Show us your kit!

[Sparrowhawk]

A long time ago (as in years!), somebody asked me in a PM to see what QL kit I had. I promised to do so asap. Well, ahem... slightly later than expected, here is my collection of QL stuff. Missing from this photo are my QL books (I think about a dozen or so, I'd have to hunt around the house for them all), the QL manual, various other manuals, and my complete collection of QL World mags together with a smattering of QL User mags too)

My QL is a D09 release with JM ROM, Terroid SGC, vDrive and vMap, Hermes (as of about 30 minutes ago), dual floppies, RGB to HDMI, and vPower transformer.
I also have a Q68 (as you can see in the pic)
The card on the left is my old SuperQBoard with mouse that I had plugged in prior to buying the tetroid card.

I don't think any of the software I have is particularly rare or sought after, but if something is and any info is needed for eg the QL Wiki, let me know.

So nothing special in terms of QL fans, but still it makes me happy

Feel free to add your own pics below!

[Chr$]

The Dark Side of the Moon is quite rare! It's only the 2nd one I've seen (and I have the other one. Edit: I think Mr RWAP also has one). I know someone who'd probably pay a very pretty penny for that.

And what's that Assault & Battery jewel case, is that original? I can't remember what it's supposed to look like and can't see it very well.

My kit is listed on qxl.win, some stuff has pics.

[Sparrowhawk]

Hi - I've just realised it was you who PM'ed me about seeing my QL stuff

The A&B case is indeed the original. Damon obviously did not have budget to do QL style cases, so he sensibly (imo) just used cassette cassette cases with home printed inlays. For my money, A&B is the best shoot-em-up game on the QL.

With regards the Dark Side of the Moon, I know that one of the original authors was on the forum a while back. Maybe he has some spares as he said they did not sell many copies of their stock?


Re my kit: I also found a QL to Kempston joystick adapter at the bottom of the box as I was putting stuff away now. Forgot I had that - I probably bought it to play A&B!!!

[Sparrowhawk]

I've only just noticed after several decades that the SuperQBoard has "(c) Sinclair Research" on the underside of the case, moulded into the plastic. Was this the official expansion from Sinclair then? If so I never realised.

[Chr$]

Hi - I've just realised it was you who PM'ed me about seeing my QL stuff

The A&B case is indeed the original. Damon obviously did not have budget to do QL style cases, so he sensibly (imo) just used cassette cassette cases with home printed inlays. For my money, A&B is the best shoot-em-up game on the QL.

With regards the Dark Side of the Moon, I know that one of the original authors was on the forum a while back. Maybe he has some spares as he said they did not sell many copies of their stock?


Re my kit: I also found a QL to Kempston joystick adapter at the bottom of the box as I was putting stuff away now. Forgot I had that - I probably bought it to play A&B!!!

Yep, A&B is the best and also public domain so anyone can try it. I don't think I've ever seen to box though, in fact original boxed ones like that are probably quite rare.

There were quite a few titles in cases made of cassette boxes but they usually have professionally printed inlays and a plastic thing inside to hold the cartridge snugly between the 2 cassette spindle holders. Some had even less budget and re-covered the individual Sinclair mdv blank cart boxes, e.g. Hungry Harry in Haunted House.

It was David Colyer - one half of Javid Systems - who appeared on the forum. I think he probably would have mentioned any leftovers (can't remember if I asked) but I bet it's all long gone, including about 1,840 printed inserts as they had 2,000 printed and sold about 160.

Re the Sinclair wording on the SuperQ, I believe Sinclair had some plastic shrouds made up for what was going to be the official RAM expansion but it never came to light and I assume they sold off the plastic cases to others (or allowed use of the tooling) - my QEPIII Eprom programmer also has a Sinclair branded shroud.

[Sparrowhawk]

Interesting re the plastic cases. Thanks for info.

[Peter]

I also have a Q68 (as you can see in the pic)

Thanks for the pics. Sad to see that the sides of the Q68 front and back panel have already lost the black colour. The same happened to the one I got from Derek, but not to the one I painted myself. So it probably depends on the kind of paint. An improvement here would be nice.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I am sorry for the flaking of the paint, the problem is the way the panels have been made, the panels are Anodised Aluminium, with the edges bare metal where the machining process has been performed.

The paint used was a high temperature painted, baked to 120 Deg C, but clearly this is not suitable.

This problem seems to be present on all plates I have used or been supplied wth.

[Sparrowhawk]

No need to apologise Derek. It's really a very minor thing and anyway I just applied some black permanent marker to it and it looks good as new.
I remain incredibly grateful to you and all other QL hardware/software engineers and devs who spend their time creating new and wonderful things for us which keeps the QL world humming along.

[Chr$]

Interesting re the plastic cases. Thanks for info.

Or was it for the Sinclair official disk drive expansion. That would make more sense!