QL on MIST FPGA board

[tofro]

... and I've just tried it for the last hour with QL-SD, Quimi and 640k RAM.

Absolutely fantastic and it "feels much more QLish" than any of the software emulators I have.

Tobias

[Ralf R.]

I see. It was just a question, because it would so much easier to use disks. At the moment, I have no proper idea to transfer data that without a QL. Except if there would be a way under QPC2, which I am not aware of.

I once started to add support for USB floppies to the mist firmware. I never finished it and it's neither simple nor will it be very fast in the end. And I don't see the use case. It's fun to use real floppies with the board, sure. But it's much easier to use just a bunch of microdrive or floppy disk images stored on the SD card. With the mist supporting the ql-sd there's now a convenient way to exchange bigger amounts of data with emulators on PCs. And unlike mdv images the mist can also write to the ql-sd.

[tofro]

I see. It was just a question, because it would so much easier to use disks. At the moment, I have no proper idea to transfer data that without a QL. Except if there would be a way under QPC2, which I am not aware of.

Ralf,
there is actually two ways to get data and programs to MiST (at the moment, that beast only exists for a week yet....):

Use micro drive images - Using Martin Head's micro drive image tools and driver you can create micro drive images and put your programs and data there from QPC2. Actually not very complicated.

Use QL-SD tooling. As MiST/QL uses the same format for images as QL-SD, you can use the QL-SD starter pack that contains a QL-SD image driver for Q-EMulator. A bit more complicated, but allows some volume transfer

(And I'm sure there's more stuff in development while we write....)

Regards,
Tobias

[Ralf R.]

A microdrive image isn't an option (for me) because a 720k disk is much bigger and I do not want to split them (all). Much too much work, I think.

Would be better to use the QL-SD image driver under QPC2. The easiest way (for me) seems to make an image under PC and to link this image like QPC2 v4 does. But ok, this is no option.

Use micro drive images - Using Martin Head's micro drive image tools and driver you can create micro drive images and put your programs and data there from QPC2. Actually not very complicated.

Use QL-SD tooling. As MiST/QL uses the same format for images as QL-SD, you can use the QL-SD starter pack that contains a QL-SD image driver for Q-EMulator. A bit more complicated, but allows some volume transfer

[tofro]

That's probably one to come - I would also like to see an option that allows to read and write BDI images directly on the PC, without help from an emulator.

Tobias

[XorA]

That's probably one to come - I would also like to see an option that allows to read and write BDI images directly on the PC, without help from an emulator.

Tobias

I am about 50% of the way there!

https://github.com/slimlogic/qubide-tools

Just need to finish renovating my house so I can finish the code (a lot of the code for writing is actually done)

[tofro]

...Just need to finish renovating my house so I can finish the code...

Ha! Sounds like a piece of cake

[Martin_Head]

Use micro drive images - Using Martin Head's micro drive image tools and driver you can create micro drive images and put your programs and data there from QPC2. Actually not very complicated.

There is also the FDI drivers that support floppy disk images from 360k to 3.2M. Available on Dilwyn Jones's web site.

[thorsinclair]

Is an implementation of (super) Hemes usefull? GD 2 compatibility would be a dream.

[tofro]

We have discussed this: Hermes (without the Super) would probably not be much of a problem (the 8049 ROM would simply have to be replaced - But is still copyrighted to my knowledge). SuperHermes is based on a PiC, would be more work.

The usefulness of both is, however, a bit doubtful.

MiST fixes most if not all of the keyboard issues *Hermes was addressing by using a USB keyboard (except maybe the optional keyclick...).
The serial port fixes *Hermes introduced lack a bit of usefulness without a serial port on the MiST

Tobias