Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
P Witte wrote, On 25/03/09 19:20: I found the original receipt of my first QL ;o) Its dated 12th March 1985, serial no. D12-059637. It sported JM ROM. Viking, Norway were the distributors, although this was a UK version, not a Norwegian model. The price was a whopping 6900 NOK, or about £600. A month or two later I bought a Cub colour monitor and a Brother EP44 typewriter/printer. The Cub blew up after a few weeks, but the QL has worked flawlessly for years and, AFAIK, still does. The only repair I can remember having made was replacing the keyboard membrane. Prior to all that I had waited months for the QL to arrive in Norway. In the end I bought some other home micro instead. A lot of people deride the QL microdrives, but they never gave me much trouble, apart from being rather slow. The alternative for most home micros of the day was a tape deck which, to my mind was a lot worse. That was the case with the one I bought. I hated it and sold it again when the QL finally arrived; technically the best machine of its time! In the summer of '85 I went on holiday to the UK. There I ordered a Medic 512k interface with dual 3.5 floppies. When it didnt arrive on the date promised, I went to Basingstoke to pick it up in person. The address I was given turned out to be an empty house! I spent the better part of the day sleuthing, which included a phone call to QL World (or User), who warned me, off the record, that there was something fishy going on at Medic. However I finally located the Medic workshop. Mr Whatshisname was there (as was Mr Beatty Batty , of Sector Software) and explained the trouble they were having with suppliers, etc, which was the reason for the delay. Being forewarned, I opted to take away the stuff without finished software or the cover on the interface. Luckily! as a few months after the whiff came the bang! Ah, happy days! I got mine in the post without a case. I too went to their warehouse, but to get a case, which I got. Skoglund was there and they were copying the free games software. They had a couple of dustbinfuls of microdrives! Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:257/67) +44(0)1442-828255 t...@firshman.co.uk http://firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 Skype: tonyfirshman TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
In message 49ca83f8.40...@witte.fsbusiness.co.uk, P Witte p...@witte.fsbusiness.co.uk writes Hi Per, Interesting recollection. I guess we all have similar stories to tell. Relatively speaking, we are still paying around that sort of price for a new computer / PC of a good specification now. PS - I have several colour monitors stored that are suitable to go with a QL computer., or similar. Mostly of the Cub type. A very robust manufacture. I found the original receipt of my first QL ;o) Its dated 12th March 1985, serial no. D12-059637. It sported JM ROM. Viking, Norway were the distributors, although this was a UK version, not a Norwegian model. The price was a whopping 6900 NOK, or about £600. A month or two later I bought a Cub colour monitor and a Brother EP44 typewriter/printer. The Cub blew up after a few weeks, but the QL has worked flawlessly for years and, AFAIK, still does. The only repair I can remember having made was replacing the keyboard membrane. Prior to all that I had waited months for the QL to arrive in Norway. In the end I bought some other home micro instead. A lot of people deride the QL microdrives, but they never gave me much trouble, apart from being rather slow. The alternative for most home micros of the day was a tape deck which, to my mind was a lot worse. That was the case with the one I bought. I hated it and sold it again when the QL finally arrived; technically the best machine of its time! In the summer of '85 I went on holiday to the UK. There I ordered a Medic 512k interface with dual 3.5 floppies. When it didnt arrive on the date promised, I went to Basingstoke to pick it up in person. The address I was given turned out to be an empty house! I spent the better part of the day sleuthing, which included a phone call to QL World (or User), who warned me, off the record, that there was something fishy going on at Medic. However I finally located the Medic workshop. Mr Whatshisname was there (as was Mr Beatty, of Sector Software) and explained the trouble they were having with suppliers, etc, which was the reason for the delay. Being forewarned, I opted to take away the stuff without finished software or the cover on the interface. Luckily! as a few months after the whiff came the bang! Ah, happy days! Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
[Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday - afterma th II
