The Sinclair QL Forum

I just got a "new" QL in my collection and "print ver$" shows "AH" as response. If I try to run any well know software I have it often fails because of problems with basic?
Seems to be very first model of QL, isn't (SN D06-004598)? Pls look at the picture attached. Which issue is it? What about this ROM "tower"? Any more infos about this version? Is it something special?

It looks as an Issue 5. On the board you can find "ISS 5" or "ISS 6" printed near the serial ports, at the right of the printed Sinclair logo.
AH is one of the very first official Roms, and has several bugs. Anyway, the QL was accompained with the Psion software, so at least Abacus, Quill, Easel, Archive and Chess are supposed to run

Thanks, I cannot see the issue because it is cut off (you can see it on the picture).

The problem with the ROM is, it is wired to some other elements so I cannot exchange it. Or maybe there is a way to do it?

And the ROMs description is written by hand. Is it not unusual?

Hi,

Someone has made a bad attempt at adding eproms to the QL ROM sockets.

AH ROMs, are an early version of QDOS, which has lots of bugs in it, I usually only use JS ROMs, but Minerva is the best operating system for a QL.

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

Someone has made a bad attempt at adding eproms to the QL ROM sockets.

AH ROMs, are an early version of QDOS, which has lots of bugs in it, I usually only use JS ROMs, but Minerva is the best operating system for a QL.

Derek,
that someone very probably was Sinclair themselves.

Early QLs (the generation after the one that had the infamous "dongle" - this build stage practically is the "internal version" of that) were produced that way and actually shipped to customers.

Issue 5 mainboards have a jumper field that allows such piggy-pack configurations. If the QL is still in this state today, that simply means it never went back to Sinclair for an upgrade or repair -like many.

@grafvonb

If you want to use this QL, I agree with Derek that you should probably upgrade to a much later, minimum JS ROM - AH is so bug-ridden, it really is a pain to use.

In case you're thinking of collector's value: Not really. AH ROM in EPROM is not very rare, it's simply very bad - Also, even with modern components it would be dead easy to re-create the version.

If you browse this forum, I seem to recall there's a description somewhere here on how to modify an issue 5 AH board for more modern ROM/EPROM configurations.

Tobias

The AH ROM doesn't have much more bugs than JM, I believe only two. It was the first version known to be reasonably stable after the 'dongle' versions FB and PM.

Nevertheless, if you can re-program the EPROMS then Minerva is the operating system of choice.

Jan

tofro wrote:If you browse this forum, I seem to recall there's a description somewhere here on how to modify an issue 5 AH board for more modern ROM/EPROM configurations.

I added some description to the QL-SD manual https://www.kilgus.net/soft/QL-SDv2_User_Manual.pdf

Marcel

Guys, many thanks for your explanation. I will keep this QL as it is. I got six others I can use to play with .