Malcolm Cadman wrote:
>Peter Graf wrote:
>>Tony wrote:
>>
>>>Microdrives especially killed the QL. He tried to push the speed up to
>>>100k - and they never worked reliably. Unfortunately, the 3.5 disks at
>>>the time were simply too large and power hungry.
>>>If only.......
>>
>>......the QL would have been more successful than the Macintosh, there'd be
>>a million active QL users, and Motorola would be producing 3rd generation
>>850 MHz 68060 CPU's ;-)
>
>A floppy disk drive would certainly have made it more successful - if
>people would have been prepared to pay for it. Around 1/3 to 2/3 again
>added to the selling price ?
>
>I remember my first double disk drives for QL were around 200ukp, and
>then there was the disk interface too :-(
In 1987/88 the Amiga A500 and Atari ST took off and went on to sell in
the millions. Amstrad (Alan Sugar himself) said who wants a 16 bit
computer, as a child reading computer magazines and looking at the
graphics of the 68K based machines I knew why. I wanted one to replace
my ZX-Spectrum. I fell Amstrad missed a opportunity to repacked to the
QL in the same form and do the same as Commodore and Atari. I.e. add a
normal keyboard, a 3.5" disc drive, upgrade the processor to a 68000 and
most important of all add better graphics. As the QL with (QDOS) already
existed (with an user and software base) it would have saved development
time. Amstrad position is made more understandable by the quality of the
CPC and his PC strategy. While on the subject of not created computers,
Oric developed a 68K computer but could not get to work (see
http://freespace.virgin.net/james.groom/oric/oricfaq.htm). Then their
was the Spectrum Loki.
--
Yours Tarquin Mills (ACCUS)
