Tony Firshman wrote, On 3/09/09 20:53:
Whoops - I meant this to be private.
Still, fortunately, I did not say anything bad about anyone!
I did once on my BBS. I said that a Herr Falkenburg was selling a
pirated Minerva at a German show - Bielefeld I think. He was, but did
not realise, as was made clear by him hounding me on the phone, often
at 2 or 3am.
Unbelievable.
I won't say anything about where the core code for his hard disk
interface came from - ask Phil Borman (8-)#
Considering how small superHermes and Diren keyboard interfaces are, his
was an amazing size. OK it was old technology, but it could have been
better done.
For instance it had *two* 8049 type processors, and that is ignoring the
similar one in the keyboard itself.
Its construction was really awful. I have seen many where the top and
bottom tracks were so far out of alignment, that chip pins had to be
bent to bridge the gap.
Great to have it, but not a great implementation.
http://www.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki/index.php?title=RomDisq
Whoops, of course that is:
http://www.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki/index.php?title=SuperHermes
You have got my silly capitalisation I use correct up to this point.
It is "superHermes".
Baud rate is up to 460800. Max throughput with Super Gold Card at
115200 is a mite under 80kbps.
"non-voltile" -> "non-volatile"
It can be used with ps/2 keyboards with the standard adaptor.
http://www.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki/index.php?title=SuperHermes%20Lite
You there correctly say that ser1 and ser2 are running at full 19200bps
throughput - that underlines why Hermes needs to say it is only a
nominal 19200.
... and it will also work with a PS/2 keyboard with adaptor.
http://www.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki/index.php?title=Keyboards
The Schön keyboard (you really *should* add the o umlaut) was also I
think sold also called "Keyboard Products". It certainly looked and
felt good, but that is it. The strips for the QL connector were thick
enough to mean the QL could not be used afterwards with a membrane
without a spacer. Also the ribbon cable ends came adrift strand by
strand, and shorted - there was no hot-glue fixative. The pcb contacts
were evaporated 'gold' - ie not gold just coloured. They oxidised
causing missing keys. The only cure was taking it to bits - very very
hard. Also it suffered from keybounce. There was a costly replacement
8049 which certainly cured keybounce. Unfortunately it made serial
input impossible! This is a product to be avoided at all costs.
Tony
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