Some time ago, Arnould Nazarian suggested that one possible QL of the
future might be a very simple "child's computer", along the lines of
some toy computers or video games with programmability.
I recently decided to purchase such a device for my son for Christmas.
Today I decided, in view of its low cost, to actually set it up and
test it, JUST IN CASE! (Aren't I an optimist!)
The device is sold by the Kaleidoscope mail order catalogue, and I
have no axe to grind with them at all, my wife and I have always had
good service from them in our limited dealings with them.
Basically, it fired up and the mouse would not work - it would move
the pointer across the screen, but not up/down. Knowing I might
invalidate
the guarantee I opened up the mouse (just one screw to undo) and the
innards all fell out. What a horrible, cheap and nasty mouse. It was
quite easy to put it back together and it was immediately obvious what
the main shortcomings were:
(1) the opto sensor alongside the rod against which the mouse turned
was at such an angle it couldn't possibly work. Bend this back very
carefully so it could see the holes in the rotating wheel. Drop the
mouse ball back in and try again with the mouse cover off. Worked
perfectly.
(2) put the mouse cover back. Oh dear, back to square one. Try again.
Same result. Hmmm..... Obviously the mouse cover was pressing on
something, so gently run a knife blade along all vertical edges inside
the cover, sure enough some slivers of plastic fell out (mouse
droppings?). Put it all back together, still worked with the mouse
cover off only.
(3) Try edging the mouse cover back on while spare pair of hands
(wife) moved the mouse, noticed that the circuit board was changing
position as the cover moved toward it, so the opto sensor no longer
saw the moving parts. After a lot of fiddling it turned out that a
poorly
moulded part of the case top was pressing on the unrestrained mouse
cable, the slightest movement of the cable stopped one or other sensor
working.
So obviously, not a lot of quality control there, and little chance of
working properly without surgery. A few bits of sellotape and blu-tac
to hold the board and cable in place solved it but we'll send it back
for a
replacement (in fact, rang up today - they work on Sundays - and got
them
to courier a replacement before Christmas) but keep the original to
make one good set out of both before sending the other back.
Two reasons for this email:
(1) anyone receives one with non-functioning or intermittent mouse
will know how to fix it.
(2) on a general note, the device is marketed as an educational game
and in that respect it's quite good, the games are simple enough for a
5 or 6 year old to master while learning dexterity,
reading and counting, yet complex and colourful enough to keep kids of
that age interested for a few years I would think. It has a BASIC of
sorts
built in but no facility to save programs, so only very limited
programmability. It's let down by very poor quality manufacturing and
quality control - the type of person who'd buy one of these toy
computers would I guess be someone like my first wife who has no
knowledge of or interest in computers and would stand no chance of
getting it going when the child had tantrums when it wouldn't work as
it should. On the other hand, it's a very attractive keyboard,
mouse, toy gun and joypad controller linking to a TV set via SCART or
UHF and clearly well thought out, though badly built. The manual is a
classic example of where the idea was good but appallingly finished -
the English is like one of those appallingly bad computer
translations, the good thing being that it's short enough to encourage
people to read it and just enough instructions to get things going.
The electronics seem to be minimal, a circuit board inside a black
keyboard (a full size keyboard with AT-style layout), a fashionably
translucent keyboard case, everything seems to be done in software and
possibly a custom chip.
If Arnould were to be serious about going for the toy QL game, this is
probably what he'd have to do, rather than design it as a QL, he'd
most likely have to build as cheap a computer as possible and make the
programmable side of it a QL compatible or emulator, perhaps as a plug
in cartridge. I can't ever see a QL being reduced to such a simple
design as this to be made for 50 pounds or so. And, oh by the way,
while at it make a plug in QL cartridge or CD for my step-daughter's
Playstation! This device has no 'mass storage' so any external storage
would have to be added by the user either as a plug in drive or a
memory card Z88 style.
What I'm getting at is that rather than design the device as a QL per
se, make the QL part an add on such as an emulator or program on CD or
plug in cartridge so that it can be made cheaply enough to make what
is in effect a games or educational console programmable, and we all
know how easy to program the QL is, so people should get pretty
addicted quickly providing quite an outlet for QDOS/SMSQ/Stella!
These games consoles illustrate how we might go about making such a
"little people's QL" and where we might go wrong. Basically to make it
cheap we'd have to put a hell of a lot of thought into minimising the
electronics and casing, make it look good, do as much in software as
possible which means it won't be the fastest machine ever, do
something the likely purchaser will want (be a games, educational and
learn programming device) and have a short yet informative manual
which is neither too simplistic nor infathomable, and of course
attractive easy to use software on board or with the device. The
machine I bought had obviously had a lot of thought put into its
design originally, but let down by poor manufacture and quality
control. The quality of the video output isn't sensational, and I
don't think it's high colour. The software is on plug in cartridge and
is controlled by a very simple GUI - just point to the program icon,
clcik once and it shows the program's name, click a second time and it
start the program.
If we can get it working, my son will love it. If it had a QL-emulator
on it I'd love it too, it's that kind of simple device which provided
it works it can't go wrong. It looks good, does just what you want of
it and no more, and is extremely simple and intuitive to use.
--
Dilwyn Jones
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.soft.net.uk/dj/index.html
