to examine the design of the board to know for sure.
The popping-out, unfortunately, is due to the combination of turned-pin sockets on the board and plain flat-contacts socket on the QL board. The former's conic shape is being pushed out by the latter's flat spring action. You can always remove the QL socket and replace it with a turned pin, that will take care of that problem.

[skagon]

On an untelated subject... I'm getting a premonition. I'm receiving the vibes. If the stars align, I feel we may soon see one (or maybe even two) Minerva boards for sale...
Can you feel it too?

I just wondered what was giving you this feeling? You had my hopes up there for a while...

A little bird told me... there were a couple of QLs that got very recently sold, that *might* contain Minervas...

[RWAP]

Ah but there's the problem - if I could buy 20 Trump Cards I would not pay £90 each - I would pay less and sell them for less....

The prices are set not only by the size of the market, but by the size of the supply!

As it is I have customers who have been asking me for disk interfaces for the past 3 years and can't supply them - often pointing them to ones on ebay if they are listed.

This is where we will never see eye to eye.

If you think you can buy QL equipment and sell it for 200% more, then go ahead - set yourself up as a trader, set up a website and start trading.... No-one is stopping you

Ah but that takes capital investment and you risk that you may not get back anything....

You bemoan about profiteering on some items, but forget that it is those profits which are used to invest in new projects - where do you think the money for new projects comes from otherwise?

Here's the challenge....
I am willing to buy 100 QL-SD Card Interfaces fully tested and working for £35 and sell them for £50.

So a designer can come along and decide to sell me 100 in one go, or maybe try to find buyers to sell them one by one and keep all the profit for themselves..... Does the market exist for 100 interfaces? Who knows? That is their choice, and why some people decide to sell direct and others decide to offer the products to me...

[RWAP]

On an untelated subject... I'm getting a premonition. I'm receiving the vibes. If the stars align, I feel we may soon see one (or maybe even two) Minerva boards for sale...
Can you feel it too?

I just wondered what was giving you this feeling? You had my hopes up there for a while...

A little bird told me... there were a couple of QLs that got very recently sold, that *might* contain Minervas...

Ah OK... - can't say I noticed any sell with these...

[RWAP]

I have this feeling that the issues with the Gold card FPGA are rather exaggerated. Just my feeling. But I'll take your word for it.

Well - ask Tony Firshman - he was one of the ones who led the search for replacement chips 10-15 years ago!

As for the 1770/1772, there's a guy who sells boards for the BBC that include the 1772, for £25 or so, and that includes controller board and ROM and some other 74LS chips necessary. If he can do it and make a profit...

Interesting - have only ever seen them listed on ebay for about £20 a chip!

There are some chinese companies who list them - although they are WD1770-PH00-02 chips - not sure if these are the same as the ones in QL interfaces always used just WD1770, plus from recent experiences on www.sinclairzxworld.com (buying new ZX81 ULAs from China), it would appear that there are companies selling surplus stock of which only 40% might work!

About the Jurgen ... whatever interface, I too think its board design is not good. Nowadays, you could design the same thing using SMD components and better routing and make it smaller and more sturdy. Also, it's using a dual DIL socket construction which is rather flimsy. It can be very easily re-done with a proper DIL socket and a male-to-male DIL adaptor, so you wouldn't have those problems. The lead would also be far better connected through a 4-pin socket rather than being soldered on-board.
And I wonder if those 8 74LS chips could be replaced by something simpler... but I'll have to examine the design of the board to know for sure.
The popping-out, unfortunately, is due to the combination of turned-pin sockets on the board and plain flat-contacts socket on the QL board. The former's conic shape is being pushed out by the latter's flat spring action. You can always remove the QL socket and replace it with a turned pin, that will take care of that problem.

It probably could be redesigned quite easily - Di-Ren's keyboard interface was a heck of a lot simpler and cheaper, and more reliable. However, there is not really a market for QL keyboard interfaces - most modified QLs do not sell (or at least not for more than £25-£35).