The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi,

I have been looking at some old Atari hardware, I came across 2 Atari ST extended Mode 4 hardware emulayor boards.

Here is a picture of the Atari ST QL hardware emulator, which attaches to the Atari ST Video Shifter Chip and various wire links on the Atari Board.

This allows SMSQ/E to run in Mode 4 at 512x280

You will that the people who made the PCB, were so paranoid about copying the hardware, they scraped all the component information off.

I have a Mode 8 emulator board, installed in an Atari STFM, I will post pictures, when I have it running.

Is the mode 4 one from Futura Datasenter in Norway? I've never seen one of those before. It would make it earlier than ones by Jochen Merz if that's the case. All I could see on the PCB was "QL-SHIFTER-PICKUP" (I think, it's not sufficiently clear magnified on my phone screen). Well worth taking good pictures for posterity, even if we can't see the chip details.

dilwyn wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 4:59 pm Is the mode 4 one from Futura Datasenter in Norway?

No idea, I bought 2 Extended 4 board in 1993, also got some Atari Rom Cartridges to auto boot into SMSQ/E or Level E Drivers.

dilwyn wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 4:59 pm I've never seen one of those before. It would make it earlier than ones by Jochen Merz if that's the case. All I could see on the PCB was "QL-SHIFTER-PICKUP" (I think, it's not sufficiently clear magnified on my phone screen). Well worth taking good pictures for posterity, even if we can't see the chip details.

I am not David Bailey, I can not really do better than this.

FFS, that's not what I fucking meant. I give up.

OK, no need to put it that strongly.

I am useless at photography.

he purpose of the pictures was to establish why the IC Chip details were scraped off by the manufacturer,, which I thought was clearly stated.

No matter, not interested now, end of discussion for me.

Amazing,
How did it work?

An Atari emulating a QL
I like it.
Are you going to reproduce it?

Popopo wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2023 11:48 pm Amazing,
How did it work?

An Atari emulating a QL
I like it.
Are you going to reproduce it?

The emulator boards, for Extended Mode 4, Mode 8 and QVME, all were supplied by JMS Software, for Atari ST, Mega ST, TT030, which was pre-QXL, Gold Card in the QL history.

If you had looked at the photographs you would of seen that the IC Chips had all the designation had been scraped off with a scalpel blade or similar. The reasons for this are unknown, but the manufacturer must of wanted to protect the the hardware design.

A little petty, as the function of the chips can be determined quite easily.

Derek_Stewart wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2023 7:43 am A little petty, as the function of the chips can be determined quite easily.

Nice!
So with the function perhaps some IDs could be obtained.
At any case, hope to get a break very next days and I will try to find more info about it that perhaps could helps to identify them and repro.

Thanks for explanation

Good luck, even with boards in front of me, it is hard to determine the IC Chip function.

dilwyn wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 4:59 pm Is the mode 4 one from Futura Datasenter in Norway? I've never seen one of those before. It would make it earlier than ones by Jochen Merz if that's the case. All I could see on the PCB was "QL-SHIFTER-PICKUP" (I think, it's not sufficiently clear magnified on my phone screen). Well worth taking good pictures for posterity, even if we can't see the chip details.

Yes, this is probably the original board designed and sold by Futura Datasenter in Norway. I made a few myself after I got the spare parts and left overs when Futura Datasenter stoppet hardware development and changed name to Omega around 1990 (omega.no). This was their start and now they have more than 2000 employees.