The Sinclair QL Forum

Would anyone interested in buying a usbwiz ser-usb interface please
contact Adrian Ives direct on adrian AT acanthis DOT co DOT uk .
I don't know the price, but I guess it could be over £120 (plus postage).

It is no good writing here as he is not subscribed to the list.

Please cc me as well so I know how much interest there is.
He reckons there are only a handful interested.

Tony
tony AT firshman DOT co DOT uk

Please see the development above and email those concerned if you are interested or you know someone who would be interested, lets get this worthwhile project off the ground

I have noticed, that the device is now available for sale.
http://www.memorylanecomputing.com/products.htm
Once again - this is SD card/USB mass storage device, connected to QL via serial (SER2_ or fast serial SER3_ on SuperHermes card).
Communication speed is 4800 Bd for QL with 8049, 19200 Bd with Hermes and 57600 Bd with SuperHermes.
Documentation is here:
http://www.memorylanecomputing.com/serusb2.htm
And the shop here:
http://www.memorylanecomputing.com/shop.htm

(read the manual before buying, as there are differences in floppy-disk and ROM version of the driver, you have to find out, which one is more suitable for your needs)

(needs 256 kB RAM even on unexpanded QL - this is common for all "big disk" devices requiring big disk map in memory, begining with HD floppies, including QubIDE)

It is also available on sellmyretro.com - along with SuperHermes and Hermes chips which do help to increase the transfer speed - see http://www.sellmyretro.com/search/natur ... rd=ser-usb

(Didn't you all get an email from me earlier this week?)

dex wrote:read the manual before buying, as there are differences in floppy-disk and ROM version of the driver, you have to find out, which one is more suitable for your needs

Actually, both drivers support the same feature set, but the ROM driver is constrained by being limited to fitting into a 16K EPROM - thus it loads the additional functionality as an extension using the new bootstrapping capability. The ROM driver requires an SD Card with a special bootstrap partition (which is supplied) to be inserted in the Ser-USB when it is started.

Stocks of the current batch of Ser-USB are now very limited. The last three are on sale at sellmyretro, once they are gone there will be a wait of around three weeks while a new batch of custom PCBs is manufactured.

All I need now is Minerva and I am set

Has anyone on here got a ser-usb interface?
I'm tempted to buy one, just wondered what people thought of them!

I'm trying to decide which would be best, a ser-usb vs a HxC floppy emulator.

Here.
It is perfect thing, if You have Hermes or SuperHemes.
With speed of 19200 bd, it is well useable.
It runs on plain QL (without Hermes), too, but the waiting for a file to load is then slow as a microdrive or maybe slower.

The only issue was, that there was a bug in MOUNT command, so I'm waiting, when the new driver ROM version will be available.
New version, of course, has a fix.

With SBasic extension to read and write FAT partitions (looking forward to it, should be released soon) this will be really perfect peripheral for QL.

I have to say I am totally behind on all things QL at the moment having purchased ser-usb and superhermes, minerva I still haven't got it installed or in some cases out of the bag, read some books tho!

I've gone with a HxC floppy emulator, I have about 30 "retro" computers and the floppy emulator can be used with just about all of them.

I would like to see a ser-usb in action, if anyone fancies making a video?