I'd always understood the order to be FB, PM, AH, JM, JS, MGx; I
think I
read that in an early edition of QL User. PM was supposedly never
released.
FB allegedly stood for "Full of Bugs", AH for "Angela's Holiday".
Not sure
about the others...
JM apparently stood for John Mathieson, one of the Sinclair engineers
at the time.
According to Tony Tebby, there was also a version TB. But the sources
for this went missing at Sinclair, so a development version of the ROM
(JS) was adapted for the USA market, although JS contained a number of
untested extensions to BASIC, minor bug fixes and what Tony called
"fiddles" to microdrive routines. As we know now, TB machines never
appeared (in any great quantity) at least, and the UK also got JS
machine. The later MG ones were only meant to go abroad, I don't know
if any ended up over here. There was a later MGUK, but that wasn't by
Sinclair, it was written by (I think) John Alexander a bit later.
It was fascinating to read in Tony Tebby's article that version JM was
actually ready for launch in March 1984, but another magazine (can't
remember which, probably QL User) said that 89 version FB ROM machines
were shipped. Something to do with meeting 4 or 6 week delivery
deadlines (something like that, though I can't find the original
article to check that).
Seems somewhat strange that somehow Sinclair contrived to deliver
those very early QLs with an older operating system than they had
available! Unless it was something to do with either the lead times
for programming ROMs/EPROMs, or the fact that those early boards were
scrapped upon return to Sinclair (up to version D05 of the boards,
according to Tony Tebby).
Dilwyn Jones
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