Yes, one of my QLs has a very old QLEA ROM switcher board where I can switch between a Sinclair and a Minerva internally. It even has different colour LED for both. The Minerva could do with updating at some point, it's not one of the more recent ones.
The other QL has one of Marcel's QL-SD-ROM devices with multiple ROM images on board, but no internal ROM IIRC (shows how long since I last looked inside it!). Sadly, no longer available.
There's also the option of having one of Tetroid's ROM switchers if still available.
And of course EPROMs on plug-in cartridges (a 64K EPROM could hold a Sinclair or Minerva EPROM plus a 16K Toolkit 2), although that ties up the EPROM slot.
dilwyn wrote: Mon Apr 29, 2024 8:52 pm
Yes, one of my QLs has a very old QLEA ROM switcher board where I can switch between a Sinclair and a Minerva internally. It even has different colour LED for both. The Minerva could do with updating at some point, it's not one of the more recent ones.
The other QL has one of Marcel's QL-SD-ROM devices with multiple ROM images on board, but no internal ROM IIRC (shows how long since I last looked inside it!). Sadly, no longer available.
There's also the option of having one of Tetroid's ROM switchers if still available.
And of course EPROMs on plug-in cartridges (a 64K EPROM could hold a Sinclair or Minerva EPROM plus a 16K Toolkit 2), although that ties up the EPROM slot.
May be I could do something with this? Though it would tie up the expansion slot
Never seen one of those before - what type is it (or is it homebrew) ?
As you say, ties up the expansion slot.
And depending on where in the memory map that puts the ROMs, might not allow expansions like Trump Card which use space allocated for ROMs to make up the difference between 640K total RAM and the 896K total of Trump Card.
Never tried adding a Minerva via the main expansion port, don't know if all signals needed are present there.
dilwyn wrote: Mon Apr 29, 2024 9:28 pm
Never seen one of those before - what type is it (or is it homebrew) ?
As you say, ties up the expansion slot.
And depending on where in the memory map that puts the ROMs, might not allow expansions like Trump Card which use space allocated for ROMs to make up the difference between 640K total RAM and the 896K total of Trump Card.
Never tried adding a Minerva via the main expansion port, don't know if all signals needed are present there.
All these things have their merits and drawbacks.
I believe it's an in-store Demo board so I guess Sinclair designed. Each screen is a mock-up with info (rather than the actual programs)
It immediately takes full control of the QL on power up
