The Sinclair QL Forum

Jusy popped in to see the QL Forum, looks very nice.

I started programming on ZX81, went on the the Spectrum. Which I thought was OK, I liked the Z80 CPU and found it easy to program. I had a brief mess around with other Z80 machines, but went back the Spectrum, when floppy disks started appearing. Then.... The QL came on the scene and first opertunity to program a 68000 CPU, with multitasking capabilities.

I ran a BBS up in Newcastle Upon Tyne, which linked in Fidonet, running on a Super Gold Card QL with Mircale Hard Disk, the BBS Software: Qbox was the QL defacto BBS software, but Phil Borman stated to write Pbox, with alot of prompting from me, Pbox ended a very good free BBS system.

I have often thought abount implementing a web based Pbox system, but all in my head at present.

I have owned every QL piece of hardware from Trump Card to Atari QL Emulator, I really like QL operating system and in 2002 wanted a fast QL, better than the Super Gold Card. This being the Q40 with its full blown 68040 and 128Mb ram. All very nice, I was one of the first in the UK to get a Q40. I contacted the designer of the Q40 to see if the 68060 version was available and could he makle one for me.

The reply was why not build on yourself. This is what I did and produced a Q60 running 66Mhz 68060 with 128Mb ram. A friend who lives local to me, suggested that we could build the Q60 for other people.

D&D Systems, was my company that build PC systems, repaired operating systems in customers homes, rather like compamy do now.

The Q60 was hand built to order in the form of a cased machine in an AT PC Mini Tower Case, but some people have the necessary skills to build the Q60 into a case themselves. So we sold just the Q60 motherboards with matched ram and I/O Cards.

The Q60 was a great success, much to the dismay of the established vendors supplying the Q40, who had hailed the Q40 as a flop...

This was not the case, the flop was the bad construction mehtods of the Q40 production.

Every Q60 board that was built was sold no problems. I did buiy back one Q60 board from someone who was unhappy and went Munich to rescue another.

These days, I am programming on QPC2 on a Quad Core Laptop, still thinking of a Q60 laptop...

Derek

Welcome Derek, sounds a fascinating account of your QL experience.

Do you still have the capabilities to produce a Q60 motherboard, would you be interested in building some to order, I am sure many people would be interested?

Welcome! I'd love a Q60 too.

Great to see you on the forums

Also, congratulations on making what truly is the high tide mark of QL equipment.

Many of us wish we could have one.

I have been on the Forum for a while now, I noticed the messages in my Drafts folder, must of pressed Save instead of Submit.

With regards to further Q60 production, there are some components that are hard to come by, but I have not try to source any parts recently. I think the cost of the CPU is cheaper now, but the other parts are expensive.

If I remember right, for the Q60 prototype, I paid nearly 3 times the cost of the production board, which were build in batches of 20, this brought the cost down.

The Q60 was so successful, that I do not have one, I only have the broken Q40 boards that Qbranch damaged on production. I still try to get these working and convert them to Q60.

Still now sure, as I was called all sorts of names in all the QL Press and Mailing Lists. All I wanted was a 68060 based QL. To show how bad things were, I nearly produced a 68060 based SMSQ/E system, but could sell as this was termed as software piracy... by the people who made the Q40 fail.

Still painfull to think about it now.

However, moving on, a Q60 is a slow machine now, a Quad Core PC with QPC2 may out perform it. But with an optimised Operating System written in 68060 assembler, this maybe proven to wrong.

Derek

Hi Derek, I would wait for other people to comment, however for what it is worth, here is my two penneth.

The current emulators out there are great for what they are, and for development of programs ideal, but they 'feel' just like any other application running on a host machine. A PC is still a PC at the end of it, if the software fails you can always resort to the host op system (Windows or MAC). The Raspberry Pi creates much interest as a modern day possibility because of it having very little of the operating system and more about what you can do with the hardware.

By most standards QemuLator & QPCII is still software emulation good as they are, I would much rather 'tinker' around with a hardware based system Q60 or similar even running an SMSQ/e on it if that were possible. Given the choice of PC running an emulator going faster than light or a hardware based system around an equivalent 68??? processor running a lot slower but still faster than the BBQL, I would always opt for the latter. I may be in the minority here, but as I said its my personal preference. I have not had the luxury/privilige of staying with the QL scene through the 1990s and 2000s so missed out on the excitement of the Aurora, SSS, Gold Card etc. so I suppose I do hanker a bit after that. But why not I say?

I wouldn't write of Q60 just yet. If by chance you do consider to make some, one person here has expressed and interest, I would definitely like one (possibly 2). Hopefuly many more people might make a comment or two here as well. I think somewhere on the forum there was a Q60 thread http://www.theqlforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25, where a few expressed an interest.

Hiya Derek,

I, too, am interested in a Q60 ... preferably the one with the FPU and "other thing"
running at 66mhz ... if you can start making these again - I have to agree - there's
still many people out there who would want one.

[ mainly speaking for myself ]

I own a QXL, but the machine(s) that runs it are difficult to locate.

One that's a dedicated QL "replacement" would be much better.

So many mean people out there, Derek, you deserved far better than that !

- qxl-kumbah -
"TS-1000, Eighty-One,TS-2068, Spectrum Anywhere, QXL, QLay, and Qemulator on board"

Hi,

I have some QXL boards to build, but there is a problem with the programming of the Altera Glue Chip. I can not seem to locate a suitable programmer, otherwise I should have 8 QXL boards.

Do you need a PC with an ISA slot in it to run your QXL? Send me a Private Message and I will see what I can do.

The Q60 is not is production, a new set of circuit boards would have to be made.

Regards,

Derek

Hello

I prefer running on real hardware rather than emulators.

I would be interested in either or both a Q60 and QXL board (I have a PC with ISA slots).

So if you (or indeed anybody else) have a Q60 or a QXL board for sale, let me know

Mark

Hi,

I am looking for a programmer that can programme the Altera Glue chip in the QXL. If I can get this chip programmed then there will be 8 QXL cards with 68040 with FPU for sale.

I will keep you posted.