QL 34th Anniversary new hardware.

[Dave]

...Not because you called me "long gone"...

Hey now! That's not what I said!

I said that one day we will be gone, and we do have to have a plan for what happens to our stuff after we are. You don't have to do what I do, but it is good practice to have some plan in place. We've lost a couple of great people, whose loss will really be felt, just in the last couple of weeks. I have heart disease. I almost died a couple of times already!

What your plan is, and who you share it with, is none of my business. I'm choosing to be public about my plans, because for me dying is a realistic prospect!

PS: If I die, all my work becomes public domain immediately. Otherwise, when released, it'll have either a 5-year or 10-year open source no-commercial-use license, and then after that period it will be released into the public domain. That restriction is just to give us the opportunity to recover our development costs.

[Peter]

That shouldn't be used as a reason to keep the IP proprietary long after you're gone.

Then what sense does this make?

(As I wrote, Derek has my okay to publish or use the Q60 design should I leave.)

[bixio60]

Hi Derek,

I made a new Q60 video controller recently which seems to work with a wider range of flatscreen monitors. It creates a black area on the lower third of the screen, not nice at all.
The flatscreen issue makes me reluctant about the Q60.

Another issue with the 68060 is "Qliberated" software. I have already got feedback from Q60 owners who prefer the slower Q68, simply because it does not have this issue.

Peter

Peter,
I tried so many LCD monitor for my Q60 but none of them work, I am still using an old CRT . In case you have available one new Q60 video controller for me I will be very happy to have it , I dont care about black area on the lower part of the screen.
Still using mainly Q60 as main hardware, Q68 is really an exceptional machine but on high resolution is a bit slow for my taste.
Regards
Fabrizio

[Peter]

Hi Fabrizio,
can you send me a personal email with your address? And yes, the Q68 speed is not very suitable for normal work in highcolour+highres at the same time. If you don't need highcolour, just highres, maybe 1024x768 DISP_MODE 4 helps.
Peter

[janbredenbeek]

Hi Fabrizio,
can you send me a personal email with your address? And yes, the Q68 speed is not very suitable for normal work in highcolour+highres at the same time. If you don't need highcolour, just highres, maybe 1024x768 DISP_MODE 4 helps.
Peter

I personally like the 512x384 mode. Gives correct aspect ratio with reasonable character sizes. At 1024x768 the characters are too small (or maybe I should just buy a 28 inch monitor? ). Only drawback is that it's notably slower at highcolour. Perhaps a 512x384x256 medium-colour mode would be a good compromise (hint )?

Jan.

[Peter]

Hi Jan,

yes the 512x384 highcolor mode is also my favorite, and I find it nice to work with, except a few programs which were apparently designed for huge screens.
Of course the Q68 has not nearly 68060 speed, that was never the goal. It is rather an update path for people coming from the QL or (S)GC.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "notably slower", at least I can not remember any sluggish feeling in that resolution. Any example what you mean?

Peter

[janbredenbeek]

Hi Jan,
yes the 512x384 highcolor mode is also my favorite, and I find it nice to work with, except a few programs which were apparently designed for huge screens.
Of course the Q68 has not nearly 68060 speed, that was never the goal. It is rather an update path for people coming from the QL or (S)GC.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "notably slower", at least I can not remember any sluggish feeling in that resolution. Any example what you mean?

It's mainly slower at scrolling, compared to 4 or 8-colour mode.
Anyway, even though I have BBQLs and GC, the Q68 is a nice alternative with better storage and video options. One thing that's still on my bucket list is to run Minerva on it - would it be easy to backport the SMSQ/E drivers as an extension ROM or are they too tightly integrated with other SMSQ/E code? If not I might give it a try...

Jan.

[Peter]

Hi Jan,

there is actually a working Minerva variant for the Q68, mainly the QL keyboard driver replaced by a PS/2 driver, and an SDHC driver as add-on. It simply has not been released to the public.
Major issues are:
- Keyboard autorepeat does not work (annoying)
- Lack of keyboard internationalisation (only German at the moment)
- No SER driver
- No support for 1024x768 yet (how to activate that? F5 at the boot screen?)
- No mouse driver for the Pointer Environment

Since you seem very interested, I would try to bring you in touch with Richard Zidlicky who does some work on this at times.

Peter

[Dave]

I've made some modifications to respin the 4MB SuperRAM board.

I've re-positioned the GALs and CPU so they can all be socketed. I've moved some passives to better supply the ICs. Nasta has redesigned the logic to make it more flexible, which also required a track change. Finally, we inserted a missing track segment we were bridging with a wire. I'll be ordering the V0.2 PCBs on Friday next week. It's possible they'll go right through testing that weekend and be ready sometime the week after.

I'm making some changes to the Q68 Wifi dongle.

I'm changing the serial IC to an ADM208EAR RS-232 line driver. This will allow RTS/CTS support for use on systems that have it. I then have one channel left free in the IC. One nice thing is the IC runs off a single 5V supply. It's quite a small change. Now my Q68 is here (I got it yesterday) testing can proceed quickly. If someone would like to write a mini-browser for it, I will give them a free unit.

My competitor to the Trump Card is getting a visit this week as is Issue 8, which has seen some big modifications to improve serial.

It's been quiet the last week or two - just thought you'd like an update of what I have been doing.

In non-QL work, I completed a Sam Coupe IDE interface, got confirmation my Sam 256K RAM works well, and started design work on a 2MB RAM card. That is lower priority than any QL project though.

I hope you all had a great Pi Day/hump day combo!

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Dave,

I've made some modifications to respin the 4MB SuperRAM board.

I've re-positioned the GALs and CPU so they can all be socketed. I've moved some passives to better supply the ICs. Nasta has redesigned the logic to make it more flexible, which also required a track change. Finally, we inserted a missing track segment we were bridging with a wire. I'll be ordering the V0.2 PCBs on Friday next week. It's possible they'll go right through testing that weekend and be ready sometime the week after.

Please put me down for a SuperRAM Board.

I'm making some changes to the Q68 Wifi dongle.

I'm changing the serial IC to an ADM208EAR RS-232 line driver. This will allow RTS/CTS support for use on systems that have it. I then have one channel left free in the IC. One nice thing is the IC runs off a single 5V supply. It's quite a small change. Now my Q68 is here (I got it yesterday) testing can proceed quickly. If someone would like to write a mini-browser for it, I will give them a free unit.

What sort of browser, text, Lynx works or graphic, maybe the Prowess browser could be adapted.

My competitor to the Trump Card is getting a visit this week as is Issue 8, which has seen some big modifications to improve serial.

It's been quiet the last week or two - just thought you'd like an update of what I have been doing.

In non-QL work, I completed a Sam Coupe IDE interface, got confirmation my Sam 256K RAM works well, and started design work on a 2MB RAM card. That is lower priority than any QL project though.

I hope you all had a great Pi Day/hump day combo!

Do I need to get a Sam Coupe....