The Sinclair QL Forum

Now I have built my Harlequin Clone, I am moving back to the QL for the time being...

After the recent posts regarding the QL-SD card system, I thought it was high time I opened up my QL and had a little look around. I have to say, it looks really rather neat under there; quite a development from the Spectrum...

Anyway, it got me wondering whether there is any documentation or advice on the QL that focuses on the hardware? I've got a selection of books in hard and PDF versions, and have had a nose on the QL today DVD, but haven't turned anything obvious up. I know there is all the stuff on Dilwyn's website, with schematics and the like, but I do like a good old fashioned book that covers such things! I doubt there is a QL equivalent of the excellent Spectrum Hardware Manual published by Melbourne House, but any pointers would be gratefully received!

Cheers,

Simon

Simon,

Both the QL Service Manual (Hardware Servicing) and the QL Technical Manual (Programmer's Manual) can be had (if you find the originals somewhere) in a stylish black Sinclair ring binder.

Tobias

I do have PDFs of both of these, and they are helpful, but I guess I was hoping there was something a bit more substantial than the service manual out there. Never mind, I guess there is always the forum when I next get stuck!

tofro wrote:Simon,

Both the QL Service Manual (Hardware Servicing) and the QL Technical Manual (Programmer's Manual) can be had (if you find the originals somewhere) in a stylish black Sinclair ring binder.

Tobias

I didn't know that the QL Service Manual was available in one of those black Sinclair ring binders - I still learn something every day!

My copy has a green and cream front cover and looks photocopied inside.

Maybe if they were available in Sinclair black, they might be better quality inside and easier to scan for posterity.

Simon_Carr wrote:I do have PDFs of both of these, and they are helpful, but I guess I was hoping there was something a bit more substantial than the service manual out there. Never mind, I guess there is always the forum when I next get stuck!

There were some books with hardware content, which may still turn up from time to time second hand. I think Adrian Dickens's QL Advanced User Guide had some hardware content, including a circuit diagram of a parallel printer port for example, plus information on hardware expansion. Andy Pennell's QDOS Companion had plenty of OS programming information for adding device drivers, for example, and Colin Opie's QL Assembly Language Programming was also very useful.

Colin was author of the QL Connexions hardware series in QL World which ended up producing the Qontrol II hardware expansion board, which I had great fun with connecting to disco lights of all things at the time - huge amounts of multiplexed red and green LEDs (no blue or white ones back then) controlled by a QL, which came to a sad end when the PSU for the LEDs board went on fire sometime in 1986 or 1987 (I think) - we'd added more and more LEDs and missed the fact we went well over its current rating.

That sounds like an amusing story! What happened when it caught fire?

Hi,

The QL Service Manual was originally published in a Black Card outer covers, there is copies of the manual in non-black covers.

I do not think that there is much a copyright issue now.

But the manuals do not take into accounts the errors Tony Firshman found and detailed on his web site.

vanpeebles wrote:That sounds like an amusing story! What happened when it caught fire?

Not a lot - a fuse blew, PSU totally destroyed, a few singe marks on the panel it was sat on, and a great deal of embarrassment to us. The LED board still worked, but we weren't allowed to use it after that, and there were too many LEDs to use with batteries, so we scrapped it. It went in the "dead electronics" pile at work, don't know if anyone salvaged the LEDs etc.

The software was a simple BASIC program driving the I/O board, I didn't keep a copy.

A lot of my electronics projects in those days ended up in the Dead Electronics pile in work - it wasn't possible to recycle stuff in those days, so we put it in the dead stuff pile in case someone found a use for it.

I would love to have a copy of those articles. I want to be one of those people who has a billion christmas lights that play in time with music.

Dave wrote:I would love to have a copy of those articles. I want to be one of those people who has a billion christmas lights that play in time with music.

Well, in my case, more light probably came from the PSU than the LEDs. Not so much Sound-To-Light as Sound-To-Fire