Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Lee Privett wrote: That's a bit of a QLOAC Dagger statement :-) Lee - Back to the QL- Dilwyn Said To clarify what I mean I'll call it QL On A Chip or two. Hmm, OK, that's bad joke of the week award to Lee, I think! Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On 15 Mar 2011, at 03:33, Dave Park wrote: If the Goldfire were still possible today, it would be fantastic, but I suspect the Coldfire SoC is no longer available. I saw a manual for the Coldfire instructions and these can be assembled by GWASS. George ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
gdgqler wrote, on 15/03/2011 10:30: On 15 Mar 2011, at 03:33, Dave Park wrote: If the Goldfire were still possible today, it would be fantastic, but I suspect the Coldfire SoC is no longer available. I saw a manual for the Coldfire instructions and these can be assembled by GWASS. It can be emulated: http://tinyurl.com/6bpfll9 Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:257/67) +44(0)1442-828255 t...@firshman.co.uk http://firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 Skype: tonyfirshman TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 6:06 AM, Tony Firshman t...@firshman.co.uk wrote: gdgqler wrote, on 15/03/2011 10:30: On 15 Mar 2011, at 03:33, Dave Park wrote: If the Goldfire were still possible today, it would be fantastic, but I suspect the Coldfire SoC is no longer available. I saw a manual for the Coldfire instructions and these can be assembled by GWASS. It can be emulated: http://tinyurl.com/6bpfll9 Tony Is the VHDL for the FPGA still available? Nasta asked me to buy a lot of very specific model FPGAs which are either the Gold Card ones, or they were for the Goldfire - don't remember which. If so, might be best to redo the VHDL for a different target device... Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Geoff Wicks wrote: From then on the project faded from view. Can it be revived? I know very little about hardware, but I sense there is a new interest in native hardware and some projects that people thought would never come now seem feasible. It is for you hardware specialists to determine what is possible and what is not, I'd go as far as to say that it is too late in the day for any conventional QL replacements now, with one exception. To stand any chance of success it will need: 1. Low component count 2. Commonly available components (e.g. memory, keyboards, case, power supply) 3. Sufficiently simple and low cost to allow small production runs and assembled by hand by one or two individuals. 4. Able to use either Minerva or an existing (or easily modifiable existing SMSQ/E version) 5. Cost no more than about £200 - £300 6. Hires display with at least 16-bit colour. To clarify what I mean I'll call it QL On A Chip or two. Q40, Q60, Aurora, Goldfire... great designs in their time, but now we need a radical leap forward to stand a chance of success. Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
That's a bit of a QLOAC Dagger statement :-) Lee - Back to the QL- Dilwyn Said To clarify what I mean I'll call it QL On A Chip or two. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:14 PM, Dilwyn Jones dil...@evans1511.fsnet.co.ukwrote: Geoff Wicks wrote: From then on the project faded from view. Can it be revived? I know very little about hardware, but I sense there is a new interest in native hardware and some projects that people thought would never come now seem feasible. It is for you hardware specialists to determine what is possible and what is not, I'd go as far as to say that it is too late in the day for any conventional QL replacements now, with one exception. To stand any chance of success it will need: 1. Low component count 2. Commonly available components (e.g. memory, keyboards, case, power supply) 3. Sufficiently simple and low cost to allow small production runs and assembled by hand by one or two individuals. 4. Able to use either Minerva or an existing (or easily modifiable existing SMSQ/E version) 5. Cost no more than about £200 - £300 6. Hires display with at least 16-bit colour. To clarify what I mean I'll call it QL On A Chip or two. Q40, Q60, Aurora, Goldfire... great designs in their time, but now we need a radical leap forward to stand a chance of success. Indeed an FPGA implementation of an m68k chip, or emulation of an n68k on some other lightweight chip are the only two economically sensible solutions. I preferred the ARM embedded option because in part it is smple and quick and a software problem, and in part because it matches my skills and ability to make it happen. However, Peter Graf showed that a 68000 in a FPGA is possible (not easy, but possible) and therefore if we can find someone to take an existing vhdl 68000 core and build a QL around it in a FPGA, we can build a new system with a 2- or 3- chip board and VERY low cost. The biggest advantage here being that the boards would be easily reconfigurable/updatable at a later date. imho. Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Geoff Wicks gtwi...