Q68 New users and general usage thread

[Peter]

The only problem I have is that on the monitor I currently use, the right end of the image is missing.

That would mean it can not even cope with VESA standard 1024x768 @ 60 Hz. What is it?

[Peter]

I've made some photos of my Q68 - both cased and uncased - which can be viewed here.
(Don't worry - it's back in its case now and still working )

regards, Jan.

Great! Thanks for sharing! I don't even case my boards because I like the looks of the PCB.

And I hope the Moire pattern on some of the screens is just from taking pictures. In real that should not happen.

[janbredenbeek]

Great! Thanks for sharing! I don't even case my boards because I like the looks of the PCB.

He he... I remember back in the '90s there were worries about CE certification requirements regarding RF radiation which would prevent small companies like Miracle from making more peripherals for the QL because of the high certification costs involved. The Q68 will certainly be much 'cleaner' in terms of RF radiation when cased, especially compared to an plain QL

And I hope the Moire pattern on some of the screens is just from taking pictures. In real that should not happen.

Yes it's Moiré, the picture is very clear on my monitor even though the native resolutions don't match (my monitor has 1280x1024 so it needs to scale up a bit - Windows would look awkward here).

regards, Jan.

[Dave]

Alas, my Christmas will not include a Q68. Parcels2Go seem to have misplaced it. I'll give it several more weeks before starting to raise a stink, since things can take time. Normally, it would have been delivered by December 21st. However, Christmas mail volumes will change everything.

So, I'll just be patient and learn from all of you!

[Zarchos]

Alas, my Christmas will not include a Q68. Parcels2Go seem to have misplaced it. I'll give it several more weeks before starting to raise a stink, since things can take time. Normally, it would have been delivered by December 21st. However, Christmas mail volumes will change everything.

So, I'll just be patient and learn from all of you!

Sorry to read that.
It is the reason why I have asked all the people I bought something from to delay shipping after Christmas ...
I keep my fingers crossed your parcel isn't lost.

[Peter]

I've made some photos of my Q68 - both cased and uncased - which can be viewed here.

I just notice the Minerva picture Is it a standard 1.97 ROM?

[janbredenbeek]

I've made some photos of my Q68 - both cased and uncased - which can be viewed here.

I just notice the Minerva picture Is it a standard 1.97 ROM?

Yes it's 1.97.
It boots, but freezes after the F1/F2 timeout. I guess because the 8049 isn't emulated by the hardware? This probably will need a rewrite of some low level I/O code, as well as a WIN driver for SDHC access. Would be an interesting project . Are there any details available about the I/O hardware?

regards, Jan.

[FrancoisLanciault]

The only problem I have is that on the monitor I currently use, the right end of the image is missing.

That would mean it can not even cope with VESA standard 1024x768 @ 60 Hz. What is it?

False alarm. Everything is working ok now!

François

[daniel_baum]

Once I've worked out how to get everything set up, I'll probably put my QXL.WIN file from QPC2 on the SD card and boot from that.

Good luck. If you had not used many PC specific functions, it should be easy.

I was able to set up my own SD card with very little trouble.

The only real obstacle was getting the FAT partition right. I think it finally started working when I realised that 255MiB is not the same as 255MB

I set it to work in 1024x768 in 4 colours as a default. It runs my usual set-up at a completely acceptible speed. The 512x384 hi-colour mode is also surprisingly useful, as someone else has already mentioned.

D.

[Peter]

The only real obstacle was getting the FAT partition right.

Just for completeness: The FAT16 partition, which Derek apparently has added, is not required for a standard Q68 card. A single partition FAT32 formatted card is fine. The manual contains information on suitable software to create it.