On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 at 01:06:39, ZN wrote:
(ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
>It's nice to see the group being so active once again, though I have to
>confess I'm actually postponing an email to my family just to answer this
>(hopefully the won't disown me if they ever find out :-) ).
>
>[Replacement hardware]
>
>Dave wrote:
>
>> The attraction of the QL for me is manyfold: SuperBASIC is exquisite.
>> Device independence is simple. Everything is easy. If it were possible
>> to port QDOS to a different architecture, and retain everything good
>> about QDOS, it would have been done already.
>
>This is exactly what it's all about. Actually, a true port of SMSQDOS is
>probably impossible as much of it's efficiency comes from it being
>form-fitted to a 68k CPU. Assuming a huge amount of work is undertaken, it
>would probably be possible to make large amounts of code native to some
>other CPU (and of course, some would be far more suitable than others!) but
>a certain amount of emulation would always remain.
>
>Market situation however dictates only one single solution if we are
>looking at a desktop QL - a cheap PC. It's the only way to make the thing
>cost effective. If one would want to make it a SBC, embedded system, or
>portable, then the situation becomes somewhat different. Using a PC for
>emulation might be cheap, but is hardly efficient. Keep this in mind: the
>emulation hardware needs >100W of power to do what original hardware does
>with 10W or less - and not at a signifficantly higher price, I might add.
>For something like a SBC or embedded application, this is of paramount
>importance. You definitely won't be dragging an Athlon PC around instead of
>something that fits in your pocket!
Stuart Honeyball and I seriously considered an SBC .. well something
approaching it. We called it IBOX. The core was a 68020 running QDOS
(Minerva was our thought). It then linked to a logic chip and PIC to
handle I/O. We primarily thought of analogue/digital/I2C and RS232
serial. The box though would maybe have a small LCD screen and
certainly a keyboard interface, but with a small keypad built in.
It was planned to do everything that a QL could, subject to hardware.
Applications could be developed and tested on a QL and then downloaded.
I even got to the stage of building a prototype with 1mb
ram/processor/16C74a/Lattice logic chip. I have it in front of me -
partly wired up. I even chose a potential case - which was 70 x 45 x 10
mm with two 9D serial ports (one for chaining to other IBOXs) and a 37D
for I/O.
Stuart lost interest though and I couldn't find anyone else to carry it
on.
Leon Heller (Quanta founder) even got involved after Stuart but he has
retired (a la Tebby) to a pad in the Loire Valley. It cost him all of
about �35,000 I think, and sounds an amazing place. Right at the end of
the negotiations his solicitor said there was a problem. The deeds
showed vast grounds including a forest, and the seller wanted to include
them with the deal. 'Not on - I haven't the money' said Leon 'No - at
no cost' was the reply. He was last to be seen driving his ancient Volvo
with trailer and motorbike and possessions in tow. What it is to be
single and free.
>>> PCI instead of ISA on Q40/Q60 would give you:
>>> *No* expandability under QDOS/SMS at all.
>>> There are PCI chips that would fit almost gluelessly into the
>>> Q40/Q60 designs. They reason I didn't use them, is not complexity
>>> of hardware design. PCI doesn't make any sense for QDOS/SMS if you
>>> are a little bit realistic about software development. At the same
>>> time the boards would be more expensive and harder to manufacture
>>> in our small quantities.
>
>I wholeheartedly agree. PCI is possible - just like almost any other
>'widely used, well documented' bus. The problem is that there is hardly
>anyone capable of writing a driver for hardware tailor-made for the QL, let
>alone hardware that plugs into the 'widely used well documented' bus in
>general - and that is, almost as a rule, NOT well documented.
Yep. When we designed the sH keyboard interface we had enormous
difficulties choosing which of three protocols to use, and then getting
the hardware to consistently work. We, of course, did not have the
standard hardware interface, and that was the main problem. I even got
to talk to a Cherry engineer, mainly because they actually had a
comprehensive datasheet. He refused to tell me anything - it took 2 of
our engineers 9 months to work around the bugs, and we won't share that
with anyone. It took Laurence and I a bit less than that, but we haven't
covered all the options (8-)#
Tony Tebby (the person mentioned in the snipped section above) loves to
tell the story of how it took him a week in the early stages of the QXL
to get FORMAT to work - bugs again.
Nasta knows the problems Phil Borman had with Qubide.
I remember the advice in Zorland C on the PC back in 1986 - never use
the built in serial port drivers.
The PC is a horrendous mishmash of work-arounds - or was in the past.
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