The Sinclair QL Forum

Dave wrote:It would be nice to see all of this integrated onto a single PCB.... Possibly using an RP2040?

Do you mean OqtaDrive adapter + daemon process?

I mean that the combination of several PCBs could be reduced to one PCB. That's contingent on the microcontrollers being relatively standard and being available. ESP32 bare controllers, ATmegas, the supporting circuitry. If you're paying for a board to mount other boards to, it's almost always cheaper, more reliable and smaller to just buy the needed components from the other boards and mount them directly.

I get that it might use a Pi/Broadcom that isn't available separately, which is why I asked if there are any plans to target a microcontroller that is available standalone, like the RP2040 or the ESP32.

It's encouragement to integrate: not a criticism of what you've created - which is quite wonderful by all accounts!

Dave wrote:It's encouragement to integrate: not a criticism of what you've created - which is quite wonderful by all accounts!

No problem, I did not take it as criticism, just didn't understand right away. Sorry for the confusion!

So your question is, would we see a PCB that combines the equivalent of a let's say Arduino Nano circuitry with the OqtaDrive circuitry? Well, that depends on the community. Personally I will focus on the software part of OqtaDrive. But if anyone would do an integration of this kind, I'd also love to see that. It would be great if the integration could even be pushed far enough so that everything fits into the case of a Microdrive edge connector plug, i.e. we would get a USB to Microdrive port cable

That's entirely doable.

Dave wrote:That's entirely doable.

@Dave I tried to contact you, but it seems you have private messages turned off?

An update regarding the h/w drive shadowing. An initial implementation in OqtaDrive is working fairly well now. At least with the Spectrum. I haven't tested with my QL yet. A couple of CATs is usually enough to get a full, error free copy of the cartridge.

This is a quite interesting feature. I will give it a try during the next days with the QL.

Best regards,

Stephan

xelalex wrote:

Dave wrote:That's entirely doable.

@Dave I tried to contact you, but it seems you have private messages turned off?

Sorry, my mailbox was full. I'm supposed to keep business communications for seven years by local law. I have archived and deleted some. Try again.

Dave wrote:

xelalex wrote:

Dave wrote:That's entirely doable.

@Dave I tried to contact you, but it seems you have private messages turned off?

Sorry, my mailbox was full. I'm supposed to keep business communications for seven years by local law. I have archived and deleted some. Try again.

No, you have disabled your Private Message option in your user profile...

Derek_Stewart wrote:No, you have disabled your Private Message option in your user profile...

Oops. I don't know how I did that. Undone.