Logbook: Month one after the birth anniversary of our baby we look how the web and media took up the story. As expected there was poor feedback if any in most NewsGroups, only comp.sys.sinclair took it up: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.sinclair/browse_thread/thread/6888ea 8b4b1761cc Good usage of the web-page information. I got 216 downloads of the PowerPoint presentation and 75 of QPC (the virtual QL to run on the PC) so far. 4GB traffic in 5 weeks. Thats not bad for an oldy. German ct magazine (Issue 3/2009, page 24) took up the line and mentioned the QLs 25th anniversary on their regular Prozessorgeflüster (CPU rumors). They also mention the cloud QLPSION-NetBook-Todays Netbooks: http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/2009/3/24_kiosk But it comes even better UKs well known and favourite PC magazine Personal Computer World (PCW) who took up the line in their test bed blog http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2009/01/sinclair-qls-25.html just after my message on January 12th went deeper into it. They got in contact with David Karlin (QL hardware designer) and me. David gave en interview to Clive Akass. I allowed them to use all the information and pictures from my web-sites. The result can be found in the current issue (April 2009, Vol. 32 No. 4) on sale since February 19th. http://www.pcw.co.uk/magazine/thisissue. - We are in the Editorial of Kelvyn Taylor on page 7, - then the Interview with David and QL vs Mac comparismn on pages 14 and 15 - and as a goody the full reprint of the QL benchtest from the June 1984 issue (Vol. 7 No. 5) on pages 53 to 60. I can hardly remind me of such a massive coverage (11 pages) of the QL in a main street publication ever. So go out and buy the magazine! Put it on the shelf and tell you children and grandchildren about the Mac that never was better than The machine that failed in the market. For the remaining eleven month of the anniversary you can expect a surprise every month. Take care and have a nice weekend, Urs www.tinyurl.com/9ryma3 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday - aftermath I
On 12 Jan 2009, at 07:05, Urs Koenig (QL) wrote: On January 12th 1984 Sir Clive Sinclair presented the Sinclair QL Professional Computer in a Hollywood-style launch event at the Intercontinental Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, London. This was exactly 12 days earlier than Steve Jobs presented the Apple Macintosh. Today, 25 years later we congratulate and celebrate the 25th birthday of the Sinclair QL! http://www.qlvsjaguar.homepage.bluewin.ch/SinclairQL_25th_anniversary_1984_t o_2009.html Hi all, if in the end my announcement was bringing some old memories to the present it was worth it. Originally I planned to do a big thing, a wide-spread PR case, media breakfast with Clive, etc. at the same venue as the launch 25 years ago. The idea was in my mind since last summer, I even set some dates in my agenda for preparing it, but as you can imagine there was just not enough time in my life to do such a thing. Those dates in the agenda got skipped with work and life and in the end I had only some hours last Sunday - very bad weather in Switzerland, very cold, no sun. - to do some Powerpoint, Photoshop and html work, set the battle plan for the mailing, etc. On Jan 12th all to be done between breakfast with family and start of work was to upload the html pages, send eMail to you all, some more eMails to others, NewsGroups and media. I got a lot of positive comments. So for me it was worth the time. I share some of the good ones... http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2009/01/12/the-sinclair-ql-is-25-y rs-old-today.aspx http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2009/01/sinclair-qls-25.html http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2009/01/odd-hardware.html http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/01/linus-gets-misty-eyed-over-sinclai r-ql.html Personally I must say that I was very young - a 17 years old teenager - when I got my QL. I was impressed by the machine and its concepts. Maybe this was because I was young and easy to impress (good thought of Linus) but fact is that all important things on microcomputers I've learnt I did on/with Sinclair computers. There are so many in ICT profs out there who have no clue on what they are doing... Take care and have a nice weekend, Urs ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday - aftermath I
I got a lot of positive comments. So for me it was worth the time. I share some of the good ones... http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2009/01/12/the-sinclair-ql-is-25-y rs-old-today.aspx http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2009/01/sinclair-qls-25.html http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2009/01/odd-hardware.html http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/01/linus-gets-misty-eyed-over-sinclai r-ql.html Now I confess I have been mischievous after reading this - I went on all those blogs and posted comments and some publicity for QL Is 25 on 18+19 April this year ;-) Would be nice to see well known QL names like Andy Pennell turn up for some nostalgia at the event. -- Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday - aftermath I
