Re: [Ql-Users] Newbie question follows: How to join Minerva ROMand ToolKit II?
It took a quite an amount of email and phone support, even providing complete working samples, until someone (very skilled at building hardware) successfully reproduced the QL-SD. QL-SD has a much higher difficulty level than the other projects you find at the forums. Nobody else wanted to do it himself yet - for good reasons. Peter, I don't want to be disrespectful, but I can't see problems in soldering fine-pitch SMD devices. Of course the board will have to be made in a professional setup (ever tried OSS and other chinese low-volume suppliers? They make quite good boards for a very cheap price!) but I have a smd oven with proper reflow curve, and I'm used to building panels of devices with fine pitch SMD. This is what I do for a living :o) I'm crazy to try it :oD Thanks :) Alexandre ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Newbie question follows: How to join Minerva ROMand ToolKit II?
On 21 Nov 2013 at 12:34, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Peter, I don't want to be disrespectful, but I can't see problems in > soldering fine-pitch SMD devices. Of course the board will have to be made > in a professional setup (ever tried OSS and other chinese low-volume > suppliers? They make quite good boards for a very cheap price!) but I have a > smd oven with proper reflow curve, and I'm used to building panels of > devices with fine pitch SMD. This is what I do for a living :o) Cool - I really had no chance to expect that you're a professional electronics manufacturer :) Pity that our continents are separated by currency, shipment and customs overhead. Someone like you would be great to produce QL hardware stuff. Cheers, Peter ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Newbie question follows: How to join Minerva ROMand ToolKit II?
Hi Alexandre, > > It might be of relevance for you that the first QL-SD devices are being > > built here in Germany while we write. QL-SD provides an SDHC card > > interface for the QL, combined with the Minerva OS in EPROM. The QL-SD > > design was given to the QL community for free, so it's not a product with > > commercial support. After testing is completed, the source code will be > > freely available. > > So I'll be able to build mine here, at home? Sorry for being so cheap, > but I don't know if you know how expensive is to import things from abroad > here in Brazil :o( Building QL-SD at home would be very hard, because of 0.5 mm pitch SMD components and a thin two layer PCB with 0.15 mm tracks. It took more than a year until someone came up, who has the skills and equipment to do it. QL-SD is fast as a harddisk. But if speed is not an issue for you, there might be a simpler solution. From my Q68 project, I have spinned off a compatible SDHC driver which just needs three simple registered output bits and an input bit mapped to some specific adresses. A tinkerer here in Germany has successfully intergrated this concept into his own hardware. However, I don't have the time to support this repeatedly. Someone else would need to write instructions. If you want to make such a hardware, I can ask him if he'd like to explain things to you, or even write a more general "HOWTO". All the best Peter ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Newbie question follows: How to join Minerva ROMand ToolKit II?
Morning Peter, All! Basically, you can have Minerva in the first 48 KB and TK2 in the following 16 KB. Resulting in a 64 KB binary stored in EPROM. However, the Minerva binary has to be "padded" up to exact 48 KB length, so TK2 is properly aligned. Please note that you need a ROM version for TK2, not a disk version. I discovered it tonight. Already built the adapter board and it is working...Thanks anyway! By the way, it is not always clever to have TK2 in ROM. For example, if you have a fast mass storage device. In this case, it is more important to have the drivers for the storage device in ROM, so the QL can boot from that device. TK2 can always be loaded later on. Provided you have enough RAM - but you won't get far without memory extension anyway. This is something I didn't know :( Anyway, there is a switch to use the external rom card (MICE) or internal rom (TKII), so I can play with that while I don't have anything to save/load from (yes, I don't have any microdrive cartridges beyond the original QL pack which I don't want to erase, and they need some fixing anyway). This week I'll try to build a 512K internal SRAM extension, so I think I'll have enough free memory :o) It might be of relevance for you that the first QL-SD devices are being built here in Germany while we write. QL-SD provides an SDHC card interface for the QL, combined with the Minerva OS in EPROM. The QL-SD design was given to the QL community for free, so it's not a product with commercial support. After testing is completed, the source code will be freely available. So I'll be able to build mine here, at home? Sorry for being so cheap, but I don't know if you know how expensive is to import things from abroad here in Brazil :o( Thanks for advice! Alexandre :o) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
