SMS2 and STELLA

[Peter]

74LVCH16245 level shifters and a WD1772 - main hard bit is editing the drivers to use logical lowest byte in every long word instead of consecutive bytes to map to the registers. Needs an external 5V supply though.

Amazing, I was not aware of that! Why external? Couldn't you somehow connect it to the 3 pin header above the 5V power supply connector?
I agree that the Q68 extension bus suffers from mechanical restrictions and is quite limited. It was a "better than nothing" solution.

I miss PAR!

Hehe, yes I know. But you are the only one. And there would be no room for the connector. A Q68 case redesign and breaking the compact form factor for PAR seems not justified.

[RalfR]

Hehe, yes I know. But you are the only one.

Honest? I can't believe that. Parallel port for printer is the only sensible thing. How happy I was about my SQB. Apparently no one is printing anymore?

[Dave]

It's literally just the SQB with the address decoder stripped out, and the ROM is the SQB ROM with the TKII stripped out. It's on breadboard somewhere around here. I used 74LVCH16245 as a bi-directional level shifter to 3.3V. With hindsight I think I would make a Q68 to minimalist QL backplane buffer/level shifter card - although most cards would not appreciate the Q68's roaring clock rate.

[Peter]

Hehe, yes I know. But you are the only one.

Honest? I can't believe that. Parallel port for printer is the only sensible thing. How happy I was about my SQB. Apparently no one is printing anymore?

Not many I guess. And there are SER-PAR converters for printing.

I'm out of sync with Martin's Q68 TCP/IP driver progress, maybe it is already possible to use ethernet connectivity. Which of course won't solve the EPSON emulation issue.

[Dave]

Amazing, I was not aware of that! Why external? Couldn't you somehow connect it to the 3 pin header above the 5V power supply connector?
I agree that the Q68 extension bus suffers from mechanical restrictions and is quite limited. It was a "better than nothing" solution.

I could not make assumptions about the power adapter people were using. I decided to give it a USB socket, and ground carefully between the Q68, adapter and external floppy - though if the floppy can run off only 5V it can run off the adapter.

My half thought out plan was to do a RISC PC style case with slices, where the Q68 goes in a bas, and there's a lid, and expansions can go between the main case and lid to extend upwards. The problem I face is that I need to pass through the extension bus in place (like a Pi HAT stack) and the only sensible way to do that is to have a long pin 2,, connector with female below and male facing up for the next row. But then each card doesn't know of the other cards as there isn't an SP0..3 type arrangement, so that would need to be added in alongside. Or, switches/jumpers on the card. I also thought it would be very feasible to do an IDE card like QubIDE.

[Peter]

It's literally just the SQB with the address decoder stripped out, and the ROM is the SQB ROM with the TKII stripped out. It's on breadboard somewhere around here. I used 74LVCH16245 as a bi-directional level shifter to 3.3V. With hindsight I think I would make a Q68 to minimalist QL backplane buffer/level shifter card - although most cards would not appreciate the Q68's roaring clock rate.

Not that fast. Which reminds me that I have still not documented the timings... shame on me. In the short spare time, designing hardware is more fun than writing docs.

Amazing, I was not aware of that! Why external? Couldn't you somehow connect it to the 3 pin header above the 5V power supply connector?
I agree that the Q68 extension bus suffers from mechanical restrictions and is quite limited. It was a "better than nothing" solution.

I could not make assumptions about the power adapter people were using. I decided to give it a USB socket, and ground carefully between the Q68, adapter and external floppy - though if the floppy can run off only 5V it can run off the adapter.

You can not make assumptions about USB power adaptor also. I think most Q68 supplies have 2A, that should be more than sufficient for Q68 and floppy.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I can get the current Q68 Case in varying heights, from a UK supplier, so no problems with adding any thing.

The current Case, has 2 QL Net connectors on the right hand side and I am going to include a I2C connector on the left hand side.

If you give me the Disk Interface and Printer Interface details, I can include them.

Just a matter of drilling holes... or producing a 3D Printed case and panels.

I have the current Case modelled in FreeCad, so can export to STL no problems.

[Tinyfpga]

SMS2 is, post Futura, but when I look at SMS2 source code Is seems that a lot of it was developed
for an earlier project, probably the Futura.

I downloaded a PDF titled:-
http://www.sinclairql.net/downloads/198 ... 4pages.pdf

The System software is described as QDOS compatible and Multi-mode.

I think that SMS2 would not have been finished so quickly without the Futura and SMSQE would not exist
without SMS2, furthermore Mk has recently posted that "the module system SMSQ/E is using
was developed for Stella".

--------------

Postby Dave » Thu Feb 17, 2022 2:26 am.
The Futura cancellation was very much like Phoebe's cancellation by Acorn..........We don't
regret the decision for even a microsecond.

It is not clear who "We" are but I have just noticed Dave's moniker "SandySuperQDave". If Dave
had something to do with the Futura, then I thank "We" for their early efforts in promoting
TT's OS theories.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi

On the order page for Futura it says:

DUE TO THE TREMENDOUS DEMAND FOR THIS SOPHISTICATED COMPUTER SYSTEM, ORDERS WILL BE DESPATCHED IN STRICT SEQUENCE

Does say what operating system... Stella, SMS2, QDOS..

I never seen any this, I had the Atari Emulator and the Thir, but never any of this.

Looks like Medusa as well, did see the light of day.

As I said Lau. on the topic of a Medisa board, on his BBS, can I buy it, the answaer was No, only a specification.

If the Futura was really available, I would of bought it, as I bought the Miracle 40Mb Hard Drive for £445 !!!

[Dave]

I did see what was supposed to be the Futura faceplate, and I thought it looked quite derivative of the Advance 86b. It was black and had bevelled edges. Nice though.