In message 8d88190793ce4c7485484051445ad...@d, Dilwyn Jones dil...@evans1511.fsnet.co.uk writes I got a lot of positive comments. So for me it was worth the time. I share some of the good ones... http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2009/01/12/the-sinclair-ql-is-25-y rs-old-today.aspx http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2009/01/sinclair-qls-25.html http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2009/01/odd-hardware.html http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/01/linus-gets-misty-eyed-over-sinclai r-ql.html Now I confess I have been mischievous after reading this - I went on all those blogs and posted comments and some publicity for QL Is 25 on 18+19 April this year ;-) Would be nice to see well known QL names like Andy Pennell turn up for some nostalgia at the event. Hi Dilwyn, I believe that Andy Pennell now resides in the USA. -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
Marcel Kilgus wrote: But what's the story behind the David Karlin picture? I've met David in January 2002 in London for diner. We talked about work and life including his Fairchild and Sinclair days. The story would fill a comprehensive article in QL Today. When is the next deadline for QL Today? Best regards, Urs ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
Javier Guerra wrote: I would have liked to know more about the careers of David Karlin, Jan Jones, Tony Tebby and others. I will write an article on David Karlin and myabe update my powerpoint presentation with some more information soon. Two of our spanish colleagues have developed 2 web videos. I put the links you want to see them. Thank you for all the work done on your side for the 25th anniversary. Well done to you and your Spanish colleagues! I originally planned to add some more videos to YouTube, but time was - as often - not enough to complete production and upload. But there's more to come... Regards...Urs ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
- Original Message - From: Urs König (QL) q...@bluewin.ch To: ql-us...@q-v-d.com Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:01 PM Subject: Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday The story would fill a comprehensive article in QL Today. When is the next deadline for QL Today? 16th February 2009 I am thinking of running the QL's quarter centenary as the lead news story so any news contributions on this theme would be welcome, Best wishes, Geoff ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
Very nice presentation Urs. But what's the story behind the David Karlin picture? Cheers, Marcel ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
Urs König (QL) escribió: On January 12th 1984... A very enjoyable. I would have liked to know more about the careers of David Karlin, Jan Jones, Tony Tebby and others. Two of our spanish colleagues have developed 2 web videos. I put the links you want to see them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqOXsLIb3QQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0VGlRl3S-8 (afx is the nick) Happy 25th anniversary and QL forever! ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
[Ql-Users] SINCLAIR QL's 25th birthday
On January 12th 1984 Sir Clive Sinclair presented the Sinclair QL Professional Computer in a Hollywood-style launch event at the Intercontinental Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, London. This was exactly 12 days earlier than Steve Jobs presented the Apple Macintosh. Today, 25 years later we congratulate and celebrate the 25th birthday of the Sinclair QL! http://www.qlvsjaguar.homepage.bluewin.ch/SinclairQL_25th_anniversary_1984_t o_2009.html The QL still is a very good example of an innovative, stylish, powerful and underestimated product. On one hand it failed in the market in the long run but on the other it influenced many developments which ended in todays products. At least in seven aspects the QL was a real Quantum Leap: 1. First 32bit micro for both home and office use (Motorola MC68K CPU). 2. First PC with preemptive multitasking operating system with linear addressing, Windows and Mac OS offered those important features only years to decades later. The QL could run hundreds of jobs in parallel. 3. First PC with bundled Office suite (PSION XCHANGE offering word processing, spreadsheet, business graphics and database). 4. First PC with a highly integrated two chip North-/Southbridge, IBM and Apple still used dozens of standard chips. 5. Innovative and timeless industrial design (case, motherboard and keyboard), Sonys Playstation 2 or some later Apple designs look very similar. 6. Innovative SuperBASIC Programming Language for Rapid Application Development (RAD), years later Microsofts Visual Basic closed the gap. 7. Even only around 150000 QLs were sold, one user became very important to the industry. Linus Torvralds used and programmed a QL before he created what became Linux. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.misc/browse_thread/thread/ebc0ad37943 4cb7c?q=linus+torvalds+ql Check out this 25th anniversary presentation. http://www.cowo.ch/downloads/SinclairQLis25-compressed.ppt Try QPC, a virtual QL: http://www.cowo.ch/downloads/QPC_a_virtual_QL.zip Happy 25th anniversary and QL forever! Urs König (aka cowo) http://www.qlvsjaguar.homepage.bluewin.ch/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