@btinternet.comwrote: Sometime between 1998 and 2004 Nasta gave a talk at a North American show and I believe this is how Dave came into contact with him. I never met him in person, but we became good online friends. I met him through ql-users... I had a conversation with Nasta and the problem that he outlined to me was there was a general shortage of chips at the time and the price and availability was fluctuating daily. (Ron Dunnett had also mentioned this as a big problem.) You had to buy chips in large quantities and this meant you could not have the luxury of first building a prototype, because by the time you had got a working prototype the chips would be no longer available. This meant you had to design the card on paper, build it and hope it would work. If it didn't work you might be able to tweak it, but there was also the chance that the money would have gone down the drain. At the time, FPGA technology, SoC technology and fab technology were all marching forward so quickly products were superceded within weeks of launch. Any given device would be so outperformed by devices made just a month later, no devices stayed in stock for long. Traders demanded large bulk orders to not get landed with old stock, which would rapidly depreciate. The Coldfire processor was a part of the problem. The specific model Nasta chose had some rather unique characteristics in being more like a 68040 than a Coldfire. It was quickly discontinued and the later versions had instruction changes and supervisor changes that made them essentially incompatible to QDOS-alikes... That window has truly been missed. Dave At the time there was a lot of hysteria - mostly on this list - with people thinking the problem could be solved if there was a Maplins near by and others suggesting that as Croatia was about to join the EU Nasta could be accommodated in the UK to complete the project. In fact Croatia was not joining the EU and Nasta was busy in Croatia holding down two jobs. A scapegoat was needed and that was Quanta for being too mean with its money. I had quite a few conversations with Roy about the matter and we both concluded that an approach to Quanta was an impossibility mainly because Nasta had no enthusiasm for that route. Reading between the lines I think there was a combination of Nasta no longer being a student, having two busy jobs and probably being unhappy about taking a risk with someone else's money. From then on the project faded from view. Can it be revived? I know very little about hardware, but I sense there is a new interest in native hardware and some projects that people thought would never come now seem feasible. It is for you hardware specialists to determine what is possible and what is not, Best Wishes, Geoff ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Dave Park plasticu...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:14 PM, Dilwyn Jones dil...@evans1511.fsnet.co.ukwrote: Geoff Wicks wrote: From then on the project faded from view. Can it be revived? I know very little about hardware, but I sense there is a new interest in native hardware and some projects that people thought would never come now seem feasible. It is for you hardware specialists to determine what is possible and what is not, I'd go as far as to say that it is too late in the day for any conventional QL replacements now, with one exception. To stand any chance of success it will need: 1. Low component count 2. Commonly available components (e.g. memory, keyboards, case, power supply) 3. Sufficiently simple and low cost to allow small production runs and assembled by hand by one or two individuals. 4. Able to use either Minerva or an existing (or easily modifiable existing SMSQ/E version) 5. Cost no more than about £200 - £300 6. Hires display with at least 16-bit colour. To clarify what I mean I'll call it QL On A Chip or two. Q40, Q60, Aurora, Goldfire... great designs in their time, but now we need a radical leap forward to stand a chance of success. Indeed an FPGA implementation of an m68k chip, or emulation of an n68k on some other lightweight chip are the only two economically sensible solutions. I preferred the ARM embedded option because in part it is smple and quick and a software problem, and in part because it matches my skills and ability to make it happen. However, Peter Graf showed that a 68000 in a FPGA is possible (not easy, but possible) and therefore if we can find someone to take an existing vhdl 68000 core and build a QL around it in a FPGA, we can build a new system with a 2- or 3- chip board and VERY low cost. The biggest advantage here being that the boards would be easily reconfigurable/updatable at a later date. How important is the original keyboard/case to this product design? I'm contemplating gutting one of my old original QL's and refitting with uQLx on a Beagleboard or Pandaboard, and maybe an arduino for keyboard/microdrive interfacing. This solution would preserve the original look/feel, but isn't really reproducible on a large scale. I'm also researching keyboard enclosures that could house a SFF ARM board. Regardless of whether a solution like this went the FPGA or ARM w/emulator route, how do you house it? Or does