At this point, I'm wondering what to check next. Anyone here able to suggest some diagnostic procedures for this please? I get there are fancy QubIDEs out there with xxx MByte memory and such, this is a bit of history that I'm hoping to be able to get up and running. Thanks in advance!
Diagnosing issues on original QubIDE
Diagnosing issues on original QubIDE
I was recently given an old original QubIDE, which I'd like to restore. After giving it an IPA bath, I plugged it into my QL - looking something like this:
Unfortunately the startup screen didn't display any QubIDE message... although the QL was functional.
I tried re-seating and contact cleaner, but to no avail. I also checked for dry joints...
None of those. So next I did a thermal picture to see whether anything was happening:
And a measurement of the 7805 read 8.8 V input and 5.0 V output.
At this point, I'm wondering what to check next. Anyone here able to suggest some diagnostic procedures for this please? I get there are fancy QubIDEs out there with xxx MByte memory and such, this is a bit of history that I'm hoping to be able to get up and running. Thanks in advance!
At this point, I'm wondering what to check next. Anyone here able to suggest some diagnostic procedures for this please? I get there are fancy QubIDEs out there with xxx MByte memory and such, this is a bit of history that I'm hoping to be able to get up and running. Thanks in advance!
Re: Diagnosing issues on original QubIDE
Your QubIDE is jumpered to I/O address $FC000, which will only work on newer ROMs and Minerva (Earlier ROMs - before JS, if I remember right - don't look for expansions in this area due to a bug). Depending on your QL ROM version, this might be the reason why it doesn't work.
I would try a setting a base address of $C000, which was the standard setting (QubIDE then occupies the ROM slot space) first and work from there. $C000 should work on all ROM versions. To set $C000 as the base address, the three right-most jumpers (when you look "into the QL") on the five-position jumper block should be set. Note that if you jumper the card to $C000, you can't use the ROM port at the same time - but this position is the easiest and safest one to check whether the card is working at all. If it works there, you might want to think about a ROM upgrade to JS or Minerva and base the card back at $FC000 to make the ROM port usable again.
I would try a setting a base address of $C000, which was the standard setting (QubIDE then occupies the ROM slot space) first and work from there. $C000 should work on all ROM versions. To set $C000 as the base address, the three right-most jumpers (when you look "into the QL") on the five-position jumper block should be set. Note that if you jumper the card to $C000, you can't use the ROM port at the same time - but this position is the easiest and safest one to check whether the card is working at all. If it works there, you might want to think about a ROM upgrade to JS or Minerva and base the card back at $FC000 to make the ROM port usable again.
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Re: Diagnosing issues on original QubIDE
Thank you tofro. My bad for not RFTM-ing more carefully - "Once you have set up QUBIDE to the address you have chosen..." The issue was as simple as user error: not having appropriately set up the address 
The ROM version (interrogated using print VER$) on my test QL is JM. If I'm not mistaken, that would seem to be one of the earlier versions where the whole ROM addressing issue wasn't as flexible as it became. I note your suggestion about upgrading the ROM... not sure what kind of Pandora's box that would open, but I'll give it a go!
Anyway with the jumpers set up as you suggested, and the external ROM I had plugged in removed "just in case", everything sprung to life... pretty impressive for hardware not used in 25 years!
Interestingly there was then another issue, this time with formatting and specifically with using 0 for "all cylinders". I suspect this was because I am using an IDE2CF device with a 128 MByte CF. (It reports STI Flash 8.0.0 on power-up.) With a block size of 4, it hung with "Pass 1 > 62720": with 8, it generated a whole stream of "ID not found" error messages. There's likely some incompatibility somewhere. Therefore for now, I entered 10 cylinders with block size of 4, which resulted in 640 sectors. (I need to work out how many "cylinders" there would be on my 128 MByte CF.) Using this, I was able to save and load a Hello, World! - some history preserved, yay
The ROM version (interrogated using print VER$) on my test QL is JM. If I'm not mistaken, that would seem to be one of the earlier versions where the whole ROM addressing issue wasn't as flexible as it became. I note your suggestion about upgrading the ROM... not sure what kind of Pandora's box that would open, but I'll give it a go!
Anyway with the jumpers set up as you suggested, and the external ROM I had plugged in removed "just in case", everything sprung to life... pretty impressive for hardware not used in 25 years!
Interestingly there was then another issue, this time with formatting and specifically with using 0 for "all cylinders". I suspect this was because I am using an IDE2CF device with a 128 MByte CF. (It reports STI Flash 8.0.0 on power-up.) With a block size of 4, it hung with "Pass 1 > 62720": with 8, it generated a whole stream of "ID not found" error messages. There's likely some incompatibility somewhere. Therefore for now, I entered 10 cylinders with block size of 4, which resulted in 640 sectors. (I need to work out how many "cylinders" there would be on my 128 MByte CF.) Using this, I was able to save and load a Hello, World! - some history preserved, yay