The Sinclair QL Forum

stevepoole wrote:Hi again,
If your membrane is faulty, change it. This can be troublesome, So consider on add-on keyboard which is much more robust.
Steve.

Yes, that is, but there are membranes only in UK, and it takes 2 (or 3) weeks to arrive, and I have no more patient I'm going to ask'em to RWAP, but I'd like to know first if the microdrives work...

QL membranes are readily available in Germany (https://www.sintech-shop.de/ql-tastatur ... ne/a-6036/) and even here in the Czech Republic (http://aukro.cz/nova-membrana-pro-sincl ... 96678.html).
There must be someone is Spain re-selling them, too.

Edit: http://retrocables.es/tienda/index.php? ... &id_lang=4

OK, thanx for this, dex, I'll calculate the costs plus shipment in each country

If you have some suitable parts and a piece of single sided copper clad matrix board, you could make up a mini keyboard using uninsulated wires crossing close together, then use a coin or a screwdriver to "press the key(s)"...

Or bring the QL keyboard connectors out to two sets of two connectors (SIL 2.54 socket strips or turned pin DIL sockets) so that you can plug a suitable size jumper wire in to simulate one key being pressed while another is pressed.

Boy is this hard to put into words, I'm at work now, so a little hard to post a picture

Mark

PS saying "connect the wires to simulate the pressing of 'F2' " does not "roll off the tongue" (is not as easy to say)

Bubu wrote:OK, thanx for this, dex, I'll calculate the costs plus shipment in each country

Just bear in mind that if you order a set of LEDs from me, the postage for those alone is £3.80 as that's the cheapest we can now send anything from the UK to the continent by airmail (unless it is no thicker than 5mm letter size). By the way, the LEDs come with the correct wires ready to push into the QL...

That said, retrocables get their QL membranes from me as we thought that would help the Spanish market

1024MAK wrote: Or bring the QL keyboard connectors out to two sets of two connectors (SIL 2.54 socket strips or turned pin DIL sockets) so that you can plug a suitable size jumper wire in to simulate one key being pressed while another is pressed.

I did this with a Speccy:



but in my QL the membrane is broken at the beginning, there's no room to plug anything.

Anyway, I'll try to type with cables tonight, after 2 or 3 rums&coke

RWAP wrote: Just bear in mind that if you order a set of LEDs from me, the postage for those alone is £3.80 as that's the cheapest we can now send anything from the UK to the continent by airmail (unless it is no thicker than 5mm letter size). By the way, the LEDs come with the correct wires ready to push into the QL...

Dear RWAP, I'll ask to you very surely the parts, but I need to do first of all the microdrive test, and in the chase that I need some more part, I'll tell you

Thank you!

And the news of the day...

After near 2 hours, I managed to "write" (with cables) this instruction:



The mdv cart was ready...



I only had to "press" ENTER... I did it, and then...

No way, perhaps it's right: when I ran "dir mdv1_", the cart was noising for 3 or 4 minutes, and then stopped and the QL said:

"QLSS2.1 medio incorrecto"

that more or less means "wrong media"

Is this correct? When the cartridge is empty, shoud the QL show that error? What does the QL do during those 3 or 4 minutes? looking for the boot sector?

That error could mean that the microdrive cartridge is not formatted at all, or that (most probably) it cannot read it due to the felt pad on the microdrive cartridge having disintegrated...