it matter? One could produce a decent looking retro case for a BB or PB and just require a USB mouse/keyboard from the end-user. The uQLX route is interesting to me because I plan on finishing this experiment in the next couple of weeks and move on quickly to building driver software for the additional interfaces (MMC, USB, network ,etc). FPGA is more interesting to me personally due to the greater challenge, but it'd have to be a coordinated effort and will take longer. Mark ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Dave Park wrote: Indeed an FPGA implementation of an m68k chip, or emulation of an n68k on some other lightweight chip are the only two economically sensible solutions. Actually, the cheapest solution would be to buy something like this http://mini-box.de/fr/catalog/il/1261 and use a thin software layer to emulate 68k code. 60 EUR for a complete board with 1,8Ghz and everything but a kitchen sink already on board can hardly be beaten... I imagine however that many would say this does not count as real QL hardware, even though that as a user the only part where one could notice that it's PC hardware is the BIOS bootup. But the actual main problem with this solution is that it's too modern. The graphics chip alone is so advanced that I would not dare programming it without at least VESA-Bios support. Much of this is probably true for the other devices, too. In the end one might even need a small Linux layer to reign in the hardware, but this would then really make it just a PC with an emulator on top. Marcel ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Marcel Kilgus ql-us...@mail.kilgus.netwrote: Dave Park wrote: Indeed an FPGA implementation of an m68k chip, or emulation of an n68k on some other lightweight chip are the only two economically sensible solutions. Actually, the cheapest solution would be to buy something like this http://mini-box.de/fr/catalog/il/1261 and use a thin software layer to emulate 68k code. 60 EUR for a complete board with 1,8Ghz and everything but a kitchen sink already on board can hardly be beaten... I imagine however that many would say this does not count as real QL hardware, even though that as a user the only part where one could notice that it's PC hardware is the BIOS bootup. But the actual main problem with this solution is that it's too modern. The graphics chip alone is so advanced that I would not dare programming it without at least VESA-Bios support. Much of this is probably true for the other devices, too. In the end one might even need a small Linux layer to reign in the hardware, but this would then really make it just a PC with an emulator on top. That is a neat board and would be perfect for running QPC2, for example. The catch is that the QL is much lower powered in terms of heat and current demands, and these PC-type boards do not fit that power envelope - therefore they can't be used embedded very easily. For the majority of users, this isn't an issue. However, if we're going to do one last QL design before there simply isn't enough interest to make any, it should be something that can be used in as many situations as possible and have embedded, automotive, robotics, remote monitoring etc. uses. A PC won't run off a solar panel. My guess is a new design hardware QL would cost around £250 initially, but once the development costs were paid off, that could quickly drop to the £125-150 area. Maybe less. As for beagleboards, note that while an individual can use them, they are not UR rated, lead free, and do not meet any emissions requirements, and they are explicitly forbidden for use in commercial/end user products. Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Wireless computer keyboards range from £9.99 to £99.9 some even with built in trackpads and rollerball (or dead mice as I like to call them. Its the form over function debate again, while nice to have a retro feel, its got to perform extremely well. For me the QL was the whole thing, the case the colour SuperBasic, the microdrives, I didn't realise it the time but some of my programming relied on the fact it took so long to get data off the little black 8-track wannabees. The sum of the parts being less than the whole? even the black Sinclair name has a certain charm. Anything that throws a nod in the QL direction if good for me, how about being black:) If it can be carried under the arm to a meeting could be the criteria... Lee - Back to the QL- Mark said -How important is the original keyboard/case to this product design? I'm contemplating gutting one of my old original QL's and refitting with uQLx on a Beagleboard or Pandaboard, and maybe an arduino for keyboard/microdrive interfacing. This solution would preserve the original look/feel, but isn't really reproducible on a large scale. I'm also researching keyboard enclosures that could house a SFF ARM board. Regardless of whether a solution like this went the FPGA or ARM w/emulator route, how do you house it? Or does it matter? One could produce a decent looking retro case for a BB or PB and just require a USB mouse/keyboard from the end-user. The uQLX route is interesting to me because I plan on finishing this experiment in the next couple of weeks and move on quickly to building driver software for the additional interfaces (MMC, USB, network ,etc). FPGA is more interesting to me personally due to the greater challenge, but it'd have to be a coordinated effort and will take longer. