Minerva4Q68 SD Card Setup

[ql_freak]

I like 1024x768x4. If I compare it to Windows, it looks much nicer AND it's Dark Mode ;-)

@Jan: Because your problems with your eyes. Do your use a native 1024x768 Display?

Here even on a 1280x1024 Display Q68 looks good with 1024x768 and 512x256 (Minerva).
Of course I'm seeking for a native 1024x768 VGA monitor.

BTW: ProWess looks horrible at 1280x1024.

[Derek_Stewart]

I like 1024x768x4. If I compare it to Windows, it looks much nicer AND it's Dark Mode

@Jan: Because your problems with your eyes. Do your use a native 1024x768 Display?

Here even on a 1280x1024 Display Q68 looks good with 1024x768 and 512x256 (Minerva).
Of course I'm seeking for a native 1024x768 VGA monitor.

BTW: ProWess looks horrible at 1280x1024.

Hi Peter,

The Prowess display setting is setup in: win1_pws_mine_prowess_cfg

Which is the win1_pws_mine_skel_PWhigh_cfg file copied to win1_pws_mine_prowess_cfg

This should really be setup for the desired display, this seemed to work OK of the Q60 1024x512x65535, but is open to modification. All the ProWesS documentation is supplied.

[Derek_Stewart]

I mainly use Mode 33:512x384, Mode4: 1024,512 for either high colour of high resolution on the Q68. Fits most of my needs.

These are most ideal for PC monitors as the aspect ratio is 4:3 (AFAIK Mode 4 is 1024x768, not 1024x512). Will probably look good on 16:9 and 5:4 monitors too. 512x256 and 1024x512 looks too vertically stretched on my old 5:4 LCD screen.

I find 512x384x65536 a bit slow and 1024x768x4 has very tiny characters which my old eyes have trouble reading. One idea would be to downscale 1024x768 to 512x384 as an option (On QPC2 I mostly use 1280x960 scaled by a factor 2 so the QL screen is 640x480).

Hi Jan,

I have been looking at Q60 1024x512x65535 lately, I meant to say Q68: 1024x768x4.

Can Q68 have its fixed reolutions and colour palette changed to scale the display?

In my humble option, I would of only had: 512x256x4, 512x256x8, 512x256x65535, 512,384x65535, 1024x768x4

The other high resolution and high colour screen modes slow the Q68 down and I do not really use them.

[janbredenbeek]

Can Q68 have its fixed reolutions and colour palette changed to scale the display?

It's up to the hardware designer (Peter?). Software downscaling may be possible using the existing driver by forcing CSIZEs and modifying BLOCK parameters, but for now it's only a thought...

I know the mode register is at $FF000018 and POKEing something there will set the corresponding display mode.
I discovered that there are even 'hidden' modes 8 to 15 by POKEing, but these are undocumented and I haven't found them useful yet.

The 4 colour modes are bit-compatible to BBQL and probably easy to address from Minerva and Pointer Interface with few modifications. The 256 and 65536 colour modes use a different scheme (1 or 2 bytes per pixel) so not compatible with Minerva and PI as it stands.

@ql_freak: My monitor is 1280x1024 so it doesn't run in native resolution with the Q68, hence the blurryness. Would be nice if that could be changed too, but I guess we are stuck with the limitations of the good old (S)VGA interface...

[dilwyn]

Need some help as to what I might be doing wrong with getting Minerva4Q68 to start up correctly.

I downloaded the Q68_xxROM.SYS files to my PC, renamed Q68_USROM.SYS to Q68_ROM.SYS (it's an American layout Perixx keyboard with '#' in place of UK pound symbol), checked its length (80K) copied it to a newly formatted SDHC card, added a couple of .WIN files, configured Q68_ROM.SYS for those .WIN drives on card slot 1 and tried it on Q68.

It gets as far as the Minerva splash screen, then locks up - unable to get it to proceed by pressing F1, F2 etc.

The keyboard works fine in SMSQ/E 3.38 on Q68.

I've also tried making Min4Q68_rext files to LRESPR from SBASIC on Q68, versions with and without Toolkit 2 versions from latest 2.36 to older ones (all exactly 16384 bytes in length). Exactly the same result - stops at the point of pressing F1/F2 to start Minerva.

I might be unlucky with the keyboard type not working with Minerva. Or Minerva might not be completing its startup. I don't know.

I'd appreciate any suggestions at this point to prevent me wasting more time if I'm doing something wrong.

Minerva4Q68 display.

Q68_ROM_SYS.jpg (17.5 KiB) Viewed 1992 times

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Dilwyn,

Try changing the SD Card speed to 20Mhz, for SMSQ/E.

The Q68 Minerva rom, does not have a SD Speed option, so I will have look at this and get back to you.

[dilwyn]

Hi Dilwyn,

Try changing the SD Card speed to 20Mhz, for SMSQ/E.

The Q68 Minerva rom, does not have a SD Speed option, so I will have look at this and get back to you.

Did that for SMSQ/E after Martyn's suggestion. I'll see if I can get a fast SD to try.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Dilwyn,

I created the FAT32 partition on the SDHC Card with Linux gparted, for the complete SD Card, and copied the Minerva4QDOS: Q68_ROM.SYS to the partition.

The Q68 booted into Minerva, waiting the system started in TV Mode as expected, rebooting, buy switching the power switch of/on, I can press F1 to go into Monitor mode.

Looking at your photograph, the Minerva OS is looking for another ROM.

Sorry about the photo, I am not David Bailey...

I will try the booting from SMSQ/E and get back to you.

[janbredenbeek]

Hi Dilwyn,

I created the FAT32 partition on the SDHC Card with Linux gparted, for the complete SD Card, and copied the Minerva4QDOS: Q68_ROM.SYS to the partition.

The Q68 booted into Minerva, waiting the system started in TV Mode as expected, rebooting, buy switching the power switch of/on, I can press F1 to go into Monitor mode.

Looking at your photograph, the Minerva OS is looking for another ROM.
IMG_20230611_103944980.jpg

Interestingly, the 'Q68 Extension ROM' message shows no version as it should (the newest version of 80K from my Working branch shows v1.2). Could it be that the machine keeps hanging in an interrupt routine, or perhaps the Q68_ROM.SYS is corrupt or not in contiguous sectors?

Unfortunately, the SD card driver is a 20K binary blob from Wolfgang Lenerz and I don't have the source of it, so fixing the timing issue would be hard to do. I believe this timing setting only applies to newer issues of the Q68? (My Q68 is from the first batch in 2017).

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Jan,

The Q68 design has not changed. Only the operating system has changed.

I downloaded the working version of Minerva and copied Q68_UKROM.SYS to Q68_ROM.SYS into the FAT32 partition of a SD Card.

My badly photograph shows Minerva booting up correctly. I was also able to read the QUBide file from the QL-SD v1