The Sinclair QL Forum

Pr0f wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2024 7:39 pm I've usesd one of those with no issues - I'd be happy to take a look at it/them and see what might be wrong?

PM if interested. If they are working or I can get them working I'm happy to send them back to you.

Hi Pr0f, if you'd like a copy of the converter schematic please let me know.

Tony, I have been waiting to sort this out for over six months now, after sending a free replacement power converter for the first one that didn't work as expected in your QL system. I no longer have the email correspondence from that time but I recall I was expecting some information from you about ...

Does that mean that the ZX microdrive hooked to a QL should be able to format a cartridge in QL format?


Certainly worth a try but getting to 200 good sectors will be a challenge as this is a high number even for the ZX to achieve.

Replacing R4 and R5 on the ZX Microdrive header board with ...

In fact, there are subtle differences between various ROM versions and what they accept as a "proper format". MG is probably the most picky one in that it asks for at least one bad sector on a cartridge and a minimum amount (200) of working ones. JS and Minerva don't enforce a bad sector, and ...

The other oddity is that the ZX Microdrive boards are different from the QL ones...I would have expected them to be the same. But the daughter board (i.e. base board) on the ZX drives controls the motor speed, whereas on the QL, that comes form the head circuit board.


Hi,

Have come a bit late ...

An update regarding the h/w drive shadowing. An initial implementation in OqtaDrive is working fairly well now. At least with the Spectrum. I haven't tested with my QL yet. A couple of CATs is usually enough to get a full, error free copy of the cartridge.

Hi Alex,

I've been done this rabbit ...

Just tracking back over old posts, prompted by the recent interest in the Oqtadrive, and thought it useful to point out how much information was made available following on from Gertz's original investigations.
For example here's a post detailing the Microdrive encoding scheme way back in 2017 ...

I did a video of the other option, after Noel Llopis tried it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbBH4GgZxsM

That one just didn't sound right. Looking forward to your upgrade.

It's a wee bit better than what was presented in the video :-) I had done a short video for the Spectrum version ...

I've started playing around with capturing actual h/w cartridges into virtual ones using OqtaDrive, and my first experiments show that this is doable. I'm working out the details now. This is going to be the main new feature of the next OqtaDrive release.

Hi Alex,

If you're relying on the ...

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

The new sound module sounds great, when you are able to supply them, I would like one...

Hi Derek,

I can send you one for the cost of the shipping if you'd like? Just PM me on the forum and we can sort the details.

Cheers,

Charlie