The Sinclair QL Forum

The first QL-SD Card Interface based on Peter Graf's design, and with drivers written in part by Adrian Ives is now available on SellMyRetro -
http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/detail ... or-QL-3596

Might end up in a bit of a bun fight for the first one!

Ha ha - I have asked Paul if he would provide a certificate with it to say it is the first production model!!

vanpeebles wrote:Might end up in a bit of a bun fight for the first one!

A bit pricy, but at least it started reasonably. I hope only the first one is going to be auctioned, otherwise it will be too expensive for a casual user like me. Interesting that the designers did it as a non profit making hobby thing, yet here it is being auctioned off to the wealthiest bidder. Not exactly in the spirit of things. Just set a reasonable price (I'd say £30-40, it is not much different to similar products for the Acorn Atom, which is a similarly rare beast), produce in volume and you'll sell a truckload.


A few questions, though:

Documentation says don't use with Gold / Super Gold card as it isn't compatible. What about a Trump card?

Assuming Trump cards work with it, will I be able to use floppies and Toolkit II at the same time?

Otherwise... It's an unexpanded QL, and I read the limitations of using it with one of those!

Finally, there is no reason other than lack of software that the image cannot be accessed on a PC. True or false?

JonB wrote:A bit pricy, but at least it started reasonably. I hope only the first one is going to be auctioned, otherwise it will be too expensive for a casual user like me. Interesting that the designers did it as a non profit making hobby thing, yet here it is being auctioned off to the wealthiest bidder. Not exactly in the spirit of things. Just set a reasonable price (I'd say £30-40, it is not much different to similar products for the Acorn Atom, which is a similarly rare beast), produce in volume and you'll sell a truckload.

It is difficult what you do with the first one - we auctioned off the first ZXpand unit - it helps judge the size of the market, as well as generate plenty of interest, and the proceeds can then be used to invest in buying a larger quantity of parts, to bring down the overall cost.

For example, with the ZXpand, we initially thought of producing 25 at a time, but after the initial one was auctioned, decided to take the plunge and get enough parts to make 100 units - we have now sold about 250 units in total....

JonB wrote: Documentation says don't use with Gold / Super Gold card as it isn't compatible. What about a Trump card?

A Trump Card should work fine - the problem with the Gold Card / Super Gold Card is more to do with the speed of the signals as I understand it.

JonB wrote: Assuming Trump cards work with it, will I be able to use floppies and Toolkit II at the same time?

Otherwise... It's an unexpanded QL, and I read the limitations of using it with one of those!

Hmm - as far as I know it will allow you to use the Toolkit II built into the Trump Card - you can load Toolkit II from the SD card in any case. Any disk interface should be compatible, so long as it is not a Super / Gold Card.

JonB wrote: Finally, there is no reason other than lack of software that the image cannot be accessed on a PC. True or false?

True - q-emulator on the PC has a new driver layer which allows it to access the SD card...

RWAP wrote:

JonB wrote:
Documentation says don't use with Gold / Super Gold card as it isn't compatible. What about a Trump card?

"Not compatible" regarding non-working GCs and SGCs is probably not quite the right term - There is actually no obvious principal reason why it shouldn't - But that doesn't help the fact that it doesn't . The "Miracle Problem" is still under investigation, however. We still hope to solve that eventually.

With respect to Trump Cards: One of the beta testers is actually using two Trump-carded QLs together with QL-SD without problems. In fact, I personally see the TC as the ideal extension to be used with QL-SD.

RWAP wrote:

JonB wrote: Assuming Trump cards work with it, will I be able to use floppies and Toolkit II at the same time?

Otherwise... It's an unexpanded QL, and I read the limitations of using it with one of those!

Hmm - as far as I know it will allow you to use the Toolkit II built into the Trump Card - you can load Toolkit II from the SD card in any case. Any disk interface should be compatible, so long as it is not a Super / Gold Card.

Right.

Actually, you should very well be able to use the full feature set of the Trump Card (i.e. Toolkit2 and Floppies). No need to occupy memory with a second TK2 copy.

RWAP wrote:

JonB wrote: Finally, there is no reason other than lack of software that the image cannot be accessed on a PC. True or false?

True - q-emulator on the PC has a new driver layer which allows it to access the SD card...

There is also a BDI driver that allows accessing the image on uqlx. Both of the Emulator drivers are, currently, however in an early stage - That means, they are still a bit awkward to use, but work reasonably well.

If someone is fluent enough in PC programming, he might also build a stand-alone image file manager for PCs in order to access image contents outside of an emulator. Let's see what is going to show up in future...

Regards,
Tobias

There is talk of a new floppy interface with lots of RAM coming our way. That might also be perfectly suited to the QLSD.

JonB wrote:A bit pricy, but at least it started reasonably. I hope only the first one is going to be auctioned, otherwise it will be too expensive for a casual user like me. Interesting that the designers did it as a non profit making hobby thing, yet here it is being auctioned off to the wealthiest bidder. Not exactly in the spirit of things.

I was a bit surprised at first, but assuming it's just QL-SD #1 then I'd say fine - go for it! There are enough collectors among us that the first QL-SD may become a collector's item. Above all, it generates publicity for QL-SD, and any income from this will help Paul and his colleagues fund more of them.

dilwyn wrote:

JonB wrote:A bit pricy, but at least it started reasonably. I hope only the first one is going to be auctioned, otherwise it will be too expensive for a casual user like me. Interesting that the designers did it as a non profit making hobby thing, yet here it is being auctioned off to the wealthiest bidder. Not exactly in the spirit of things.

I was a bit surprised at first, but assuming it's just QL-SD #1 then I'd say fine - go for it! There are enough collectors among us that the first QL-SD may become a collector's item. Above all, it generates publicity for QL-SD, and any income from this will help Paul and his colleagues fund more of them.

Yep, fair point, Dilwyn.

It's great that there is an option, but I will wait for developments on the commercial side...