The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi.
I know GST-68K mdv format is not compatible with QDOS.
Someone has an GST-68K utilities-mdv image to use with a QL-Emulator ? ...
Other solutions are welcome ....



Regards!
M.

Hi,

I do not know much about `GST-68K' OS, I found this link providing some info.
Not sure if that helps.

https://sites.google.com/site/ql68kos/

Tomas

The mdv clone programs that are around to create true sector images of microdrives could be of some help here and could maybe be able to create a copy if a bit of luck applies.

As the hardware is pretty much bound to Sinclair specifications, I'd guess the pure physical sector format on a microdrive should/could be identical to the QDOS physical format (That is, a header and 512bytes sectors). It could, however, be (and is very probable) that the map and directory sectors are in different places.

Tobias

tofro wrote:The mdv clone programs that are around to create true sector images of microdrives could be of some help here and could maybe be able to create a copy if a bit of luck applies.

As the hardware is pretty much bound to Sinclair specifications, I'd guess the pure physical sector format on a microdrive should/could be identical to the QDOS physical format (That is, a header and 512bytes sectors). It could, however, be (and is very probable) that the map and directory sectors are in different places.

Tobias

Would it be possible to write a dumping program which doesn't rely on the cartridge map and 'blindly' reads all the sectors?
Something similar to what floppy imaging programs do...

Max

MaxRaf wrote:
Would it be possible to write a dumping program which doesn't rely on the cartridge map and 'blindly' reads all the sectors?
Something similar to what floppy imaging programs do...

Max

This driver http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/utils/MDIdriver107.zip contains a Machine code/Basic program which does a 'blind' read of a QL Microdrive cartridge and creates an image file of the cartridge. I don't know if it could be adapted to read GST-68K Microdrive cartridges.

Thanks Martin,
very interesting!

Sorry because I complain!

It is IMHO absolutely useless to try any other other operating system than QDOS (SMS.../Minerva/...) on a QL (QL Compatible).

Even the original QDOS is very rarely used (I'm afraid there are less than 2,000,000 people, who use [have owned] a QDOS compatible operating system).

QDOS on modern systems is now really superb, and there is a lot of stuff (of soft and hardware) of it. So as long as there are no academic reasons to try "strange" operating systems on the QL, DON'T DO IT!

BTW: My new favourite is the Shell from Dilwyn's page:

http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/shells/sh112.zip

P.s.: My (very old) ls program runs perfectly with shell :-) (e.g.: ls -l)

Hi,

Just trying to understand what use `GST-68K' can nowadays have. It could be fun to explore, perhaps for people having at least two black machines, so one could have ROMs replaced with GST thing.

I remember seeing a YouTube video with `GST-68K' in action running `Psion CHESS'. I wonder if standard QDOS executables can be easily made to run under `GST'?

S*BASIC progs wont's run though, as there is no support by the OS, unless some kind of compatible BASIC interpreter is loaded first.

Tomas

Hi,

Having said that, brings also another idea.
How many s/w titles have ever been released for `GST' OS?

Tomas