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Dave Park wrote: The catch is that the QL is much lower powered in terms of heat and current demands, and these PC-type boards do not fit that power envelope - therefore they can't be used embedded very easily. This board uses less than 20 Watts when idle (still less than 40 Watts in worst case). How much was the QL? For the majority of users, this isn't an issue. However, if we're going to do one last QL design before there simply isn't enough interest to make any, it should be something that can be used in as many situations as possible and have embedded, automotive, robotics, remote monitoring etc. uses. Sounds good, of course. Marcel ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Marcel Kilgus ql-us...@mail.kilgus.netwrote: Dave Park wrote: The catch is that the QL is much lower powered in terms of heat and current demands, and these PC-type boards do not fit that power envelope - therefore they can't be used embedded very easily. This board uses less than 20 Watts when idle (still less than 40 Watts in worst case). How much was the QL? An unexpanded QL draws around 7-8 watts. A new FPGA-based machine would draw in the area of 200-300mW. If that... For the majority of users, this isn't an issue. However, if we're going to do one last QL design before there simply isn't enough interest to make any, it should be something that can be used in as many situations as possible and have embedded, automotive, robotics, remote monitoring etc. uses. Sounds good, of course. Marcel Personally, I would take the beagleboard schematics, and design a QL-fit board with native keyboard/LED support, and a SDHC carrier PCB to put those in the mdv_ bays, all very neat. It could run off AA rechargeable batteries all day long, and just use a 5v adaptor to keep the batteries charged. It could be used in laptop cases or even within tablet cases - but then so could an FPGA QL... Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
In message A5490AD5E2BE4271A8349E309D7508A2@mine5e8ac60903, Lee Privett lee.priv...@gmail.com writes Hi, QLC2 ... wouldn't be a bad name, for a new QL based computer/device. That's a bit of a QLOAC Dagger statement :-) Lee - Back to the QL- Dilwyn Said To clarify what I mean I'll call it QL On A Chip or two. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
[Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Can someone cast their memory back a few weeks, myself and another applied to join Nasta's QL Yahoo Group to access something but now that I have got access, I cannot remember what we were supposed to be looking for..oohh look a shiny new ring, my precious Lee - Back to the QL- ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
Also I don't know if I am giving anything away, but well whatever, there is a schematic of something called GoldFire whatever that is, it looks like a complete computer system. Its from 2000 so over 10 years old now, but still looks good. Lee - Back to the QL- - Original Message - From: Lee Privett To: ql-us...@q-v-d.com Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 10:29 PM Subject: Yahoo Groups Can someone cast their memory back a few weeks, myself and another applied to join Nasta's QL Yahoo Group to access something but now that I have got access, I cannot remember what we were supposed to be looking for..oohh look a shiny new ring, my precious Lee - Back to the QL- ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] Yahoo Groups
The majority of the components I have laying around here for the last 7+ years are for Goldfire. It was a Coldfire + FPGA combo SGC+Aurora equivalent as I recall. I was shown a schematic once, and it was VERY tight... Compact to the Nth degree. Then Nasta left the US and suddenly communication stopped. It was a large part of why I grew disenchanted with the QL scene at the time... If the Goldfire were still possible today, it would be fantastic, but I suspect the Coldfire SoC is no longer available. Dave On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Lee Privett lee.priv...@gmail.com wrote: Also I don't know if I am giving anything away, but well whatever, there is a schematic of something called GoldFire whatever that is, it looks like a complete computer system. Its from 2000 so over 10 years old now, but still looks good. Lee - Back to the QL- - Original Message - From: Lee Privett To: ql-us...@q-v-d.com Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 10:29 PM Subject: Yahoo Groups Can someone cast their memory back a few weeks, myself and another applied to join Nasta's QL Yahoo Group to access something but now that I have got access, I cannot remember what we were supposed to be looking for..oohh look a shiny new ring, my precious Lee - Back to the QL- ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
