>> There still appears to be a fair market for expansion interfaces for >> the QL. >> I realise that many users are holding out in hope that the GoldFire (or >> whatever it is eventually called) will soon be released, but I >> appreciate that this is still several months away, if it ever reaches >> the market (sorry Nasta).
No apologies necessary - at this stage I really cannot make promises, except that I will fight to make it real to the bitter end. Of course, hopefully the end will not be bitter :-) >> Surely there is still a market for a small batch of Super Gold Cards to >> be made up, or am I correct in thinking this may now be impossible due >> to lack of availability of chips??� > Indeed. The EP1810 has proved impossible to find... these chips are > OTP (one time programmable) so are not to be found on the reclaimed > chip market. They can be found on the 'old stock' market though, but there are three typical problems: 1) The dealers have no idea what it is and are stocking returned programmed parts - useless. 2a) They stock the 1810A which is the one that does not work, and they want lots of $ for it - useless 2b) They stock older 1810 that does work but want $50 a piece, no guarantee - effectively useless That being said, it is not entirely impossible to redo the SGC logic in a different, more easily obtainable chip, provided one has access to the source, or just plain designs from scratch. SGC is barely feasible done that way, assuming it is sufficiently expanded (for instance, with 16MB or RAM). GC is more or less a futile effort, even if it is possible. >It would be an expensive exercise to build. Usually it is not economic >to think of less than 50 - certainly for pcbs. I think Nasta should chip in here. Economically, another batch of SGCs or SCG clones falters at three components: 1) floppy controller 2) real time clock 3) Logic chip (assuming an exact clone is made) and possibly: 4) CPU - not a lot of bang for the buck, fortunately, it is available as ;old stock' or 'refurb' so there is a way around that last one. >When Goldfire arrives, it is likely to release secondhand SGCs into the >market. Also I would not like to think of a new SGC production damaging his >sales. It is difficult to say wether it would damage GF sales (and I'm glad to see someone still thinks of it in terms of 'when' rather than 'if' :-) ). With respect to speed and extras, anything SGC like can hardly compare with the GF. The speed of the GF will roughly equal that of the Q60/66, except for floating point since a 68EC060 CPU (without FPU on it) is used. It's speed is about 13x that of the SGC. It is also doubtfull that a SGC (clone) would actually be able to compete in the matter of price! The reason is that all of these older chips tend to cost quite a lot because they are so rare now. Suppliers are more than happy to hike the prices up seeing you desperate to have the parts. I would not be fair, however, not to mention a few possibilities. It would be possible to construct a 'sort-of' SGC clone under some conditions: 1) No floppy interface 2) No RTC 3) Works with Aurora only On the other hand, both 'defficiencies' could be offset by extra features, such as: 1) System is CF card based (floppy would be an expansion, and not really cheap, either - although it is entirely possible to make older style interfaces work!) with CF interface on-board 2) 8301 on Aurora gets a special 'riser' socket implementing a reliable battery powered clock (similar to that part of QIMI). 3) Has more RAM (16M) and knows how to do memory shadowing. 4) Reasonably compatible with 'older style' peripherals. The problem is still the price - about half GF. Another possibility that I investigated, and actually talked about some at the US meeting, was building a portaQL around the 68SZ328 DragonBall CPU, known as the heart of newer 68k based Palm PDAa. This is the highest frequency 68000 core in existance (as opposed to 68020+ cores). It works at 66MHz, and is fully 68k compatible, has a built-in SDRAM controller, serial port, and many other interesting extras (even USB). It would even be possible to implement monitor or LCD output in something like VGA resolution at 256 or 65k colors, essentially for free (It's all on the chip already). Problems: 1) Getting the chips (cheap in VERY large quantity but onobtainable in small quantity) 2) Needs to be professionally soldered (expensive equipment) because it uses a micro-BGA case which is tiny but has several hundred pins UNDER it (the solder is between the case and the PCB) 3) Maximum 16M RAM - peripherals take away from this. This is, after all a 68000 (effectively 24 bit addresses are generated) 4) Comparatively slow - by my estimates about 1/4 68060 at same clock, if that. Granted, still faster than SGC... 5) Relatively easy to make assuming you can figure out what exact configuration of the chip you need - and wade through 600 or so pages of documentation to find how to make it happen. There would really only be two ways to build a system like this: as a replacement for the insides of the old black box, or as a sort of large PDA (buy smaller size TFT LCD and bolt the 'computer' to the back of it, add PSU and keyboard, and wallah (as they would say in 'Chicken Run'). Common denominator is: little or no space for expansion - the chip would pretty much be maxed out. Fortunately, there is a CF/IDE interface on board, IIRC... Price: as a replacement for the insides of the old box, about GF (assuming you can get the 68SZ328 for a reasonable price). Nasta PS I should probably mention that a number of brand new Auroras will hit the QL market soon. Price will be low as this is the last batch ever to be made. Aurora display drivers for SMSQ/E was also a topic of discussion at the US show... no definite answers, though.
