Hello from sunny Surrey & re: CPM-68K for the QL

[Timbo614]

Hi All,

I found this forum because I was watching a retro YouTube channel and someone in the comments mentioned CP/M-68K and a thought occurred to me along the lines of "Did it really ever escape from Quest and into the wild on the QL?"

I worked for Quest back in 83-84 and wrote the BIOS I/O for CP/M-68K on the QL. It was very much a rush job though. I think I/we did it in 6 weeks from receiving our first QL and the ONLY CP/M-68K disks in the UK from DR.

From google I found a thread here that has been dead since 2015 but thought it would be interesting to try to follow it up by joining (or I couldn't post anything) so now I'm all joined up I'll post something on that thread about what I can remember about what was needed back then to get it going. But, I seriously doubt that the necessary hardware has been retained by anyone. Unless you know different...

I'm also really interested in the Retro museum idea in France... I have A LOT of retro machines including possibly 50 various Sinclairs in states from almost pristine & boxed down to chewed by mice!

So once again Hi! it would be really something to see work I did 34 years ago spring into life on a real QL or possibly it would be easier to get it going on a emulator - the down side is that I really don't know/remember if I retained the assembler source code.

Timbo.

[Dave]

Hello Timbo!

You'll see a lot of the big names from the 80s here.

Welcome!

[RWAP]

Hi,

Some of the old Quest hardware is still around - but I have only ever personally seen the memory expansion boards (which were huge).

If you have any old contacts from Quest, or can add to the QL Wiki (http://qlwiki.theqlforum.com/doku.php?id ... mation_ltd) that would be helpful.

I always wondered about the laser disk system which got a mention in QL User.

[vanpeebles]

A warm welcome to the forum!

[Timbo614]

Hi again,

Here is what I remember....

http://theqlforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1323&start=40

Ironic that my user level is "ROM Dongle" LOL

@RWAP: I could add something to that - the CP/M-68K initial BIOS author was me! I worked from the Fleet (Hants) office which is not mentioned.

I do still have some contact with a couple of the guys from back then although I have not spoken to them for a couple of years. Unfortunately the guy who designed the QL Interfaces (and many other things for Quest back then) is no longer with us.

The laser disk setup (quietly) - yes we did a presentation and I did go to it(A London hotel/conference centre?), no we didn't actually have access to one to even think about interfacing it, unless that part happened after I left but I doubt it.

To be honest I expect the QL adventure is something that they all want to forget about (and possibly have).

Timbo

[vanpeebles]

Bring them on the forum! Maybe they can finally all look back in fondness, after all these years